The current state of pets is pitiful. Some reasons why I feel like this.
1) Pets still don’t instantly respond to commands. There’s no reason why a competitive game should have built in delay for such a weak asset.
2) Melee pets still don’t attack reliably. Admittedly it’s been improved on by the last patch but still I’ll see my pet running off on some random vector, taking a very unoptimal paths to get to an enemy. Players can still nearly avoid our pets by just moving a lot in combat. Since rangers have very little ability to actually control pets, we shouldn’t be punished by the still massive disparity in dps on stationary targets and moving targets. Currently a thief can still hit and run indefinitely without being hit by the rangers pet because the time it takes for the pet to react and get to the thief is shorter than they’ll spend out of stealth. Quite unfair.
3) Pets as a whole are unmanageable. They don’t react fast enough or predictably enough to a rangers command to actually manage them reliably. If you’re doing a boss fight, your pet will get by an aoe and there’s not much you can do about it except maybe keeping it on passive. We can’t inch a pet out of an aoe or keep the pet from argoing random mobs in a dungeon because it took an unpredictable path.
4) Pets don’t do enough damage to put rangers on tier with warriors/thieves. A fully beast mastery specced feline pet won’t do any sizable damage to a moderately tanky player. Maybe 500 dps.
5) Pets are a hassle to use, they’re not fun, they’re frustrating. Every other class gets full control over their character, while rangers unarguably do not. We can’t even put our pet away permanently to prevent them from pulling aggro or being targeted by lasers on jade maw.
6) Pets are too squishy. Even fully beastmastery specced bears will die in most lvl 80 dungeons if not kept on passive.
7) We’re forced to use pets. I like the idea and general play style of rangers but we shouldn’t be locked into using pets. Currently they’re a major handicap as they require more effort and micro to use than they’re worth. And since rangers are explicitly and unconditionally balanced for access to pets, we’re underpowered. This ruins the class in competitive PvP.
8) Pets take unpreventable, unmitigated agony damage.
It’s bad enough rangers have to be twice as aware as other classes to play our class “right” and maximize dps but even at our best, we’re still falling short of other classes in damage and utility. Our spirit build, greatsword build, and condition build were all hyper nerfed in beta because, i’m guessing, it wasn’t in the spirit of the class for the ranger to be strong on his own. But 4 months later rangers have little to show. We’ve been unarguably the most deserving class for attention since beta, but have gotten the least. And pets are just the shinning example of this. So please, if you refuse to make rangers competitive on their own, fix pets.
(edited by Wolf.2891)