Guild Wars 2

I have a serious problem with the mechanic for the ranger trait Master’s Bond. As you may know when you use Master’s Bond your pet accumulates a stack of a buff for each mob killed. The drawback being this is reset if you stow, swap, change pets, or travel to a different zone. HOWEVER it also wipes the stack if you SWIM.

What. The. Flip.

So on a map like Bloodtide Coast, where you literally have to swim to navigate the map, I repeat SWIM, not even DIVE, not engage in underwater combat and automatically use different pets, but just swim from island to island, you are totally screwed over and your stack is constantly being lost.

I think this sucks big time. Totally ruins my build, because of a stupid map design that conflicts with the mechanic.

If I’m honest I think the stacks should only be wiped when you actually change your pet (not just ‘swap’ it), log out, or if your pet dies. Anything else just feels like you’re being punished for simply playing the game.

Does anyone agree? I would really appreciate some support and ANet to improve this this problem.

Peace

agreed 100% mate.

I would prefer the trait to be changed tbh, maybe something along the line of giving the pet an extra % of your own stats flat – so you are not being punished for switching or stowing or SWIMMING as you put it.

100% agree as well

I would love to see this changed to better suit the environment of GW2.

It’s not a well thought out mechanic. It completely discourages pet swapping which is a core mechanic of the profession. Not to mention the minor traits in the line are encouraging you to swap as well. You can’t stack it in pvp either because pets are more likely to die and kills are less frequent than pve. They should consider changing it to a in combat buff that stacks on hits similar to what bm hunters got in wow so it can benefit all rangers and still open the option to swap pets.

Agree 100%. Hate the swimming bug. And also hate that it doesn’t synergize with swapping. I believe it should retain stacks until downed or changed out of your rotation.

ya frankly the way this feature is implemented almost makes me feel like i am being punished for using it correctly

agree 100% why does it need to be removed at all, except death I agree there but when we gain a buff stack like from sigil of perception it stays on us even when we swap the weapon or port.. this should really be the same situation for the pets buff.. sometimes you cannot control your pet enough to keep it alive and swapping it is a way to save it and you should be rewarded for the good management and not punished.

and im just going to apologize right now for that terrible run on sentence >.< just cant get my thoughts out in proper english =P

Just put the stacking buff on the Ranger instead of the pet, and apply it to the pet. That way it persists through pet swapping, pet death, pet swimming, and zoning, but not through Ranger death.

The problem is not the way that the bonus is lost, it is the design of the trait. As Lothair stated, the design of this trait is completely contradictory to the design of the class. Heck, the entire rest of the trait line is about pet swapping, so why have one trait that rewards ignoring the rest?

110% agree it is su punishing to do almost anything, best change would be flat stat taken from us rangers

Crossmonian.2807:

…..is reset if you stow, swap, change pets, or travel to a different zone. HOWEVER it also wipes the stack if you SWIM.

If you’ll notice, when you enter the water, your pet is stowed. If you dive under the surface, the pet is swapped to your first aquatic pet. The mechanic is working as intended. That said, yes it would be nice to have the stacks retained on the ranger instead of the pet.

Ashlar – Yeah I can see the pet is stowed when you swim, that’s the problem and what causes the frustration. I never said the mechanic isn’t working properly, I just think the mechanic is unfair.

I think one option would be a buff which accumulates stacks on the player, which then affect the pet. If you die or logout the stack is lost. That would allow pet swapping and swimming.

Seems dumb to punish rangers for swimming.. when, as I understand it, swimming is supposed to be a feature of this mmo.

Agree,

At least give the pet we swap to a different stackable buff so that when we swap back the 1st pet has his buff again.

In a larger context, I’ve been puzzled since the first beta about why we lose all skills and weapons when swimming on the surface or treading water. Even the underwater downed mechanic of “swim to the surface” is silly, cause you have nothing when you get there.

I agree, I never even considered using this ability for example this reason. It’s pointless.

Lots of people are agreeing, that’s good. If ANet are using this forum to collect feedback (they should be) I sure would appreciate acknowledgement.

Yes many people have many gripes with this game, but this feels like a fixable problem which currently contradicts some of the game’s main edicts. Build options should be diverse, not restricted based on a frustrating problem like this.

Please make Master’s Bond viable in more situations, not just long periods of PvE where you’ll be avoiding water at all costs, avoiding zoning, avoiding personal quests, or otherwise forced to use a different build.

At the moment some people think this trait sucks, when it should be one of the ranger’s most interesting build choices.

The problem lies within the trait itself. If it would be too easy to keep the stack, there wouldn’t be any skill involved in keeping it up, therefore you’d actually be annoyed when you DON’T have the full stack. In the end, this would lead to the ranger player base requesting the trait giving a flat out permanent buff. Making it a boring, passive ability.

However, in the current form it’s just a kitteny trait. There’s really no point in going for it, since in order to use the profession to its fullest potential, you HAVE to get rid of your pet from time to time. Doesn’t matter whether it is by swimming, swapping or changing of the pet.

This trait needs to be replaced, simple as that.

Ravel – kinda, but I disagree – You would still need to ensure your pet doesn’t die to keep the stacks, which would require skill.

Something a lot of rangers seem to find difficult ;-)

I think you can avoid the swimming problem by using amphibious pets.

EnaiSiaion.8072:

I think you can avoid the swimming problem by using amphibious pets.

That doesn’t work, at least for me.

I agree that this should be fixed or tweaked a bit, this Trait is kinda up atm anyway if you run high BM. Maybe make it semi permanent until the pet gets downed or is swapped, but reduce stacks to 15 and make them scale better will levels.

EnaiSiaion – unfortunately not, if you even swim on the surface of the water your pet is automatically stowed and the trait stacks are lost!! nothing to do with amphibious pets

It is annoying that the pet doesn’t have brains to jump over say a fench, when I jump. Normally animals would of course jump, as they are better jumpers than a person in full gear and backbags. I am talking about a panther. They do jump. High. And can climb up a tree. I haven’t tried a flying pet yet.

Going to agree with this as well, I can understand if I swap pets, or they die.. but entering water and losing it blows..

Whats worse is if ya have the same type of pet for both.. you still lose it

SpectacularYak.6518:

Just put the stacking buff on the Ranger instead of the pet, and apply it to the pet. That way it persists through pet swapping, pet death, pet swimming, and zoning, but not through Ranger death.

Putting it on the ranger would defeat the purpose, as would keeping it through pet swapping.

It absolutely should persist through swimming, and zoning though. It should stay as long as

1) The pet doesn’t die
2) You don’t die
3) You don’t change the pet.

But allowing it to disappear from a pet swap defeats an even greater purpose – The overall synergy granted from swapping pets via the BM line. Several traits in that line encourage swapping. Intelligent strategy DEMANDS it.

My suggestion is to allow both pets to share the same 25 stack. So if one pet has say 12 stacks and you need to switch, the other pet can start stacking the remaining 13 stacks just as an example. Swapping back to the original pet, the 12 stacks remain and do so until death and by no other means.

I’d rather have a trait that can benefit pvp players as well. Anything that benefits you on kills isn’t going to help much because kills aren’t as frequent in PVP and you or your pet are much more likely to die and lose all the stacks.

Ravel – kinda, but I disagree – You would still need to ensure your pet doesn’t die to keep the stacks, which would require skill.

Yeah, agreed. The cost of this ability should be that you can’t treat your pet as disposable. There are plenty of Rune abilities that give you stacks of “something” that disperse when you die. This is a fine balance. Removing the buff stacks when you swap pets or just for swimming makes this ability too annoying and pointless. The only other alternative I can see would be to make it build multiple stacks per kill, or one stack per attack that lands, so that you can rebuild it to full much more quickly.

Yep, I stopped using this trait after I found out the stacks got wiped by just swimming.

I agree with the rest, I swap my pets so often for f2 abilities and to use cooldowns between the type of pets and find that Master’s Bond completely useless in most situations especially in dungeons and WvW and PvP. A lot of the traits we have need to be reworked.

Wanted to chime in here as well, totally agree with the OP. The stack should only be wiped if your pet dies, as per the arguments already mentioned above.

I could live with the zoning-restriction, but swapping and swimming is just something a ranger/player should be able to freely do without being punished.

Why not treat the Master’s Bond with the same mechanic they have for that mini trait boon that copies any “Boon” the player has onto the pet. Although that is buggy since I have caught it not working multiple times in a fight. Then the stacks would survive switching, swimming, and submerging to a water pet. Upon Ranger down or pet death the stacks would of course vanish. It would require being able to switch pets before they’re killed, all it takes is the pet to take critical damage or be on the cooldown timer for switching to lose it.

Of course Master’s Bond wouldn’t do anything for the Ranger but would simply copy onto the pet that is active until one of the canceling conditions was met.

nuf said, i agree as well

This is super useless trait… would be nice it to function same way as weapon sigils does. Agree

I support the OP.

I love the trait. Only thing I want changed is this surface swimming thing

…I never understood why some don’t like the trait, its such a huge boost to survivability and even damage

Malleus Maleficarum.2603:

I love the trait. Only thing I want changed is this surface swimming thing

…I never understood why some don’t like the trait, its such a huge boost to survivability and even damage

Did you just happen to ignore all the points in this thread for a reason? They clearly explained why the trait is bad and why they don’t like it. The entire mechanics of pet revolve around swapping pets, to introduce a skill that is the opposite of that mechanic is flawed. Not to mention the skill itself is pretty much worthless in anything except open world questing in zones without water. Given that in spvp, you aren’t going to gain any stacks and your pet is going to be dead, in www you aren’t going to gain any stacks and your pet is going to be dead, and dungeons you aren’t going to gain any stacks and it’s going to be dead.