Guild Wars 2

I’ll present a change to the way we control our pets, that, in my opinion, needs to happen to make pets somewhat useful and reliable.

F1 – Repositioning command:
When hitting F1, you’re getting a ground target circle with a dot in the middle to indicate the position your pet will run to and an outer circle depicting the effective range the pet has, when it’s on that position. Under certain conditions, you also get an inner circle. If a targetable unit, which includes the Ranger himself, is within that circle, the pet will target that unit instead of the ground target position.

If an enemy was selected when pressing F1, the pet will follow and attack that enemy.

If an ally was selected when hitting F1, the pet will follow that ally.

If the player was selected (currently not possible) when hitting F1, or if the cursor is over the UI when hitting F1 a second time (problematic with action camera), the pet will follow the player around.
^ this replaces the current F3

The range to send your pet to an enemy, an ally or a location should be 1500 units or the current value, if it’s longer. However, your pet should not reset, i.e. return back to the Ranger, until the distance between the Ranger and the pet is more than 5 times higher than the initial range. If that is considered too far, then the ranges for the pet being able to follow enemies/follow allies/standing on ground target should be adjusted individually.

F2 – Primary skill:
Stays the same as before.

F3 – Secondary skill:
The most impactful skill the pets are currently using on their own should be bound to this key, like bird’s swiftness, canine’s leap, bear’s invuln, drake’s tailswipe, devourer’s knockback, Feline’s maul or Porcine’s charge.

F4 – Pet swap:
As before.

Combat Modes:
By clicking the icon or the hotkey, the pet cycles through these combat modes.

Aggressive:
The pet attacks enemies that wander into the pet’s effective range, indicated by the outer circle when pressing F1.

Defensive:
If the pet is not following anyone, the pet only attacks the enemies that are attacking the pet.
If the pet is following an ally or the Ranger, the pet only attacks the enemies that are attacking the followed player.
If the pet is following an enemy, the pet will only atttack that enemy.

Avoid Combat:
The pet wont attack.

QoL changes – as detailed in posts below:
Sending the pet to a different target/location than your own
When keeping F1 pressed while having a target selected, you are able to send your pet via ground target to a location, or, if a targetable unit is inside the inner circle, to that unit.

Setting pet skills on “auto attack”
The Ranger should be able to command his pet to use one or both skills as soon as an enemy or the pet’s target is in range. However, this should not deactivate the normal attacks of the pet. This change would have great synergy with the ground targeting, since you may not have, or may not want to have, clear line of sight to your pet.

A trait that lets your pet mark enemies nearby on the minimap
This again would have great synergy with the ground targeting. You could leave your pet behind to mark enemies that might follow or try to ambush you.

The pet attacking stealthed enemies
If your pet is not in Avoid Combat mode, it should attack once, if it reaches the location the Ranger has sent it to by ground targeting. If it hits a stealthed enemy, it should continue to attack. This should make your pet better in fighting stealthed enemies.

A QoL feature would be, if you have an enemy selected, but want to send your pet to a location, to be able to keep F1 pressed to use ground targetting to position your pet.
So basically, pressing F1 triggers ground targetting, while releasing F1 makes your pet to follow your target

No disrespect intended here, but they’re not listening & you know it.

Yeah, you really need to put something in the title like “NERF PETS!!!!” to get there attention and then trick them into fixing them.

Try saying something like, “It’s totally OP that rangers pets use their hard hitting skill passively. You should nerf those skills so they are now assigned to the rangers f3 button and he is forced to manually use it.”

For an immediate response make sure to post it in the PvP forum. Rangers nerfs that are requested there usually occur in less than 48 hours.

Jim Hunter.6821:

For an immediate response make sure to post it in the PvP forum. Rangers nerfs that are requested there usually occur in less than 48 hours.

It’s true.

We have now our very own dev, so I’m positive, especially since HoT just launched and they need to keep track of the balance, that this thread will be read by the devs.

Wuselknusel.4082:

We have now our very own dev, so I’m positive, especially since HoT just launched and they need to keep track of the balance, that this thread will be read by the devs.

We saw Day 1 CAF nerf and Day 2 Pet nerf.

Another QoL feature could be an inner circle while ground targetting. If an enemy or ally is inside that circle, your pet will target that player, instead of moving to the position, or the player closest to the center of the circle, if multiple players are inside of it. Basically a “snap gorundtarget to current target” option. That should be helpful if you have forogtten to target an enemy before pressing F1 or if you have pressed F1 unintentionally..

Wuselknusel.4082:

We have now our very own dev, so I’m positive, especially since HoT just launched and they need to keep track of the balance, that this thread will be read by the devs.

……bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

No.

Wuselknusel.4082:

We have now our very own dev, so I’m positive, especially since HoT just launched and they need to keep track of the balance, that this thread will be read by the devs.

The issue here is someone is over Irenio’s pay-grade and has the final word. Doesn’t matter if Irenio reads it, promotes it, or comes up with an idea for Ranger that could/should/would have improved the class. He has no final say.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Wuselknusel.4082:

We have now our very own dev, so I’m positive, especially since HoT just launched and they need to keep track of the balance, that this thread will be read by the devs.

The issue here is someone is over Irenio’s pay-grade and has the final word. Doesn’t matter if Irenio reads it, promotes it, or comes up with an idea for Ranger that could/should/would have improved the class. He has no final say.

I don’t think that is that. for example Robert did a great ob with the necro (not only the reaper) and i don’t think Robert is above Irenio. Or at least it shouldn’t.

I think what is happening here is Irenio is easy to push around in the office. He thinks in a great way to make the ranger to be able to stack boons, so the the trait Bountiful Hunter has some sense to exists, and also making the ranger more competitive, Roy comes around and says that he has to change that because the boon maker is The Herald.
And Irenio close his mouth and change the skill WHaO to a really crappy one.

That’s why i think he would be happier working in other department and we should ask for a dev that actually can stand on his ground. And communicate more and effectively.
I don’t see threads so good and helpful in any of the other subforums as you can see in this one. Practically the players are doing all the work for him, still the changes show he does not care.

Good luck thinking that. Even Robert Gee mentioned he has to push for some of his proposals and changes to be approved as he is still not a Lead.

Jon Peters was the last Lead Game Designer, and after he left back in June, someone had to take his spot. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was Roy.

Another cool QoL feature would be to be able to set one of the two, or both, pet attacks on autoattack.

At last a trait that marks nearby enemies around the pet on your minimap would have great synergy with my suggested changes, especially for WvW.

Here is how the F1 should work specificly:

• While having nothing targeted:
  - When hitting F1 once, you will get your ground target circle. It will have an outer cirlce with the range of 600 or 900, showing the range of your pet.
  — When set to aggressive, your pet will attack enemies that are within this range.
  — You can send your pet locations up to 1500 units away from you.
  — When you are inside the circle, a second, inner circle, with the range of 100 units, will appear. If you are within this inner circle, your pet wont go to the location you have selected, but instead follow you. This is how you make your pet follow you.
  — When hitting F1 a second time or hitting your left mouse button, your pet will run towards the location you have chosen or follow you, if you have been inside the inner circle.

• While having an enemy or an ally targeted:
  - When hitting F1 once, your pet will attack or follow the target.
  - When keeping F1 pressed, you will get a ground target circle with an outer circle (600/900 range) and an inner circle (100 range).
  — The outer circle shows the range of your pet.
  — If a targetable entity is inside the inner circle, the pet wont go to the location you have selected, but will follow or attack that entity, with the prioritization ‘Enemy Player > Enemy NPC > Allied Player > Allied NPC > Attackable Object > Non-attackable object’.
  — When releasing the F1 key, your pet will attack your target.
  — When hitting the left mouse button while pressing F1, your pet will go to the location you have sleceted or follow/attack the entity in the inner circle.

If you think that F1 should behave differently, feel free to comment.

I went ahead and made a thread with how I think it should work, and I formatted it in a way that is more likely to get the dev’s to respond and get the non ranger communities support. (Everyone loves a ranger nerf) https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Ranger-Pets-Need-a-Nerf/first#post5663629

Sadly a lot of rangers didn’t bother to actually read the thread before responding lol.

I’ve also made more radical suggestions in the past, you can still find one in my signature, but this suggestions is aimed at not changing the way pets work, but expanding it. I’ve tried to give my suggestions as few drawbacks as possible compared to the current version, but as much advantages I could come up with.

So here are some situations the suggested changes would benefit you compared to the current version.

1)
If you have to secure a choke point to not get caught out, you could leave your wolf behind. You could either use the trait to mark enemies on your minimap who are passing your pet, or you could set one of the pet’s skills on AA, to not only slow the enemy down, but to also be alamerd when you see that the skill is on cooldown.

2)
If you are fighting multiple enemies you could order your wolf to get into position, to either force every enemy in range to mitigate the fear or to fear the enemies into a certain direction.

3)
If you need an on-demand blast finisher, you could use the drake’s Tail Swipe.
If you need swiftness, you could use your bird’s Quickening Screech.

4)
If you see someone laying down loads of traps, you could use a bear with his invulnerability to trigger the traps.

5)
If you’re protecting a Dolyak in WvW, you could order your pet to guard the Dolyak. You could scout ahead or stay behind and get alarmed if enemies show up.

The suggested changes would also allow Anet to create a support oriented pet.
You could order this pet to follow an ally and use it’s supportive abilities when needed.

Back to the top. Pets need a rework. It’s kittening disgusting that this has been ignored for so long

Anet will never do it.Pet and minions AI is using the same AI file than PVE mobs. And Anet said a long time ago that if they want to change anything for pets, that would break their code.

Lévis.5489:

Anet will never do it.Pet and minions AI is using the same AI file than PVE mobs. And Anet said a long time ago that if they want to change anything for pets, that would break their code.

That’s a bullkitten cop out. They also said it was impossible to fix culling in WvW. All that means is it would require more effort than what they want to put into it.

The AI isn’t stopping them from reworking the pet control bar so that we have access to more of the pet skills. The AI doesn’t prevent them from increasing the pets cleave range so they can hit moving targets, or reworking their skill animations to allow their attacks to land.

Hell if a mesmer moa’s our pet it will suddenly be able to land attacks… thy could use that friggin code.

So stop parroting their broken excuses, as long as people accept those as reality they will never make the effort to fix our pets.

Having a pet follow another player is …
… Out of the picture. That’s just not happening.

Having 1 key to be able to handle your pet completely is needed. We need the control of those random abilities. Whichever way implemented, I don’t care. If it makes space for bonus pet ability – I’m fine with anything.

I think it could have great synergy. For example, if you put your pet in defensive mode and let it follow a dolyak in WvW, that pet would start attacking everything that is attacking the dolyak. So your pet would probably be enough to kill the random mobs that spawn along the way and it would be able to alert you, if an enemy player tries to kill it.
Another example would be, if an allied player tends to get hit by conditions or projectiles, you could send him your brown bear to clear conditions and that the player can use your bear as cover.
And if we look into the future, the ability to let your pet follow an ally would allow ANet to create a pet centered around support. For example, a pet that could stunbreak the one it is following would benefit greatly from this.

And I thought about another QoL change aswell. I think, if you send your pet to a location, while it is not in Avoid Combat mode, it should attack once when it reaches that location and continue attacking, if it hits something stealthed.

I think this feature is needed, because your pet is currently completely useless against stealthed units and it wouldn’t be OP, since a usual player can also tell if he is hitting a stealthed enemy.

It would be an insane improvement if pets worked like that.

Other QoL changes:

• indicator icon when taunt is usable
• indicator when shared anguish is up

Passive procs are a problem in general. But it would be cool to see active traits in the effect bar of the pet.
They could even display the effect bar on your UI above the pet’s health.

Pets have had major glaring issues since launch.

We arent getting changes.

Puck.9612:

I went ahead and made a thread with how I think it should work, and I formatted it in a way that is more likely to get the dev’s to respond and get the non ranger communities support. (Everyone loves a ranger nerf) https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/Ranger-Pets-Need-a-Nerf/first#post5663629

Sadly a lot of rangers didn’t bother to actually read the thread before responding lol.

Too many folks don’t get “reverse psychology” concept. It is a difficult talent to communicate to people who are used to you saying it like you see it and many miss the subtle points even in sarcasm.

My children for instance were extremely out going and tended to push the envelope as they developed their life skills. Whenever I saw them heading in a direction I thought might be harmful, I used that reverse psychology in conversations with them, not telling them what to do or how…but being careful how you word things, got them thinking.

I would see them stop in their tracks to absorb what I said, and discovered that was a powerful way to help them navigate critical thinking at such young ages. They would never have understood the concept had I tried to explain it to them, but “making an observation” about “wow, I bet the wall would hurt if you hit it with your head”…wall doesn’t move but you would bounce to the ground and end up with a booboo on your face.

That they understood.

Pointing out obvious flaws in a build, then offering sustained and thoughtful feedback on them with solutions to the problems they pose, would actually be a great way of presenting your ideas.

I’ve noticed most devs, if provided that type of feedback, usually will investigate it and see what’s going on that causes the problems and many do fix them. Maybe not quite the way we want but improve on what we were concerned about.

With a bit of fine tuning this would be great for pet micromanagement, giving more control over your pet. Have always thought the pet movement component of “Guard” should have been a baseline part of the ranger pet mechanic since day one. Having access to the second pet skill would also be great and promote more skillful use of the pet.

What you’ve described seems very similar to the Pet Hotbar in FFXIV. I’ve had some experience with Scholar, and I can say that it’s a great pet-control system! I very much wish the F1 was just Guard! built in.