Guild Wars 2

I’m all for rangers having pets, it makes sense we shud have them.

My ranger…first character I leveled and only character i “mained” in GW1, hasn’t been touched for a good while after seeing how much more useful a Warrior, Ele, or Thief is in each aspect of the game.

but could they at least give us an option of being petless with a 30% dmg buff across the board on our skills, until they can get pet AI and/or Mechanic right? (assuming the pet does 30% of our dmg like i have read)

I’d much rather be useful now AND later….rather than just later.

I know it would anger a lot of people later on who are forced to have pets again, but if you have the mechanic and AI down, there would be a lot less moaning later on than there is now.

Devs acknowledge pets are broken.

Response?

See patch history.

I don’t think they want to do that. That would be like admitting to their own failure with the class. Rather continue the ignore mode and leave the pets broken.

I have now rolled a warrior, mesmer, ele, and guardian to try and forget about my ranger but I really enjoy the playstyle of the ranger. It’s also, extremely hard to give up on spending well over 100 gold trying different builds/gear to be successful. However, it is a complete bummer to try and use pets successfully in WvW; where I spend most of my time. I don’t think giving rangers a 30% buff to make up for the pet is viable b/c it will break PvE. However, a small buff and a passive pet might be something that wouldn’t break PvE and greatly increase rangers effectiveness in WvW. Anet needs to either figure out if they can fix the pet AI (to hit moving targets) and do that or move pets to a more passive role for rangers. What I mean by passive role is more like spirits where they apply certain boons for the party. The ability to call on the pet could be tied completely to a cooldown or it could be tied to something similar to how warriors build their adrenaline. Also, it’s crap that a thief can cloak off of our pets and keep us in combat speed. I mean it is very hard to escape a bad situation b/c pets do not respond well to the return f3 function and others abuse the ability to keep the ranger in combat speed by hitting the pet.

I rolled a ranger, my only toon so far, and I’m only in the mid level 60’s. However on numerous occasions, usually when fighting champions, I’ve been told my pets are OP – because it’s my pet that’s tanking the Champion. I’m traited to keep my pet alive because that’s how I like to do my PVE. Of course this is talking about the tanking nature of a pet, not its damaging ability. Is the OP’s concern in regard to PvP (like Togo’s reponse mentions)?

It’s in regard to dungeons. Pets die really fast in dungeons, moreso than glass cannon players.

RyuDragnier.9476:

It’s in regard to dungeons. Pets die really fast in dungeons, moreso than glass cannon players.

I can second this, I dungeon a lot and my ranger is my favorite character, but pets die too often and respond too slowly to return functions. Unless you go a full 30 into BM its difficult to keep your pet alive through out. More than often I’ve ended up in a very heated situation and am relying on the quickness burst to save an ally or do a bit of accelerated auto attack bashing on my GS and my pet is dead, which means the next one will be 45s away. Hence I’ve completely switched to tanky ranged pets in dungeons. I.E. Devourers.

If you removed the ranger pet, I’d quit playing Ranger … it offers nothing else I’m interested in aside from a playstyle focused on steady damage (instead of burst) and a pet.

TogoChubb.3984:

I have now rolled a warrior, mesmer, ele, and guardian to try and forget about my ranger but I really enjoy the playstyle of the ranger. It’s also, extremely hard to give up on spending well over 100 gold trying different builds/gear to be successful. However, it is a complete bummer to try and use pets successfully in WvW; where I spend most of my time. I don’t think giving rangers a 30% buff to make up for the pet is viable b/c it will break PvE. However, a small buff and a passive pet might be something that wouldn’t break PvE and greatly increase rangers effectiveness in WvW. Anet needs to either figure out if they can fix the pet AI (to hit moving targets) and do that or move pets to a more passive role for rangers. What I mean by passive role is more like spirits where they apply certain boons for the party. The ability to call on the pet could be tied completely to a cooldown or it could be tied to something similar to how warriors build their adrenaline. Also, it’s crap that a thief can cloak off of our pets and keep us in combat speed. I mean it is very hard to escape a bad situation b/c pets do not respond well to the return f3 function and others abuse the ability to keep the ranger in combat speed by hitting the pet.

wow Togo that sounds amazing

they could change our “class mechanic” to pet CD’s instead of the pet being out ALL the time, and they could make them beefier and/or immune to damage while they do damage because they are on such a long CD….but buff our initial damage the actual ranger since the pet isn’t out all the time like it is now

although i would feel this could be like mesmer clones, except they would be out longer and you don’t destroy them to do damage

i think it would be kind of cool working up an adrenaline or “tuned to the wild” bar for your F1 pet or F2 pet….and then calling him in to do damage for like 30 secs or so…and perhaps tie in a 10 sec buff for certain pets….ie fury for cats

seems pretty legit to me

Sebrent.3625:

If you removed the ranger pet, I’d quit playing Ranger … it offers nothing else I’m interested in aside from a playstyle focused on steady damage (instead of burst) and a pet.

Same.

Although perhaps they could alter the traits so that you don’t have to pick up the profession mechanic trait line (Beastmastery) to make them beefy…

I find it kind of funny, while playing my elementalist, EEEEEVERYONE goes at least 20 points in Arcane if not just full but I fervently resist that bandwagon. Don’t need to have 9 sec attunement swaps just to function and don’t need to be wasting my dodges on spells when I could be using them to…dodge stuff…

Now here in the Ranger world, people don’t want to dip into their profession tree but I’m all for it! I love how good it can make my pets and I like trying to use my skills to support them but everyone seems to want to resist using the pet at all.

To me, it’s pretty easy to keep pets alive and pumping out effects, even the more fragile birds/cats. And the sturdy pets can eat attacks better than most of your other anchor professions. Although I’m not very good, I’ve heard it performs decently well in many 1v1 or 1v2 situations but it’s not a great zerger.

To me, the class seems to work, it just has some kinks to work out like pet AI and other things directly related to how pets work (seriously, Vigor on a pet is pointless…but they can still get it for some reason…that among other things…). You just can’t expect all classes to be able to do everything really well, some classes will perform better in specific situations and that seems fine.

Sebrent.3625:

If you removed the ranger pet, I’d quit playing Ranger … it offers nothing else I’m interested in aside from a playstyle focused on steady damage (instead of burst) and a pet.

Well nobody is talking about removing the pet, only giving rangers a buff if they choose to lose the worthless pet

Leo G.4501:

Sebrent.3625:

If you removed the ranger pet, I’d quit playing Ranger … it offers nothing else I’m interested in aside from a playstyle focused on steady damage (instead of burst) and a pet.

Same.

Although perhaps they could alter the traits so that you don’t have to pick up the profession mechanic trait line (Beastmastery) to make them beefy…

I find it kind of funny, while playing my elementalist, EEEEEVERYONE goes at least 20 points in Arcane if not just full but I fervently resist that bandwagon. Don’t need to have 9 sec attunement swaps just to function and don’t need to be wasting my dodges on spells when I could be using them to…dodge stuff…

Now here in the Ranger world, people don’t want to dip into their profession tree but I’m all for it! I love how good it can make my pets and I like trying to use my skills to support them but everyone seems to want to resist using the pet at all.

To me, it’s pretty easy to keep pets alive and pumping out effects, even the more fragile birds/cats. And the sturdy pets can eat attacks better than most of your other anchor professions. Although I’m not very good, I’ve heard it performs decently well in many 1v1 or 1v2 situations but it’s not a great zerger.

To me, the class seems to work, it just has some kinks to work out like pet AI and other things directly related to how pets work (seriously, Vigor on a pet is pointless…but they can still get it for some reason…that among other things…). You just can’t expect all classes to be able to do everything really well, some classes will perform better in specific situations and that seems fine.

But the pets doesn’t really work in sPvp and WvW no matter what

Jordo.5913:

TogoChubb.3984:

I have now rolled a warrior, mesmer, ele, and guardian to try and forget about my ranger but I really enjoy the playstyle of the ranger. It’s also, extremely hard to give up on spending well over 100 gold trying different builds/gear to be successful. However, it is a complete bummer to try and use pets successfully in WvW; where I spend most of my time. I don’t think giving rangers a 30% buff to make up for the pet is viable b/c it will break PvE. However, a small buff and a passive pet might be something that wouldn’t break PvE and greatly increase rangers effectiveness in WvW. Anet needs to either figure out if they can fix the pet AI (to hit moving targets) and do that or move pets to a more passive role for rangers. What I mean by passive role is more like spirits where they apply certain boons for the party. The ability to call on the pet could be tied completely to a cooldown or it could be tied to something similar to how warriors build their adrenaline. Also, it’s crap that a thief can cloak off of our pets and keep us in combat speed. I mean it is very hard to escape a bad situation b/c pets do not respond well to the return f3 function and others abuse the ability to keep the ranger in combat speed by hitting the pet.

wow Togo that sounds amazing

they could change our “class mechanic” to pet CD’s instead of the pet being out ALL the time, and they could make them beefier and/or immune to damage while they do damage because they are on such a long CD….but buff our initial damage the actual ranger since the pet isn’t out all the time like it is now

although i would feel this could be like mesmer clones, except they would be out longer and you don’t destroy them to do damage

i think it would be kind of cool working up an adrenaline or “tuned to the wild” bar for your F1 pet or F2 pet….and then calling him in to do damage for like 30 secs or so…and perhaps tie in a 10 sec buff for certain pets….ie fury for cats

seems pretty legit to me

This is a great solution, another one would be to make an elite skill-signet where you could choose to get buffs from the pet – like bleeding from a cat pet, health from a bear etc. and change after what you need in the situation

2 days into WvW so far, can’t say I’ve noticed much of an issue with my pets.
I use both of them pretty much every fight and they both seem to do what I’m expecting them to.

They stay on passive because anything running into an zerg aoe storm is dead, I tab through the targets til I find a victim, get in position where the pet will take the least damage along its route and then get started on them. It’s not that hard to hit F1 while you’re hitting 1 to start attacking a target

I normally use a lynx(crazy burst bleed stacker) and carrion devourer(aoe poison field and tough) (traited for both to cause bleeds on auto-attack crits), between ‘protect me’ and ‘rampage as one’ I get out of most situations alive. In situations when using my pet actively won’t work I use it passively to soak up all the extra damage. I’m guessing it’s not a common strategy people see because they start to panic when I’m not getting stunned, thrown or dead quick enough but the greatsword keeps showing them that 20s of fury boosted butt love.

1vs1-2 I’m still expecting to come out of the fights with a couple of shiny new loot bags regardless of their classes .

Am I too new to spot the issues with my pets or something?

I’m sure someone will come and correct you, Babirusa. Because when a competent player shows up, you’ll be kittening screwed…but that sort of goes without saying. A competent good player is going to kill people well, even if they are an Engineer, Necro or Ranger and you are a Mesmer, Thief or Guardian.

Hope so, I’ll assume the people I’m seeing a lot aren’t that competent then though their tactics seem to be all about the same, the ones that will go after a person solo at least.
Do I find all the best players in the non WvW then? so bumping into them in zerg maps would be a rarity I mean.

I always see the thiefs flying up behind me with their shadow step and arrows move, 9/10 I can just nail quick shot and let them overshoot me(alternatively hit about-face and launch at them with a sword since I like running with the sword out for block). By the time they’ve stopped I’ve already fired off concussion shot and me and the lynx are just touching down for a joint melee alpha strike.
I prefer the stealthers they’re more fun, like waiting on a skelk to strike.

Mesmers are a twitchfest to fight, almost all of them are running that spork? setup/tactic (can’t remember his name..begins with S, it’s the confusion heavy one).
So first thing I realise is me being yanked sideways into a bunch of stacked confusion and a mesmer jumping around recreating new clones to do their brain storm thing.
If I don’t realise in time then my shortbow auto attack will almost kill me before they start, if I realise in time then the fights on.

Aside from the zerg wave back and forth I’m loving the pvp in this game, specially ranger..enjoying it more than mesmer, engineer and warrior atm.

Having a suicidal pet system; I’m all for a Petless Ranger, obviously.
{Even Necromancer’s minions put ranger’s “pet” to Shame

BM builds would be great if the pet had a little more survivability and could hit moving targets reliably. I ran a BM build for awhile, but too often I could only kill morons or those not paying attention in WvW. Anyone who knew how to move and/or dodge could escape most of my pet’s damage leaving me in a bad position.

I tried a few tank builds that more or less ignored the pet with some success, but I was completely single target and worthless in anything but solo or the smallest groups. Having spent a rather large sum on my current armor I am not willing to reinvest for a condition/trap build.

Long story short since a great deal of my time is spent in WvW I retired my ranger to PvE and rolled an ele. Should be level 80 in around a week.

I hate to abandon my ranger, but what can you do? Anet isn’t capable of fixing the class so they gave up, I guess I have to do the same.