Rangers are a pet class if you picked this class without knowing that then you probably picked the wrong class. If ranger received a buff for not having a pet it would force players who specifically pick the class for their pets to play without pets or be kicked from groups.
Anet has already said they have not intention of adding perma stow. This may change but I would stop playing the class is they did (probably game as well).
How come necromancers aren’t a pet class? Or mesmers, since clones and phantasms are basically just summoned AI pets?
How would changing the pet mechanic make the ranger any less of a pet class, if the mechanic remained pet focused?
I’m just curious, because a lot of rangers transitioned from guild wars 1 to guild wars 2 thinking they would continue playing their ranger class, not a “pet class.” So while you look down your nose at everybody that doesn’t like something that you like, just remember that there were a lot of players that expected a lot of different things than what the class currently provides, and that the marketing used to advertise the ranger class never suggested anywhere that rangers would be forced into always using pets, which is extremely deceptive to people until they actually try the class and find out they are stuck with it.
Being a guild wars 1 veteran, I absolutely hate that rangers are forced to use the pet in this game; something that wasn’t true for the first game. It’s like a lot of really good, old ideas were trashed, in order to try to reinvent the wheel with a bunch of new, bad ideas. And, lore wise, rangers forgot how to use preparations, stances, and most of their traps and spirits, in order to gain what? The ability to always have dopey the almost as useful as it was in guild wars 1 animal always running around trying to be useful, and never really quite hitting the mark exactly where you’d want it in anything other than general PvE.
As Durz mentioned somewhere else, I’m not sure they should do away with the pet entirely. But the pet should be implemented as additional damage on top of the rangers damage output, and then the pet concept can be redesigned as the pet not being “out” until you bring it out, then it stays out and does damage for a period of time, with a cooldown. The pet will have the potential to last until it’s cooldown is over, meaning you can just resummon it to have it permanently available. You have the ability to do a unique attack with it still, and the pet swap gets replaced with a call back, which takes it’s remaining lifespan and knocks a portion of it off the cooldown, where as if the pet dies, it goes on full cooldown.
Now you have a class that can always use the pet, even if they aren’t built for it, but can have the damage come from the player. On top of that, you can still choose to play as a beastmaster, which would, in the suggested redesign, be more focused around cooldown reduction, and damage and utility increases, just like other classes mechanic traitline do for their mechanic.
This, I think, would be the best way to open up some versatility for the way the class can be played, while thematically keeping it as a “pet class.”
+1
and through in a crossbow
))