Guild Wars 2

I am one ranger that really feels the pet is pretty much a double edged sword, sometimes its good to have them with you, like in Dungeons or PvP, and sometimes they are the weakest link and just a huge kitten nuisance, mostly in overland PvE.

Can’t we have a function that permanently keeps them away in the stow function without them popping out all the kitten time the moment u enter combat? I want to choose when to let it out and when to keep it away because that kitten pet in overland PvE is just another body part asking to be hit or aggroed and dragged into combat when i can just skirt around stuff if i was alone.

I am one ranger that really feels the pet is pretty much a double edged sword, sometimes its good to have them with you, like in Dungeons or PvP, and sometimes they are the weakest link and just a huge kitten nuisance, mostly in overland PvE.

Really? My experience is totally opposite of yours. I hate my pet in dungeons (where it dies extremely fast) and PvP (where it rarely hits anything) but absolutely love it in overland PvE.

Did you know that a monster attacking your pet does not put you in combat if the pet doesn’t fight back, which means you don’t get slowed down? And that monsters will usually prefer attacking the pet over you? I can put my pet in passive mode and just run through Cursed Shore harvesting nodes while completely ignoring most mobs. It’s great.

I don’t like that idea, pets are a defining element of our class. If you like bows and don’t like pets, perhaps a warrior is a more suitable class for you.

Well, in Guild Wars 1, pets were not a necessity and a strategic option. Over here, it may be the class defining element, but note i did say i wished for the option to toggle it off if i need to, it is still the core ability of the ranger.

I do not believe i mentioned anything about hating pets, or else i would never have bothered with playing a ranger, Im looking for flexibility, in this feature, not asking for more pwnz factor. If i wanted a warrior, i will play a warrior (which i also have anyway)

Viserion.5130:

I don’t like that idea, pets are a defining element of our class. If you like bows and don’t like pets, perhaps a warrior is a more suitable class for you.

The thing is they weren’t much of a defining element in GW1. In GW1 my pet sucked so I got rid of it. My bow also sucked in most situations so I got rid of that too.

Dagger ranger using Jagged Strikes > Fox Fangs > Death Blossom ftw.

My point being, there are going to be a lot of GW1 vets around on this game who would be quite happy to dump the pets.

I would love to be able to stow my pet and then choose when I want to take it out. It is annoying how it pops up as soon as I take the slightest falling damage, then it runs off to the side or far ahead of me and aggros the mobs around. If it has to be out, I wikitten could stay by my side and not try to run off by itself like that.

At least my skills are not set on cooldown when my pet dies, like in GW1.

Stice.5204

Did you know that a monster attacking your pet does not put you in combat if the pet doesn’t fight back, which means you don’t get slowed down?

Good info to know, this always annoyed me.

I still would like them to look at the stow pet function though, if I am doing a jumping puzzle and take a little damage as I go from rock to rock then I have to stow it every time. I think it would be much more player friendly if it only came out when I actually attacked an enemy, for those rare times that you are running past enemies. Honestly just an option for it would suffice.

I would love to be able to permanently stow my pet but only for when im doing a JP…nowt worse than the butt of of a polar bear in you face when you in a tight spot :/

Other than that if im wanting to run through an area without distraction( pet drawing aggro) then i do exactly the same as Stice and put it in passive mode

Viserion.5130:

I don’t like that idea, pets are a defining element of our class. If you like bows and don’t like pets, perhaps a warrior is a more suitable class for you.

We already have a stow pet button. We’re just asking that it actually stows the pet and keeps it stowed.

Can players run around without having any weapons or armor equipped? Of course they can. Is that a good idea? Probably not. Yet they have that choice. If I want the ability to nerf my ranger by having my stowed pet stay stowed until I say otherwise, that should be my choice too.

Obviously, rangers are meant to have pets. All of our traits, skills, etc., are based around the fact that we’ll have a pet standing next to us — as it should be. None of that has anything to do with giving players the option to keep a stowed pet stowed until we command it to come forth. I can think of several situations where I just want the pet gone temporarily (yes, jumping puzzles are a big one).

This isn’t game breaking. Stowing pets doesn’t give any unfair advantage to rangers that have their pets stowed. It’s a personal choice. It boggles my mind how passionately some people argue against those of us that feel this way! Now, granted, there is a small number of glass cannon rangers who want to be able to dismiss their pet and get a buff in return. To that, I agree in saying: NO WAY! As Visieron said, we’re a pet class, and we should in no way get buffed for choosing not to have a pet out.

All that said, let me stow my pet and have it stay stowed until I unstow it. Please!

Yes, please make it an option, so pet does not pop out automatically when I receive 1 dmg or walk in or out of water. And please stay at my back all the time instead of walking 10 feet in front of me whenever I stop running.

Hope this gets into the next patch
Agreed Skolvikings managed to phrase what i wanted to say in an easy to understand way.

Options option options, thats all we really want in anything.

The times when I’d really like to be able to keep a pet stowed is in jumping puzzles.

Jumping puzzles become “go away pet so I can see, jump, jump, jump, get out of my way pet, jump, jump, I said go away pet, jump, kitten off pet – I’m not fighting and you’re in the kitten way!”

Skolvikings and I have posted pretty much on all of these threads and are on the same page. I can see there being times when you simply do not want your pet around, and having an option to dismiss it until called for would be fine.

Thing is with most of these threads, that is almost always followed with “we should get a damage buff to compensate for not having a pet”…no. Just no. You as a player are choosing to get rid of your pet, you as a player have to deal with the fact you are taking away from your buffs / DPS / etc.

IF this is added as a feature, it should be something that a ranger has to CHOOSE to activate, and if you DO choose to perma-stow your pet you have to understand that you are the one that is taking away from the mechanic of your class. Just like a thief that never stealths or steals for whatever reason, YOU have the option there to use it or not, it is not Arena Net’s responsibility to make up for your self nerf.

As I said in another thread, giving the ranger the option to have a “damage cushion” before the pet appears would also be a good compromise. In other words instead of every single point of damage summons your pet have it so that it only comes out after you have lost 20%…maybe even 50% of your health pool.

Warriors get traits that benefit them for NOT using their Adrenaline skills. Why shouldn’t Rangers get something similar for NOT using pets?

Don’t stow, just put them on Passive and keep them handy for F2 skills. In dungeons, I love the Fern Hound’s regen, the brown bear’s condition removal, even the spider’s poison combo field, etc. Also remember that some pets even on Agressive do NOT run in and melee typically – both spiders and devourers have ranged attacks w/ condition adds that can be used even with the pet set on Agressive. For more control, keep them on Passive and then only attack via F1, then recall them with F3 (if they’re set to passive they should immediately stop attacking and run back to your side). I find that using Toll Ungent (which can be popped on-the-fly) is useful to click on when the pet gets to about 1/2 health, but be ready to do a quick F4 to swap if they drop down below 1/4 – the cool down is MUCH shorter if you swap the pet BEFORE it dies.

Basically stowing your pet really hinders what you can do using the pet’s F2 abilities, so why lose that?

ImagoX.4718:

Basically stowing your pet really hinders what you can do using the pet’s F2 abilities, so why lose that?

Because its my choice.

Seriously, the first time I stowed my pet, I was like “what the kitten!” when it reappeared out of nowhere. It was completely unexpected and not intuitive. I was sure it was a bug that a stowed pet popped out upon taking 1pt of damage until I checked the forum.

I still think its a bug.

The stow pet button, THAT IS ALREADY IN MY TOOLBAR, should stow my pet. That’s it. This isn’t rocket science. If you don’t want to give up your F2 ability, don’t use the stow pet button. Problem solved.

ok let me get this straight. so when pets are attacked and do not attack back, you’re not entering combat? are you serious about that? coz when i did some jump puzzles that have monsters attacking my pet (mind you, it wasn’t attacking me), my movements are slowed and when i switch pet the cooldown was 20sec and i am still in combat even i am far from the monsters. at times i am like on a higher platform and unable to dmg the monster, the monster can still hit me… that happens when i F4 after my pet was hit.

I used to think this was a dumb idea at first, but i agree with this entirely.

Two places where this really aggravated me were CoF path 3.
For those of you who have not done it, you need to split your team up and all of you need to light 5 torches simultaneously. There is a group of 3 enemies that respawn on the torch shortly after they are killed. Knowing that there is a huge danger of aggro-ing surrounding mobs, I put my pet on passive. I’m normally spec’ed into Beast mastery pretty deep as far as my build goes so I’m already at a loss. So everyone kills two of their enemies, and weakens the final enemy and waits for the signal…. everyone ready? yes? yes? yes? no. there goes my pet just doing the random wandering thing that it does sometimes, and it wanders right into another enemy. No big deal… It’s only a little further out into the room, I’ll just kill it in a few seconds…. WTF! My pet just aggro’d 2 more things by wandering around WHILE ON PASSIVE. This has proven to be VERY FRUSTRATING, since there is literally nothing i can do except hope that my pet stays put during these times.

Another example is doing the griffonrook jumping puzzle with the bomb.

Never in my life have I given up on something in a videogame, and after about 50 deaths and over 100 tries later I finally made it to the end chest with a bomb. If you get hit while holding the bomb by any of the numerous griffons littering the jumping puzzle, it detonates and you need to start over. Okay…. so being in combat while doing a jumping puzzle can totally screw with you…. let me stow my pet and put it on passive (just in case) if i get hit I need to start over anyway, so there is no danger of my pet coming back out, right? wrong. This jumping puzzle involves taking a lot of fall damage…. and can you guess what happens to a stowed ranger pet when you take fall damage? sure as the sunrise in the morning the pet comes out and gets clobbered with a griffon, putting me in combat until i can petswap. That usually means I need to make the next difficult jump, avoiding griffons, while I am in combat unless I make it to a safe spot.

Let us permanently stow the pet, or at least make it invisible to enemies when it is on passive.

Not only do I want to permanently Stow my pet, I want to have a percentage increase in damage to all my skills and abilities for not having the pet out. Our damage as Rangers is directly tied into the pet, i’m sure by a certain percentage, I would love to get that back when my pet is Stowed so I didn’t have to rely on the pet at all. And don’t say then you should play another class, this is a viable and good idea that would allow those that don’t want pets to still play this class without one. It’s about options, I hate relying on AI and squishy pets, but love the Ranger, so give me my damage back if my pet is Stowed.

TedLevine.4028 It is like this, we are tied about the damage of our pet to our total input.

This point has been brought up about a hundred times, and it always gets shouted down by those who say RANGER = PETS get over it. In other words you ain’t a “Ranger” unless your pet is your main weapon and it is always there 24/7 front and center. You get NO choice on the matter, so learn to deal with it or move on to another class, because it is not broken, you are. Nice that they love the class and it’s perma-pet, but let’s not let anyone else have the freedom to play it differently! 0.0

TedLevine.4028:

Not only do I want to permanently Stow my pet, I want to have a percentage increase in damage to all my skills and abilities for not having the pet out. Our damage as Rangers is directly tied into the pet, i’m sure by a certain percentage, I would love to get that back when my pet is Stowed so I didn’t have to rely on the pet at all. And don’t say then you should play another class, this is a viable and good idea…

I disagree that it’s a good idea, but it certainly is a valid opinion. That said, I wish people would stop hijacking these permanent-stow pet threads with their desire to have petless rangers. Let’s just start with a stow pet button that works. Please discuss petless rangers in your own petless ranger threads. Thanks.

As a supposed Master of Animals we should have enough control over our pets to permanently put them away (i.e., cage the pet).

This is not a debate about the versatility or lack of the pet in PVE, PVP, WVW, or just standing there doing nothing.

This isn’t about “i like bows but i don’t like pets” or your opinion that I should roll a warrior class.

The pet mechanics are HORRIBLE. Absolutely atrocious.

Did you know that when you stow your pet and take fall damage, the pet automatically activates? Why? No. Do not give me your opinion or smart kitten comment. Explain to me why my pets activates when I take FALL DAMAGE.

Did you know that you are FORCED to select two pets for your slots? Yeah. That’s really handy. You know what else? If I have my 2nd pet active, and then stow it, and then one of the MANY MANY (mostly useless) criteria for activating a pet happens, that it will pop out the 1st pet. Yeah. That’s a nice feature of the class. To have your pets totally disregard your commands really makes it feel like I am immersed in the role of a Great Master of Animals.

And the best part is a reminder of how… stupid? Is it stupidity that got us to this point? Or maybe it’s laziness. We’ll leave that for now and just move on. The best reminder of how screwed up the system is when you are trying to do a jumping puzzle, fall and take 1 POINT OF DAMAGE, and then notice your (1st pet in the selection! Not the pet you had out 13 seconds ago) pet is sitting there. Yeah. Well, I’ve decided. It’s both stupid and lazy, and a number of other things.

The real kick in the teeth is the countdown timers on the swap pet/stow pet abilities. Swap pet I get. But stow pet? Why? Why a timer on that skill?

The pet mechanics need to be addressed. It is ruining my enjoyment of the game.

And, no. I don’t want to reroll a new class. If it is determined that these are functioning properly and/or they are not going to be changed, I won’t roll a new class. I’ll sniff once and wipe away a tear for the three hours I worked to pay for the game and then uninstall it and move on. Maybe there is a publisher out there that doesn’t release alphas/betas as a full game.

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No. I do not want or even care about an “increase in power when my pet is stowed”. I am mature enough to realize that if I CHOOSE to put my pet away, that I am CHOOSING to give up any and all bonuses (and for the love of anything, the annoyances).

Pet needs a permanent stow especially in WvW. When defending a keep your pet will stand outside on the walls giving the enemy something to AoE. Huge hinderance.

for those say that Rangers = Pets, i’d gladly love to equip my bears on my mainhand and my hawks on my off hand. that way then u can say rangers = pets.

Just giving this a bump, since having a pet out is annoying for the whole party in the Jade Maw Fractal. Let pets stay put away until we want them back.

Personally I would like to see an option, such as a trait (like 30 beastmastery, because I can’t even think of the other Grandmaster Trait that isn’t Natural Healing because it is just that useless), that would turn pets into untargetable, completely passive (as in the never attack) allies that have different activation skills that all apply buffs of some sort, which all have instant activation times. On top of this, the damage that pets are supposed to account for should be restored to the player when running this trait.

People are still complaining about this issue because there isn’t a single class in this game that provides an archer gameplay. Lots of people are guild wars 1 veterans (including myself) who played ranger in guild wars 1, and the ranger class in this game is honestly just horrendous in comparison.
The only class that can even use a bow semi-effectively in this game is a thief, which is a huge letdown to anybody who enjoys the archer playstyle.

To the people telling the rest of us to go play a different class cuz ranger is a pet class, please go play a different game, pokemon is a working with pets game. See how effective that argument is? Stop imposing your playstyles on other people that are only asking for a bit of versatility, as it won’t change the way you play the game at all.

Ripcurrent.9780:

Just giving this a bump, since having a pet out is annoying for the whole party in the Jade Maw Fractal. Let pets stay put away until we want them back.

oh yeah this needs to be fixed my pet got targeted 4 times i n a row
and overall every 3rd cast was on the pet so we had to wait one hour to finish it

i support the idea pets should go away untill we call them back

Batlav.6318:

Ripcurrent.9780:

Just giving this a bump, since having a pet out is annoying for the whole party in the Jade Maw Fractal. Let pets stay put away until we want them back.

oh yeah this needs to be fixed my pet got targeted 4 times i n a row
and overall every 3rd cast was on the pet so we had to wait one hour to finish it

i support the idea pets should go away untill we call them back

^ just giving this arrow hear to show my support =D

totally 100% agree pet should be managed by the player and not the game, plenty of times when the pet is a hinderance more than assistance and needs to be stowed.
thumbs up for this idea. dev’s get on it for next patch.

So when you are downed and you hit your 3 skill nothing happens because your pet is permanently stowed.

Damage shouldn’t unstow the Ranger Pet, it’s incredibly annoying.

I agree with this 100%, there are times that a pet needs to be stowed because it becomes a liability, even when in combat.

~Fighting the Maw in fractals is probably the best example, it often targets my pet several times in a row even when my pet is dead. This makes it annoying to have a ranger in the group because the fight will likely take much longer.

~Or when your group is about to wipe, the thief in the group comes along to save everyone with shadow refuge, but oh wait no, your pet is still visible so the mobs aoe hits everyone and you all wipe anyway (Or even worse, it hides your pet and not you, even though I am sure it is suppose to prioritize you over your pet).

~It is also a lot harder to pull mobs when your pet is out, especially in tightly packed areas, since the moment you attack your pet will pop out even when set to avoid combat, they are still likely pull the mobs you where trying to avoid. So you end up with both on you. This counts not just for pulling mobs but any situation where you are specifically trying to avoid mobs while still needing to use skills.

~I am not even going to explain jumping puzzles because I am sure every ranger knows what an annoyance pets can be with those.

The point being there are certain circumstances where stowing a pet in combat is needed.

When I have my pet set to ‘guard’ then it can pop out whenever I take damage or attack, but… if I set my pet to ‘avoid combat’ and I stow it away, I expected it to stay stowed away even if I take fall damage or start attacking, until I actually choose to bring it back out.

I do not expect a damage increase when pet is stowed, I simply want to stop being a liability to my group by having proper control over my pet.

Kiraki.9761:

I agree with this 100%, there are times that a pet needs to be stowed because it becomes a liability, even when in combat.

~Fighting the Maw in fractals is probably the best example, it often targets my pet several times in a row even when my pet is dead. This makes it annoying to have a ranger in the group because the fight will likely take much longer.

~Or when your group is about to wipe, the thief in the group comes along to save everyone with shadow refuge, but oh wait no, your pet is still visible so the mobs aoe hits everyone and you all wipe anyway (Or even worse, it hides your pet and not you, even though I am sure it is suppose to prioritize you over your pet).

~It is also a lot harder to pull mobs when your pet is out, especially in tightly packed areas, since the moment you attack your pet will pop out even when set to avoid combat, they are still likely pull the mobs you where trying to avoid. So you end up with both on you. This counts not just for pulling mobs but any situation where you are specifically trying to avoid mobs while still needing to use skills.

~I am not even going to explain jumping puzzles because I am sure every ranger knows what an annoyance pets can be with those.

The point being there are certain circumstances where stowing a pet in combat is needed.

When I have my pet set to ‘guard’ then it can pop out whenever I take damage or attack, but… if I set my pet to ‘avoid combat’ and I stow it away, I expected it to stay stowed away even if I take fall damage or start attacking, until I actually choose to bring it back out.

I do not expect a damage increase when pet is stowed, I simply want to stop being a liability to my group by having proper control over my pet.

Tell me about it. Once had a whole group raging at me at FOTM because the Maw kept targeting my pet and the battle was going on for 25+ minutes. Dunno why but he kept targeting it even though it was dead and i didn’t switch to a new one.

Make the Stow Pet skill : Pet get stowed permanently until recalled back. While stowed ranger gains 50% of pets attributes.

^ Not hard to implement, solves most of the pet issues and doesn’t make you a complete joke dps wise when you try to hit with no pet.

Elspeth Tiriel.9243:

So when you are downed and you hit your 3 skill nothing happens because your pet is permanently stowed.

Is not hard to add a simple line of code where when you press the n3 skill the pet gets recalled to come and try to lick your wounds.

Kiraki.9761:

I agree with this 100%, there are times that a pet needs to be stowed because it becomes a liability, even when in combat.

~Fighting the Maw in fractals is probably the best example, it often targets my pet several times in a row even when my pet is dead. This makes it annoying to have a ranger in the group because the fight will likely take much longer.

~Or when your group is about to wipe, the thief in the group comes along to save everyone with shadow refuge, but oh wait no, your pet is still visible so the mobs aoe hits everyone and you all wipe anyway (Or even worse, it hides your pet and not you, even though I am sure it is suppose to prioritize you over your pet).

~It is also a lot harder to pull mobs when your pet is out, especially in tightly packed areas, since the moment you attack your pet will pop out even when set to avoid combat, they are still likely pull the mobs you where trying to avoid. So you end up with both on you. This counts not just for pulling mobs but any situation where you are specifically trying to avoid mobs while still needing to use skills.

~I am not even going to explain jumping puzzles because I am sure every ranger knows what an annoyance pets can be with those.

The point being there are certain circumstances where stowing a pet in combat is needed.

When I have my pet set to ‘guard’ then it can pop out whenever I take damage or attack, but… if I set my pet to ‘avoid combat’ and I stow it away, I expected it to stay stowed away even if I take fall damage or start attacking, until I actually choose to bring it back out.

I do not expect a damage increase when pet is stowed, I simply want to stop being a liability to my group by having proper control over my pet.

Totally agree as well. Not being able to stow pets in combat makes a ranger a liability in dungeons (especially fractals). I can’t count how many times SR was useless because of a dead pet, how many times the Maw decided to target ranger pets so often that the team kept running out of crystals, etc.

I’d like to see this implemented even if it would mean no buff at all for a ranger playing without a pet. Honestly I’d just like to be able to provide a better contribution to my team rather than a damage buff.

Totally agree, This games pet control is really bad in general, but I can live with it with most classes. With Mesmers they are really a fire and forget mechanic, same with the Thieve’s Guild.

With the Ranger it is meant to be part of the character class dynamic. But you have so little control over what they do. Being able to Stow a pet away when needed would at least remove some of the annoyance of the Ranger.

I too was really confused when I stowed my pet the first time and it immediately reappeared.

I agree with this completely. Even for scenario’s in your personal story line it’d just nice not to have your pet running around the scene. Hope this gets noted and considered.

We are given a Suicidal Pet System; pets should permanently be Stowed away.