Guild Wars 2

As I see it at least, when a pet is sent to attack a target, it runs straight to it and engages full on. Thus we see the discussion as to whether pets are too squishy, which largely leads to a buff-oriented request.

Anybody ever watch wolves for real in the wild? They are all about stick-and-move. Stay close, jump in and bite to apply bleeds and cripples, nickle and dime a target but do their best to stay out of reach. As a player, I’d trade a portion of raw DPS for greater uptime and utility and would love to see my less tanky pets (wolves, leopards, etc) play the role of “bleed ’em and slow ’em” as a default or user-selectable auto-attack mode. I can micro-manage that with frequent F1/F3 flips but wonder if the pet can be made smart enough to manage that on their own?

1: if the target is focused on the pet, the pet spends more time moving and avoiding, possibly using barks/growls in what we think of as attention-holding Taunts.

2: if the target turns on the Ranger (or anything other than the pet) the pet gets more aggressive and spends more time laying on the teeth and claws.

A downed pet is no DPS – a balanced behavior model might give more survivability without altering the actual specs (health, toughness) of the pet itself.

this would be just awsome if they could inplement it

I think the mechanics are consistent with the current engine. If the pet’s “target’s target” is the pet itself, the pet will reduce attacks by X % and maintain a greater stand-off distance, jumping in to bite intermittently. If the pet’s target shifts to anything else, the pet goes Cujo and starts mauling the hamstrings, looking to bleed and slow. As soon as the target turns back, the pet goes evasive again.

As I said, I can micro-manage this with F1-F3 but it gets tedious. I’d love to look at my wolf and say “sic ’em boy, but be careful.”

Here is a real-life example of wolves in action, doing exactly what is described in the OP above. WARNING – this is NOT for the faint of heart if watching nature’s predators in action is upsetting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b3py1xa8p0