Guild Wars 2

Have any other rangers ever encountered this?

Last night I decided to do the arah explore mode. After joining a group and entering the dungeon, the leader immediately started saying get rid of all pets. I told him I’d put it on passive and stowed it to satisfy him. While trying to run past mobs in the dungeon as is common practice, a guardian in our group aggroed mobs, which led to me taking damage from AOEs, forcing the pet out of storage (still on passive), my pet and I were blamed for aggroing. Shortly after something almost identical occurred again. Despite trying to explain them that there is no perma stow feature for our pets, I was kicked for not permanently getting rid of my pet.

How many of you have ever encountered this?

I found it quite annoying to have others chew me out for not being able to get rid of my profession mechanic….

How many times has your pet been blamed for pulling aggro when it was right next to you out of the way the whole time simply because it is a pet, so apparently it must be the cause of all aggro problems?

More importantly, why do pets grab aggro by mere proximity in the first place? Clearly that would cause massive problems.

People like that are ….. Should just ignore them.

For me, I am the one blaming rangers for not stowing their pet before they start running and setting them on aggressive. Because you know, rangers like that make us look bad and shows that they never L2P. Also creates mis-conceptions about rangers, like the above example.

It doesn’t matter if they’re not agro or not – THEY STILL AGRO – they just don’t fight back. And our pets have the godawful tendency to run off, or keep walking another 10-15 feet past where you stop. I’m the master of these animals, and yet I can’t STOP one from coming out? Right. It doesn’t work from a RP standpoint or a ahmahgad, why did it path over there standpoint.

This is a common problem with rangers in general PvE but we deal with it. When you are with groups and everyone has to deal with the consequences it becomes yet another reason why everyone developer who works on the game should be forced to play a ranger in PuGs for a month. There are a lot of great things about the class and the pet mechanic, there are a lot of things that need to be changed.

While permanently stowing a pet solves some problems, it does open up the door for rangers and groups to expect them to play large amounts of group/dungeon content without the pet present at all. Currently we are forced to have the pet (I love that part of the class and I don’t want it to go away or be less important) but the developers didn’t put pets into a place where pets are something we always want to have. Before the game launched, the pet should have been in a position where the player will say “I’m glad I had my pet, that was really helpful,”, currently there are too many situations where the pet is a burden. Pets are powerful that doesn’t mean they are useful, at often at times they are a burden, that shouldn’t be the case.

@ Shiren
Totally agree with you.

@Kincaidia
Yea the 10~15 feet in front of us thing is super annoying and get my pet killed tons. Also if we stow our pet before we start running, at least we know it was because someone (or us) aggroed the mobs first and not the pets.

Let’s face it, pets are hopeless whoever said yes ranger pets are fine and ready for launch really need to get fired because they aren’t doing a good job making a fun mechanic.

I remember hearing one video before launch where Anet rep suggested that they want pets not to feel clunky and be less of a worry and bother as they may be in other mmo’s.

All I can see is lack of innovation, nothing is great or even good about the way ranger pets work in this game. In my opinion the ranger pet mechanic of GW2 is a far backwards step from what I have seen in other games, the lack of response and the perishability of the pets during fights (and this really I do not get, why does the pet not dodge when the master dodges?? How can that be overlooked?? The pet just stands dumb faced in the aoe not only in pve but also to effects such as the treb in Kyhlo?? This has to be the most flimsy flaky pet I have ever encountered

Let’s consider the Function skills.. They are so miserable, the lack of control they give over the pet, F1: attack F2: stand still for 3 seconds and hope you get your special off before you die or the target moves out of range F3: return, at your own pace and maybe not at all, then we have two functions without key bindings, “guard” (chase the mail man) “avoid combat” (look pretty (stupid) and still cause disaster by leashing 30 metres ahead) and “stow pet” (which has no effect during combat, not to mention it shares the cooldown with pet swap.. what is that about??..) and finally F4: pet swap (quick swap places with this bear, which may not die but still isn’t really much use)

REALLY how can you have managed to make such a poorly operating pet system is beyond me and that it has been overlooked! amazing.

Annoying when climbing, if you fall a few feet the pet wakes up and you have to stow.
You are running past mobs the pet wakes up and you have to swap or ask it to follow.
It is handy for aggrroing everything, I’ve got plenty of commune skill points while the pet fights champs etc. This also allows you to run past lots of mobs.
So 6 of one…..
A perm stow would be nice.

These seems really important problems you guys.I mean the pet is the most important mechanic that a ranger have.You can expect to be broken in all other but in pets you mustnt have any problem or bug.
Ok
Now lets fix some Asura heads and lets nerf the 1 skill in shortbow so you wont spam 1
Oh wait you still spamming 1?
Im geussing some more nerfing may fix it.If 7% didnt changed it logic states that 20% will,or 30%
Never mind.Lets just delete it,lets leave the other 4 do all the damage
What a whinning community,doesnt know what is fun..

Yea permanent stow would be nice.

Actually, I wish there was a trait or skill or something that gave me a damage boost for not “having a pet” or “stowing it away.” I like the ranger class, but I dont like being reliant on pets to do the damage for me.

First of all I am very sorry you had such a bad experience. Although the majority of the people in the game are very kind and helpful you have an increasingly larger group of very unfriendly, rude and abusive players. Are you a moron? You idiot! kitten Everyone needs to learn stuff if they are doing it for the first time. Anonymity of the Internet helps these lowlifes a lot because if you would see me IRL you would not dare usher those words. After 7 years of WoW, RIFT, SWTOR I have never seen this kind of abuse before. Maybe I have been lucky or this game attracts the wrong kind of crowd. I dunno. It puzzles me.

That being said. The who pet AI is a huge problem on it own. You stow away the pet, you fall from certain hight your pet is back. You get hit your pet comes back and the list goes on. I am positive the ranger class and pets will get an overhaul but until then I have shelved mine. I just cant be arsed to play it like it right now.

On the other hand I like how my pet keeps agro and takes it. I guess it’s the build but I dig it ;-)

BAEK.8561:

Yea permanent stow would be nice.

Actually, I wish there was a trait or skill or something that gave me a damage boost for not “having a pet” or “stowing it away.” I like the ranger class, but I dont like being reliant on pets to do the damage for me.

I was a fan of how pets were handled in GW1. They could be managed in a way which best suited the situation. Sometimes I was best off without a pet, others I needed it just for a meat shield, and sometimes a beastmaster build was the best option. Unfortunately, with GW2, we’re forced to stick with a buggy and obtrusive mechanic which detracts from my character’s utility just as much (if not more) than it adds.

lolnotacat.9814:

I was a fan of how pets were handled in GW1.

I wasn’t. At 0 points in Beastmastery the pet was eyecandy that died the second anything so much as broke wind at it. At 16 (maxed, for non GW1 players) Beastmaster it was stupidly tough, and if you took pet orientated skills it was a little monster, completely broken.

I can count the number of people who actually bothered to put points into the beastmaster line on one hand. Everyone else shoved it away and decided to be ‘teh snipar’ archer build. If a perma-stow is added then idiots will just do what they did in guildwars 1: entirely ignore it.
Then the ranger’s just a poor man’s warrior, and there will be even more complaining about losing to them in a fight..

Agree that perm stow is not the solution. But it is really annoying when the pets aggros everything for fun. Pets should not cause aggro till they attack. And should not be in front of ranger till they attack (if needed).

Don’t hold your breath. They haven’t done squat with Rangers but beat them down over the past 4 months.