Guild Wars 2

I did a thorough test as to why many times my pet doesn’t use F2 immediately after I command, and here’s what I found out, and I was shocked by how broken pet AI is, it’s probably more broken than it used to be.

Ok, currently most pet has an AI like this, REGARDLESS of what type of F2 they’re using.
If there’s no target or no enemy nearby, the AI is fine, pet will use F2 immediate after I press it. However here comes the real problem. When there’s a foe nearby, when you press F2, what pet will do is to CHARGE to enemy REGARDLESS OF WHAT TYPE OF SKILLS THEY HAVE, and ONLY USE F2 WHEN THE PET’S SKILL RADIUS IS WITHIN THE ENEMY. EVEN DISELCTING TARGET DOESN’T WORK, THE PET WILL CHARGE TO THE NEAREST ENEMY HE CAN SEE AND ONLY USE F2 WHEN HE’S NEAR THAT ENEMY. BOTH COMBAT MODE AND AVOID COMBAT MODE CAN’T FIX THIS PROBLEM.

This broken AI applied to BEAR, WOLF, DOGS AND JUNGLE STALKER TOO. When I try to use my bear to cleanse, what my bear will do is he’ll try to get close to the enemy before he uses his cleanse, WTH? It suppose to be a self support skill, but using this aggressive AI? Does my pet try to cure the foe’s condition not mine!?
To make the matter worse, when I try to fight a thief and start using my wolf’s F2 when the thief enters stealth, what pet does is he’ll rush to the nearest none stealth target and try to use F2 on that random target, so thief can just easily approach me and land a backstab. Many times Ik thief is coming, and switch to wolf and press F2, my pet will just rush forward to thief’s previous stealth location and try to F2 there. This type of AI clearly affects my performance and greatly hinders ranger.

Seriously Anet, WE CAN CONTROL THE PET TO THE LOCATION WE WANT THEM TO USE THE SKILL. WE DON’T NEED YOU TO ADD THAT EXTRA AI THAT DECIDE WHEN PET IS GOING TO USE F2 FOR US! PLEASE JUST REMOVE THAT AI AND LET US JUST USE F2 EXACTLY WHEN WE WANT TO!

Mate it’s been 3 years since gw2 is out. They still haven’t fixed pets becouse unfortunatly they aren’ t fine programmers.
We have two choices : quitting the game as i did ( i m more disappointed than you as ranger) or accepting the epic disadvantages ranger class has to deal with compared to other classes.
Gw2 devs don’ t love rangers and we know that since day 1.
Still waiting for a ^^ point of interest episode^^ in which the devs actually play the ranger class….but they do love warrior a lot…so i doubt they will ever play ranger

Here is their stance on it unless they come out and change it this is what we are stuck with:
’Pets that delay F2 use isn’t some wait script we put into their skills it has to do with core AI behavior shared by all pets and creatures and how they decide tasks. Rewriting that has the risks of breaking millions of unknown things so we have up until now band aided the solution. It is something that needs addressing but won’t be addressed until we can kitten how and when we will test it. ’

So outside of the standard PR bull of ‘we know and want to fix it, but we can’t (read won’t) not sure why they even felt the need to release a profession that wasn’t ready yet other the the fear that the lack of archetype at launch would hurt sells/retention.

It really does come down to simply poor programming, programming that most developers would have looked at in the making and thought, “Guys, this may not be the best idea…”. This is especially true for this game which keeps trying to keep up the title of an esport. Rng and haphazard ai are never suited for such a competitive game. Rangers will always have to work against the ai because of this.

Can my drake’s f2 follow the player throughout the channel?
Will my Raven keep attacking a low health target and not randomly stop to cast swiftness?
Can I tell my pet to stay in one place so I can hide behind it to avoid burst without a crappy shout.
Will I ever be able to use my pets abilities when I want them without blowing a pet switch that I will need later on for Signet of Renewal or traits that actively kills my pet for no apparent reason?

All this plus many more and the answer to all of them is NO. In my opinion Ranger is in a pretty good place weapon, ability, and trait wise overall (Shouts need to be less situational and Spirits need to not die after a sneeze in their direction) but it will never be a truly consistently competitive profession with the current pet system.