Guild Wars 2

The title’s self explanatory. I know, it’s our gimmick and all, but there are times when having a pet out doesn’t help you any during fights, or makes things worse. So, can we please have the option to put the pet away, and maybe get a boost to our own stats while the pet’s stowed? Or even have a skill(s) that forces the pet to be stowed but gives us more skills/options?

Sorry if this has come up before.

Here’s a thought. Allow us to stow the pet, and give us extra skills to replace the ones in the pet interface while the pets are stowed. The skills you get could differ depending on what pets you have stowed, but you could get 1 or 2 skills from each pet.

Example: The Reef Drake. Stowing it could give you a Confusing Screech skill to screech in a cone in front of you, like its own pet skill. You could also get a spin move to inflict weakness on enemies around you, like its tail spin. Stowing it could also give stat boosts based on the pet’s strengths. Stowing a pet that has toughness and vitality as its strong stats could give you boosts to your toughness and vitality. I’d like some feedback, because I think this idea has potential. Please.

Sorry about the blobs of text.

Basically any way of stowing the pet in combat would be a blessing.

Griffonrook jp you take damage from falls and even if you dodge perfectly, the pet will likely get into combat slowing your speed and recovery from falls, which usually ends with failure.

Fractals Maw: One of the worst cases. The boss will often target the pet (my record so far has been 5 times in a row). This leads to a lot of frustration, particularly if you have multiple rangers. I’m getting tired of ppl asking me to stow the pet in this fight (apparently they thought it was an oversight, so have had to explain on multiple occations that I can only stow pet if I don’t fight at all :/). But in a way they’re right. Stowing pet is the only logical thing in this fight, because the pet is only prolonging the fight, not helping.

There are many more cases but these are the 2 I believe any ranger is likely to remember. I can’t imagine I’m the only ranger having been asked to stow pet in Maw fight.

This may sound cheesy, but I’ve played a few Megaman games a few years back, and one feature I particularly liked was the soul unison concept, where you could bring up the abilities of a prominent enemy you defeated during the storyline.

As you have suggested, this would work in a similar manner. If pets are “stowed” or somehow connected to us [insert cheesy, spiritual background for how this works here], we should receive a buff to certain traits (depending on the pet) so that we are brought up to par with other professions, especially those in our medium-armour category.

(I do apologize for repeating a lot of what you said, but I started writing after I read the first two sentences in your first post, and then continued reading and finishing this post after I read the rest. Why is this significant? The concept of pet stowing isn’t revolutionary or difficult to understand at all – I’m sure other rangers, in due time, would find this as an interesting mechanic to use.)

I really like the idea of being able to use our stowed pet’s abilities as well.

I like the idea, F3 can be used to toggle fusion/defusion. Then the ranger can have access to pet skills through F1 and F2. Defusion will make pet reappear next to ranger.

This has been suggested since launch. The Devs have stated we must play their way and always fight with the pet no matter how they screw shazzit up for pets. It’s their way or the highway. Yes, I too think they need to fire these Devs are hire the ones that worked on the ranger in gw1.

Aww. Sorry for rehashing an old point. I was kinda doing that already, but I also wanted to give an alternative to having the pet out but at the same time be able to use their strengths/abilities to help us, and to give a reason to actually have more pets and variety. To still use our connection to nature’s power.

The only alternative I see is improving the A.I. To make pets be able to handle themselves without us micromanaging them in the middle of a fight, but that seems like it would require more work on the programmers’ part, and I’m not sure that’s a priority right now when they allegedly have 4 teams just for Living Story content. What about people to fix the bugs? What about people who read our suggestions and can give their feedback and maybe even put those ideas into the game? It saddens me somewhat.

Well, my ranger remains for open roaming at least.

No dude, its our CORE mechanic. Warriors can’t ignore their burst moves and eles are forced to attune, every thief has to steal or he gets stunned whenever its off cd. Everyone is punished if they don’t take full advantage of their core mechanic and play it perfectly, why should we be exempt? You know how irritating it is doing jade maw and then that dang warrior forgets to use his burst move, crashing the game and uninstalling GW2 from our computers.

/s

just my 2 cent..

i can understand you but the pet is what the ranger makes the ranger in gw2 and i´m happy with this

This is a major problem with the Ranger class. I don’t mind having the pet with us all the time but there are many situations that the pets are just useless.

For example:

In the current state of WvW, if you are not solo roaming or doing small teams, chances are you are with the zerg. The pets have very low survivability during fights with 20 + players fighting against each other with AoE spamming all over the place. Because the response time on our pet’s F2 abilities are still very slow and the leash ranges is terrible, there is no point to have the pets out until our group starting culling the enemy numbers some.

If they want us to have the pet out all the time, that is fine, but not to give use compensation for our pets death. The pets are ok in small engagements but in large engagements such as WvW, World Bosses, Champion bosses, and so on, the pets are just a decoration or a buff at best.

We should be able to use our F2 skills all the time or give us a new F-key skill on pets deaths.

Also, if our pets are kept on passive, when the Ranger uses the pets F2 skill, the ability should be cast by the Ranger until the Ranger commands the pet to attack a target. The reason I would like this is because if you have the pet on passive and use its F2 on the move, chances are the pet is 400-900 range behind you and the pet will stop to cast the ability missing the Ranger most of the time (Spirits unbound have this same issue). And having the pet on passive or guard in WvW, chances are the pet is going to be CC while the Ranger is bobbing and weaving around the massive AoE on the ground.

Sorry for the wall of text but this is an issue I have with the pet.

Robert Hrouda on perma-stow:

There have been some calls for perma-stowed pets, and while I have said this in other areas I will say it again here. I don’t think we will let you perma-stow pets – the main reason being we want the player to be interacting with the pet, and the pet to be part of the identity of the player. The role of ranger is to to have a pet in our game, and with that comes a bit of extra micromanagement that comes with the package. Right now the micromanage is difficult and more tools are desired, and I honestly feel that once we make micromanaging pets easier, more responsive, and better in general that players won’t mind that they don’t have perma-stow capabilities.

Aria.5940:

Basically any way of stowing the pet in combat would be a blessing.

Griffonrook jp you take damage from falls and even if you dodge perfectly, the pet will likely get into combat slowing your speed and recovery from falls, which usually ends with failure.

Fractals Maw: One of the worst cases. The boss will often target the pet (my record so far has been 5 times in a row). This leads to a lot of frustration, particularly if you have multiple rangers. I’m getting tired of ppl asking me to stow the pet in this fight (apparently they thought it was an oversight, so have had to explain on multiple occations that I can only stow pet if I don’t fight at all :/). But in a way they’re right. Stowing pet is the only logical thing in this fight, because the pet is only prolonging the fight, not helping.

There are many more cases but these are the 2 I believe any ranger is likely to remember. I can’t imagine I’m the only ranger having been asked to stow pet in Maw fight.

Griffonrook: I can sort of understand, though I’ve never had that problem. Of course I’ve also never even considered attempting the bomb run solo.

Fractal Maw: This is officially a bug. I say this because I know for certain that I read a patch note a while back that stated the Maw would no longer target pets. The fact that it still is, and all pets, not just ours, indicates that he’s going against the patch which means bug.

The only other time my pet was such a hindrance that I actually had to stow it to finish was the escalator of death in the asura/harpy fractal, where the pet triggering the trap actually hit you too.

So the Griffonrook one doesn’t have a clear answer, but the others are simple. Make the pet immune since there is no reason for it to be getting hit. Stow is not something that should be required for anything. We shouldn’t even have it since they’ve removed the main point it was added at all for, which was mob aggro. Mobs don’t aggro the pet, therefore no reason to need to stow them. Fixing the exceptions is better than making a work around for the problem.

Yez about time dev fix fractal maw targeting pets. So annoying. Stop sleeping devs and fix the issues or u will lose more players

Lots more feedback, yay.

To Celebratty: Yes, it’s our core mechanic, like the warrior’s adrenaline/bursts, the thief’s steal, and so on. The difference is that they have far better control over their core mechanics, and they’re never actively put at a disadvantage in certain situations for using them, unless they use them wrong.

Examples:

1) Jade Maw. It targets your pet with the laser? Too bad, you don’t get to damage it. I think it still targeted them even when they were down.

2) Subject Alpha. This come down to stacking on it and being lucky. If you’re lucky, the pet is excluded from the AoE targeting, and you’re fine. If not, it’s down the entire fight.
This could arguably apply to any boss that uses AoE attacks often.

3) Champion Risen Abominations. I refer to the champion variant, since the normal and veteran ones can usually be taken down before they build enough frenzy to be a problem. Taking a Ranger to any fight against any of these things is unwise. You have to keep your distance even further than other classes, because even if you dodge, your pet won’t. Even calling it back doesn’t help with the reach of the abomination’s attacks now. Your pet is just a frenzy builder for them.

Really, against champions in general, pets don’t really help much, unless you trait into Beastmaster so they’ll survive long enough for you to keep switching them in and out.
And like AydenStar said, pets aren’t really all that useful in WvW, or from my experiences of trying.

Sorry about all these walls of text. :<

(After reading jubskie’s link to Robert Hrouda’s post…)

…Really? What? That’s the answer? No. I am still going to mind that I don’t have the option and probably never will, according to this. This is…ugh. Bookah. For shame.

Well. My ranger remains a map roamer and magic find alt, until they get rid of that.

Guess its not for everyone. How are you using your pets btw? If you’re only looking at them as “this stupid AI that dies every fight” then you’re doing something wrong.

I suggest reading some of the pet guides on the sticky thread to help you see them in another light.

This question has been asked before. It will be asked again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again

jubskie.3152:

Robert Hrouda on perma-stow:

There have been some calls for perma-stowed pets, and while I have said this in other areas I will say it again here. I don’t think we will let you perma-stow pets – the main reason being we want the player to be interacting with the pet, and the pet to be part of the identity of the player. The role of ranger is to to have a pet in our game, and with that comes a bit of extra micromanagement that comes with the package. Right now the micromanage is difficult and more tools are desired, and I honestly feel that once we make micromanaging pets easier, more responsive, and better in general that players won’t mind that they don’t have perma-stow capabilities.

This is the single most disappointing ‘news’ I have heard concerning Guild Wars 2 since release.

Those are going to have to be some pretty rad “tools” to placate my desire for perma-stow. At the absolute very least, the current stow pet feature should keep the pet stowed unless the player attacks—not release the pet on damage taken.

Celebratty.1632:

No dude, its our CORE mechanic. Warriors can’t ignore their burst moves and eles are forced to attune, every thief has to steal or he gets stunned whenever its off cd. Everyone is punished if they don’t take full advantage of their core mechanic and play it perfectly, why should we be exempt? You know how irritating it is doing jade maw and then that dang warrior forgets to use his burst move, crashing the game and uninstalling GW2 from our computers.

/s

I disagree. Warrior adrenal health is very much a passive trait and relies on warriors to not use their class mechanic at all (just build it up and let it sit at max) for full benefit. Not everyone is punished if they don’t take full advantage of their core mechanic.

Celebratty.1632:

No dude, its our CORE mechanic. Warriors can’t ignore their burst moves and eles are forced to attune, every thief has to steal or he gets stunned whenever its off cd. Everyone is punished if they don’t take full advantage of their core mechanic and play it perfectly, why should we be exempt? You know how irritating it is doing jade maw and then that dang warrior forgets to use his burst move, crashing the game and uninstalling GW2 from our computers.

/s

Lol, i was about to reply that a lot of Mesmer builds don’t require constant shatters but then i realised you were being sarcastic. Well played.

I don’t think it will really matter what the devs say…a large number of rangers will always be asking to perma-stow pets (and a fair few members of my guild have told me that they would play ranger if pets were optional, as in GW1). Sure it’s our core mechanic and there should be this sense that a ranger’s identity is partly in their pet (just as part of the player’s efforts are carried out through the use of pets)…but it doesn’t change the fact that there are times when pets are simply detrimental.

Jade Maw is a great example. Everyone’s always saying “stow your pet, ranger!” but they’ve obviously never played ranger to know that you simply CAN’T. But more than that, there are so many times when your lingering pet gets you into combat (or at least keeps you in combat) while you’re trying to go somewhere else. And I don’t mean to complain about silly details, but in WvW a pet essentially becomes a handle for people to grab onto as they play ‘kill that slow ranger’.

I wouldn’t care about having buffs, additional skills, etc. whilst a pet is stowed. But I’d just love to be able to stow a pet and not have it deploy itself as soon as I’m in combat. I’d like that to be my choice as a ranger. And rangers who keep their pets stowed forever will be missing out on part of their character as they’d lack the pet’s damage and agro and tanking and whatever else they use them for. As such rangers should still feel compelled to use their pets…to keep their ranger identity as defined by the gameplay mechanic. But perma-stow would allow much more efficient use of that currently flawed mechanic.

It would make me happy, it would make a lot of rangers happy, and most of all…it would make those who fight alongside rangers (particularly against the Jade Maw) very happy.

danjit.5048:

but in WvW a pet essentially becomes a handle for people to grab onto as they play ‘kill that slow ranger’.

Main reason I always stow my pet in WvW: the assailant has no clue as to what class you are until he hits you and the pet appears and start hitting him.. If you indeed keep the pet out, it will get you in combat way too easy (in WvW specifically).

This is never going to happen, for two reasons:

If our pets weren’t needed, no one would be using the pet. I mean, it’s not really a hard choice; use the pet and lose a good chunk of damage because it can’t hit consistently, or keep the pet permanently stowed and have 100% damage output. The pet would become nothing more then a cool looking decoration..

The other reason is, having the pet permanently stowed, means a lot of the Ranger’s skills won’t work. Shouts, activated signets, the beastmaster trait line, and some of our weapon skills, are just some of the abilities that would be useless without the pet.

It’s a feature that has no utility so it will not happen. I wish the ranger forums had two neon signs:

1) No, pets will never be perma stowed
2) Yes, sword is functioning as intended—go practice with it

Reisinger.4203:

Celebratty.1632:

No dude, its our CORE mechanic. Warriors can’t ignore their burst moves and eles are forced to attune, every thief has to steal or he gets stunned whenever its off cd. Everyone is punished if they don’t take full advantage of their core mechanic and play it perfectly, why should we be exempt? You know how irritating it is doing jade maw and then that dang warrior forgets to use his burst move, crashing the game and uninstalling GW2 from our computers.

/s

I disagree. Warrior adrenal health is very much a passive trait and relies on warriors to not use their class mechanic at all (just build it up and let it sit at max) for full benefit. Not everyone is punished if they don’t take full advantage of their core mechanic.

I was being sarcastic :p

They’ll never let us stow pets because they are fully aware that we don’t want pets. If we could stow them, we’d never use them again except maybe in PvE when you’re feeling lazy.

If you ever had a thief C/D your pet over and over again, you’d know why he wants to be able to stow his pet.

Tribio.8531:

danjit.5048:

but in WvW a pet essentially becomes a handle for people to grab onto as they play ‘kill that slow ranger’.

Main reason I always stow my pet in WvW: the assailant has no clue as to what class you are until he hits you and the pet appears and start hitting him.. If you indeed keep the pet out, it will get you in combat way too easy (in WvW specifically).

That just means your assailants are stupid. Pet’s make it easier to identify, but there is still our weapons. So unless you are running around in shortbow or sword/dagger you shouldn’t look like any other class but ranger.

Kal Spiro.9745:

That just means your assailants are stupid. Pet’s make it easier to identify, but there is still our weapons. So unless you are running around in shortbow or sword/dagger you shouldn’t look like any other class but ranger.

I do agree that an assailant with half a brain should be able to see my weapon and indeed conclude that I’m a ranger.. And of course, also when you’d select me, you’d see the Signet of the Hunt (ranger skill).. :-)
The stowing of the pet’s biggest main reason was to don’t get into combat that much, btw.. But thought it worthwile to mention here: the closer your opponent has to come to you to determine your class, the better he is in range for your bows..

Pet stow isn’t really needed anymore, at least not in PvE. One of the recent big patches made it so pets don’t aggro things anymore from just running too close to them (they’ll still aggro stuff if they attack one mob close to another mob). So if you have your pet on passive, it’s effectively stowed. Yeah it’s still running around, but it’s not aggroing anything, and because it’s on passive it won’t attack anything. So it’s effectively stowed.

There are a few exceptions, but they’re pretty rare. e.g. While you’re running through mobs, an AOE misses you but hits your pet and slows you down. The pet gets in the way of your vision while trying to do a jumping puzzle. Your passive pet gets insta-killed by a boss AOE and goes on a 1 min cooldown when you would’ve preferred it stowed so you could bring it out after the AOE to buff the group. etc.

PvP is a different story, as the CnD thief can still exploit your pet to gain stealth.

jubskie.3152:

Guess its not for everyone. How are you using your pets btw? If you’re only looking at them as “this stupid AI that dies every fight” then you’re doing something wrong.

I suggest reading some of the pet guides on the sticky thread to help you see them in another light.

Or, you’re jaded. I want to do the most damage I can. Can you guess what that means? That’s right. I need to melee. Can you guess what that means for my pet if I am now pew-pewing from 1200-1500? That’s right. There’s no F3. So, knowing those two things, can you guess what that means for the pet if I am melee’ing? That’s right. It’s going to die no matter how much micromanagement goes into it. But, you say, you should be using a melee set and a ranged weapon set! Which, of course, I do. Sword+Horn/SB or LB. Here’s the problem Charlie Brown, by the time I swap and hit F3 my pet doesn’t react fast enough to get back to me because it is mid attack animation every-kitten -time. Then use a ranged pet you say? Talk about shi* damage. In PVE and Dungeons, DPS is king. kitten and GTFO if you think otherwise because we are talking about two different games then. And, because I want to do the most damage I can, I’m not specced 30 points deep into BM. Because of that, my pet can’t take a feather across the face in terms of AOE or more than 2-3 hits from a dungeon boss.

I would love the Ranger class so much more if I could stow my pet during combat. I really don’t care that I’d lose the DPS at this point despite what I stated above. It’s been almost a year. If they could fix the pet they would have by now. Anet Devs are too stubborn to admit they farked up and too proud of a shattastic AI that can’t dodge. Especially when the game is built around mitigating damage through dodging. The answer isn’t “dodge when I dodge” but it’s a step in the right direction. I would stop playing my alts if they let me stow while in combat. I might even stop loathing John Sharp and the balance team at that point.

Another thought: I wish they would have named this class “Beastmaster” as that is MUCH MORE FITTING.

My problem with pets are they do not have a method of allowing you to meet the demands of the gameplay.

1) Jade Maw targets my pets consistently, slowing down the time to kill it. Sometimes my pets will get targeted twice in a row, so the cooldown to switch again is not done so my pet dies and I have to wait a minute to get it back.

2) Calling the pet back to you is unreliable. Sometimes the pet returns quickly, sometimes it takes some slow and roundabout way and still gets hit by the attacks you want it to avoid.

If they want to enforce the pet’s importance to gameplay, great. I have no problem with that idea, but they need to give us reliable tools to address all facets of the game. There needs to be a dodge mechanic or something added to calling pets back and the AI pathing needs to be improved.

Just a few tips for people in this thread.

1. For Jade Maw, simply keep your pet stowed. Stay out of combat, it’s very easy to do. Stick on crystal refreshing duty.
2. For Griffonrook, keep your pet passive. You won’t get into combat if your pet gets attacked. You only go into combat if your pet attacks.

Pet stowing during combat will be nice. However, suggestions that pet stowing should give you some additional powers are pretty silly and will never happen.

Ursan.7846:

Just a few tips for people in this thread.

1. For Jade Maw, simply keep your pet stowed. Stay out of combat, it’s very easy to do. Stick on crystal refreshing duty.
2. For Griffonrook, keep your pet passive. You won’t get into combat if your pet gets attacked. You only go into combat if your pet attacks.

Pet stowing during combat will be nice. However, suggestions that pet stowing should give you some additional powers are pretty silly and will never happen.

I’ve made the mistake of not stowing pets and running spirits… didn’t realize it until boss went through a pet, spirit, and swap all in a row :P

Well, thanks for the feedback. I thought it would be a good idea, but it seems not meant to be after all.

Stowing pets in combat will be cool. Since it can work as some kind of pet dodge.
It’s supper hard to make pet dodge some attack while melee.
However it shouldn’t give any stat boost to ranger in my opinion.
BTW when are we going to get a better response F2.

thefantasticg.3984:

jubskie.3152:

Guess its not for everyone. How are you using your pets btw? If you’re only looking at them as “this stupid AI that dies every fight” then you’re doing something wrong.

I suggest reading some of the pet guides on the sticky thread to help you see them in another light.

Or, you’re jaded. I want to do the most damage I can. Can you guess what that means? That’s right. I need to melee. Can you guess what that means for my pet if I am now pew-pewing from 1200-1500? That’s right. There’s no F3. So, knowing those two things, can you guess what that means for the pet if I am melee’ing? That’s right. It’s going to die no matter how much micromanagement goes into it. But, you say, you should be using a melee set and a ranged weapon set! Which, of course, I do. Sword+Horn/SB or LB. Here’s the problem Charlie Brown, by the time I swap and hit F3 my pet doesn’t react fast enough to get back to me because it is mid attack animation every-kitten -time. Then use a ranged pet you say? Talk about shi* damage. In PVE and Dungeons, DPS is king. kitten and GTFO if you think otherwise because we are talking about two different games then. And, because I want to do the most damage I can, I’m not specced 30 points deep into BM. Because of that, my pet can’t take a feather across the face in terms of AOE or more than 2-3 hits from a dungeon boss.

I would love the Ranger class so much more if I could stow my pet during combat. I really don’t care that I’d lose the DPS at this point despite what I stated above. It’s been almost a year. If they could fix the pet they would have by now. Anet Devs are too stubborn to admit they farked up and too proud of a shattastic AI that can’t dodge. Especially when the game is built around mitigating damage through dodging. The answer isn’t “dodge when I dodge” but it’s a step in the right direction. I would stop playing my alts if they let me stow while in combat. I might even stop loathing John Sharp and the balance team at that point.

Another thought: I wish they would have named this class “Beastmaster” as that is MUCH MORE FITTING.

Yep, resort to insulting me because you don’t agree with me. Classic.

Also, why bother asking me? You already have all the answers!

Lastly, if I’m Charlie Brown, you must be Lucy Van Pelt.