Guild Wars 2

“If a Ranger is forced to have pets and be dependent upon pets, then they need to actually be powerful enough to compensate for the crap default AI foisted upon them.”

Pet overhaul – Suggestions :

- Pet “Stay” command, for better pet control.

- Balancing Pets :

1. Stat allocation on pets should also be looked in again, example being birds having same stats as felines, but with added vitality !
2. Removing some nice fluff abilities like fetch me a weapon from pigs, warthogs etc, replacing with something on par with other combat pets, or by providing new fluff abilities throughout all pets.

- Improving Pets’ AI :

1. Dodging incoming nukes, by adding and using its own Endurance survivability mechanic, or worst case scenario Pet dodges when Ranger dodges.
2. Getting out of melee range when it’s about to die.
3. Pet standing besides Ranger, not a few meters in front / away.
4. Adding random pet emotes, interacting (or not) with the Ranger, promoting RP-fluff feeling engagement etc.

- Increase response time and casting speed (~instant) of F2 pet abilities.

- Key-bindings on all pet abilities, for better pet control.

- Adding Pet damage to Combat Log.

- * Resurrecting pet on Ranger’s heal. *

- Adjustable pet leash range, for better pet control.

- Improve response time of “Call Back”, F3.

- Make pet attacks more responsive & fluid :

• Increasing hit range of pet attacks and speed up (/remove) fluff animation which would cause pets to miss.
• Register hit from pets at animation’s start, not animation’s end.

- Grant pets damage reduction from AoE attacks in PvE & WvW (+/- PvP ??).

- Pet “Hide” or “Leave” command, disabling pet on demand.

- Fixing Melee Pets, so they can attack Doors in WvW.

- Fixing Pet Bar, so it would remain active upon Downed state.

- Fixing Pet Names (or Pet master Names), so they remain saved after relog.

- Increase in passive movement of pets. (Passive Pet’s speed > Passive Player’s speed)

- Pet stat progression scaling directly from base Ranger stats. (e.g. x % of Ranger’s base precision) and Beastmastery tree trait investment increasing the % effectiveness. (??). That way different roles between Rangers and their respective Pets could be fulfilled. (e.g Ranger “Tank” & Pet “Dps”)

- Ability to play without pet, gaining passive stat bonuses, compensating for standalone play without a pet.

- Grant Pets (or Pet Categories) the ability to provide buffs to the group, via :

• Standalone static passive buffs. (e.g birds provide y Precision to allies)
• Trait option complimenting group support & play from pets.

- Pet swap-time being pet-dependent, aiming to compliment balance amongst pets. (??)

On a side-note, a fellow Ranger suggested something, which i found it quite cool as a concept, so i would like to hear your thoughts as well. There is quite a big part of the community that shares the impression of Ranger’s damage being gimped for the sole reason that his pet would have to deal damage as well. That would result in balancing ranger’s damage & pet ratio difficult. So here’s what being suggested :

- Removing pet damage as a whole and adding it to the ranger. (??)

Discuss …

1. Grant pets damage reduction from AOE attacks in PvE.
AOE attacks should do normal damage in PvP.

2. Increase response and casting speed (instant) of F2 abilities

3. Increase hit range of pet attacks and remove/speed up fluff animation that cause pets to miss. And/or register hit from pets at animation starts, not animation end.

4. Improve response to Call Back, F3. They should run back, not talk a stroll in the fire rain.

5. Pet should stand besides you, not a few meters in front of you.

Since we have some great points in the thread i’m gonna try an sum it up all together … Keep the info / feedback coming

I disagree that there should be a difference for AoE mitigating in PvP and PvE. They should both have reduced damage, otherwise, you’ll never be inclined to send your pet in when everyone is spamming AoEs in sPvP or WvW. There’s a lot going on in PvP; controlling a (clunky) second character – who can’t dodge roll or react smartly with defensive cooldowns – is not fun.

I understand why people say they should not recieve a buffer in PvP, because of “balance.” They don’t want an unkillable beast running a muck where players cannot. What these players don’t understand is that the damage mitigation should be designed as a buffer for the Ranger so the Ranger doesn’t have to wait with one finger on the recall/pet swap key the moment any tick of AoE happens.

How it should be designed is (in both PvP and PvE) is that it gives enough mitigation to allow the Ranger time to decide whether they should keep the pet in or recall it back to his/her side. Is this just a random cleave or cone effect that I can leave my pet in? Or is this a sustained barrage and I might want to pull my pet out after a few ticks?

Ultimately, the threat is the Ranger himself and players are always going to be inclined to down the Ranger first.

If a pet truly becomes a substantial threat, focused, single-target damage is always a solution – not AoE!

I have to say I agree with all of the above points. As much as I love having a jaguar pet he’s just not useful in most situations. More often than not he’s a distraction so I can flank and take out trash while roaming Orr, but otherwise he stays passive and out of the way.

I’ve cycled through every pet I’ve discovered thus far, just to try out their various abilities in conjunction with my own, and personally I’m just not thrilled.

- Pets have zero reason to wander a hundred yards in front of me when I’m not moving, just to pull a group of mobs that I was either trying to avoid, or think my way through a safer way of taking them out.

- Pets shouldn’t die immediately after being looked at. A Risen Villager can torch-fart a fire and my pet is suddenly half dead. Wat.

- Pets shouldn’t keep trying to attack something over and over again after I tell it to come back! (F3) So many times have I had to keep slamming the F3 key to stop my pet from whipping back around to attack the same mob again. I just leave the silly thing on passive these days.

For me, my pets is barely a roleplay accessory. They clip through things like tables, chairs, trees, walls… they just poke various legs or their head through. It looks awkward.

I do feel that pets should be taking 75%+ reduced damage from aoe, however in T/Spvp, I still believe they need to take reduced aoe damage, but perhaps a little less than 75%+ more like 50-60%, in WvW it should stay 75%+.

Of course this is just an opinion, and I am no math genius or a balance developer. But people should have more choice in PvE Dungeons, to use different pets than just bears or ranged pets. I run in full Zerker gear in every slot, however I am 30 in beastmaster tree. I have no issue dodging and evading attacks during Lupi, Alpha and almost any other Dungeon boss, I control my two bear pets fine and they often do not die, if at all during an entire dungeon. However when ever I switch to Cats, Pigs or any other medium to high damage and balanced pet, they struggle to survive the 16s duration between switches, and pulling them back with “f3”.

I do love having the ranger being a pet class, I have no issue with it being a large portion of our damage, I just wish they where more effective. Along with the other suggestions made in this post, I do feel for pve dungeons, reduced area of effect damage is fairly vital.

I agree with most of the points mentioned and wish to emphasize on these:

- Pets should dodge when we dodge!
Especially dungeons would be more ranger-pet friendly if pets could dodge out of those red circles!
- Pets must stop right next to ranger!
Give the pets some more discipline. They should not just run wherever they feel like.
- Improve respons time!
This one goes for all F skills and attack animation “Register hit from pets at animation’s start, not animation’s end”
- Long range pets should have same attack range as longbow!
eg. spiders are imho long range pets. Therefore they should be able to attack target as the ranger using longbow.
- “Stow pet” must do so until counter commanded.
When the pet is stowed away, it should only get back if the ranger commands so. Again a discipline issue!
- Pet swap-time should be pet-dependent!
I’m not sure if this is doable technically, but I think it would balance the “weak” pets problem. Eg.: Feline pets die really fast due to their low vitality and low toughness. Therefore their swap-time should be less than say a bear. The ranger shouldn’t be punished by extra penalty swap-time because of a pets weak lifetime.

I’m sure these points and many more have been outlined in many other threads. But in order to have a correct functioning ranger-pet symbiosis, the mentioned points are VITAL.

Points that I especially DISAGREE with:
- “Pet stat progression scaling directly from Ranger (e.g. x % of ranger’s precision)”
Pets should have their own stats. Period. There is a decent variety in pet skill/stat so you can pick the one that suites the situation best. Remember ying/yang. Your weakness can be counterweighted by your pets strength.
- “Removing pet damage as a whole and adding it to the ranger.”
What’s the point of the pet then? No pet damage = no pet = no ranger!

I’m not a game developer, but I believe the mentioned points are issues that are easily fixed?!?

AOE dmg reduction for both pve/pvp why pvp ? coz the pet is always the first target when you press “tab” and it is not needed to aoe it 50% is fine imo

also i think that pets need a lil more armor and hp
atm pets are dead 90% of the time in both pve(p)
ranged one can survive a lil longer but they rarely hit moving targets
melee pets also have some troubles hiting on the move so increase the base speed slightly ?

With reagrds to pet damage, here’s what I’d like to see:

Almost all damage removed from pets. I would say put their damage around the same as clone damage for Mesmers to where it’s like 0-10 damage or something. Then add a portion of their stats to ours while they are active (by way of a passive buff). That way their damage isn’t as significant but we still get the utility they provide (bleeds, KDs, etc).

All that’s left is fixing their AI and F2 animations so that F2 skills are instant. Thoughts?

make F1-F3 the pet abilities (f4 is swap), making the pet into a support caster role. Open up balance melee/ranged power builds, also condi and bunker roles.

@Sabaz : Care to explain what you’d mean more thoroughly and moreover pinpoint which of your ideas regarding pets you’d like the rest of the community to see ?

I would love instant F2 casting. It is highly annoying having to stop and wait for my jungle cat to cast mighty roar before every fight. Why can’t I charge into battle and cast that on the run? The buff from from mighty roar should be on me the exact moment I hit F2 and not after having to stop and wait for a long unnecessary animation to go to end-of-job…

Just an idea, it has nothing to do with combat. Players pets could interact with each other, i.e they could play chase, have play fights, all sorts of things. They could even react with you, for example for bears, jumping up and hugging you. Just an idea i might make a pull thread about it.

i have spent 100% of my ranger time as beastmaster, r25 ( not saying i’m good, just giving my time investment in the spec ). my shortlist:

1. F2 instantly responsive ( abilities can still have cast times ( cast times need a balance pass, too many 2s casts for abilities not fitting that power level ), but the ability’s gotta go on the queue on my first key press ).

2. pets dodge with player. simple, effective solution to pet survivability that keeps the mechanic active & skill oriented.

• Removing pet damage as a whole and adding it to the ranger. (??)*

No, no, no!!!!

Why the heck don’t these ppl that want to play Ranger without a pet roll warrior? The whole point of the prof is that a Ranger is only half a player without the pet I’d like to see pet damage buffed it should certainly include some aoe abilities- if they take away pet damage they may as well dump the Ranger prof entirely.

Ravina Gray.4719:

• Removing pet damage as a whole and adding it to the ranger. (??)*

No, no, no!!!!

Why the heck don’t these ppl that want to play Ranger without a pet roll warrior? The whole point of the prof is that a Ranger is only half a player without the pet I’d like to see pet damage buffed it should certainly include some aoe abilities- if they take away pet damage they may as well dump the Ranger prof entirely.

I think you’re missing the point. It isn’t the pet that we have issue with; it’s the fact that our damage is kittened by the pet as it stands. Our damage is balanced around our pet being an active member in combat and that is usually NOT the case, especially in WvW as pets in WvW are kitten near useless no matter what build you’re running.

I love the utility my pet brings to the table (if F2’s were instant it would be great) but because our pets deal such high damage (dogs dealing 1.5k per normal hit, and birds hitting 5k with crits) it means we have to do less. Now if you consider how often pets actually land hits due to pathing or bugged AI, all that damage potential is just completely lost because we have little to no control over it.

That being said, I also don’t want to have to micro manage my pet as well as manage my character. There needs to be something done to make the pets useful that doesn’t make us OP but doesn’t kitten us either. Taking damage from the pet and giving it to us directly makes it a little better (not ideal, I don’t think) as we aren’t losing the damage for something we have no control over. The pet can still bring utility such as KD’s, Bleeds, poisons, etc—all the while us not having significantly decreased damage output simply because it has to circle around the map to get to it’s target.

And about your Warrior comment, if things aren’t changed by the time my Ranger gets to 80, I will probably roll some form of ranged Warrior. :/

@Chesire :
Well said .. pretty much it sums up how i also feel about the current pet state.

On the side-note, i’d like to hear how you guys would think about changes like :
- Adding endurance to Ranger pets as well. ??

Your thoughts …

Pets are basically a projectile with 100% uptime.
Like any projectile they can be dodged with simple movement and the name of the game when landing them is altering the movement speed of a foe. I’m not saying things aren’t just a bit to the left of comfortable, but the basic idea seems intentional and rational.

Yeah, that means a pet will hit less often in PvP than does it PvE, but that’s true of all Projectiles.

@Vox Hollow :
Noone disagrees with the idea of pets not being consistent pvp damage source for various reasons (dodges, autowalk kite, death etc). The overall movement of the pet though affects all of its damage potential in all aspects of the game ending up feeling clunky, awkward and inconsistent. Therefore it requires addressing !

I’m arguing the damage isn’t meant to be consistent to begin with.
It’s not as though the developers were blind-sided by the notion that people in a movement based game would actually be moving. Somebody had to sit down one day and make the conscious decision to make pet run speed lesser than player run speed, that’s as much a part of the intended balance as the numbers your pet produces is.

Feel is feel, though, and I’m not about to try and change your mind about something subjective like that. If it feels awkward to you, it feels awkward, and you’ve got every right to voice your opinion. Lord knows, there’s things I’d like to smooth over, and I generally agree with Anet’s approach here.

Besides improving AI I think the Passive/Attack key should be a button key. Alot of times I have my pet on passive but when I get into battle, it’s a pain to have to move the mouse to click it and worst really, when you are downed, you can’t access that button at all because it disappears.

I appreciate what the OP and the others in this thread are trying to do, however in regards to this thread, this and many other suggesstions have already been suggessted and debated.

I know that Jon Sharp reads these forums if not everyday than a good portion of the time. they are working on ranger fixes, i am content on waiting to see what they do and after i see what they do and test extensively, i will again make suggesstions and report bugs.

I will make one point, i am VERY MUCH AGAINST removing damage from the pet and giving it to the ranger. this seems more of a band aid fix than anything. adjusting the cast time on pet abilities, adjusting the responsiveness of all pet abilities, and making the DPS pets a touch more survivable is what is needed. please allow my pet to jump off cliffs with me. let them stop when i stop and let them go when and how i go.

i prefer no matter how long it takes(within reason) to fix the problem. i dont want a reason to put my pet away and never bring him out. after all even if you give players the option to keep pet or leave pet out, without fixing the issues with the pet even die hard RPers will leave there pet at home when doing content outside of towns.

to a point i agree with Vox and pet damage should be avoidable, but it should not be completely negated. like a long bow arrow being able to be avoided just by pacing back and forth even while crippled, our pet seems to have the same problem at melee range not 1500 inches. i happen to agree with some others out there that the pet should be something players are AFRAID of. especially those who invest 30 points into BM tree.

And since i am adding stuff i really didnt mean to go into. i want to see a viable melee Power build on par with other professions. i want someone to be afraid of my sword or great sword and have to watch out for GS number 2 ( would love for it to be a knock down on par with my pets lol) heck you could even remove a;; damaging conditions from sword and great sword and make them all cripples and chills just increase the base damage on those attacks.

in short, make pets a viable threat, remove conditon damage from melee weapons make current conditions chill/cripple/knockdown(gs2), and increase damage on melee weapons(just a bit especially after fixing the pet)

Recalling a pet should start with a dodge (or two) for the pet at the very least.

My big question refers to WvW. How are pets going to be viable? In keep defense, in their current state, they stand on the walls doing nothing (lessening our damage); in keep sieges they have to stand beside you doing nothing as attacking the gate with them does very little if they don’t die to the AoE anyway. In team battles, pets fall victim to random AoE or zerg focus fire (since they are melee) and are a big attention sink if you want to micro manage them in the chaos to try and keep them alive, so much so that you end up focusing either too much on your pet to keep it alive and doing little of anything else OR you focus on helping teammates and taking out low hp enemies that your pet dies if it isn’t right on you.

The sad part is, with so much AoE the pet still ends up dying no matter how much you try to micro it while trying to still be effective. I personally feel that we are very lackluster in WvW right now, and mostly due to our pet not really providing any noticable benefit even though it’s our core mechanic.

“Grant pets damage reduction from AoE attacks in PvE (+/- PvP ??).”

This has already been mentioned in the thread. A change in that direction would help pets stay longer alive in WvW circumstances and not end up dying from random AoE.

Haya jii san.1978:

“Grant pets damage reduction from AoE attacks in PvE (+/- PvP ??).”

This has already been mentioned in the thread. A change in that direction would help pets stay longer alive in WvW circumstances and not end up dying from random AoE.

Even with AoE reduction, they are still largely useless due to pathing issues, unreliable skill usage and the fact that they do not add any benefits at all during sieges or defences.

- Path issues : check
- Unreliable skill usage : check
- Add benefits to group play : Uncheck

• There are some pets out there that bring group utility with certain active skills (F2). Passively, yes they are useless, but i also think they were designed to be ‘useless’ in that direction, unlike spirits, who tend to compliment more group play.

As for the stuff mentioned i have already (tried) summed up our pet issues and thus i don’t think our initial ‘Pet Overhaul’ thread requires further editing.

Feel free to bring forth ideas, thoughts and feedback in general, so we can make sure threads like this reach our Devs and hopefully have our beloved class evolved in something brighter !

The only issue with spirits providing group utility at the moment is that they are utterly useless utility skills after the nerf to them ages ago.

Hopefully however, since Jon pointed this out as an issue, they will be fixed to where they are actually viable to take instead of being total garbage. Honestly though, I almost wish these spirit utilities were tied into pets to give passive buffs instead. That way our pets are very helpful to both us and teammates and we’re not having to use a utility slot (or three) to be beneficial to the group. But of course that’s just me wanting my cake and eating it too, and I’m aware of how that is just being selfish.

At any rate, I wasn’t trying to bring any new ideas to the thread that weren’t already pointed out as I think it’s been done quite well already; I was just trying to get the people that are oblivious to how bad off we are in each aspect of the game, especially regarding pets, in defense of what has already been said.

Understood !

I do appreciate all your help & feedback here guys, so we could all help make a so needed change …

Cheers man

Ugh…I don’t like the pets at all for spvp. It just doesn’t make sense for the “guard” command to make your pet zerg rush into people. It would be better if the pet would just attack people within a ten foot radius of you. Sometimes I wish you could just play without a pet for a % increase in damage and toughness. There’s just too many critters, clones, demons, and kitten floating around sometimes.

Haya jii san.1978:

Pet overhaul – Suggestions :
- Improving Pets’ AI :

1. Dodging incoming nukes and / or dodging when Ranger dodges.

- Pet stat progression scaling directly from Ranger. (e.g. x % of ranger’s precision) and Beast mastery trait investment increasing the % effectiveness. (??)

- Removing pet damage as a whole and adding it to the ranger. (??)

Pets need to dodge more than just when the ranger dodges. I shouldn’t have to waste my dodge to save my pet. My dodge should be for when I need to dodge, like every other class.

The % effectiveness would be nice, but I would not want the pets stats to be based on mine. I prefer to use a glass canon build, and appreciate my bear tanking for me. If his stats were based on mine this wouldn’t work.

Removing pet damage and adding it to the ranger would definitely be more reliable, but I would prefer more of an option to choose who does the damage, me or my pet.

I wouldn’t mind it if they made it so that the damage ratio could vary between say ranger w/ 90% damage and pet as support to ranger w/ support and pet as 90% damage.

Possibly greatly improving the improve the pet’s survivability, in exchange for a base damage reduction and then making beast mastery much more effective at increasing the pet’s damage would seem like a fair trade off.

They could use traits do to this, maybe the adept, master, and grandmaster traits could have this damage ratio change tacked onto them.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Pets are basically a projectile with 100% uptime.
Like any projectile they can be dodged with simple movement and the name of the game when landing them is altering the movement speed of a foe. I’m not saying things aren’t just a bit to the left of comfortable, but the basic idea seems intentional and rational.

Yeah, that means a pet will hit less often in PvP than does it PvE, but that’s true of all Projectiles.

pet attack is slow so their dmg will be ok even if they are immortal
and no it is not 100% uptime because pets are dead constanly which means no dmg
also noone says that if u dodge the pet should still hit
pets need atleast 5% more speed than players because they only run after someone doing nothing

I’ll grant you, seeing your pet whiff more often than not can be depressing to witness.

But, the nature of ranged attacks and hit/misses in this game are just so different from other MMOs, it’s only rational that the mechanics that involve them have to be different as well. Direct-hit ranged attacks are par-for-the-course in other games, but here it’s a fairly rare commodity.

@Panther Chameleon : Would we really like the “Guard” command to change ?
As it is now, “Guard” alarms the pet to attack, as soon as something attacks the Ranger.
Would we like to change it, suggesting it to change in a way it guards the area around the Ranger ? Would it attack both aggressive and non-aggressive mobs ?

Discuss …

@Haya: Well, for Spvp I believe the commands need to change. Right now we have 1. Attack everything and run into AOE no mans land (Guard) and 2. Sit there and look pretty (Avoid combat). How about guard means the pet stays next to you like “avoid combat” but attacks your targeted foe as a priority. This would be nice for S/D Rangers…I know there aren’t a lot in spvp, but I’ve found the evade mechanism adds a lot of survivability and you can kite the kitten out of backstab thieves while your pet eats them. Keep or remove “avoid combat”, but add another choice, “Attack” which would be like “Guard” is now.

The whole pet UI seems too simple to me. Pets should have their own dodge meters and dodge the same way PvE mobs tend to do (even if it’s wasted on nothing, it will sometimes avoid something which is better than what it does now). Add to that, we only control the auto attack and special skill of the pet while more often than not their fourth listed skill is more useful.

For example, let’s take my wolf: His special skill is a Fear but his fourth listed skill is a KD on a much lower cool down. Imagine how much better we could be if we could control when that KD happens AND how much it would work towards just swapping pets for the QZ proc. The felines, if I’m not mistaken, usually have a bleed attack as their fourth which would be great for condi-rangers to stack bleeds.

Why can’t we have these abilities on keybinds? That’s an improvement I want to see honestly, along with the responsiveness improved and the long kitten animations done away with. We need more control if we’re going to have to micro-manage them.

Even with that, I still don’t see us being forced to take anything but ranged pets into WvW; seeing as how I haven’t experimented much with them (as my pets are usually on inactive mode or dead) much, I’m not even sure how viable that is honestly. This is where I sincerely want an option to play without a pet for an increased passive buff to compensate. Sadly, though, I don’t see Anet giving us an option to play without a pet.

2 improvements I’d say are important to help with pets after many hours of playing (only) the Ranger class:

1. I am reaaaally tired of having to spam F3 after watching my pet run off towards mobs I did not ask it to attack nor are attacking me. This is especially frustrating in dungeons when my team is intentionally trying to skip this boss or that one. Pathing issues about as well, especially in dungeons.

2. When I dodge, my pet has no brains and just dies. If the animal has the “sense” to follow me or obey commands, it should have the ability to dodge when I dodge or do something similar.

These two shortcomings (bugs?) take away from my enjoyment from this otherwise really fun class.

i think we should have control of our in the downed state. i hate seeing my pet stand doing nothing because i didnt get the chance to switch to another pet right before i went to downed. your downed and fighting to get back up and having a pet be worthless in that aspect just hurts.yes if we are waypoint place pets should stop attacking all together

ricky markham.8173:

i think we should have control of our in the downed state. i hate seeing my pet stand doing nothing because i didnt get the chance to switch to another pet right before i went to downed. your downed and fighting to get back up and having a pet be worthless in that aspect just hurts.yes if we are waypoint place pets should stop attacking all together

You can still control your pet in downed state, you just don’t see the pet UI.

The 3 skill is buggy though and doesn’t always work.

I just had to toss this in, but I agree on such much if there was a build to play with out a pet. I loved the fact in guild wars 1 that you could do such a build and I loved it. I do enjoy the fact I am more of a ranged class and I don’t have to put so many points into setting up pet to be strong enough to survive like the signets that help him I would rather have a few other skills.

@Panther Chameleon : About the new “Attack” you are suggesting i have some thoughts on that I’d like you to hear before we make it official; There are occasions where Rangers commands Pet to attack X target while he engages Y target. While that would work with current “Attack” implementation, with the one you’re suggesting that would not be complicated.

Thoughts ?
Discuss …

@ricky markham : Bud, so what we would basically be asking is to regain control of our pet bar, when downed as well ??

Discuss …

Haya jii san.1978:

@Panther Chameleon : About the new “Attack” you are suggesting i have some thoughts on that I’d like you to hear before we make it official; There are occasions where Rangers commands Pet to attack X target while he engages Y target. While that would work with current “Attack” implementation, with the one you’re suggesting that would not be complicated.

Thoughts ?
Discuss …

That was my question too, but for some reason it seems to have gotten deleted or edited. Odd.

Haya jii san.1978:

@ricky markham : Bud, so what we would basically be asking is to regain control of our pet bar, when downed as well ??

Discuss …

We still have control over our pet bar when downed, as I stated. Fairly easy to test in game as well—just go into the game, get downed, press keybinds for pet attack, pet swap, F2 skill, etc.

Which is what I stated just a few posts ago.

@Chesire : I did test it and the bar just doesn’t show up .. You still have control over the pet but without the pet bar. We’d agree on that ?

Fellow Ranger souls out there … I would ask you to bring more feedback on the Pet Overhaul, since our update is nearly on our doorstep ! As you can see the state of the thread and what we have achieved so far, would you think there might be anything missing ??

Ideas, thoughts & considerations are more than welcome !

Cheers

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Pets-improvements

I think the pet weapon bar together with better responsiveness and more consistent hits on moving targets would solves pretty much all current issues with pets.

I’m fine with seriously nerfed pet damage, provided we get some form of utility out of them.

Give almost ALL the damage back to the Ranger, and then balance pets around various buffs/debuffs/combat roles.

I.E., bear should have the aggro generation to tank effectively, cats should have knockdown leaps and Vulnerability generation, dogs should have knockdown trips, cripples, et cetera…

The difference with our current setup is that none of what I just mentioned would require them to do damage. Put all of those abilities on their auto-attacks with a lower cooldown, and have F2 become a “buff/utility” for EVERY type of pet much like we already have in Brown Bear.

Example: For bird, all it takes is reassigning Swiftness to F2, and putting their thematic strike into auto-attack.

If pets were about utility and debuff, it seems to me that a lot of the “aim bot” headaches and balancing would go right away.

Might even open up a lot of options for pets, as you wouldn’t NEED dangerous, big animals to be a buff/debuff pet. A highly virulent toad who kicks out a Daze poison cloud, anyone?

All Hail Hypnotoad!

In response to the Pet Bar mechanic, i would expect it to be working similar to an Engineer’s kit, changing our main skills.

Would we, Rangers, welcome such a change ? Complicated or … ?

Discuss …

Another subject that seems to be bothering quite a lot of Rangers out there seems to be pet categorization or pet combat roles. As it is today, we don’t have pets with unique roles to be filled. Ranger combat roles are not directly complimented by certain pet playstyles (tank, dps or balanced), resulting in jack of all trades, uncharacteristic [Ranger – Pet] combinations.

Would we like to see Pets under this aspect ?

Discuss …

I THINK the best idea is

- Removing pet damage as a whole and adding it to the ranger. (??)

I don’t see how most suggestions would help, unless the pet takes the same damage ratio as the player, since they do NOT have any form of damage reduction, they are tanking and attacking like any normal player would be doing, i see it as a flaw that they die in 1 hit, considering the fact that they contribute to the ranger’s total damage pool.

While we have to multi-task, a warrior just needs to press 1,2,3 with his sword to get 40k damage.