Guild Wars 2

Following another post in another thread, i want to open up a in-depth discussion of how we would ideally have our pets work.

Pets are here to stay, they will not be removed or become an option. This is ArenaNet’s official standing at this point. This was made clear during and after the CDI thread. Asking for removal and or ability to disable them is a waste of time, both mine and yours

At this point, we have four functions tied to pet, in short summary;
F1 – Attack
F2 – Special Ability
F3 – Return to me
F4 – Change pet

As i see it, we have a few options ahead of us.

#Option A; Change button functionality to encompass more control.
This option has been discussed alot, and it seems to be the most universally agreed “solution” to the pet function. This option also encompasses the idea of adding shout effects to pet function buttons.

#Option B; Change pet function to that of a utility and not a damage dealer
This option has also been up for discussion and seems to be the second most liked solution.

#Option C; Change pet function to allow two pets at one time.
I myself brought this one up some while back, and several others have also brought this one up, but there has been little discussion on it. Perhaps this could be the compromised between A and B.

There is other options, such as removal of pet or making it optional, both of which is in stark contrast to ArenaNet’s own design philosophy.

I will now do an explanation of Option C as it has been the least discussed option.
Option C would allow for two active pets, the controls would have to be adjusted. I have seen several variations of this, all from two pets attacking with two separate F2 to using both pets as utilities.
Perhaps the best solution would be to arrange pets in two categories. Aggressive pets and Passive Pets.
Aggressive pets would take one slot, be a damage dealer as today, but not have an F2 function tied to it. It would however require a more elaborate AI and a broader skill-set in order to provide functions needed. Such as applying its own CC, its own bursts and its own sustain (evasion, invuln, block). The Passive pet would be staying close to our side and it’s functions would be a mix of the aspect idea discussed during the CDI, granting a passive bonus dependent on pet type + 2x active functions. This would be defensive capabilities such as AOE heal, AOE Blind, AOE condi Cleanse, AOE boons, or functions like Protect me. These pets would not attack, but depending on “master HP” meaning ranger HP, they would perform CC skills such as short duration fear, daze, knockback etc.

Both pets would be kill-able, however both pets would have different HP and a self heal independent of our own healing. Pets would only be able to get boons from Fortifying bond, this would be to prevent our pets from “stealing” allied boons.

I could go on how i would envision option C all day long, however i think we, as a community, must find a solution that compromises well enough for it to be implemented.

Please keep un-productive comments such as “just remove pets and give me 30% more damage lol” and the likes away from this thread. You can create your own thread for such purposes.

dat wall of text…here is mine

I prefer Option A
Under that falls the idea from Ltomato with Evasion on F3 on 10s CD
and my idea that we could Need a new Little Icon where we can see the skill Rotation of the pet. The Skill Icons we can see in the Pet Menu could have finally a use.
With that Change the Survivability of our pet rises, our Teamwork because we can time our attacks with the Pet Skill UI and the curve of learning how to fight with a pet rises faster then before.
For now i cant say if a player Needs more skill for ranger or less. I mean with F3 we Need to watch our pet and act if it gets to Close to heavy AoE or something like that, but with an Evasion we gain more room for mistakes then we had before.

i am no fan of the idea to have two pets at once. For an elite yes, would be funny, but i think that could bring a bigger Problem to WvW ranger then now.
In zerg we have the ability to swap the pet before it get killed, up to 3 times is that possible in average before we gain the 60s CD. With BOTH pets in zerg would just create the Problem that we can loose both pets at once. And this will happen for sure and i dont know if that could help to improve the ranger.

Nevertheless the idea is creative and it creates an idea for me.
What about to bring your “Passive Pet” idea to your only pet if we bring it on passive mode?
We click on passive and the “Aggressive skill set” changes to “Passive skill set”.
The F2 ability changes and we can use the defensiv capabilities. Here my idea with the pet skill Rotation window could help, without skill Rotation, it can be changes to the second defense skill.
But that Need changes for a lot of pets, for example fern hound, is the AoE Heal the active or passive? when it stays active and it gets a second passive, is that okay? bunker pets? Or it becomes the passive skill and it gains a new aggressive skill.
Both F2 could share the same CD or just the same activation, not all aggressive and passive F2´s can be equal to share the same CD.
What do u think, Prysin?

I think the easiest thing to implement for the devs would be either:

1. When our pets have been killed and are on cooldown, we get a buff of our 30% damage back until the pet is off cooldown. That way we don’t lose that amount when they get AOEd to death; it’s ridiculous that our class mechanic can hamper the WHOLE class like that. I am not saying remove the pet, the only way the ranger would get this buff is by having both pets dead and on cooldown. I love my Mr. Fluffy and I don’t want to see him removed.

2. Or they do what WoW did and implement some sort of AOE damage mitigation for the pet. Our pets are AI and can’t move away from the deadly circles on their own and usually the ranger is too busy trying to save their own skin from being bombarded to death. Let them take less damage from AOE, that shouldn’t be that hard to do.

I am not a fan of turning our pets into walking buff bots…it seems like a waste of a class mechanic.

Personally, I’d like to see our pets/class mechanic work more like how the Necro’s Minions work (though not like they work now of course, they really need to work on the responsiveness of those guys). F1 would be the basic attack, any pet the ranger has out will attack that target. I’d like my f2-4 to summon a pet and it stays until it dies. Once summoned, it lets me have a f based attack like the minions have. If it dies, it goes on a cooldown but at least we’d have 2 animal summons so we wouldn’t be so crippled when one dies. The attack damage the pets do is based off how many you have out…if you have all 3 of the f2-4 out, the damage each one does is spread over the 3 AIs. If you have 1 out, the damage is lumped into that one animal. This way you can be tactical of what pet you want to have at what point in the battle and if the boss AOE slaughters one of them, you have 2 as backup. Also this would allow them to give us an elite pet as well. But that’s just me…might be a stupid idea, I dunno /shrugs

1. Allow us to see conditions and boons that are currently active on our pets above our F- commands.

2. Pet toughness and vitality should scale depending on how many enemies are in the vicinity.

3. If you are not attacked, but your pet is, it should not put you in combat. Eg. If I am passing a Harpy for example, and it attacks my pet, I should not be in combat and my pet should not respond with attacking the enemy unless I command it to, or I begin attacking that enemy.

rabidsmiles.5926:

I think the easiest thing to implement for the devs would be either:

1. When our pets have been killed and are on cooldown, we get a buff of our 30% damage back until the pet is off cooldown. That way we don’t lose that amount when they get AOEd to death; it’s ridiculous that our class mechanic can hamper the WHOLE class like that. I am not saying remove the pet, the only way the ranger would get this buff is by having both pets dead and on cooldown. I love my Mr. Fluffy and I don’t want to see him removed.

2. Or they do what WoW did and implement some sort of AOE damage mitigation for the pet. Our pets are AI and can’t move away from the deadly circles on their own and usually the ranger is too busy trying to save their own skin from being bombarded to death. Let them take less damage from AOE, that shouldn’t be that hard to do.

I am not a fan of turning our pets into walking buff bots…it seems like a waste of a class mechanic.

Personally, I’d like to see our pets/class mechanic work more like how the Necro’s Minions work (though not like they work now of course, they really need to work on the responsiveness of those guys). F1 would be the basic attack, any pet the ranger has out will attack that target. I’d like my f2-4 to summon a pet and it stays until it dies. Once summoned, it lets me have a f based attack like the minions have. If it dies, it goes on a cooldown but at least we’d have 2 animal summons so we wouldn’t be so crippled when one dies. The attack damage the pets do is based off how many you have out…if you have all 3 of the f2-4 out, the damage each one does is spread over the 3 AIs. If you have 1 out, the damage is lumped into that one animal. This way you can be tactical of what pet you want to have at what point in the battle and if the boss AOE slaughters one of them, you have 2 as backup. Also this would allow them to give us an elite pet as well. But that’s just me…might be a stupid idea, I dunno /shrugs

They could make pets avoid AOE and other moves. If we gave pets a “dodge/evade” function, then gave all attacks (this would have to be done over time as it is a HUGE task) a rating of “danger”

Attacks are rated like this;
High Danger – 1 shot world boss attacks, Massive AOE’s, Killshot, Eviscerate, Maul, Lich Form AA, Ranger UW Spear 1. Ranger UW Harpoon 4, Conjure Lightning Hammer AA.

Medium Danger – World boss “heavy hit”, Open World PvE burst attacks, most player attacks.

Low Danger – Attacks that generally deal less then 5-600 damage to target with >2000 armor.

Pet responds in this fashion;
If 66-100% HP – Evade High Risk attacks
If 33-66% HP – Evade High and Medium Risk attacks
If less then 33% HP – Evade all attacks

Pet is given, say 4 evades with normal player endurance regeneration (just lower cost). Can be affected by vigor, can be affected by adept minor in WS.

Naturally, such a system would take a MASSIVE amount of time to implement. Ideally they would start with PvE bosses, then move down to PvE monsters, then move onto profession burst skills, then down to normal skills. If pets would be given its own heal (for the sake of balance, Troll unguent version that removes 2x conditions and heals for 1000 hp every second for 15 seconds) that is activated once pet is below 66% HP. Cooldown would be something like 20-30 seconds. Then pet sustain would be less of an issue and even todays long death timer would be fairly OK.

This would give us the best possible sustain

Option A, with evade of sorts on F3, that would help us/pets a lot (enough).

Option A.

For starters, there’s no reason the attack and return function can’t be on the same button. Second, why do we always work under the premise that they can’t add more buttons to control a pet? As to shouts being built into the pets, that would honestly be pretty cool. Imagine pets had an assignable skill slot and we could choose 1 shout to put there. I still feel the best approach to pet evades is to just give them a ‘take no damage from next attack’ buff every time the Ranger dodges or evades with some iCD to balance it.

But there are tons of other things pets could use that I see no problem with giving Rangers more pet keys for.

Something like:

F1: Attack and Return button.
F2: Special
F3: Secondary Special
F4: Shout skill.
F5: Move to
F6: Resurrect Pet.
F7: Pet swap.

WoW Hunters could manage it, I’m confident GW2 players could cope even if they’re trying to push for a LAS approach to classes. Granted in WoW I macro’d like all of that functionality into a single button.

Atherakhia.4086:

Option A.

For starters, there’s no reason the attack and return function can’t be on the same button. Second, why do we always work under the premise that they can’t add more buttons to control a pet? As to shouts being built into the pets, that would honestly be pretty cool. Imagine pets had an assignable skill slot and we could choose 1 shout to put there. I still feel the best approach to pet evades is to just give them a ‘take no damage from next attack’ buff every time the Ranger dodges or evades with some iCD to balance it.

But there are tons of other things pets could use that I see no problem with giving Rangers more pet keys for.

Something like:

F1: Attack and Return button.
F2: Special
F3: Secondary Special
F4: Shout skill.
F5: Move to
F6: Resurrect Pet.
F7: Pet swap.

WoW Hunters could manage it, I’m confident GW2 players could cope even if they’re trying to push for a LAS approach to classes. Granted in WoW I macro’d like all of that functionality into a single button.

I think we can end the whole “number of buttons” discussion with this; IF the add more buttons for one class, the other classes will demand more. Like mesmer wanting more clone control, or ele wanting more attunements, or guardian wanting spirit weapons as F# functions rather then utilities. Or necro wanting minions on F# buttons rather then as utilities.

If they grant one class more buttons, not only does it get harder to learn (memorizing buttons, learning functions, executing rotations etc.) but it would also allow for a snowball effect to appear in terms of “if they got X, i want X too”. So, I’d rather see improvement to the pet AI or reworking it slightly, then changing how the entire class plays.

Elementalists have more buttons… even with these additions. As for complexity, if a Hunter in WoW can manage 3x the buttons a Ranger has in GW2 I’m confident players will cope. Not to mention only one of the buttons truly add any real complexity to the class. The others are utility oriented and have limited use inside combat.

Atherakhia.4086:

Elementalists have more buttons… even with these additions. As for complexity, if a Hunter in WoW can manage 3x the buttons a Ranger has in GW2 I’m confident players will cope. Not to mention only one of the buttons truly add any real complexity to the class. The others are utility oriented and have limited use inside combat.

they got 4
Fire, Water, Air, Earth

Mesmers; 4 (Shatter, confusion, daze, distortion)
Guardian; 3 (Virtue of Justice, Resolve and Courage)
Necromancer; 1 (DS)
Warrior; 1 (burst)
Engineer; 4 (Kit 1,2,3,4)
Thief; 1 (steal)
Ranger; 4 (attack, F2, return, Swap)

How about adding a defensive skill (invulnerabilty, block, evade, aoe knockback, aoe pull, etc.) together with a “training mechanic.” The idea would be to “train” your pet to activate its defensive skill and return to you (or not) when its heath reaches a certain level or when taking damage above a certain rate.

I would also like to see cool down information for the pets non-F2 attacks.

I would prefer turning pets into defensive/offensive pets with offensive attacking and such, and defensive giving passive boosts to the character (maybe that 30% damage we’ve been lacking ;P) and having 2 special skills (e.g. for wolf, it would be the current F2 fear, along with the wolves opening knockdown attack)

If we go with having both pets out at once, it wouldn’t require much hotkey/ui reworking (attack/return for offensive pets (2 buttons) and utility 1 and utility 2 for defensive pets (2 buttons) would give us 4 buttons, as it is now) however, that could get a bit op. (I can already chain-stun with wolf f2 → lb #4 → wolf leap → gs #5 → drakehound leap → drakehound f2 pretty effectively. having all 4 pet skills on command would just make it even easier)

that might take a lot of effort on anets part though.

at the very least, I’d like to be able to “queue attacks”. right now, my wolf will immediately use it’s knockdown leap, then auto-attack a few times, then do it’s other non-knockdown leap. i’d like to be able to change it so, say, it auto-attacks 3 times, leaps, and if it’s health gets below 50%, does it’s knockdown.

Prysin.8542:

Atherakhia.4086:

Elementalists have more buttons… even with these additions. As for complexity, if a Hunter in WoW can manage 3x the buttons a Ranger has in GW2 I’m confident players will cope. Not to mention only one of the buttons truly add any real complexity to the class. The others are utility oriented and have limited use inside combat.

they got 4
Fire, Water, Air, Earth

Mesmers; 4 (Shatter, confusion, daze, distortion)
Guardian; 3 (Virtue of Justice, Resolve and Courage)
Necromancer; 1 (DS)
Warrior; 1 (burst)
Engineer; 4 (Kit 1,2,3,4)
Thief; 1 (steal)
Ranger; 4 (attack, F2, return, Swap)

They have 25. Technically 26 I suppose.

I’m sure a Ranger player can manage 1 or 2 additional ones thrown in. Complexity I’m not too concerned with. Balance would be my only concern with giving Rangers access to real control over 2 pet abilities. Plus the question of how to manage shouts etc.

Atherakhia.4086:

Prysin.8542:

Atherakhia.4086:

Elementalists have more buttons… even with these additions. As for complexity, if a Hunter in WoW can manage 3x the buttons a Ranger has in GW2 I’m confident players will cope. Not to mention only one of the buttons truly add any real complexity to the class. The others are utility oriented and have limited use inside combat.

they got 4
Fire, Water, Air, Earth

Mesmers; 4 (Shatter, confusion, daze, distortion)
Guardian; 3 (Virtue of Justice, Resolve and Courage)
Necromancer; 1 (DS)
Warrior; 1 (burst)
Engineer; 4 (Kit 1,2,3,4)
Thief; 1 (steal)
Ranger; 4 (attack, F2, return, Swap)

They have 25. Technically 26 I suppose.

I’m sure a Ranger player can manage 1 or 2 additional ones thrown in. Complexity I’m not too concerned with. Balance would be my only concern with giving Rangers access to real control over 2 pet abilities. Plus the question of how to manage shouts etc.

That is skills, they do NOT have 25 profession mechanic buttons. Read before posting.
An elementalist is no more complex then any other profession, you get 4 weapon sets, with 5 skills on each and you can select the specific set you want to use. It is actually very simple. But there is still ONLY FOUR “F” BUTTONS USED and that is what’s being discussed here.

You need to settle down Prysin. In my post I never differentiated between F abilities or generic skills. I’d also argue no other class is really handicapped to the same degree Rangers are and I can’t imagine anyone would complain when we want to remove automated functions and put them in the hand of the players. Thieves aren’t asking for 3 more ‘F’ keys and they certainly won’t ask for a 4th if Rangers got one.

The simple fact is that the class should have as many skills as it needs to get the job done. But hey, if you want to get all emotional about it I’ll limit it to 4 keys..

#1: Attack/Recall function. Hold key to tell pet to move to target location. If pet dead, res.
#2: Use skill 1. If pet dead, res.
#3: Use skill 2. If pet dead, res.
#4: Swap. Remove your ability to swap a pet in favor of teaching your pet a shout command.

Oh yea… ‘does a little dance’… hit me… ‘does a little twirl’…

The whole pet death mechanic is clunky on a ranger. AOE spam is everywhere and when they die, it’s so crippling to the profession. I like the idea of an active pet res or just lowering the cooldown with the pet swapping. It’s far too long for what the pet actually provides. Of course discussing all of this seems pretty pointless. We have to wait to see if they were actually serious about that CDI or if it was just to placate the community into shutting up for a while /sigh

Something I posted on the CDI was that I’d like to see pets have their auto-attack removed completely and rangers given their 30% damage back.

What would this mean? Well, if the pet has no auto attack it would essentially mean we’d have no need for the “attack”, “recall” and “toggle aggressive/passive mode” because pets wouldnt do anything on their own. Instead, all the F buttons could be replaced with special moves for your pet, so every pet would have 4 completely controlable abilities which can range from burst skills (causing the pet to do one big attack like a phantasm), CC skills, utilties, anything. ANet wouldnt need to re-invent the wheel for this.. these skills would simply be versions of the skills they already have.. so canies would all have a leaping knockdown on one button, a leaping cripple on another, birds would all have an AoE swiftness, moas would have an AoE heal, etc, thought of cause some changes would need to be made to some pets.

Essentially this turns pets into a cross between the Engineers Toolkit and Mesmer Phantasm. Rangers get back all their damage, which would make pet haters happy. Pet lovers would have MUCH more control over their pet to be able to use it to burst, CC, support, utilies, whatever they wanted, rather than now where really your pet is an AA bot with very little control.

A side effect of this is also that Shout utilities become more or less useless, which enables Anet to completely overhaul them (because by god do they need it) and bring them more in line with the usefulness of Guardian and Warrior shouts (which is not to say they need to be mass AoE boon skills, it just means they can have a group support/utility focus rather than a pet focus).

Everyone wins! :p

snow.8097:

dat wall of text…here is mine

It’s really not though… this forum just squeezes everything the hell together in a tiny little column.

….I’d first like to see that one idea requoted from the CDI, what the Dev was offering instead of just disabling the pet. I can’t remember for sure but it was either something about making it work like a “Form” or a Spirit or something.

Currently I don’t have the patience to wait on them so I got around the mess sort of by always having Guard on my bar (mainly b/c I’m GM’d for NatureMagic) instead of running Sig of Hunt like every other unimaginative ranger I see in PvE does. It probably doesn’t sound like much, but in Dungeons it makes a huge difference just being able to tell the darn thing to go take a time out in the corner while you do stuff like Airblast the rockets back in C.M. or stack with everyone else in all the right places.

.

Ultimately though, I know what’s going to happen. Anet’s gonna cave to the Legolas wannabes and just make the pet a straight up trade-off for ranged damage with some other weird mechanic and then we’ll be right back to DAOC 1.0 in WvW where everyone hated Archers with a passion. The n00bs will blot out the sun even though it still won’t stack might & put out the same DPS as Sword/Greatsword. Glad I’m done doing Dungeons so I won’t have to see them in there again when that day comes.

rabidsmiles.5926:

Of course discussing all of this seems pretty pointless. We have to wait to see if they were actually serious about that CDI or if it was just to placate the community into shutting up for a while /sigh

In GuildWars, our “CDI” or whatever you wanted to call it took place on the Wiki and to a lesser degree in Guru. It was ATLEAST 6 months to 8 months before any of them went live and they really weren’t all new mechanics. But I do however remember and could probably even find the exact conversation where we complained about Pets in Hardmore on there and Linsey did something about them finally. Well I shouldn’t say “we”, I think Auron was the tipping point on that whole deal

It took Eles like a year and a half to get buffed for Hardmore, lol

I’m generally fine with pets F-keys right now. The only time I have problems with pets are in WvW where they get squished easily or in fights like Liadri where they can’t dodge out of the circles.

So yes, definitely +1 to some sort of dodge/defensive mechanic for the pet AI. It would also be nice if pets were able to move and attack at the same time a little better.

I’d like to also mention that we’ve had a lot of gear stat increases (Ascended armor, weapon, infusions). Our class mechanic does not benefit from these gear stat increases. I don’t know the magnitude of this issue nor how it should be resolved. Maybe bump all pet primary stats by +50?

kiwituatara.6053:

I’m generally fine with pets F-keys right now. The only time I have problems with pets are in WvW where they get squished easily or in fights like Liadri where they can’t dodge out of the circles.

So yes, definitely +1 to some sort of dodge/defensive mechanic for the pet AI. It would also be nice if pets were able to move and attack at the same time a little better.

I’d like to also mention that we’ve had a lot of gear stat increases (Ascended armor, weapon, infusions). Our class mechanic does not benefit from these gear stat increases. I don’t know the magnitude of this issue nor how it should be resolved. Maybe bump all pet primary stats by +50?

The pets should actually scale with the new armor “max stats”. I got no sort of “reliable” information, but right after aprils patch, pets were dealing massive damage in PvP. Apparently they were scaling incorrectly. However at the same time, pets where hitting “normally” in all other modes. Although i have noticed a minute “increase” in damage on some pets, but we are talking 30-50 damage more, so that may be due to some random might stack finding its way to the pet.

Prysin.8542:

kiwituatara.6053:

I’m generally fine with pets F-keys right now. The only time I have problems with pets are in WvW where they get squished easily or in fights like Liadri where they can’t dodge out of the circles.

So yes, definitely +1 to some sort of dodge/defensive mechanic for the pet AI. It would also be nice if pets were able to move and attack at the same time a little better.

I’d like to also mention that we’ve had a lot of gear stat increases (Ascended armor, weapon, infusions). Our class mechanic does not benefit from these gear stat increases. I don’t know the magnitude of this issue nor how it should be resolved. Maybe bump all pet primary stats by +50?

The pets should actually scale with the new armor “max stats”. I got no sort of “reliable” information, but right after aprils patch, pets were dealing massive damage in PvP. Apparently they were scaling incorrectly. However at the same time, pets where hitting “normally” in all other modes. Although i have noticed a minute “increase” in damage on some pets, but we are talking 30-50 damage more, so that may be due to some random might stack finding its way to the pet.

Do you mean scale accordingly to the stats on your ascended armor? Or an incremental increase in primary stats for each ascended piece you have? Coz that could work too.

There is one point I dislike about pets. Whenever another class uses its unique mechanic, stuff happens instantly. Not only can other classes use their class mechanic instantly but also reliably. They have all full control over their skills. When a warrior uses his burst, the attack will happen. Furthermore, most classes aren’t on a disadvantage if they ignore their class mechanic. Warriors do even get a 15% damage boost if they do.
I have to exclude the mesmer from this, since he is also reliant on his class mechanic, yet his class mechanic is less flawed.

HHR LostProphet.4801

Whenever another class uses its unique mechanic, stuff happens instantly.

I was actually thinking about that tonight. I tried to force myself to play my warrior. Her big adrenaline attack has a huge tell (eviscerate) and does not have the blind of a raven for example. A ranger ability is not as weird as one might expect.

Fluffball.8307:

HHR LostProphet.4801

Whenever another class uses its unique mechanic, stuff happens instantly.

I was actually thinking about that tonight. I tried to force myself to play my warrior. Her big adrenaline attack has a huge tell (eviscerate) and does not have the blind of a raven for example. A ranger ability is not as weird as one might expect.

Eviscerate has a huge animation because it’s a huge attack. You might don’t get the damage instantly but the animation begins instantly. There are way more requirements the pet has to fulfill before the attack can start than other classes have to fulfill.

A list of some things that should be changed with pets:

Since Ranger’s can’t manually res pets I think the dead pet CD should be lowered to like 30s.

Ranger’s pet defenses should also scale like PVE champs/gain defiance when in the presence of more than 5 enemy players, for WvW zerging. Heck, Anet should just make a pet wxp traitline that implements this (Ranger isn’t the only one that can have a pet/summon/etc).

Pet return command should instantly swap your pet to you, with a short 5s CD.

Pet leash nerf should be reverted for WvW/PvE.

Ranger should give up less of his own DPS for the pets, which thanks to nerfs dont even do as much damage as once did.

Pet F2’s need rework, such as boar foraging (should display a telegraph on the pet and give you the bundle without needing to pick it up).

Pet F2’s that aoe buff shouldn’t automatically send your pet to a target. Im some cases for some reason the pet needs to get into range of the enemy to buff you?(Im not sure if this has been fixed)

The 5pt trait in BM should be scrapped, and replaced with “Dodging gives your pet Aegis, 5scd”. Most of the other BM traits need interesting reworks/buffs/fixes.

I don’t disagree with anything you said, although a raven attack is more hidden (because as you said it’s from out of “place”).

Eviscerate hits for a super, mega telegraphed 13k and raven hits for a relatively untelegraphed 6k with a blind.

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t disagree with anything you said, although a raven attack is more hidden (because as you said it’s from out of “place”).

Eviscerate hits for a super, mega telegraphed 13k and raven hits for a relatively untelegraphed 6k with a blind.

The telegraphy is messed anyways. Icy Roar from polar bears has 1.25 secs cast time for 3 secs chill. Even the Eviscerate animation is shorter.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Fluffball.8307:

HHR LostProphet.4801

Whenever another class uses its unique mechanic, stuff happens instantly.

I was actually thinking about that tonight. I tried to force myself to play my warrior. Her big adrenaline attack has a huge tell (eviscerate) and does not have the blind of a raven for example. A ranger ability is not as weird as one might expect.

Eviscerate has a huge animation because it’s a huge attack. You might don’t get the damage instantly but the animation begins instantly. There are way more requirements the pet has to fulfill before the attack can start than other classes have to fulfill.

ever tried mesmer clones? Their responsiveness is almost worse then pets are now…..

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t disagree with anything you said, although a raven attack is more hidden (because as you said it’s from out of “place”).

Eviscerate hits for a super, mega telegraphed 13k and raven hits for a relatively untelegraphed 6k with a blind.

The telegraphy is messed anyways. Icy Roar from polar bears has 1.25 secs cast time for 3 secs chill. Even the Eviscerate animation is shorter.

One is a single target, no cleave, burst. The other is a multi target AOE CC skill. Hmm, yeah, that actually seems balanced (except the long F2 CD)

Prysin.8542:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Fluffball.8307:

HHR LostProphet.4801

Whenever another class uses its unique mechanic, stuff happens instantly.

I was actually thinking about that tonight. I tried to force myself to play my warrior. Her big adrenaline attack has a huge tell (eviscerate) and does not have the blind of a raven for example. A ranger ability is not as weird as one might expect.

Eviscerate has a huge animation because it’s a huge attack. You might don’t get the damage instantly but the animation begins instantly. There are way more requirements the pet has to fulfill before the attack can start than other classes have to fulfill.

ever tried mesmer clones? Their responsiveness is almost worse then pets are now…..

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t disagree with anything you said, although a raven attack is more hidden (because as you said it’s from out of “place”).

Eviscerate hits for a super, mega telegraphed 13k and raven hits for a relatively untelegraphed 6k with a blind.

The telegraphy is messed anyways. Icy Roar from polar bears has 1.25 secs cast time for 3 secs chill. Even the Eviscerate animation is shorter.

One is a single target, no cleave, burst. The other is a multi target AOE CC skill. Hmm, yeah, that actually seems balanced (except the long F2 CD)

The clones spawn atleast at the enemy, so they don’t have to walk up to the enemy.
Anyways I’ve said in an earlier post that I exclude the mesmer from this, since he suffers from the same problems. But that doesn’t mean taht the problems the AI has are justified because multiple classes suffer from it.

Regarding the bear, the AoE will most likely not hit multiple targets since you wont fight multiple opponents most the time. And 3 secs chill wont kill you, 6k – 10k damage will probably kill you.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Prysin.8542:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Fluffball.8307:

HHR LostProphet.4801

Whenever another class uses its unique mechanic, stuff happens instantly.

I was actually thinking about that tonight. I tried to force myself to play my warrior. Her big adrenaline attack has a huge tell (eviscerate) and does not have the blind of a raven for example. A ranger ability is not as weird as one might expect.

Eviscerate has a huge animation because it’s a huge attack. You might don’t get the damage instantly but the animation begins instantly. There are way more requirements the pet has to fulfill before the attack can start than other classes have to fulfill.

ever tried mesmer clones? Their responsiveness is almost worse then pets are now…..

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t disagree with anything you said, although a raven attack is more hidden (because as you said it’s from out of “place”).

Eviscerate hits for a super, mega telegraphed 13k and raven hits for a relatively untelegraphed 6k with a blind.

The telegraphy is messed anyways. Icy Roar from polar bears has 1.25 secs cast time for 3 secs chill. Even the Eviscerate animation is shorter.

One is a single target, no cleave, burst. The other is a multi target AOE CC skill. Hmm, yeah, that actually seems balanced (except the long F2 CD)

The clones spawn atleast at the enemy, so they don’t have to walk up to the enemy.
Anyways I’ve said in an earlier post that I exclude the mesmer from this, since he suffers from the same problems. But that doesn’t mean taht the problems the AI has are justified because multiple classes suffer from it.

Regarding the bear, the AoE will most likely not hit multiple targets since you wont fight multiple opponents most the time. And 3 secs chill wont kill you, 6k – 10k damage will probably kill you.

And if you spec into beastmastery (just like a warrior actually have to spec for damage to get 13k from evis on a normal target with armor on) then the bird too can hit for 7-13k You gotta build for it, but it will hit hard, ridiculously hard.

However if we go by flat numbers, and assume zerker ranger, 0 points in BM vs zerker warrior, 0 points or traits to ehnahce burst. Then a Owl will hit for around 1.4k / second. The warrior, will deal between 8-13k in 7 seconds + the cast time for the skill (time it takes to build up adrenaline if using whirling axes and axe AA).

So if we assume pet hits 1.4k each second and doesnt faff about doing its stupid other moves, and the warrior hits the target for 13k. The bird will deal roughly 1450 damage LESS then the warrior burst in the same space. And that is AA alone. If the bird uses its burst, it will hit for 4-6k untraited. Putting it BEYOND the warrior DPS.

Now, this comparison is a bit skewered as pet DPS is our DPS. However a quick comparison of Sword AA vs Axe AA is needed here. I will save you from the number crunching, as it has been done before by others way smarter and more dedicated then me, but in short, we can remove roughly 40% of the pet AA and add it to our “sword AA damage” to bring us in line with Axe AA.

That means pet bird AA over 8.25 seconds = 11550 minus 40% = 4620 damage less. In short, pet AA + Ranger AA + pet burst is marginally weaker then warrior burst damage if we factor in no buffs.

HOWEVER, sword AA stacks might on pet by default, this increases the damage. This buff is granted pets without using traits or sigils or runes, and it is capable of maintaining 3.5 stacks of might on the pet for as long as the AA rotation is going. This adds 105 strength to the pet AA, which with very rough calculations will bump the attack damage by 50-80 damage. Adding that damage over 8.25 seconds and we get an average boost of 536 damage putting on almost in line with warrior AA + burst damage, missing only 4-600 damage on the total DPS dealt.

In short, rangers are not weak, but you must factor in the pet. Now pet responsiveness is a HUGE deal here and birds are not that great for DPS in general. A Cat would grant higher DPS thanks to vulnerability stacking, so depending on pet, your damage will be close to the same.
The difference between warrior burst and our bursts is that we can keep dealing damage during pet burst. Meaning technically you can land fully traited signet maul + pet burst. And we all know that maul can and have done crits beyond 30k. It is by no means weak. Adding that to pet burst, which i managed to get 12.4k out of a snow leopard on a glassy thief. We can safely assume that even if warrior mechanic burst is better at burst then our pets, our total burst damage capabilities far exceeds the of a warrior. Single target anyway.

Prysin.8542:

~snip~

Reading through your text sonds like rangers (power based) are crazy OP. Since this is hardly the case, I have my doubts.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Prysin.8542:

~snip~

Reading through your text sonds like rangers (power based) are crazy OP. Since this is hardly the case, I have my doubts.

our damage is actually higher then warriors, single target atleast, but our sustain will be lower. This can be offset by finding some middle ground build and super fine tuning builds, but bottom line, it’s easier to play and less effort involved the warrior.
FYI my warrior, level 80, i play Axe Shield + Sword Axe. I can vouch for that while being a super durable (relatively) DPS build, it comes down to two things entirely; Stances and blocking. Without that, you’d be mincemeat.

Now, there is another way to boost pets to a point where their damage is exponentially stronger then “normally”. If you go ingame and meet me in Heart of the mist, ill log my warrior and tell you how to set up your ranger (wont cost you a single silver). After that, all you need to do is AA and you see how high the DPS is.

No math that I’ve seen supports that statement. The math I’ve done also doesn’t support it, but I’m using someone else’s math for the pet and I didn’t verify their numbers.

Please provide the guru thread or your math you’re basing Ranger damage is higher than Warrior damage from. The math above isn’t correct.

Atherakhia.4086:

No math that I’ve seen supports that statement. The math I’ve done also doesn’t support it, but I’m using someone else’s math for the pet and I didn’t verify their numbers.

Please provide the guru thread or your math you’re basing Ranger damage is higher than Warrior damage from. The math above isn’t correct.

it was done by some dungeon guild in EU. The math IS correct for single target DPS. But if we go by cleave or multi target DPS, ranger is A LOT lower then warrior, still not at bottom though.

It boils down to the pet you use, infact one of the strongest pets (for PvE anyway) is spiders. Their AA (which they almost exclusively use) deal extremely high damage with base attack. Unfortunately, pet tool-tips are bugged and does NOT change if you spec into BM or not. So you gotta manually check the damage done.

If you run Sword + Warhorn, Frostspotter with Signet of Strength and Sigil of Strength + battle, 65030 your pet will be able to get 20 stacks of might almost permanently. As long as you attack, pet will have that much might stacked on it. With 20 stacks of might, spider deals about about 1200-1900 depending on crits each second.

Now Atherakia, i know you have not seen such math, because you do not give any math proving warrior to be inferior to ranger in any sort of way any credit. Now, you can say my rough and poorly detailed calculations all the discredit you want, however fact remains, as proven by guilds with mathmaticians much smarter then me, that at single target PvE damage. The ranger exceed the warrior. I also see this happen when i end up in a slugfest with warriors on-node in PvP. Pet + zerker vs whatever that warrior was running, i still DPS him down. Sure im left with 1-2k HP and i wont win if another enemy enters the fight. But that is beside the point. So is this entire discussion as it is beside the point in terms of pet.

So I will say like JC said in his thread. We set a line here, anyone that is hell-bent on continuing this conversation can make a new thread or i will report you for intentionally derailing the topic.

This thread is about pets, and how we want them to work, not warrior fanboyism or ranger hatred.

THE END!

Prysin.8542:

However if we go by flat numbers, and assume zerker ranger, 0 points in BM vs zerker warrior, 0 points or traits to ehnahce burst. Then a Owl will hit for around 1.4k / second. The warrior, will deal between 8-13k in 7 seconds + the cast time for the skill (time it takes to build up adrenaline if using whirling axes and axe AA).

So if we assume pet hits 1.4k each second and doesnt faff about doing its stupid other moves, and the warrior hits the target for 13k. The bird will deal roughly 1450 damage LESS then the warrior burst in the same space. And that is AA alone. If the bird uses its burst, it will hit for 4-6k untraited. Putting it BEYOND the warrior DPS.

Now, this comparison is a bit skewered as pet DPS is our DPS. However a quick comparison of Sword AA vs Axe AA is needed here. I will save you from the number crunching, as it has been done before by others way smarter and more dedicated then me, but in short, we can remove roughly 40% of the pet AA and add it to our “sword AA damage” to bring us in line with Axe AA.

That means pet bird AA over 8.25 seconds = 11550 minus 40% = 4620 damage less. In short, pet AA + Ranger AA + pet burst is marginally weaker then warrior burst damage if we factor in no buffs.

The warrior’s auto attack coefficients divided by time to complete comes out to about 1.72. The ranger’s sword is about 1.05 and the second attack in the chain doesn’t cleave. That’s a big gap for the pet to make up, especially if both classes are full glass like in PVE. Eviscerate should widen the gap, especially with the cooldown factored in.

I’d like several things for pets.
1) Make pets a little better at landing their attacks and chasing down targets.
2) Add defensive scaling that’s based on the number and strength of nearby enemies. This would make them pretty good in dungeons, fractals, and WvW without making them overpowered in small fights.
3) Better response times and drastically reduced cast times on F2 skills.
4) Improve the lackluster F2 skills.

Again with your hostility… I’m simply asking you to support your wild accusations. I posted math a year ago detailing the rotational DPS for Warriors, Thieves, and Rangers and, like then, I didn’t finish parsing data for the pet to include int he calculations and I used someone else’s math.

I’m doing my best to remain calm with you despite me considering you the largest troll these forums have ever seen. I don’t consider it unreasonable for you to provide proper math to support your claims. Anecdotal evidence like you provided above isn’t enough.

Do you have anything to support your 1.4k DPS theory about pets to refute the 800dps number that people on guru throw around?

People who think ranger’s dps is fine, you maybe misery lovers but most of people are not, and don’t like being inferrior because some guys like you say ‘We are ok but you are not ok, please leave the professions to make us really ok, ok?’.
Ranger and its pet is not OK, Pet is a mindless attack bot and for 1 or 2 months ago even it has no ability to do what you say. Our weapon damages (and base damages, coefficients) are way lower than other classes who use same weapons and yes, they have to be not the same but; for a player who doesn’t only faceroll and play the game with it’s finesse, i want the kittening same outcome as guardian, warrior, elementalist gets. We do much more effort to have equal outcomes since other players mostly have -no so perfect- but ok class mechanics.
Think again boys, competitive people would use much more if really ranger do any kitten . If you want to win, you pick the one who is much more close to win. Watch some Dota 2 and see why people don’t pick certain heroes and pick more and more the same heroes. When there is an imbalance -for Dota 2 there is not so much inbalance-, people tend to cluster on certain things. Certainly they don’t cluster on ranger, and ranger is still a dinner plate for most of the classes. When you want to win, why would you stuck yourlself something broken and not cared since the beginning of the game? (Those so called developers didn’t even fix name change when dismissed bug until 1 or 2 months ago…)
No matter how hard you can yell ranger is actually fine and good, you see the results, i played all the classes, wanted to main my ranger but after my world completion with ranger i dropped it, really it doesn’t worth my time while warrior does every job that i could do without any disadvantage and a burden at his profession mechanic bar.

I’m sorry that this isn’t the discussion you’ve hoped for prysin, but it’s common belief that the pet is flawed simply because it’s an AI. You (and, as you’ve claimed, ANet) don’t want to remove the pet? I’m completely fine with that. But give the pet another purpose then dealing damage. I am completely capable of dealing damage, I don’t need an AI to do that for me. Furthermore should the AI help me dealing damage by CC and debuffing the enmy and by buffing me. If I recall correctly, you said in your livestream that it would be insane if Sic’Em would work for the ranger. So what about a pet that, instead of dealing damage, buffs you like Sic’Em does buff your pet?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Pet-DPS

IF you want to discuss pet DPS – go to this thread.

I will supply more calculations later on.

If we were suppose to have 2 pets, couldn’t the second one, be like “Baby version” of another pet, and you have it on your shoulder or back and can have like a passive bonus (that does not take up trait or utility) Like Licking face = small regen or Tiny Bark Apply 1 Stack of Vul every 3 second. or “Baby Sneeze” Every 10th attack gives a 0.5 second chill.

Edit: I just really want a little black jagur kitten on my head that support me while I fight.

Kikidori.5916:

If we were suppose to have 2 pets, couldn’t the second one, be like “Baby version” of another pet, and you have it on your shoulder or back and can have like a passive bonus (that does not take up trait or utility) Like Licking face = small regen or Tiny Bark Apply 1 Stack of Vul every 3 second. or “Baby Sneeze” Every 10th attack gives a 0.5 second chill.

Edit: I just really want a little black jagur kitten on my head that support me while I fight.

this is the best and most adorable suggestion ever. I don’t care about how viable it is I want it now.

Actually, the only pet that has an attack per second is the cat. Spiders attack once every 2 seconds or so.

Also, Ranger might have solid damage in facewalk dungeons like CoF 1 or low fractals, but what will happen in instances when it gets 1 hit KOed by AOE it cant dodge??

Do not get me wrong, I love the ranger as it is my main, but the mechanic is so flawed and we are punished because we have a pet with overall lower own damage, utility and absolutely bad traits.

We need work, a lot of work.

What’s with the comparisons to Warriors all the time? warriors are built for tanking and taking on multiple targets at once, so of course they’ll be better at that then Rangers.

Rangers are built for Spike damage, IE, you pick one target and roast it and then move on to the next, this is why there is a combination of single target dps and single target conditions. With that in mind the traits/utilities/weapons on offer support just this.

What should be debated is the pro’s and con’s of bow/self builds or builds that buff the pet and where the best balance lies in churning through single target mobs.

What i miss as a Ranger on here is a good ’trupter build. I miss my Casters Bane build from GW1.

Now, back to pets. Pet are also single target focused dps (or semi tanks) and i don’t think there is much wrong tbh. The best points raised so far are around Pet AI defensively where they have limited defensive capabilities be it general defensiveness as a tanker pet or avoiding AoE type stuff.

I think alot of misunderstanding happens where players are trying to optimise a ranger to play like an ele or warrior, which is just not going to happen. If you’re a sprinter you don’t enter the cross-country race and vice-versa. Understanding and maximizing what a class is about is the way forward.

Actually, Rangers aren’t built for spike damage. They’re built for methodical, sustained damage. As to comparing their damage to Warriors, it’s because the Warrior class is the easiest class to get raw damage numbers for. Their traits are all mostly % increases, and their damage is pretty straight forward and easy to calculate. When it comes to PvE, ANet has designed this game so each class should be equal overall and only the mechanics of the fight should really impact one specific class over another. Now as to single target damage etc, almost all boss encounters in this game are single target damage and all DPS figures you find online will be talking about single target damage only.

Now as to the rest of your comments, they’re great on paper but that’s not the way things have worked out over the past 2 years or how things really work in reality. When all is said and done, simply taking Pet’s Prowess goes a long way in ‘maximizing’ your pets PvE potential. Nothing will have as large an impact overall than this one trait. Especially if you use a melee pet that is going to be getting all the might and fury from the group anyway.

Until the pet is given a way to evade damage in a semi-controlled manner, it will never be a reliable addition to the class and it’s difficult to invest more than a single trait in a tree you were already investing in imo.

pets prowess + companions might alongside fortifying bond and sigil of strength. Together you create a mightstacking machine with the sword AA or any weapon really.

Atherakhia.4086:

Actually, Rangers aren’t built for spike damage. They’re built for methodical, sustained damage. As to comparing their damage to Warriors, it’s because the Warrior class is the easiest class to get raw damage numbers for. Their traits are all mostly % increases, and their damage is pretty straight forward and easy to calculate. W

Hrm, yea fair point about the sustained/pressure approach, although i’d argue you can STS (Single Target Spike) effectively too. Again depends on the build.

My comments Re:Warriors was more aimed that people saying “well a warrior can do this, why cant a ranger” – because you’re a ranger and do ranger things. Agreed dmg Calc out of Warrior is far easier.

Glad we agree on Defense/Dmg evade on pets

Right, it’s just all classes should be equal. So while a Warrior should swing their greatsword around and deal crushing damage to their foes, a Ranger may swirl their greatsword around daintilly, but that 300lb jaguar will pick up the slack. Net result being they both do the same damage. In theory anyway

Atherakhia.4086:

Right, it’s just all classes should be equal. So while a Warrior should swing their greatsword around and deal crushing damage to their foes, a Ranger may swirl their greatsword around daintilly, but that 300lb jaguar will pick up the slack. Net result being they both do the same damage. In theory anyway

the thing is, should rangers deal that damage irregardless of BM points?
If so, how would we scale things with BM to avoid massively OP DPS? Not to mention, if pets did hit extremely much harder, would not BM become the “only” viable build?

In a perfect world? A Ranger who invested points in BM to increase their pet’s damage by X% didn’t have points to increase their own damage by Y%. That trade-off should be equal as far as DPS is concerned.

In a perfect world, all classes should do the same damage before traits too. All classes should have the same %dmg modifiers but perhaps on different weapons. This would then mean all classes are equal and specific encounters is what makes one class shine above the other.

Now I’ve never seen this perfect world in 20 years of playing MMO’s, but I’ve certainly played games where they’ve at least tried to have some indication of balance between the classes. Or at the very least, try and improve things on a faster than 6 month patch cycle.