Guild Wars 2

Would ranger actually be decent if the pet was able to be stowed permamently and abilities and traits actually helped you instead of the stupid ai thing that follows you around?

Anet you really need to sort rangers out they are out done in every profession. The only thing they are good at is 1v1 and roaming in wvw…. Rangers traditionally are the ranged physical DPS yet in GW2 they don’t seem to be good at anything beyond what has been mentioned. Everything else well they leave much to be desired.

So do you believe Rangers would be more balanced and viable if half of their traits and abilities didn’t buff the useless pet?

Why remove one of the class’ core concepts? You might as well just scrap the class completely. It’s like saying Mesmer clones aren’t useful in certain situations, so they should be removed completely.

Also, Rangers are far from ‘Outdone by all classes’. The Longbow’s damage is nothing to sniff at, and with AoE cripple, knockbacks, and a 3s stealth, you’d be hard pressed to find anything else outside of a thief with that much kiting potential. Rangers can give their party 15s of a boon of their choice through their pets (Stalker might, moa protection/fury, fern hound regen, bird swifness) and near-permanent bonuses through a range of spirits. Throw in the AoE 7% crit chance increase, and you’ve got a strong offensive support. As far as damage goes, rangers get 10% bonus damage when on full endurance, and 10% bonus damage from behind. Add in Rampage as One, and you’ve got a fast, hard hitting, might stacking class that can operate well in both melee and ranged combat.

So yeah, I don’t really understand your logic as to how rangers are bad. Maybe you’ve met one too many bearbows? If you could elaborate on why you think the class is so poor, I’d appreciate it.

Maximum Potato.5923:

Also, Rangers are far from ‘Outdone by all classes’. The Longbow’s damage is nothing to sniff at, and with AoE cripple, knockbacks, and a 3s stealth, you’d be hard pressed to find anything else outside of a thief with that much kiting potential.

umm, it’s not all that. Our AoE cripple means you have to be stationary which means the person your chasing after will run out or range, the delay from the beginning of the cast till when it actually hits the ground the target is already past the spot and since you had to stop to cast it you lost your chance of catching the person. The knockback is great if he’s running at you but if he’s running away your just helping him gain distance and when your up against many classes, the pushback has no effect on them, especially warriors. And the invisible would actually be nice if it would actually work but if the person dodges or you miss the target, you don’t go invis. On top of all of this, they all have a LONG CD. Unlike Thief (since that’s the class your comparing us to) who can spam their abilities constantly with no CD.

Trust me, at the current state of Ranger’s, we’re better off without the pets and giving the pet’s 30% damage that they are suppose to do back to the ranger so we are not handicapped anymore.

Maximum Potato.5923:

Why remove one of the class’ core concepts? You might as well just scrap the class completely. It’s like saying Mesmer clones aren’t useful in certain situations, so they should be removed completely.

When a lead game designer says that they are a problem (without using the word problem) and they cannot fix it which is why they have been using a band-aid approach your defense of a problem riddled class mechanic is moot. It’s not just useless in some situations, it is useless in every situation because it is tied to mob AI.

There is no defending the pet. It is an Arenanet acknowledged problem because the pet AI is tied to the mob AI in the game. Jon Peters said they do not know if or when it could be fixed without breaking a “million things” in game.

In light of that information that Jon Peters posted in the CDI that has been linked all over the ranger sub forum… Yeah, don’t even try to defend the pet. Really. Just don’t. It only makes you look worse.

On that note, I love playing my Ranger. Love it. Love the mobility that sword+wh/SB provides. I hate my pet. That pet is an extreme handicap because in melee there is nothing you do can with it and still be a DPS build, which yes, is the most efficient build to run in PVE (and will be going back to it when I get back home after trying a pet build after the last patch). I run 4 other level 80s: Guard, Thief, Mes, and Warrior. If my Mesmer clones worked like my Ranger pet… I’d hate the Mesmer…. Rather, I’d hate the clones and would want a way out of that broke kitten d class mechanic. But, that’s not the case. I’m also currently leveling up an Ele and Engi. So, on all the other classes I play the class mechanics actually work. They work as intended. They haven’t been band-aided because Anet doesn’t know how or if they can be fixed. No. On all my other toons the class mechanic works everytime. So don’t patronize us who know what’s up with the class mechanic. Many people have already left the Ranger and I don’t blame them. Why play a handicapped class when there are 7 others that aren’t? Yeah. Because of the last Ready Up livestream I’ve lost all hope that the pets will ever be fixed. The Devs killed it for me. If they’re going to take the lazy route with nerfing crit damage instead of fixing the core problem which is game design, then they’ll always and forever take the easy way out. Yeah. That’s how it is. Had I known then before I rolled my first toon what I know now I would have never ever touched a Ranger and be happier for it.

A Ranger and his pet are a team a lot of rangers want to be the lone Ranger, but even he was part of a team. Moving so your can help you. While it’s possible to kite the pet or the rangers arrow. If they can do both at the same time you are doing something wrong. I have heard Rangers say they put their pets on passive. I Totally understand why these people think the class is underpowered. They willing give up 30% of their damage in every encounter. heaven forbid if they fight a high toughness target or one with protection.

There are problem with pets but I don’t believe its the ai.

BM build are still viable so the ai isn’t completely useless. Without my pet I could never be a thief as it is now I win 80% of my 1v1 with thieves.

Many people are looking for something or someone to blame when they don’t perform well. Every class has issues. The biggest issue I have with the Ranger class is the pet but it’s not the ai. Its the fact pets don’t class as the ranger gear is upgraded.
The other is while we can burst there is a very long cd in between.

What the Ranger class lacks is an over abused mechanism like stealth, Fear and terror. I am grateful that we don’t have one. Each fight with my ranger is different not the same every time it’s probably why lots of people enjoy playing the class even when they think the class is underpowered.

Ultimately it’s about having fun and yes there has been people who have left the class there will always be people who shy away from challenges and people who like things easy or simply like things different.

There are a lot of people who play Ranger if the class was as broken as some of you claim no one would play it.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

There are a lot of people who play Ranger if the class was as broken as some of you claim no one would play it.

Wrong.

I play my ranger because I like pew pew’ing stuff from range for a change. The class is still broken, and I know it from nearly a years worth of play with a ranger. Added to that is that most players who created a ranger didn’t know how bad the class is, and subsequently changed classes.

Class is broken, those who disagree with that are in denial. Devs already admitted pets are busted and wont be fixed, what else do you need?

thefantasticg.3984:

Yeah, don’t even try to defend the pet. Really. Just don’t. It only makes you look worse.

“don’t argue against me or I’ll look bad” – You
Every class has its place and you need to learn yours!
In Mother Russia, class doesn’t want you

Lexandro.1456:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

There are a lot of people who play Ranger if the class was as broken as some of you claim no one would play it.

Wrong.

I play my ranger because I like pew pew’ing stuff from range for a change. The class is still broken, and I know it from nearly a years worth of play with a ranger. Added to that is that most players who created a ranger didn’t know how bad the class is, and subsequently changed classes.

Class is broken, those who disagree with that are in denial. Devs already admitted pets are busted and wont be fixed, what else do you need?

roll berserkers then! broken gear for a broken class! maybe you’ll realize there’s minimal issues at best and maybe you have to trait to make pet efficient but it’s definitely not useless, definitely a mobster, and defs gonna eat your face whiel ur downed

In short, it would be better in too many occasions to ignore. But I’d much rather have a properly fixed pet and I think many rangers feel the same. A big lure of the class for many is definately the pet, not being an odd sniper-thief hybrid thing which is what I feel perma stow would turn the ranger into.

It’s an easy fix to a big problem, but I really hope they don’t do it.

sanictoofast.9317:

thefantasticg.3984:

Yeah, don’t even try to defend the pet. Really. Just don’t. It only makes you look worse.

“don’t argue against me or I’ll look bad” – You
Every class has its place and you need to learn yours!
In Mother Russia, class doesn’t want you

Lexandro.1456:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

There are a lot of people who play Ranger if the class was as broken as some of you claim no one would play it.

Wrong.

I play my ranger because I like pew pew’ing stuff from range for a change. The class is still broken, and I know it from nearly a years worth of play with a ranger. Added to that is that most players who created a ranger didn’t know how bad the class is, and subsequently changed classes.

Class is broken, those who disagree with that are in denial. Devs already admitted pets are busted and wont be fixed, what else do you need?

roll berserkers then! broken gear for a broken class! maybe you’ll realize there’s minimal issues at best and maybe you have to trait to make pet efficient but it’s definitely not useless, definitely a mobster, and defs gonna eat your face whiel ur downed

Im in zerker gear and have been for months, Rangers are still inferior. Miminal issues my sweet aunt petunia. Devs have already state our class mechanic is broken and they wont fix it. That is not minimal, thats a major problem.

Ranger need work they are not broken. Having issue and broken are not the same. Many of you contend that Anet hate and never plays Rangers. Then you miss quote Dev’s ( or take it out of context). At the same time there are Rangers that are have great success with the very thing you claim is broken.

What I believe is broken is the description that says rangers are able to adapt because clearly some people can shake the idea that the class doesn’t work the way they think and are unable to adapt to what is there.

Some may say I’m delusional or in denial. Rangers don’t have one mechanic they abuse like other classes. We don’t have one get out of jail free card (stealth, kd, fear, regen, stun, immobilize and weapon movement skills) that we use to no end like some of the other classes. We have all of the and it’s possible a lot of them in one build.

While other classes are single minded (within a build) we run the gambit.

By no means are we Superman. We are not the first go to Hero. We are not warriors. We are more like Batman (second most popular). We have no OP powers. Sometimes we take a licking, yet we have everything we need to beat any foe. We do our homework. Like Batman we suffer from a bad image (batman is consider a vigilante).

With all things in gaming your mileage may vary. Rangers are broken like chopsticks are broken (the disposable ones you get from take.) Yes it’s easier to use a fork or spoon, but once you learn how to use it properly there are things that chopstick are better suited for. Those that try to use chopsticks (rangers) like a fork (warrior) or spoon (Guardian) will have some success but in the end feel that the others are better.

Don’t emulate Innovate.

Broken? Not broken? These really aren’t the questions.
It has already been admitted that pets are not working right.

Putting the pet on passive is a 30% loss in possible dps. Unquestionable.
Keeping the pet active is still a % loss in possible dps. Only thing questionable is the % of lost dps. Some players are content with that loss because they have found a way to work around that loss and reduce the loss, or gain other benefits helpful to their builds.

It’s still a loss and aren’t you doing a disservice to the class if you claim otherwise?

Maximum Potato.5923:

Why remove one of the class’ core concepts? You might as well just scrap the class completely. It’s like saying Mesmer clones aren’t useful in certain situations, so they should be removed completely.

Also, Rangers are far from ‘Outdone by all classes’. The Longbow’s damage is nothing to sniff at, and with AoE cripple, knockbacks, and a 3s stealth, you’d be hard pressed to find anything else outside of a thief with that much kiting potential. Rangers can give their party 15s of a boon of their choice through their pets (Stalker might, moa protection/fury, fern hound regen, bird swifness) and near-permanent bonuses through a range of spirits. Throw in the AoE 7% crit chance increase, and you’ve got a strong offensive support. As far as damage goes, rangers get 10% bonus damage when on full endurance, and 10% bonus damage from behind. Add in Rampage as One, and you’ve got a fast, hard hitting, might stacking class that can operate well in both melee and ranged combat.

So yeah, I don’t really understand your logic as to how rangers are bad. Maybe you’ve met one too many bearbows? If you could elaborate on why you think the class is so poor, I’d appreciate it.

40% of their damage is based on their pet which rarely hit’s anything, let alone survives. Their F2 skill isn’t something to preach about either considering it works 1/10 times. That’s why people say Rangers are bad, and that’s why many people continually bring up stowing the pets and basically “absorbing” their stats and damage.

Bearbows are actually more effective than you think because the Bear actually tends to use it’s skills when they are needed keeping it alive, unlike other pets who just spam their skills whenever the cool down is up. Your bear will actually do more dps over time because it is the only pet that has any remote chance of survival.

Honestly, if you’ve spec’d yourself into a spirit build, your doing it wrong. Extremely ineffective build compared to other builds except in sPvP.

Yes the class has problem all classes do. Pet are not conditions you don’t apply them and your done. Ranger need to working in tandem with their pets. The fact that the ai is tide to pve tells me that its not as bad a some claim. If making pet ai strong would make pve difficult then that tell me pet ai would be to strong.

The pet isn’t suppose to be un-escapable and hit every time. I don’t believe that I’m doing the class a disserve. I believe those that want Ranger to be like warrior or mes are.

The sum of the ranger is so much more than than other classes could every be. I don’t know how much of Mesmer damage is made up by clones. What I do know it that I don’t want Rangers to send in their pet and them stealth and swoop away and have the pet do all the damage. This is pretty much what Mesmer’s do now. It’s cheap and I know when I lose to one I don’t feel as the player bested me but the mechanism.

When a Ranger is well played it shows; just as when Rangers play badly. With other classes when you play poorly you can cover it with borderline op mechanisms.

Before pets had health issues. A few Rangers did very well at keeping their pets alive. Then we received a health buff. It was super easy for almost all rangers (those that made the effort before the buff) to keep their pets alive.

This buff came at a price for the next patch came with a pet damage nerf. Those Rangers who never tried to keep their pets alive before the buff had written pets of as unless (except when built for executing sotw, open stike jaguar crit of 15k) and new rangers are the ones today still having trouble keeping their pets alive today.

My pets die more now than they did why back when because now I take it for granted that they will be ok.

Melee pets not hitting is an issue for some.
Pet not scaling is an issue for some.

In the life of the game for me Pets not scaling is a bigger issue. There is no work around or l2p issue here. I believe fixing both of these issue would be OP and put rangers in a position for some major nerfs.

Rangers who learned the ai are stronger rangers those that haven’t or don’t use pets are weaker for it. Is it easy? For some yes and others no. Making thing easy now doesn’t prepare one for challenges ahead. Most of the time to get something you give something.

The top played spvp, Tpvp class and WvW classes change with which class currently has the most OP mechanism. Those who have gone with the ebb and flow of the flavor of the month have a different take on how rangers fair. They have had to much power and think that is what should be normal.

Harping on an issue that Anet says they can’t currently fix or don’t think needs to be fix isn’t serving The Ranger core. So fining other way to help fix the underlining issue like dps, or support is more beneficial to the core.

When you have been giving an answer move on if you force their hand your not going to like the result.

I have a lvl 80 of every class and I am most happy with the Ranger class. Do when have issues sure but all the classes do. I am working on my third and fourth Legandary for my ranger. So I am invested in the class and I only want what’s best for the class (not easiest).

Sorry my post are always too loooooooooooooooong.

Ranger would be decent if we dropped all Shout skills and instead introduced [Pet Whistle] utility skills.

• Each [Pet Whistle] “kit” would function identically to Engineer kits in that you can swap in and out of them at will with only a 1-second recharge on the kit.
• Each [Pet Whistle] kit 1 and 2 skills would be taken up by the current pet’s non-F2 attack skills (the ones that are currently activated at the pet’s AI-based leisure).
• The other 3 skills would vary based on the type of [Pet Whistle] kit equipped.
• All of the [Pet Whistle] kit 3-5 skills would involve pet positioning-based attacks (leaps, dashes, swap location with your pet, etc.) or even combo-attacks between the player and the pet through the use of chain skills.

Only 3 classed have shout Ranger, guardians and warriors. While in it self shout aren’t that big of a deal. They can give us additional condition removal aswell as access to more regen and swiftness.

Kits are an engineer Mechanic so I doubt we will get. I wouldn’t be in favor of losing shout for it. Out side of that and it being a kit. Call them aspect of the Beast master and have them work based on pet selection I think its a maybe.

On another note

A lot of you would like to remove pets but I don’t believe you have though it through.

Range damage is easy to strafe.
Pets are easy to strafe as well.

But since most can’t do both at the same time it isn’t a big issue. Be careful of what you wish for: removing pets would make Rangers weaker not stronger.

Problem is in WvW, the pet is Dead in the beginning 3 seconds of a battle because of area effects, so people don’t need to strafe your pet because there is no pet, which leaves you with a 30% dps handicap. Even if the pet was up, in WvW you don’t stop moving, that’s the first rule. If your target is always moving, your pet won’t get a hit in anyways. At least with my bow I’ll be able to hit him if he’s just moving in one direction, and if I’m shooting into a crowd I’ll be hitting someone or multiple people thanks to piercing arrow. Something that the pet does not do. So yes, I would rather have my full 100% of damage on my ranger.

Edit:
And lets not forget forts, pet’s won’t attack attacker’s from fort wall and pet’s, not even birds, will attack defender’s up on the fort walls, again a 30% handicap. And I say 30% but that number must be much larger now thanks to new gear and weapons.

Lets run through a little scenario that you’d have to build into the Ranger just by removing pets (ignoring the very obvious problem with pets not working).

Ranger is jumped by a thief and immediately tells his wolf to attack the thief. .5 seconds later, the wolf lunges onto the thief knocking him down.

As the Thief begins to get up, the Ranger instructs his wolf to howl and Fears the thief before he can respond by dodging.

As the Thief runs in fear the Ranger swaps pets to his hound and tells it to attack the Thief.

At the same moment the Fear ends, the hound lunges and knocks the Thief down.

Just as the Thief is about to recover, the Hound howls immobilizing the Thief so they can’t move.

Throughout all of this until the very end you’re plinking away for 1.5k – 3k a second and at the very end you either knockback the Thief with your longbow to line up a swoop+hilt+maul or simply rapid fire knowing at this point the Thief has no option left but to stealth and your arrows will track through and still hit.

Now we might scoff at this, but I can pull this scenario off nearly 100% of the time in duals and roaming. Now granted this pales in comparison to what my Warrior is capable of with merely swinging a Hammer, but it’s still a hell of a lot to give up.

So whatever you have in store other than simply increasing our damage, it has to give me enough power to offset all that utility I lose as well.

But that’s not what the OP asked… lets suppose you did somehow manage to find someway to allow me to continue doing this with a stowed pet that also allowed me to do 30% more damage or something silly like that. Would I consider the class complete? No… as it stands the mere fact that this class doesn’t have good AE or burst means power, my preferred way to play this class, will never work no matter what happens to the pet or the ranger’s sustained damage.

Atherakhia.4086:

Lets run through a little scenario that you’d have to build into the Ranger just by removing pets (ignoring the very obvious problem with pets not working).

Ranger is jumped by a thief and immediately tells his wolf to attack the thief. .5 seconds later, the wolf lunges onto the thief knocking him down.

As the Thief begins to get up, the Ranger instructs his wolf to howl and Fears the thief before he can respond by dodging.

As the Thief runs in fear the Ranger swaps pets to his hound and tells it to attack the Thief.

At the same moment the Fear ends, the hound lunges and knocks the Thief down.

Just as the Thief is about to recover, the Hound howls immobilizing the Thief so they can’t move.

Throughout all of this until the very end you’re plinking away for 1.5k – 3k a second and at the very end you either knockback the Thief with your longbow to line up a swoop+hilt+maul or simply rapid fire knowing at this point the Thief has no option left but to stealth and your arrows will track through and still hit.

Now we might scoff at this, but I can pull this scenario off nearly 100% of the time in duals and roaming. Now granted this pales in comparison to what my Warrior is capable of with merely swinging a Hammer, but it’s still a hell of a lot to give up.

So whatever you have in store other than simply increasing our damage, it has to give me enough power to offset all that utility I lose as well.

But that’s not what the OP asked… lets suppose you did somehow manage to find someway to allow me to continue doing this with a stowed pet that also allowed me to do 30% more damage or something silly like that. Would I consider the class complete? No… as it stands the mere fact that this class doesn’t have good AE or burst means power, my preferred way to play this class, will never work no matter what happens to the pet or the ranger’s sustained damage.

Your post sort of points out the conundrum. When you use the pet as an added phased utility (AKA the pets impact on the state of an opposing player is more important than the damage done) Rangers need a pet. They are our variable utility function.

If you look at them as a pure damage add, well all of their AI problems lurch front and center.

In terms of correcting it. A zerk power build with 30% more DPS and still having 2 KD’s a fear and an imob = overpowered. OK massively overpowered.

A ranger with 30% more damage and absent those extra utilities = roadkill in most scenarios but brutal from a wall. 30% extra damage doesn’t make it easier to stay at range and lacking stability reliably once engaged without those KD’s and Imob’s you aren’t doing any better because you aren’t getting back to range and have lost your tool to reliably keep it without designating a utility slot to that goal.

If all we got from them was DPS balancing them without fixing them would be easy. A simple matter of our damage relative to theirs.

Atherakhia.4086:

Lets run through a little scenario that you’d have to build into the Ranger just by removing pets (ignoring the very obvious problem with pets not working).

Ranger is jumped by a thief and immediately tells his wolf to attack the thief. .5 seconds later, the wolf lunges onto the thief knocking him down.

As the Thief begins to get up, the Ranger instructs his wolf to howl and Fears the thief before he can respond by dodging.

As the Thief runs in fear the Ranger swaps pets to his hound and tells it to attack the Thief.

At the same moment the Fear ends, the hound lunges and knocks the Thief down.

Just as the Thief is about to recover, the Hound howls immobilizing the Thief so they can’t move.

Throughout all of this until the very end you’re plinking away for 1.5k – 3k a second and at the very end you either knockback the Thief with your longbow to line up a swoop+hilt+maul or simply rapid fire knowing at this point the Thief has no option left but to stealth and your arrows will track through and still hit.

Now we might scoff at this, but I can pull this scenario off nearly 100% of the time in duals and roaming. Now granted this pales in comparison to what my Warrior is capable of with merely swinging a Hammer, but it’s still a hell of a lot to give up.

So whatever you have in store other than simply increasing our damage, it has to give me enough power to offset all that utility I lose as well.

But that’s not what the OP asked… lets suppose you did somehow manage to find someway to allow me to continue doing this with a stowed pet that also allowed me to do 30% more damage or something silly like that. Would I consider the class complete? No… as it stands the mere fact that this class doesn’t have good AE or burst means power, my preferred way to play this class, will never work no matter what happens to the pet or the ranger’s sustained damage.

So essentially the people you dual with have no stun breakers or dont know where they are.

The “story” you told basicly what happens vs an NPC. Any thief who is even remotely worth killing would have probably disppeared the second the first knockdown hit, and certainly would have when they got feared.

Also canine leaps knockdowns have a 1.25s cast time, not 0.5. And thats not even including any time it may or may not take them to decide to do anything.

Atherakhia.4086:

Lets run through a little scenario that you’d have to build into the Ranger just by removing pets (ignoring the very obvious problem with pets not working).

Ranger is jumped by a thief and immediately tells his wolf to attack the thief. .5 seconds later, the wolf lunges onto the thief knocking him down.

As the Thief begins to get up, the Ranger instructs his wolf to howl and Fears the thief before he can respond by dodging.

As the Thief runs in fear the Ranger swaps pets to his hound and tells it to attack the Thief.

At the same moment the Fear ends, the hound lunges and knocks the Thief down.

Just as the Thief is about to recover, the Hound howls immobilizing the Thief so they can’t move.

Throughout all of this until the very end you’re plinking away for 1.5k – 3k a second and at the very end you either knockback the Thief with your longbow to line up a swoop+hilt+maul or simply rapid fire knowing at this point the Thief has no option left but to stealth and your arrows will track through and still hit.

Now we might scoff at this, but I can pull this scenario off nearly 100% of the time in duals and roaming. Now granted this pales in comparison to what my Warrior is capable of with merely swinging a Hammer, but it’s still a hell of a lot to give up.

So whatever you have in store other than simply increasing our damage, it has to give me enough power to offset all that utility I lose as well.

But that’s not what the OP asked… lets suppose you did somehow manage to find someway to allow me to continue doing this with a stowed pet that also allowed me to do 30% more damage or something silly like that. Would I consider the class complete? No… as it stands the mere fact that this class doesn’t have good AE or burst means power, my preferred way to play this class, will never work no matter what happens to the pet or the ranger’s sustained damage.

Lol wakey wakey, stop living in a dream mate, it would be a wet dream if every thieves are as stupid as you described. Or if the pet ai mechanic is that smart.

Atherakhia.4086:

Ranger is jumped by a thief[…]

If you’re jumped by a reasonable thief you’re already dead.

For power Ranger the thief fight pretty much go like described above. Thieves are very aggressive so the are easy to predict. Signet of stone help survive the initial burst. Thieves are very fragile. We all know it the stealth that keeps them alive and it what makes them so deadly. Hiting a thief while he’s stealth normally results in a dead theif or a fight reset.

No it wont because a good thief with CC, re-stealth and either gtfo or circle around and backstab you. And Fyi your pet at this time is dead and on cooldown so there is no way to use it. Stone Sig doesnt do that much to help, it adds a minor toughness bonus. A good thief will never allow himself to be trapped, because with shadowstep skills its extremely easy to disengage or reposition.

But lets be clear here, the pets are nothing but a liability. Players like myself already know how to game without a pet in tow with rangers from GW1 were a pet was entirely optional. Touch Rangers in GW1 went down a storm in PvP, Running Rangers were called on just as much as warrior runners for Droks runs.

We at the mercy of our Pet AI for damage potential in combat.

Pets are only a liability if you don’t know how them. Power ranger have the option of traiting signet allowing signet of stone to give them six second of invulnerability.

I would love for a thief to turn his back on me to kill my pet. You only do that to a BM Ranger. ithout your pet anyone could just strafe your arrows. While they can strafe pets most can’t do both.

As I too Played Ranger as my main in gw1 I can say Ranger in GW2 are nothing alike. Trying to play GW2 without a pet is like trying to play a GW1 Ranger without expertise yes you can do it. But why.

Apparently my server does fight against the worst thieves in the universe then. While I struggle with condi thieves or the new sword thieves, I can’t recall the last time I had an issue with d/d or d/p on my Ranger thanks mostly to the combo listed above. Lucky me I guess.

The point still stands… a passive damage increase is not going to be enough to fix this class or replace the utility the pet brings. While they’re useless in WvW group fights, they’re still very valuable in roaming and dueling and simpy removing them is not a realistic option. Not for ANet and not for the players.