Guild Wars 2

I honestly just stopped using the F2 ability. Kinda worthless as-is.

Big time, pets are extremely unresponsive and never want to cast there f2 spell

Fern Wolf will sometimes have a delay in excess of five seconds, or won’t even cast at all.

Rarely it will go on cooldown without ever being used.

I notice it alot with the Fern Hound and the Apline Wolf. While I didn’t like the pets thing to start with it seems that speccing for pets is much better than speccing for traps. Therefore not having these abilities working is a let down.

Had to spam the “juvinile muriello” 6 – 7 times before the poison was dropped

Ryan Diederich.8179:

Part a) varies depending on each pet, so perhaps a list of the ones that are particularly troublesome could help to get them looked at =)

With all due respect, it would be easier to make a list of pets that are not particularly troublesome.

That list is: Shark.

That’s it.

The Arctodus’ bleed and the Bear’s ‘Shake It Off’ seem to work only about 20% of the time. I have to mash it at least 5 or 6 times to get the black fade ‘ability activated’ icon to trigger.

This makes pets even more useless in sPvP than they would be other wise.

Pets Usefulness
________________________________

PvE: Damage Soak and some nice DPS with the ranged Pets like the Black Widow

WvW: Not that useful, but can be used as ‘skirmishers’ where all the Rangers send their pets in to attack at the beginning of an engagement. Helps to disturb enemy front lines and waste a few enemy CD’s.

sPvP: Utterly useless. Don’t survive long enough to do anything and are too easily countered by moving around. F2 failure exacerbates this. The AI is not smart enough to avoid AOE so they usually just almost instantly die to some Elementalist’s flame field.

I think they should just all be ranged insta attacks. Have the pet execute the animation but have the effect just GO!

this would solve so many problems….

I think that the one pet that has the F2 working almost correctly (excluding sharks) is the Ice Drake, and only underwater. It’s still as unresponsive as the rest but when it casts the nova, it’s instant. But a lot of pets should follow this example, and have their abilities be instant. I like the fancy howling animation same as everyone else but it’s getting in the way of a profession mechanic…

I love using the Shark underwater – I feel so privileged to have it’s F2 ability go off without having to spam the button. I wish the rest of the game it was like this.

ya i have had issues with F2 and my eagle as well

Trimethicon.7405:

I wish the pets were something we could chose to not use. Their overall ineffectiveness and constant micro-management are a burden. I wish they were a Trait we would spec into, similar to GW1.

the option is there >.< just stow the pet! thats why they added it like in bwe3. People I think like to complain for no reason.

@Ryan thank you for responding all three of my normal pets do this regularly. I use the rainbow jellyfish, lynx and arctodus.. actually now im using polar bear over arctodus and he does it too. I also have used moas(2-3 colors) and krytan hound in dungeons and they were also offenders. I think its just the mechanic not specific pets.

Another big issue however that is linked is the pets sometimes just will not attack or respond at all. They arent dead or on passive but will not attack. Mostly this occurs with turrets and such but happens at least 2-3 times a day with normal mobs that are exactly like the mob before and after it.

VooDooU.4891:

Trimethicon.7405:

I wish the pets were something we could chose to not use. Their overall ineffectiveness and constant micro-management are a burden. I wish they were a Trait we would spec into, similar to GW1.

the option is there >.< just stow the pet! thats why they added it like in bwe3.

Pet pops back out the moment you take damage/enter fighting stance. Stow Pet is only useful for things like jumping puzzles, where the combination of the pet and camera issues mean you simply can’t see.

I really think pet abilities all need to be instant cast and balanced as such. Ranger players already have a portion of their in-combat micromanagement eaten up by monitoring pet health and positioning, I think it is unreasonable to also make them try and account for long cast times on pet abilities on top of pet positioning to try and land something on a target, especially in PvP. Currently there really isn’t a single F2 pet ability that “feels” right because you feel completely disconnected from pressing the button and receiving your bacon. These abilities should be used in moments of opportunity, and without them being instant I don’t think they’re ever going to feel right from the player’s end.

Level 80 for a week now, only have had my jungle stalker actually working a couple of times :<

Ryan Diederich.8179:

A fix for part b) is in the works. This should also help mitigate the issues of part c) since you won’t have to mash F2 so much, though I am also aware of this issue.

Part a) varies depending on each pet, so perhaps a list of the ones that are particularly troublesome could help to get them looked at =)

In regards to the second bit: the red drake seems to have real issues with it’s flame breath, and jackhammering the F2 is pretty much required currently.

I haven’t encountered a pet this isn’t a problem for. My current favorites are Moas, especially reds, and let’s face it – Furious Screech is about as forgiving of timing as a skill can get.

I STILL CAN’T GET IT TO WORK.

Four out of five attempts lead into the practically inevitable Mash Cancel, depriving me of my AoE Fury entirely. I’m not even trying to time it precisely – I don’t care if it queues up first, I just need to get it. And yet, I never do. I can-t get a fifteen-second Fury to work when I need it to.

What. The. Kittens.

True, i have to smash F2 so many times is ridiculous, i hope they have a fix soon. I even stopped using that ability in most cases because it does more harm than good.

For me the worst offender has been the Jellyfish. I can get them to use their Whirl at all maybe a third of the time, max, and it takes severe button mashing 90% of those times.

Right behind them are the birds, especially Eagle. They aren’t as unresponsive as Jellyfish, but still have a huge delay every time.
The same goes for drakes.

The only pet that has never given me any trouble at all? The Shark.

Also, Spiders are responsive, despite having intricate attack animations. A little slow, sometimes need a second keypress, but otherwise reliable, and nowhere close to the delay of other pets.

i have noticed this issue with my fern dog sometimes although not as often as with my other pets i also have noticed that sometimes the f2 ability will cause the pet to attack my target even if its is only a fury buff or might buff… other times its as if the pet wont use the ability unless they are actually in combat… another thing i would like to see is IF the abilities have to be used while in combat then the aoe buffs need an increase in range so when i am 1200 away from the target i can actually get some use out of the buffs not just the pet and a few melee guys that are on the boss/player

I agree with every other poster. Pets are terrible. Here are the issues I see every day, as a level 43 Ranger:

• Melee pets cannot hit anything that moves, even with +30% speed boost trait. This makes the “striker” pets nigh worthless. They die amazingly fast if they get aggro, and they cannot hit anything if they don’t have aggro because most players are constantly moving, and thus the mobs are constantly moving.

• The pets’ F2 abilities do not appear to ever queue — it feels like I have to hit F2 at just the right moment to get it to trigger, and if I hit it twice in that window the ability gets cancelled.

• Due to pet animations, and the quick pace of combat, ability effects rarely occur when I need/want them. I have this problem regularly with the Arctodus, Brown Bear, Polar Bear, Snow Leapard, Eagle, Ice Drake and Raven. I’m sure many others also have this problem, I just don’t have them or don’t use them. The only pet that reliably executes its F2 ability for me is the Shark.

I had reservations about the Ranger at the start, and at this point I wish I had followed my gut. I’m very unhappy that one of the profession’s key abilities is largely non-functional.

aoe f2 skills are terrible atm.

pets runs to a target before casting… why? i think aoe abilities NEED to fire off where ever the pet is and it doesn’t move, or use another attack (also a problem) it just casts the aoe ability on the f2 skill

Raven is so bad I’m just swapping it out for a different pet. Button mashing required to get it to case, and sometimes even that doesn’t help.

Alpine wolf is occasionally slow, but is at least reliable.

I’ve mostly been leveling with those two, so haven’t really tested any of the others.

My best pet do not act like a total morron is actualy my shark
The F2 activates instantly and i almost always use it coupled with Quickning Zephyr

I don’t get it, what’s so hard about changing it so that if you press F2, it stop ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING the pet does in order to use that F2 skill.

I mean, 99% of the character’s skills work like that. You know, cancel a skill which makes it enter a 3 second cooldown.

Just made a ranger for the lulz and my dog absolutely refuses to use his regen skill even when spammed >_> This is a joke.

Please allow ranger to be able to stow their pet indefinitely. There are situational boss fights and jumping puzzles where I want to put my pet away and keep it away.

I love my pets but concur that the mechanics can be a bit sluggish. At the same time, I can see where Anet has done some remarkable modeling to make the pets look realistic doing their respective tricks. That said, as a player, I’d be willing to trade some behavioral animation for responsiveness. My suggestions would look like this:

1) F2 flushes/interrupts any in-process action, even if it loses the benefit of that action. Timely response of F2 is probably my biggest single wish.

2) Reduce the animation time for most skills. I get that a howl is something an animal cannot do on the run and would accept he stops to do that, but slashes, bites and pounces can happen from a full sprint (as my German Shepherd teaches me every day when we run and rough-house out in the yard). I would be willing to forego “pretty” for responsive when it comes to pets and sadly, in most pitched fights I don’t see much of what my pet at a level of appreciating the beauty of it.

Since pets are ostensibly such a core part of the Ranger mechanic, their responsiveness should arguably be on par with the parallel skills available to other classes.

The polar bear’s F2 skill is one of those on a delay. It should be very useful at slowing down fleeing enemies in PvP but the fact the bear stops in his tracks to play the animation means it never actually hits the target. It only works against static targets, but in these situations a movement speed debuff is useless anyway!

The jellyfish is a big time offender. My drakehound gives me headaches as well, what a long animation.

Personally, I use the Jungle Stalker a lot and its F2 ability takes multiple mashes to trigger it. My Crimson Moa is generally responsive when pressing F2, but the animation takes forever to actually cast.

Ryan Diederich.8179:

A fix for part b) is in the works. This should also help mitigate the issues of part c) since you won’t have to mash F2 so much, though I am also aware of this issue.

Part a) varies depending on each pet, so perhaps a list of the ones that are particularly troublesome could help to get them looked at =)

I’ve noticed that the fern wolf is particularly troublesome with activating its skill as is the rainbow jellyfish.

I have tried most of the pets and they all are buggy. Basically it is based on movement from what I have seen. Like the stalkers might buff, while on the run it almost never activates I have to mash the button which many times triggers a CD without giving me the buff. However if my pet is standing still then it activates with no problem. This however means that I have to be STANDING STILL AND NOT ATTACKING AN ENEMY!

This mechanic is horrible for PvP and the debuffs our pets provide are the same, how often do you fight a target that is NOT MOVING in PvP? Almost never. Seriously just get rid of the cast times and animations completely because this mechanic is ruining the class. Other classes have mechanics THAT WORK AND ARE INSTANT CASTS, we get a bunch of buggy powers while on the move from a pet that can be killed in 5 secs in PvP. Terrible and needs to be fixed soon I am getting very frustrated and ready to just play my Thief all the time.

River Drake and its lightning breath
Usually goes on c/d or fires after 3 enemies have been killed

Vagrant.4327:

Terrible and needs to be fixed soon I am getting very frustrated and ready to just play my Thief all the time.

Haha, you and me both! My thief is 32 now, and will be main until something is done to fix Ranger pets. I’ll log in my Ranger just to maintain his crafting, but unlikely to get him to 80 unless they fix this nonsense.

The only pets that F2 is actually responsive for is Jaguars and Sharks probably because its just a simple self-buff they apply to themselves.

Every single other pet I ever used just refuses to respond much to my frustration and when they finally do use it the animations take forever which is especially bad on some of the drakes that use bouncing attacks as they just spit it out at the air hitting nothing because the mob moved while they did their fancy animation.

Love the combat in this game but pet F2 abilities really hamper the fun of it all.

Patch notes for the 9/14 update are up on the wiki. It says that pet F2 and AI was improved. Let’s keep our fingers crossed…

jonG.8369:

Patch notes for the 9/14 update are up on the wiki. It says that pet F2 and AI was improved. Let’s keep our fingers crossed…

I sure hope so. I hated spamming the key for pets to use their skill….

I didn’t notice any changes to pet AI after patch. Pets still stop in their tracks on every attack and F2 abilities don’t seem any different. Maybe it was more subtle changes.

Anyone notice any difference?

The patch is not out yet. It’ll be released on the 15th EU time.

AoE F2 skills don’t require your pet to move to a target. I am using those all the time and have no issues with them, besides the fact that they don’t Que at all.

Really, really a BIG problem this one. Basically it comes down to some key abilities being totaly useless, because they’re just too unreliable.

Best example for this: the 2sec fear of the wolf. This would be an AMAZING pet ability, but I stopped using the wolf, because even if you are able to calculate the (horrible) animation of the howl correctly, you might still find that your wolf just ignores the F2 command and when he finally does use go through, it’s already too late. It’s almost impossible to interrupt something with the howl (a combo, a rezz, a stomp etc.).

Fateless.6985:

The AoE chill applied by the Alpine Wolf often takes about 5 seconds to actually go into effect from the time I hit F2 (20 times, because the first 19 did nothing), to the time I see the chill effect get applied to my opponent. This is extremely frusterating because the lack of responsiveness makes the pet ability unreliable in pvp, as well as when fighting veteran/champion mobs.

I have had the same issue with the leap from the snow leopard. Takes about 20 attempts to make him actually use the ability, and then takes about 5 seconds for him to actually leap at the enemy.

I’m aware that Anet wants to make the pets have an ability animation, but these animations are often affecting the reliability and usefulness of the pet simply because they take too long, or they apply their effect far too late.

For example. I open on a warrior with Barrage and my pet runs in. As the warrior leaves the pulsing aoe slow field, I want my pet to apply his chill. In the following 5 seconds, the warrior has used bolas, bull’s charge, hundred blades and eviscerate. As I die, I see chill applied.

Woopdee freaking doo.

When I tell my pet jump, I want him to jump, not stretch out, growl, think about why he should even listen, then jump. When I say attack, he attacks right away. When I say retreat, he retreats right away. Why when I say “USE YOUR ABILITY” does he take 5 seconds to decide to use it? I yell LEAP AT THE WARRIOR, I want him to be taking that warrior out immediately, not once the warrior is already on top of me.

Well put, and more importantly very true.

Ravel.8145:

Really, really a BIG problem this one. Basically it comes down to some key abilities being totaly useless, because they’re just too unreliable.

Best example for this: the 2sec fear of the wolf. This would be an AMAZING pet ability, but I stopped using the wolf, because even if you are able to calculate the (horrible) animation of the howl correctly, you might still find that your wolf just ignores the F2 command and when he finally does use go through, it’s already too late. It’s almost impossible to interrupt something with the howl (a combo, a rezz, a stomp etc.).

I’m using a Wolf all the time. You statement is 100% valid, but once you get used to the pet AI you can time your F2s almost perfectly. :P Almost.

The responsiveness does feel much better now finally. The abilities don’t always go off IMMEDIATELY but you also don’t feel like you have to mash the button constantly.

I still don’t like how long some of the animations are honestly, but I feel like that’s a separate issue.

I can’t wait to test this out tonight after work! It’s been making me so frustrated in sPvP recently.

Now let’s make it so the pets can cast moves while moving.

lol…I read all this to find out which ones DO work, not that many…I have been using a Murellow for the f2 poison and an Arctodus for the bleed skills, both types from their stats have decent vit which I use with the max BM ability pets have to regenerate their own health. So far…I love that!!! But, I have noticed that both types will often ignore the f2 activation as I mash it repeatedly. Moreover, at times I’ve been trying to click on the skill itself in an attempt to get it to work and find myself actually missing and clicking next to it which sets the pet into passive mode lol, so it will be sitting there not attacking anything at all until I figure out that’s what happened.

Major improvement today over yesterday with using pet abilities.

Aquatic.3408:

It is also somewhat of an issue with the Spirit slot abilities. When you try to use a spirit ability it take about 3 sec for the ability to actually go off.

They are working as intended. If you watch they have an animation that was intended to delay their activation. When you press the button the spirit has to raise his one arm and depending on the effect either creates an orb of light, or smashes the ground. But either way its not immidate and you should use it ahead of time.

Ravens were much better last night after the patch. I could consistently get their skill to activate after 1 or 2 tries rather than 10~ish. It’s not perfect, but better.

yea my wolf pet’s fear is so slow making it sort of useless

I have the same problem as most others do and I feel like it’s the one biggest thing that currently feels annoying on rangers. The pets feel like they’re not always helping since it’s hard to spam F2 while also trying to use your rangers abilities so they also drag you down with their nonresponsiveness. I have the problem with all pets and not only the ones that require a target to use their abilities on but also pets that have boons that they give to allies like some Moas or the Fern hound. The fern hound feels especially nonresponsive with the aoe regeneration that I have to spam 5-7 times before it goes off.