Guild Wars 2

Trait: Pets have 30-50% percent chance to ignore damage taken from mobs and AoE

Edit:

I decided to make this a more detailed post on my toughts of why this can be a great solution (or a proximity to one) Why? I have the time (:

First of all I am not good at math, not at all so this will not include all the complex equations and numbers that can help explain my idea. Also, English is not my mother language so mistakes may be here an there, but I will try my best to explain myself, and any feedback or maybe a rework polishing the basic idea would be great(or a completely new idea, maybe).

So, the complaints about this profession that I have seen all around, the game chat, forums, youtube, and encountered myself base around 2 things:
1-Poor pet AI(pulling aggro and stuff like that)
2-Pets dying too fast, like being 1 shotted for pulling aggro on an advanced dungeon or being useless on a zerg you constantly encounter during WvW gameplay.

Poor Pet AI:

This is not really a problem to my eyes, for me it seems like smart micro controlling your pet and who knows maybe even perma stowing(wich I am not a fan of) Also, most of the complains I see about this are like “My pet pulled aggro while I wasn’t paying attetion and it died oh my gosh useless animals QQ rage rage tear tear Anet doesn’t care about rangers…”

You weren’t paying attention? What the kittendogpig were you looking at? Your female norn’s butt? Maybe your char tail wiggling around or you asura’s ears bouncing? If you weren’t paying attention while you knew you pet was on Guard mode and didn’t even notice it running to a mob(if melee pet) you deserved it, it’s your fault, not your pet’s, shut up.

For me pet AI is perfect where it is, since this has nothing to do with the trait I suggested, which is supposed to be the topic of this thread(…) and this is just my opinion on this particular issue, I’ll move on with the next point:

Pets dying too fast:

Trait: Pets have 30-50% chance to ignore damage from mobs and AoE

Why only a “chance” to ignore damge?
Why only from mobs and AoE?
Why not just improved toughness and/or vitality and be done with it?

I believe pets should be balanced where they seem to be unfairly a disadvantage to their master, like being 1-2 shotted from a dunegon mob and losing a big portion of your damage. Switch it? Next pet dies and you again lose since you have to wait for CD to bring the other one back.

That, to me and to many rangers seems unfair, since rangers are supposed to have synergy with pets. They were meant to fight side by side! To display the strong bond bethween the master and his bea… oh you mean that dead animal…? See my point?

There is no point for them to be such important to the ranger when they die too fast, with no real way for mitigating damage other than Signet of Stone. Being forced to waste a utility slot just for whatever the pet you use doesn’t die is pretty lame.

With the trait your pet should gain a lot of the durability it lacks, without making it unkillable or “OP” so if you just leave it there fighting nonstop against an ascalonian monk or warrior, then of course it should and would faint, and so should you.

Also a great addition can be doubling the rate of the damage mitigation for like half a second after pressing F3 skill. This coming from the “If I dodge why doesn’t my pet do so?” And this wild also reward the players that take the time to master pet controlling and having the awareness to do so. (of course this chould have a CD so you wouldn’t be like f1, f3, f1, f3, f1, f3 and yor doesn’t go like lololol can’t touch this.

Now for the AoE aspect,
Picture this scenario:
(please note i am not a hardcore WvW player, and so my following tale may not be 100% accurate if you can write a better tale post it so i can replace this one).

You are rolling on WvW having a good time with your dog and you small group, roaming around, getting suply camps and busting some dolyaks. fun fun fun fun

Suddenly.
I spy with my little eye… a zerg fight over a keep, and a big one! I rush your way there to aid your server and conquer the keep.
After a few minutes of dodging, siegeing, picking out of position targets, usual stuff.

Gate goes down, I go in, arrows, meteors, barrages on top of you zerg(wich is the most logic thing to do when you see a zerg burstin through your keep gate)
Nothing your armor, some protection, and your troll unguent can’t handle(for a while)
Whats that?
My eyes.
They deceiving me? No, a thief, a strong one, and he is coming down to burst the nerco on my team… particularly on my party
I should go on top of him.
He sealths. oh gosh, nothing my wolf’s AoE fear can’t handle since i most likely he is going onto my necro buddy. I should get my pet there, fear, wait for him to appear kick some thief’s bASSilisk venom.
OH WAIT WOLF’S DEAD x_x
NECRO DEAD x_x
Thief away (><)
I sad ):
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The wolf died as soon as it entered the AoE damage, where the Ranger can stand it for a small amount of time, the wolf cannot, this being unfair to the Ranger since most of other classes don’t rely on a squishy pet for doing a portion of the damage, cc, and utility the Ranger can deal.

Now, if our Ranger friend had this trait the wolf may have survived the AoE landed the fear to where our antagonist thief most likely would have been buying time for him to go out of stealth and then you could have proceeded to do whatever you do to thiefs that try to murder you buddies.

How is this not OP? it kind of is yeah, but its “fairly op” while an elementalist could have Rode some Lighting and be out of the AoE radius ratherly quick, while the ranger would have had to drag his little friend through the AoE with him, it might faint, and you would have lost a lot of your damage, cc, and utility.

Why not just improved toughness and/or vitality and be done with it?

Now THAT would be OP as hell, just imagine watching a dude struggling with your ridicoulously tanky pet while you just stand from afar laughing and throwing in some arrows, cripples, dazes, traps, anything you can’t think of.

I think the trait would help balance the pets where they lack, without making them OP, since if someone single targets your pet it should die as it was intended or forcing you to swap, which would have been a (somewhat) smart play, like the one our Ranger friend tried to pull off but unfairly couldn’t.

And thats about it, if missed something i’ll add it as soon as possible.
If you read all the way down here, thank you! I hope you enjoyed and share my opinion
If you don’t all feedback is good as I hope a dev may see this thread

Again this is a basic Idea, could use polishing, could not use it, maybe higher or lower activation ratings, maybe CD or maybe a higher chance to have damage reduction instead of completely ignoring it, who knows?

Note: The percen’t ratings of the trait ar just an approximation of course its up to the devs to decide if this idea is worth trying and would decide
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TL;DR: I believe the trait listed at the beginning may help balance the pet system wich clearly needs some polishing (read it)