Guild Wars 2

There is a keybind for about face which is kind of weird. I bound mine to alt + Q. Why is there no keybind option to toggle between “Guard” and “Avoid Combat”? They won’t free up the mousewheel to bind “Attack my Target” and “Return to Me”. I want to play a lazy ranger with a keybind for “Guard” and “Avoid Combat”. I think that is the only skill or ability in the game which you can’t bind to a key. I want to play a lazy bear trap ranger. I don’t know if this should be in the ranger forum or the suggestions forum as it fits both shoes. If it’s it one it will probably be infracted for not being in the other. Someone better versed in law want to make a sound legal document out of this and make a petition? I can’t imagine it would take a huge leap of coding to make that simple keybind. Us rangers already have it bad enough as it is.

Yeah, these are great suggestions. Hopefully we see some more work done the ranger UI and more general quality of life improvements in the coming patch.

God yes, it can be really useful given each situation to swap between the two and having to hover a mouse and click is a pain.

If you use the recall button it works perfectly fine, sure you have to hit each time your change targets (piercing arrows / bouncing axes / cleave attacks do not cause it to reset). While it may be convenient to bind it, the control in the game already exists with the f3 command.

Lunchbox.9543:

If you use the recall button it works perfectly fine, sure you have to hit each time your change targets (piercing arrows / bouncing axes / cleave attacks do not cause it to reset). While it may be convenient to bind it, the control in the game already exists with the f3 command.

I like the mousewheel suggestion but, yeah, it’s hard to disagree with you on the send/call feature. It’s basically already there since return puts pet into the same mode.

I know it’s not the most efficient manner to do what you want, but it is there. The mousewheel might work for some, but I like having it as my zoom in / out control, considering the difficulty with camera angles being obstructed by foreground objects.

Lunchbox.9543:

I know it’s not the most efficient manner to do what you want, but it is there. The mousewheel might work for some, but I like having it as my zoom in / out control, considering the difficulty with camera angles being obstructed by foreground objects.

I think that’s the point really, I mean if it was the ONLY issue with pets I’d tell the OP to stop moaning (although it’s a useful suggestion) but it’s just one more annoyance with pets that we could do without. (and that’s the thing, I think a lot of the pet problems are lots of little annoyances that just end up a big annoying ball of pet rage).

Pathing, not hitting, bad UI, not casting right away and taking an age to do it as your target runs to the other side of the map, and so on.

capuchinseven.8395:

Lunchbox.9543:

I know it’s not the most efficient manner to do what you want, but it is there. The mousewheel might work for some, but I like having it as my zoom in / out control, considering the difficulty with camera angles being obstructed by foreground objects.

I think that’s the point really, I mean if it was the ONLY issue with pets I’d tell the OP to stop moaning (although it’s a useful suggestion) but it’s just one more annoyance with pets that we could do without. (and that’s the thing, I think a lot of the pet problems are lots of little annoyances that just end up a big annoying ball of pet rage).

Pathing, not hitting, bad UI, not casting right away and taking an age to do it as your target runs to the other side of the map, and so on.

To me, the worst thing about pets AI is that when they are passive, beside you, you can’t change the spacing between you and them. So what happens is if they happen to be in AoE (and you can’t move because you’re in an AoE hole), well there’s not a whole lot you can do if you’ve already used protection cooldowns. I really think this is a problem…maybe it could be fixed by shortening the CD on pets that die from AoE?

Well, let’s debunk a couple of those problems.

1) Pathing.

Two easy solutions, ranged pets or adjacent swapping. This either limits your DPS by using pets that put more into tough / vit than power / precision, or puts you directly into the battle instead of being a safe distance. However, if you’re running Axe / Torch or Shortbow, you have skills that benefit from being in this range, from time to time, and using this strategy can be effective, while using Quickshot or Lightning Reflexes to escape. Again, a devour or spider would be the easiest solution while taking a DPS loss.

2) The GUI, HUD, and additional generic cop compliment Brian.
It’s not that great, I’ll be honest. Not being able to change my pet while it is stowed annoys me. This is an area where third-party support would benefit more than in-house.

3) Casting / response times.
I look at my pet’s attack animation before selecting it’s active skill, which significantly reduces the amount of time it takes for ones that require channeling times. An easy way to avoid this is using instant-cast effects that do not interrupt your pets attack animation (because this is the cause of the delay) or using pets with fast attack animations (like kitties) or pets with static attack animations (like devours).

Now this things ARE annoying, but to increase the effectiveness of skills with cast animations, that two seconds of quickness from putting five points into Beast Mastery helps immensely. Those three-second cast times are a breeze and rarely miss for me.

At the end of the day, being an effective Ranger is about managing your pet, because a good chunk of our direct damage comes from them as well as some nice conditions / support. A really good pet is the Jaguar, it’s stealth ability can be very useful, although it is a glass-cannon pet and requires good reflexes on swapping and healing.

Lunchbox.9543:

Well, let’s debunk a couple of those problems.

1) Pathing.

Two easy solutions, ranged pets or adjacent swapping. This either limits your DPS by using pets that put more into tough / vit than power / precision, or puts you directly into the battle instead of being a safe distance. However, if you’re running Axe / Torch or Shortbow, you have skills that benefit from being in this range, from time to time, and using this strategy can be effective, while using Quickshot or Lightning Reflexes to escape. Again, a devour or spider would be the easiest solution while taking a DPS loss.

2) The GUI, HUD, and additional generic cop compliment Brian.
It’s not that great, I’ll be honest. Not being able to change my pet while it is stowed annoys me. This is an area where third-party support would benefit more than in-house.

3) Casting / response times.
I look at my pet’s attack animation before selecting it’s active skill, which significantly reduces the amount of time it takes for ones that require channeling times. An easy way to avoid this is using instant-cast effects that do not interrupt your pets attack animation (because this is the cause of the delay) or using pets with fast attack animations (like kitties) or pets with static attack animations (like devours).

Now this things ARE annoying, but to increase the effectiveness of skills with cast animations, that two seconds of quickness from putting five points into Beast Mastery helps immensely. Those three-second cast times are a breeze and rarely miss for me.

At the end of the day, being an effective Ranger is about managing your pet, because a good chunk of our direct damage comes from them as well as some nice conditions / support. A really good pet is the Jaguar, it’s stealth ability can be very useful, although it is a glass-cannon pet and requires good reflexes on swapping and healing.

“Two easy solutions, ranged pets or adjacent swapping.”

I really like this response luncbox, I just have one question though: some dungeon bosses literally cover the floor with AoE such that there are small holes to stand in. Really small. A lot of times lightening reflexes and other choices not only limit DPS but also just aren’t useful. Sometimes, especially if I’m the last one standing, if I get too far away (L.Reflexes) the boss leashes. But if I stand still (safe in a tiny hole outside of aoe circles), my pet dies from just happily sitting in AoE. I think this too often limits a ranger’s DPS during a boss fight (that’s opinion of mine, please change it).

I don’t really have an answer for this. Would you mind elaborating again on how you might deal with that? I’m sorry, I found your post a little confusing and I’m not sure if you answered my original question.

*Finally, I’m not sure how ranged pets avoids the “pet sitting in AoE” issue? I mean, sending/calling the pet isn’t an issue for me. It’s when the pet is supposed to be safely beside me but it chooses to sit in AoE when I start to worry.

Did not see your post, must have added it while I was typing.

Very good point – it becomes a little more convoluted and confusing and requires knowledge of the fight and cues from the boss to be effective, and even then sometimes you’re stuck with a dead pet – which is a major drawback because our cool downs to protect the pet are very, very long and ineffective over the course of an encounter

To make an easy example, we’ll use the end boss from Citadel of Flame path three.
He’s not very difficult, but produces an unavoidable AoE attack that will kill your pet, or at the very least knock him off the platform. My preferred pet here is ranged, I like to disengage him from combat and keep him as far from the boss as possible, then re-engage the pet. When the boss does his AoE attack that sends a ring from the centre of the platform to the edges, performing a quick evade and then swapping pets. This is not ideal for all AoE bosses, but it is my basic technique.

To sum it up:

i) Have ranged pet attacking from maximum range. Move away from your pet.
ii) If able to avoid the attack, call pet towards you. This saves a cool down.
iii) If not, dodge away to safe spot and then swap pets, disengage pet from combat.
iv) Re-position pet at maximum range, or re-position self and swap again.

Encounters that do heavy aoe, like Lupi, make this tactic harder to use, but especially in Arah because of how erratic his AoE attacks are, I find your pet to be more of a liability during the entire encounter, and with the removal of the waypoint resurrection, using those two seconds of quickness from a swap can be used to help quickly res a fallen ally or used in conjunction with “Search and Rescue” to resurrect a dead ally with a dead pet negating any Boss aggro. Again, these are situational, but as it stands pets lack a dodge mechanic and take full damage from AoE, making any encounter that has it harder to keep your pet alive without sacrificing trait points and your own dps to keep them alive.

During any encounter with Subject Alpha, beyond path 1, will ALWAYS kill your pet. There is no way to save it, you will eventually burn through your cool downs. Likewise goes with mechanic fights, your pet will either be unable to help you attack the objects, (like the end boss of CoF path 2), or be unable to be effective due to group tactic, (like end boss of TA up & Dredge Transport in SE path 3). At the end of the day, pets are only truly effective in straight fights without multiple phases or mechanics. They excel versus trash but fall short versus the boss.

In some cases where your own survival can be maintained by active evasion, using your heal just because your pet needs it is always good. If you’re in an area where you can spare the utility slot, Signet of the Wild heals your pet for a higher co-efficient than it heals yourself, giving pets excellent passive regeneration when combined with a well-placed Healing Spring or 15 points in Nature Magic to grant them three seconds of regeneration every time you gain regeneration. Of course these affect trait and build setup, but can be effective if balanced appropriately, and gives access to a 33% increase to regeneration trait, increasing it to four seconds, and being effective party support as well.

To make a long post short: pet swapping doesn’t guarantee it, since the pet never spawns directly on top of the ranger. If it could, it would be a safe way to avoid the AoE, but since it spawns about 400 units away from you to the left-hand-side most of the time, it helps to try and make sure that area is clear. I know, it’s a pain in the kitten And sometimes, just to be a dick, they spawn on the opposite side.

So playing a ranger takes a lot of work. Probably more work than other classes since we have to be aware of both ourselves and pet and manage both ourselves and out pet. So there should be a hotkey to swap between “Guard” and “Avoid Combat”. You can do F1 and F3 but if you pet is set to “Avoid Combat” it comes back to you after you kill something and you have to F1 again on new target. If you leave you pet on “Guard” it will attack whatever hits you and if it’s a melee pet it might pull a bunch of stuff as a result. Sometimes you want to pull one thing away from everything else without your pet aggroing until it’s in position. So having a hotkey to switch between “Guard” and “Avoid Combat” is much more efficient. It’s also only one button to press to cycle between the two rather than pressing F1 and F3 or whatever you bind those keys too. The F1/F3 system actually seems convoluted. We work hard enough as it is and most seem to agree ranger is underwhelming in WvW so why make us work even more with this convoluted hotkey system?

Lunchbox.9543:

Did not see your post, must have added it while I was typing.

Very good point – it becomes a little more convoluted and confusing and requires knowledge of the fight and cues from the boss to be effective, and even then sometimes you’re stuck with a dead pet – which is a major drawback because our cool downs to protect the pet are very, very long and ineffective over the course of an encounter

To make an easy example, we’ll use the end boss from Citadel of Flame path three.
He’s not very difficult, but produces an unavoidable AoE attack that will kill your pet, or at the very least knock him off the platform. My preferred pet here is ranged, I like to disengage him from combat and keep him as far from the boss as possible, then re-engage the pet. When the boss does his AoE attack that sends a ring from the centre of the platform to the edges, performing a quick evade and then swapping pets. This is not ideal for all AoE bosses, but it is my basic technique.

To sum it up:

i) Have ranged pet attacking from maximum range. Move away from your pet.
ii) If able to avoid the attack, call pet towards you. This saves a cool down.
iii) If not, dodge away to safe spot and then swap pets, disengage pet from combat.
iv) Re-position pet at maximum range, or re-position self and swap again.

Encounters that do heavy aoe, like Lupi, make this tactic harder to use, but especially in Arah because of how erratic his AoE attacks are, I find your pet to be more of a liability during the entire encounter, and with the removal of the waypoint resurrection, using those two seconds of quickness from a swap can be used to help quickly res a fallen ally or used in conjunction with “Search and Rescue” to resurrect a dead ally with a dead pet negating any Boss aggro. Again, these are situational, but as it stands pets lack a dodge mechanic and take full damage from AoE, making any encounter that has it harder to keep your pet alive without sacrificing trait points and your own dps to keep them alive.

During any encounter with Subject Alpha, beyond path 1, will ALWAYS kill your pet. There is no way to save it, you will eventually burn through your cool downs. Likewise goes with mechanic fights, your pet will either be unable to help you attack the objects, (like the end boss of CoF path 2), or be unable to be effective due to group tactic, (like end boss of TA up & Dredge Transport in SE path 3). At the end of the day, pets are only truly effective in straight fights without multiple phases or mechanics. They excel versus trash but fall short versus the boss.

In some cases where your own survival can be maintained by active evasion, using your heal just because your pet needs it is always good. If you’re in an area where you can spare the utility slot, Signet of the Wild heals your pet for a higher co-efficient than it heals yourself, giving pets excellent passive regeneration when combined with a well-placed Healing Spring or 15 points in Nature Magic to grant them three seconds of regeneration every time you gain regeneration. Of course these affect trait and build setup, but can be effective if balanced appropriately, and gives access to a 33% increase to regeneration trait, increasing it to four seconds, and being effective party support as well.

To make a long post short: pet swapping doesn’t guarantee it, since the pet never spawns directly on top of the ranger. If it could, it would be a safe way to avoid the AoE, but since it spawns about 400 units away from you to the left-hand-side most of the time, it helps to try and make sure that area is clear. I know, it’s a pain in the kitten And sometimes, just to be a dick, they spawn on the opposite side.

This is incredibly insightful. Thanks for the post.

Saweth You Him.9047:

So playing a ranger takes a lot of work. Probably more work than other classes since we have to be aware of both ourselves and pet and manage both ourselves and out pet. So there should be a hotkey to swap between “Guard” and “Avoid Combat”. You can do F1 and F3 but if you pet is set to “Avoid Combat” it comes back to you after you kill something and you have to F1 again on new target. If you leave you pet on “Guard” it will attack whatever hits you and if it’s a melee pet it might pull a bunch of stuff as a result. Sometimes you want to pull one thing away from everything else without your pet aggroing until it’s in position. So having a hotkey to switch between “Guard” and “Avoid Combat” is much more efficient. It’s also only one button to press to cycle between the two rather than pressing F1 and F3 or whatever you bind those keys too. The F1/F3 system actually seems convoluted. We work hard enough as it is and most seem to agree ranger is underwhelming in WvW so why make us work even more with this convoluted hotkey system?

I think what Lunchbox was saying is that the “return” button for the pet is just as effective as what you propose so why make this quality of life improvement take priority over problems that have more of an impact on game play?

We’ve got so many other problems with out class, most notably the weak damage of main-hand axe, that a major overall of pet controls would be more of a problem than a solution. As it stands, pets require a degree of skill and familiarity to operate successfully, separating good Rangers from the rest of the flock. Can you be effective without your pet? Absolutely. They just make us better.

Chopps.5047:

Saweth You Him.9047:

So playing a ranger takes a lot of work. Probably more work than other classes since we have to be aware of both ourselves and pet and manage both ourselves and out pet. So there should be a hotkey to swap between “Guard” and “Avoid Combat”. You can do F1 and F3 but if you pet is set to “Avoid Combat” it comes back to you after you kill something and you have to F1 again on new target. If you leave you pet on “Guard” it will attack whatever hits you and if it’s a melee pet it might pull a bunch of stuff as a result. Sometimes you want to pull one thing away from everything else without your pet aggroing until it’s in position. So having a hotkey to switch between “Guard” and “Avoid Combat” is much more efficient. It’s also only one button to press to cycle between the two rather than pressing F1 and F3 or whatever you bind those keys too. The F1/F3 system actually seems convoluted. We work hard enough as it is and most seem to agree ranger is underwhelming in WvW so why make us work even more with this convoluted hotkey system?

I think what Lunchbox was saying is that the “return” button for the pet is just as effective as what you propose so why make this quality of life improvement take priority over problems that have more of an impact on game play?

If you hit return while your pet is in “Guard” mode it will either attack when it reaches you or attack when you are attacked again. I would rather my pet stay by my side until I am ready for him to enter combat unless I want him to enter combat ahead of me. Having a simple hotkey binding to “Guard” and “Avoid Combat” is a large quality of life improvement for the ranger and it is also very easy to implement. There are many things that can be changed about the ranger but this one is the most simple. As simple as an if/then statement. It could be done tommorow. It could be done right now.

Any aspect of the ranger can be used as an excuse not to change another aspect of the ranger if it seems more important. This aspect of the ranger is very easy to change and would make a big difference. You can click on the “Guard/Avoid Combat” button with your mouse at anytime. Why not give it a most simple key binding. This isn’t something that takes a team of devs and a bunch of math and alpha testing to implement.

Lunchbox.9543:

We’ve got so many other problems with out class, most notably the weak damage of main-hand axe, that a major overall of pet controls would be more of a problem than a solution. As it stands, pets require a degree of skill and familiarity to operate successfully, separating good Rangers from the rest of the flock. Can you be effective without your pet? Absolutely. They just make us better.

Adding the option to bind a key to “Guard/Avoid Combat” is not a major overhaul of pet controls. You can click on “Guard/Avoid Combat” with your mouse. Enabling someone to bind a key to it is effectively the same as clicking the button with your mouse but now using a key to do it instead. If the mouse click on the spot on screen is already implemented(which is more difficult to code than a keypress and keyrelease) then there should be no reason not to add the option of binding a key to “Guard/Avoid Combat”. It does the same thing as clicking on the button with your mouse except it would be done with a key on your keyboard.