Guild Wars 2

As a Ranger in a competitive WvW guild, trying to fight the megablob of pugs/organized guilds, I can only worry more about all of the AoE ground affects and the where the head’s of the enemy zergs is going; more than, my poor pet that is lagging behind from all of the CC he/she HAS to ran through How in the world are we going to be able to use our pet’s mechanics such as: F2, Guard, Sic’em, Search and rescue, and protect me when the pet is dead within seconds after rolling through an enemy zerg of 50+?

In WvW zergs, the Ranger mechanic is completely obliterated. How do you (Anet) plan to fix Rangers so the pet can live and fight verse large amount of enemy players (40+ open field combat) without making the pet mechanic much different or broken for sPvP?

Thanks

thanks for this post Ayden. pets are entirely useless in WvW. they kept getting nerfed in spvp, and are still subpar in PVE.

tbh we need a longer ranged pet that has aoe mechanics in its attacks would fix 60% of the current pet problems vs zergs, the other 40% would be fixable by giving pets a smart dodge mechanic that triggers and allows them to evade as a player would when they take x amount of dmg

in addition to pet AI and f2 improvements, i feel pets need a 30% aoe resist in wvw and PVE, or some kind of dodge or aegis mechanic as u said.

pets also need to make more of a difference. right now, theyre used mostly for the DPS, with the exception of spiders and wolves, which are used for the CC. this is just wrong. pets need to be a toolbox of utility. one step in this direction would be to give drakes’ tail swipe as active ability for on-demand burst and blast finisher.

mistsim.2748:

in addition to pet AI and f2 improvements, i feel pets need a 30% aoe resist in wvw and PVE, or some kind of dodge or aegis mechanic as u said.

pets also need to make more of a difference. right now, theyre used mostly for the DPS, with the exception of spiders and wolves, which are used for the CC. this is just wrong. pets need to be a toolbox of utility. one step in this direction would be to give drakes’ tail swipe as active ability for on-demand burst and blast finisher.

unfortunately we have been asking for this devs keep saying it would make the class to complicated and people wouldn’t know how to work it… I don’t think we are that stupid though

Just run Black bear and Wolf, that’s how I zerg. Keep black bear out for the long duration aoe weakness and swap to wolf for f2 when you need it. It’s about the best I’ve been able to make use of pets in zergs.

shhh everyone ..i’m still trying to figure out how to auto-attack

I used to run polar bear and wolf but I recently opted for double bear: black bear and brown bear. Since I have the Sigil of Stone they become mega tanky and it let me enough time to use their special abilities (after having pressed like 100 times the F2 key while I fight).
Not only that, since they don’t contribute in any way to the damage I keep them passive so they stay with me, prolonging further their life expectancy.
So, I use them for to inflict aoe conditions and to clean conditions on me and my group. I currently don’t see any other way to use them in WvW (And I only do WvW).
It’s not a coincidence that hardcore guilds have zero or maybe one ranger in their lines, if it’s untrue that we are useless we are however not a good source of damage, at least in the current state of the class.

Casual WvW player response:

You waste a skill slot on Signet (not “Sigil,” Daze; would love a Sigil of Stone: “30% chance on critical to turn enemy to stone for 2 seconds.”) of Stone and use it judiciously.

Running the pet in passive mode helps a little too, or roaming with the pet hidden.

Not minding that your class mechanic contributes so little is probably the biggest help at this point in time. Not saying that things shouldn’t change for the better, just that one’s personal outlook determines one’s enjoyment the most.

I play my Ranger main the exact same build in all aspects of the game, and win or lose I mostly have fun (barring the condoned “griefing” in WvW JPs, but you go into those with your eyes open anyway).

KyreneZA.8617:

Casual WvW player response:
snip

My thoughts exactly.. A profession is what you make of it and having fun with it is purely subjective.. So you and I, we love our rangers, we have learned to work with the pet, and we’ll keep playing our mains for a long long time
(although ANet really should look at us from time to time without the “what shall we nerf now” mentality)

“You waste a skill slot on Signet (not “Sigil,”"

Yes sorry, I obviously meant Signet. It is not so wasted since it is traited (I run a signet build) and I use it for invulnerability when things are going bad, it saved my life many times plus it gives me that extra toughness allowing me to invest in other things.

I’m new to the rangers forum, but has anyone ever suggested that our pets could DODGE ROLL along with the ranger? I really can’t think of a reason why they shouldn’t, this could give’em a chance to survive big AOE’s.

They should give the pets more variety imo. Skillwise. Not every pet needs to be a damage dealing pet, we could have pets for specific things ontop of that like support boons and extra utility.

Say for instance, if our drake isny targeting a thing and is on gaurd duty sticking with the ranger. He could light the ground with its elemental ability and give off a combo field that would let the ranger shoot elemental arrows and also give the team some extra support.

Also there could be pets just to give off a few boons for the team with its skills. If there was a evolution system i would stick the boon pets to being moas like we have now. As they level up they start to go down the road of what kind of pet they would become skill-wise and start to get there own personal identity. (Apperance and skills).

Basically, make pets more valuable then just being extra damage and skins. Give them there own personal roles that do more then just give the opponent minor damage or a small weak condition.

@Martheo
I think that it doesn’t make much sense since unless you keep it passive there’s a lot of chance your pet will be far away from you so basically there’s few chance he’d need to dodge when you need to and reciprocally.
@iKeostuKen
It would be awesome to have some kind of evolution for the pet as well, major versality and role but I think they should first fix the current issues with it first, F2 key unresponsiveness is one example.

@Daze, with pets not having to actually have to target something for there f2 skill to be used seems like it could be a alternative fix imo. When i f2 on my jaguar it immediately goes into prowl (Stealth) mode.

…But i understand what everyone means about the pigs lol. I had to literally spam it a few times for the pig to actually stop running and start foraging. Guess them not having to target something wouldnt really fix this issue then ._.

Mmmm I’m not sure targeting has something to do with the issue. For example, try the wolf (the worst in that reguard imo) which has an area skill so it targets nothing specifically or even the bears that have area skills too.
However, it’s important to specify that it is in WvW, in PvE all those skills work far better even if not perfect.

WvW is probably the main reason a lot of players want a way to turn off their pet. They have limited value in real WvW/GvG battles because of how easy they’re killed from splash damage. Why should the ranger have their attack coefficients handicapped for a mechanic that doesn’t work? And this is completely ignoring the simple fact that pets don’t work as they should regardless of where they are.

They need to:
Make all pets do the same DPS.
Make pet DPS low enough to warrant Rangers having proper skill coefficients.
Make F2 abilities break attack chains and begin their animation immediately.
Make all F2 abilities have a .5 second cast before the ability goes off and they can continue the remainder of their animation later.
Make F1 attack and recall the pet.
Make F3 activate secondary pet skills with the same rules as F2 but default them to auto so a player has to turn auto off.

If the pet didn’t handicap our damage and F2s were actually reliable I wouldn’t care that my pet died in .5 seconds in WvW.

Atherakhia, I agree and this is the main problem actually: Pet mechanics were absolutely not thought in a WvW situation.
To tell the true, to be on pair with the other professions the pet should simply not die at all (appart from working correctly).
A guardian special abilities are dying? No, they go on cooldown like our pets’.
A guardian lose some of his damage power in some situation? No, it’s always the same.
I took the guardian but I could have taken every other professions, we are the only ones that have our F2 and damage that are dying… And since in WvW it dies after 3 seconds at best this makes it totally unfair.

the most simply answer is:
pet isn’t for wvw… obviously pet isn’t for anything which involves massive aoe damage simply swap it or let him die as soon as possible… or at least use a pet with an AOE ability on f2 (or skills).

One problem with pet survivability come for a lack of anti CC mechanics such as stability or passive condition removal. Even if you spec the Ranger to have Entropic bond, Signet of the Wild(for pet Stability), Signet of Stone, Guard(with Nature’s Voice), and Rampage as One, that pet is still going to die a meaningless death from all of the splash damage and CC when running in and out of zergs. You have to pop Guard—→ than Signet of the Wild (or Rampage as One) —→ than Signet of Stone-—→ so our pets can live through the first clash of a zerg battle. And the funny thing is: you have to spec 30 points into Signets of the Beastmaster to get the Signets actives to affect the Ranger too and in order to have passive pet condition removal; the Ranger needs to go 30 points into Wilderness Survival; furthermore, if you want the regen and swiftness from Guard, you have to go 30 points into Nature Magic.

Even with all of this effort to keep a pet alive, the pet will not cast is F2 properly because its responsiveness is all based on luck or you tab targeted a player or its minion that is 1200 range away from you in the complete different direction you are running towards.

pets will never work well in wvw. AND ranged attacks are bad in gw2. they want melee fight.

And another problem my idea would fix: they should gives us a group of unkillable, not attacking pets, that only support.

I don’t wvw so often, but when I do I notice that everyone completely ignores the pet. And no wonder, they don’t drop a loot bag or xp so there is no reason to waste time attacking it. It once glitched into a tower while we were breaking a door down and I got off two rounds of F2 reef drake skill (not sure what it was hitting, but I could see the numbers through the wall) before anyone bothered to attack it back.