Guild Wars 2

Is it just me or is there no change to pet tooltips for pet traits? I realize some are Combat only and I havent tested opening up trait panels in combat to look at things.. but like speed training you cant tell what the number change is? or Loud Whistle. I find it rather annoying that I cant tell if my traits actually affect my pet at all based on the tooltips.

Actually, if the tests performed by the person from this post are true, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Adding-precision-to-pets-is-bugged/first#post5133966, none of the pet traits work at the moment. We have to wait for feedback from Anet to confirm whether this is an actual issue or not.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

Actually, if the tests performed by the person from this post are true, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Adding-precision-to-pets-is-bugged/first#post5133966, none of the pet traits work at the moment. We have to wait for feedback from Anet to confirm whether this is an actual issue or not.

Also in the same thread was me running a similar test. Our pets just appear to have a lower crit chance than you’d expect for a player of that precision.

I ran a few tests on pet traits.
Malicious Training: It doesn’t show on the tooltip, but while in combat pet’s conditions will definitely last longer. If you enter combat with their F2 skill, such as the Alpine wolf howl or the Lynx pounce, then malicious training will not apply to that skill. Spider “venoms” always apply malicious training.
Pet’s Prowess: I have no idea whether it will apply on the pet’s first attack or not due to the variance of crits. But from the quick test I did with a Lynx, no investment in beastmastery, without crits were hitting for 1000~1050, with the trait the crits were around 1200~1250. So I’d say it’s working, if maybe a little weaker than expected. But like I said, just a quick test.
Expertise Training: So it turns out that conditions deal damage based on your condition damage upon application, which makes more sense than when I was told they dealt damage based on your condition damage upon ticking. Like malicious training, if you enter combat by your pet’s F2 skill the trait will not apply. Spider venoms, again, don’t suffer from the enter combat rule.
Concentration Training: Follows the same rules as the other training skills. Your pet must be in combat before using the skill for the bonus to apply. Vigorous Training scales with our pet’s boon duration, the boon duration of our new pet that’s been switched in and is therefore out of combat.
Compassion Training: Again, only in combat. But there’s almost no situation where you’d want to use a healing effect with your pet out of combat. Interestingly affects natural healing, however, it doesn’t affect aqua surge and Spirit of Nature our other healing power ignoring healing effects.

From all this testing I’ve learned a few things. Pet traits only apply when your pet considers itself to be “in-combat”. Using the F1 skill “attack my target”, won’t just tell your pet to attack your current target regardless of anything you do, it will also put your pet into combat mode. This is related to why spider venoms don’t care if they’re used in or out of combat (and thus, precasting our spider’s venoms doesn’t produce a weaker venom). Whether tooltips are correct or not isn’t important, pet tooltips are super buggy, the traits definitely apply.

So, you want to be optimal? Always press F1 then F2 so that your pet traits apply. Sadly this means you probably can’t inflict a malicious wolf fear on a stealthed thief by switching to your emergency down state wolf.

EDIT: Whoops, forgot a couple, I logged back on to test them, results below.
Carnivorous Appetite: Is a terrible trait and I’m not sure why you’d take it, but through testing with a jaguar it appeared to function as intended and scaled with compassion training. I’m not really sure how often an injured out of combat pet uses its F2 skill and crits someone and the play who did that has this trait, but if anyone ever finds out the answer to that question I’d love to know the answer.
Speed Training: First I tried testing by counting seconds. Then I got smart and tested it using the Drake’s auto-attack timer. Drakes have a 30 second cooldown on their tail swipe and auto-attack a little slower than once per second. Their Chomp skill they save for when they reach about half health and their AI uses Tail Swipe as soon as it goes off cooldown. By counting their auto attacks between tail swipes on a golem I can test for speed training, I’d expect speed training to result in two less attacks between tail swipes. Speed training got 19, normal got 21, so yeah the trait probably works as intended. Whether it’s only applied in combat isn’t really testable, it doesn’t affect the cooldown of command skills and pets only use their other skills while in combat.
Commanding Voice: Even if the tooltip doesn’t show it, the cooldown of the pet skill was definitely reduced correctly and its correct cooldown timer was displayed after the skill was used. Unlike other traits, this one doesn’t care whether your pet is in combat or not.