Guild Wars 2

I am sure this topic must have come up more often but why do we even have those 2 Pet attacks, next to the F2 attack and Auto attack? I checked my Combat log and the other two attacks are never used. Yet they are often nice attacks which would hugely spice up my choices in Combat if they would work.

Has Anet ever acknowledged that this is a problem? I can understand it if they do not want to let us control these attacks, but how about just let the pet use them when they are off cooldown?

I do not understand why any coding went into this if they are so underused. ( I am sure people sometimes see them pop up in their combat log). Enabling them would improve our class very much imo.

Edit: I had to edit my topic title so often because of the stupid 45 character rule that I borked it. Should read “Pet Attacks 3 AND 4 never used.”

Depends on the pet. Drakes are and have been bugged since Feb, so they won’t use their other 2 moves regardless.

Well, in my experience the Smokescale’s 3 and 4 (Smoke Assault/Takedown) have served me rather well in sPvP and WvW. They have 16 seconds’ CD with Beast Mastery or 20 seconds without and largely line up with a pet swap.

With the swap, Smoke Assault has always been cast ~1 second or even less when the current target is within the range of the ability, with the knockdown coming in just a few moments after that. So I’d say at least it works properly with some pets.

If only it was true… sadly, birds still use quickening screech, devourer still flee under earth and knock back their foe for no reason, bear still waste their invuln skill… etc.

My pets never ignore their other two skills, god do I wish birds would stop trying to give me swiftness though, I pray every day my bird pets will have a stroke and forget how to cast quickening screech so that they can be my go to damage pet…

And drakes are bugged again? I need to check that out…

Yes, I have to nuance my rant. Drakes indeed never use their other two attacks, I started using one today for a while and that is how I came to my post. My Moa never uses Harmonic Cry, just Frenzied attack.

I think my cats use both Bite and Maul. I have not tried other pets but obviously this is a very broken part of our Pets.

It would indeed be best if we had some control over these other two attacks: if Anet does not want to put them on a hotkey, then maybe they should allow people to disable them. And when enabled, the pet should just fire them as soon as it is off cooldown.

Enabling/disabling can only be done out of Combat. This does not seem like too hard a fix.

Durzlla.6295:

My pets never ignore their other two skills, god do I wish birds would stop trying to give me swiftness though, I pray every day my bird pets will have a stroke and forget how to cast quickening screech so that they can be my go to damage pet…

And drakes are bugged again? I need to check that out…

Birds would be the best melee pet in game if they didn’t have this skill that gut them.

Birds at least almost made some sense back when boons were fairly rare. If you don’t have perma swiftness or a movement trait on any profession these days you’re a total noob.

Tyncale.1629:

Yes, I have to nuance my rant. Drakes indeed never use their other two attacks, I started using one today for a while and that is how I came to my post. My Moa never uses Harmonic Cry, just Frenzied attack.

I think my cats use both Bite and Maul. I have not tried other pets but obviously this is a very broken part of our Pets.

It would indeed be best if we had some control over these other two attacks: if Anet does not want to put them on a hotkey, then maybe they should allow people to disable them. And when enabled, the pet should just fire them as soon as it is off cooldown.

Enabling/disabling can only be done out of Combat. This does not seem like too hard a fix.

I agree. Having full control of the other pet skills would be nice. As for some of the other pet skills, defensive pet moves will trigger when certain thresholds are met. Some things to note since you mentioned Moas, but I’ll list some additions:

• Moa’s Harmonic Cry – Activates when the player is under 75% health or the pet is under 90% health.
• Bear’s Bite & Drake’s Chomp – Activates when the pet is under 90% health.
• Bear’s Defy Pain – Activates when the pet is under 25% health.
• Devourer’s Retreat – Activates when a foe is within 200 range of the pet and sometimes when the pet is under 25% health.

As stated before, Drakes are bugged, but when they are fixed – 90% is the health threshold in which they are supposed to use Chomp. Obviously, it would be nice to have these extras listed on the in-game tooltip.

If only Quickening Screech was a self-buff for the pet (beyond Beast Mastery traits that share buffs) that gave it 3s of Quickness on a 25s cooldown.

Fluffball.8307:

Birds at least almost made some sense back when boons were fairly rare. If you don’t have perma swiftness or a movement trait on any profession these days you’re a total noob.

The ridiculously long animation also made sense when it gave quickness and they evaded during it… but that was so long ago

Dadnir.5038:

If only it was true… sadly, birds still use quickening screech, devourer still flee under earth and knock back their foe for no reason, bear still waste their invuln skill… etc.

Devourer would have been a more commonly used pet if it chose to knockback on swap instead of prioritizing the evade away skill. A shame really.

Durzlla.6295:

Fluffball.8307:

Birds at least almost made some sense back when boons were fairly rare. If you don’t have perma swiftness or a movement trait on any profession these days you’re a total noob.

The ridiculously long animation also made sense when it gave quickness and they evaded during it… but that was so long ago

So long ago that it never have worked that way?

Wondrouswall.7169:

Tyncale.1629:

Yes, I have to nuance my rant. Drakes indeed never use their other two attacks, I started using one today for a while and that is how I came to my post. My Moa never uses Harmonic Cry, just Frenzied attack.

I think my cats use both Bite and Maul. I have not tried other pets but obviously this is a very broken part of our Pets.

It would indeed be best if we had some control over these other two attacks: if Anet does not want to put them on a hotkey, then maybe they should allow people to disable them. And when enabled, the pet should just fire them as soon as it is off cooldown.

Enabling/disabling can only be done out of Combat. This does not seem like too hard a fix.

I agree. Having full control of the other pet skills would be nice. As for some of the other pet skills, defensive pet moves will trigger when certain thresholds are met. Some things to note since you mentioned Moas, but I’ll list some additions:

• Moa’s Harmonic Cry – Activates when the player is under 75% health or the pet is under 90% health.
• Bear’s Bite & Drake’s Chomp – Activates when the pet is under 90% health.
• Bear’s Defy Pain – Activates when the pet is under 25% health.
• Devourer’s Retreat – Activates when a foe is within 200 range of the pet and sometimes when the pet is under 25% health.

As stated before, Drakes are bugged, but when they are fixed – 90% is the health threshold in which they are supposed to use Chomp. Obviously, it would be nice to have these extras listed on the in-game tooltip.

i don’t think having those skills under an underperforming AI is a good idea.

i’d like them better to have them in F3 so i can choose when to cast them.

F1 to become a switch to attack my target\come back and if you keep the button pressed for a second\2 seconds to become an AoE to guard an area.

Some skills are too situational to have them be managed for an AI.

Hey, man. I totally agree on that. In fact, even the moves I mentioned above that are handled strictly by the AI don’t always activate under those circumstances.

That simple tweak would do wonders with another move being controlled with F3. F1 can simply function like the old “Guard!” without having to hold it since “Avoid Combat/Guard” toggle pretty much takes care of commanding a pet to attack a target.

Thanks Wondrouswall, that at least explains a lot. Good to see most people want more control and effectiveness of these skills.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Durzlla.6295:

Fluffball.8307:

Birds at least almost made some sense back when boons were fairly rare. If you don’t have perma swiftness or a movement trait on any profession these days you’re a total noob.

The ridiculously long animation also made sense when it gave quickness and they evaded during it… but that was so long ago

So long ago that it never have worked that way?

It never made it to live that way, that’s for kitten sure, it worked that way back when the gold Mia was still a tameable pet though.

Hence, “Quickening Screech” before it was altered to swiftness. Would be nice if they reverted it back to the original concept.

I, too, remember being able to tame a Golden Moa, back before launch – it’s F2 granted vigor. Would have been a neat Moa to have.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Hence, “Quickening Screech” before it was altered to swiftness. Would be nice if they reverted it back to the original concept.

I, too, remember being able to tame a Golden Moa, back before launch – it’s F2 granted vigor. Would have been a neat Moa to have.

It was not only the best looking Moa imo, but it also gave vigor and swiftness in a fairly large radius, and it was originally one of the starting choices for humans (replaced the cat). Was very upset when they removed it.