Guild Wars 2

But some players want their pets to do more dps and others don’t want to rely on their pets for dps at all. So how do we handle that? By allowing people to have the choice!

Ranger Design Adjustment

I absolutely love the ranger in GW2, having melee and ranged capabilities along with a pet allows a fun class that rises above any Ranger based class from any other game I have ever played. That being said I think the Ranger needs an adjustment to make it way more awesome. When I think pet classes I think of three main styles of play.

Play Styles

Balanced

• Ranger and Pet do the same amount of damage
• Both provide utility and protection

Ranger Damage

• Ranger does most of the damage
• You use the pet for protection and utility

Pet Damage

• Pet does most of the damage
• Ranger protects the pet and provides utility to the pet

This would allow the class mechanic to stay in place while providing different play styles within the class. Currently pets do a certain amount of dps almost regardless of traits. GW2 is great at allowing players to play how they want. Rangers need a little bit more of that autonomy. Players who want to do all the damage themselves and use their pet for its added utility could spec into a marksmanship style spec. If you absolutely love pets and want to be a Beastmaster when specializing in pets your pet would do most of your damage and you would provide utility to support your pet. Also players that want to play a balanced play style where you and your pet together do the same amount of damage as each other would still be able to balance the specializations and perform more balanced.

Traits

Glass Cannon

• This spec could be full ranger and full pet damage
• Both you and your pet would be “glass”
• Both would do a lot of damage, both would be easy to kill

Beastmaster

• This is where the pet would do most of the damage (roughly 80-90%)
• Ranger would build tank or utility to support pet.

Marksman

• The Ranger would do most the damage (same as above 80-90%)
• Pet would provide utility to the ranger(think Protect me)

The styles of play above seem to be the idea when I look at rangers trait trees and the class as a whole. It just doesn’t seem to have enough variability. I want to address ways to give it that variety (One way is the adjustment to 80-90% of damage). With these different styles opposing players would need to identify the priority of what to kill first (pet or ranger).

Pet Stats

Pets durability are based on the Ranger’s Vitatlity and Toughness

• Allows a Pet to be durable depending on the Ranger
• Pets still have their own stat spreads so that you can still have a tanky pet with a glass ranger (i.e. Bear, Boar, Moa)

Pet damage is based on specialization of the pet

• Pets damage is separate from ranger damage.

Condition damage and Healing power from the Ranger

• This allows us to finally have pets that do good condition damage and healing. yay!

Allows the different Traits to have the effect desired without becoming overpowered (a super tanky pet that does tons of damage).

Conclusion
Ranger has the foundation to make it amazing just allow a larger division between Ranger and pet. I have spent a lot of time since launch trying to figure out how to help the ranger reach its potential. I believe this will allow the ranger to reach that potential in its class mechanic.

Implementation

The implementation could be super simple! Change the pet attribute bonus to pet damage and critical damage bonus (1% per point). So our pets do more damage if we want to specialize into beastmastery! The only factor is changing pet stats so that they receive Vitatlity, Toughness, Condition Damage, and Healing power from the ranger.

They are superbad if you realize that they can’t attack moving targets, because they stop every time when they want to attack while the target moves toward.

i have a moa named lawn moa, thus all votes saying pets are bad are invalidated.

Your ideas are interesting. I say flexibility and giving the player options are always good things. Much could be fixed with the Ranger as is exists today just by allowing pets to hit moving targets and get themselves out of AoE. Beyond that though, I like the ideas you presented. In PvE my preference would be the build where the pet absorbs damage and keeps the enemy’s attention off me.

As a mesmer, I have to say rangers are definitely lacking in PvP. I can simply target a ranger while moving and his pet can’t kill me. They’re in desperate need of a rework more so than any other class in the game in my opinion but ANet must be very careful on their adjustments to pets. It doesn’t take much to make their pets too strong. Kirby made some great points and I hope ANet takes notice. There are still a lot of bugs and balance changes that are needed but I really believe this is the best MMO PvP out there.

Clone Illusiion (PSI)

Yes, I believe this was the intended use of the Ranger class. We all wish something like this was viable but the problem is it is nowhere near it. I don’t need to go into detail about exactly why our pets are useless, it’s be said over and over and frankly, until those reasons are addressed the Ranger (much less Beastmasters) are never going to be viable with such an unreliable profession mechanic. Sad but true and it needed to be said here.

As far a contributing goes;

The Ranger is flawed at it’s very basis; Mobility, Profession Mechanic, and Skills.
By design, the Ranger is not in any way suited to Siege or Defend places (applying to WvW). In such instances your pet becomes drastically less useful, if not completely, therefore limiting you. As such you should play to your strengths; Ranging. The Ranger should be the superior Ranging profession. They should be the Scouts, Roamers, and Skirmishers. Why is this not viable?

• Unreliable profession mechanic
• Complete lack of mobility (if you say Warhorn skill #5 makes up for this I will kill you. +angryface)
• Complete lack of Skills that aid and contribute to this goal. (Such as but not limited to: No condition removal, no sun breaks, lack of snares, etc.)

Now I’m all for Ranger/Pet tag team as your post illustrates but the problem with that is that it does not address the current issues. We don’t know how to balance Ranger’s pets because they are just that unreliable. Maybe they are currently perfect in most regards to stats and damage but cannot show it due to the way they are designed. This is a great post but it came too early. One cannot balance a game when the game itself is broken. (This applies to more than just Ranger/Pet synergy)

Until;

1. Pets can hit moving targets and use skills more reliably
2. Rangers are able to move faster than normal outside combat
3. Rangers gain access to skills that contribute to play styles, not ones that create their own.

To be perfectly honest I think the Profession as a whole needs a complete rework centered around the above 3 points. Until that happens the Ranger a whole is never going to be truly viable.

1. I agree Ranger pets would greatly benefit from being able to hit moving targets and use skills more reliably. Sadly this would be hard to do without instant cast pet abilities and pets being able to attack while moving. But if you want your pet to hit your target more reliably try carrying frost and spikes traps or muddy terrain.

2. Rangers kindof already have this one with signet of the hunt. Having their own unique movement speed increase outside of combat would be unfair to other classes. Although Signet of the Hunt could really use a buff to 25% to be able to keep up with thieves.

3. I’m not sure what you mean by this one. We have a lot of great skills that work well with different play styles. Some of our weapons don’t feel well tailored though. Greatsword being the biggest concern.

Kirby.4951:

1. I agree Ranger pets would greatly benefit from being able to hit moving targets and use skills more reliably. Sadly this would be hard to do without instant cast pet abilities and pets being able to attack while moving. But if you want your pet to hit your target more reliably try carrying frost and spikes traps or muddy terrain.

2. Rangers kindof already have this one with signet of the hunt. Having their own unique movement speed increase outside of combat would be unfair to other classes. Although Signet of the Hunt could really use a buff to 25% to be able to keep up with thieves.

3. I’m not sure what you mean by this one. We have a lot of great skills that work well with different play styles. Some of our weapons don’t feel well tailored though. Greatsword being the biggest concern.

1. I should not be forced to bring specific skills to achieve proper function for a profession specific mechanic

2. The Ranger has a complete lack of mobility skills/traits/effects and being Medium armor…that’s a no no. (No your Warhorn doesn’t count!)

3. I’m going to make a post detailing this soon as to explain it better but what I mean is how our utility skills force you to play to them and not aiding in your choice of weapon skills.

I think we’ld should start with allowing pets to actually hit a target.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5DiFJAtWQ

1. Our pets do hit targets, when we help them. Even with a small cripple or swiftness to my pet my pet hits its target. Just not as often as I would like.

2. we have 2 leaps, one on greatsword and one on sword. Both provide great mobility to use between points and running around wvw. And we have a swiftness that last 15secs with only a 30 sec cd. This is not including the passive boost we get from signet of the hunt.

But yes I think that the ranger pets need to feel more like a boon to the class then a hinder.

@ Kirby…

1. our pets should always hit targets regardless of what we do, we should be able to do nothing and still and know that our pet is still hitting things, as in the video the bird shouldnt miss just because he wanted to wind up and fly in a stupid circle before attacking.

2. GS leap dont count, it has a bad animation and it slows you at the end, Sword leap throws you backwards, nuff said there. And warhorn doesnt count, as well as th epaltry 10% from the signant…. having the speed buff in a signant makes it useless unless I spec signants…. Why do most other class get to spec into passive 20 or 25% speed buffs, when I the "RANGE"r dont get to… speed is kind of implied in my name one would think.

This does look interesting, however…

My issue is how.. cookie cutter the pets are. Each family of pets has the same stats. Same skills. The only difference between them are the F2 skills that are basically similiar in most cases. There’s no ability to train or build your pets along the lines you want them. Only affecting them with a few skills and traits on the ranger itself.

Having alot of pets is wonderful however. Honestly I would prefer a few, high quality, custom trained and cared for pets than a small army of cutout pets. To be honest over half of the pets, in my opinion, are practically useless in a real crunch. What happens when they go down? Ranger DPS flops. Right now only the high Vitality and Toughness pets have any chance at all and that’s if the Ranger specs heavily into the beastmaster traitline and chooses traitlines that have utility supports. Even then at the high levels, not even gonna mention dungeons, they get flattened in any world event in short order.

I think Ranger skills should affect the Ranger. Then pets should have their own setup completely seperate from the Ranger’s. Have skills and traits that when used in conjunction support the both in tandem or have both spec’d to be able to stand on their own.

I’ve spent time, since the second beta test, running through the pets. Trying out different trait balances. Skills to support or stand on their own. Gw2 blows mmo cut&paste build out of the water on alot of things… the pet setup just isn’t one of them.

My problem with pets, in PvP, is that they are pretty much forgettable. In other words, I forget I have one because it’s always freaking dead and with that a part of my ‘potential’ DPS. In PVE, they are tolerable, especially if I spec for them, but, in PvP – forget it, they are a waste of pixels.

@AreeSoothsayer

I completely agree with your argument that Ranger skills affect the Ranger. There is not many utility skills that other classes have access to that directly affect their class mechanic. (the only ones I can think of are Signet of Illusions, Infiltrator’s Signet, Signet of Fury).

So why does ranger have 7 utilities that require our class mechanic alive (the pet) to use? I feel like the ranger as a class would benefit from 7 different utilities that don’t need the pet to use. And then make those utilities that were made for our pets built into our class mechanic. I want this great unique class mechanic that sets me apart from other classes while at the same time is a benefit to the class rather than a hindrance that I am forced to deal with.

There is a fundamental issue with pets, that OP fails to comprehend. Pets are AI driven damage dealers. You can’t fix them to match player skill. They will either drag down good players or (if ANet makes them sufficiently smart) carry bad ones. There is no middle ground to that.
The only way to fix that is to get rid of either AI part or damage dealing (and as a result balance or ranger’s own skills around pet’s damage). Of course that would require complete mechanic redesign, so its not going to happen any time soon. Until then ranger will remain bland unimaginative mediocracy.

It is true that AI has problems, but with the ability to micro manage your pet a good player can overcome certain AI problems.

• What that means is that with good controls for your pet, that can be used to tell your pet what you want it to do and when to do it, a good player surpasses another player in ability to control AI.
• The problem is if their are inefficiencies in the pets AI that do not allow a good player to effectively control the AI.

But I also disagree that the ranger is a bland unimaginative mediocre class but that’s more of a difference in taste.

im not sure what or how you are speccing but i always swap pets when they are almost dead or actually on cooldown for quickness buff my pets rarely die in pvp unless i am about to die anyway…pet or not… i use dogs and spec 15 in to BM tree if that helps but im not sure why your pets are dying the issue is why can they hardly hit anything …

Trollhammer.7439:

There is a fundamental issue with pets, that OP fails to comprehend. Pets are AI driven damage dealers. You can’t fix them to match player skill. They will either drag down good players or (if ANet makes them sufficiently smart) carry bad ones. There is no middle ground to that.
The only way to fix that is to get rid of either AI part or damage dealing (and as a result balance or ranger’s own skills around pet’s damage). Of course that would require complete mechanic redesign, so its not going to happen any time soon. Until then ranger will remain bland unimaginative mediocracy.

i have seen this in other posts and i disagree , not with your AI comments but the “bland mediocrity” statement, i believe small changes to remove cast times on pet abilities or increase range on pet melee attacks will make things that much better.

Kirby.4951:

It is true that AI has problems, but with the ability to micro manage your pet a good player can overcome certain AI problems.

• What that means is that with good controls for your pet, that can be used to tell your pet what you want it to do and when to do it, a good player surpasses another player in ability to control AI.
• The problem is if their are inefficiencies in the pets AI that do not allow a good player to effectively control the AI.

But I also disagree that the ranger is a bland unimaginative mediocre class but that’s more of a difference in taste.

I do not really understand the meaning of class, the whole game of which is based on overcoming his weaknesses.
Is warrior must help his adrenaline to gain? Or elementalist, should he help the fire attunement be fire? Must the thief help his initiative to replace his CD? Have guardian helping their virtues to give buff?
No offense please, but I think your argument is nonsense. And they just dictated by love for the style of this class. His amplua, not his real functional or merit. Why is half of my abilities – is buffs on my mechanics, which I still must HELP TO WORK normaly?! Why should I help third of my damage to do this damage?
Does the fact that a third of my damage on the pet any advantage to me? I do not think so.
Those options that you described, actually not quite are true. In reality, what ever style of game you choose you forced(!) to pay attention to your pet. Since a huge part of your damage and the work of many of your abilities needed his presence. Therefore, you have to pay great attention to its survival. And whatever build you do invented – this forcing remains.

This can only liked by people who love the exactly pet-style of game. But I guess they never will understand people who do not like this style. All the same it reduced to the argument “then this is not your class. Try another.”

I have a hard time understanding where you are coming from Megazlo. Are you saying that because (in your opinion) there are no ways to use AI successfully against non-AI class mechanics, then pets should be removed as the class mechanic?

Ranger class built entirely on the dependence of its mechanics. IE pets. Roughly half of ranger’s damage – a pet. Half ranger’s abilities – pet buffs. However, the pet now – is a hindrance rather than help. While the mechanics of other classes gives them an advantage, our gives us nothing but inconvenience.
Think, we are the only class whose mechanics could die. Easily. And while take with half of our damage. And then half of our abilities no longer works. While other classes have many social buffs, temporary invulnerability, conditions removing, we have only enhance on our pet and possibility to protect ourselves by sacrificing our pet (on which half of our damage, allow me to remind).
Thus we become the most socially useless class of all. Our class only works on his mechanics, which does not work well for ourselves.
Such a system would work, if the ranger in itself would have DPS comparable to other classes. Then pet would be a powerful appendage. In this way we would justify our social uselessness by wery high damage, and pet would justify the inconvenience necessary for its functioning.
Now pets useless. And helping them, as you suggest, you just lose even more.

I would say pets can be a very effective if not overly effective class mechanic but that discussion should be had in a different thread. This thread is about adjusting pets so that they are effective. A discussion about whether or not to change the rangers class mechanic should be had in a different thread.

Why?
You say that pets are awesome. I believe that pets are only harm class now. We exchange arguments.
And what, in your opinion, their effectiveness?

Please read more then just the title!

I found no word about pet effectiveness. Only the joy about variety of options. Which, by the way, I also consider very illusory.

I did not state a joy on the variety of options, I was suggesting there should be more options, and those options would provide me joy, because the current state of rangers is that the amount of damage for the pet and ranger are fairly set in place.

I would like to see a larger variability between ranger and pet depending on traits and pet selection. So that you could have a specialization were the ranger is doing all the damage, but also a different specialization were the pet is doing all the damage.

Really? Then I support it. Resent in support! =)

I like the idea of more variability through traits.

The ability to decide between full ranger damage vs split damage vs full pet damage would be very nice when making a build.

The only thing I would not like is the pet stats being based on the ranger’s stats, because I like to stat for full damage, but I like having a tanky bear for pve at the same time.

I would prefer pet effectiveness being based completely on traits, and not on our ranger’s stats.
-If it was based on our own stats, pets whose role doesn’t fit our stats would become less useful, and those that did would become much more useful. I would prefer having all of the pets being at maximum usefulness if I picked a build fully based on the pet.

I want to have all the options available.

• Tank Pet – Glass Ranger
• Tank Pet – Tank Ranger
• Glass Pet – Glass Ranger
• Glass pet – Tank Ranger
• Balanced Pet – Balanced Ranger
• Balanced Pet – Glass Ranger
• Balanced Pet – Tank Ranger
• Tank Pet – Balanced Ranger
• Glass Pet – Balanced Ranger

If you can think of any other choices I would be glad to add them. My problem comes in what is a great way to implement this kind of change without creating a situation that the pet and ranger end up doing tons of damage while being super tanky.

In pvp one of the main differences in power between mesmer and ranger is the pet mechanic.

On the one hand you have mesmer pets (esp. phantasms) that mesh perfectly to aid the mesmer in delivering huge burst as well as a shatter mechanic that works smoothly to deliver damage or CC.

Then you have ranger pets, where you have to 1) work hard to even get the pet to hit a target by ccing it at the right time, 2) rely on the opponent standing still, 3) have most of the pets secondary abilities trigger randomly giving you some luck-based opportunities with knockdowns etc, and 4) having its main ability that you trigger very often miss.

The class doesn’t need the huge reworking listed by kirby if pets remain as they are now, you know why? Because what will happen is that in pvp everyone who wants to be competitive will take the “Ranger damage” and “marksman” type build he talks about. Its not providing an option at all.

If the ranger class’s damage is based nearly 50% on pets then they need to be as effective as mesmer pets. Do that and ranger is estentially fixed.

On my mesmer I can burst for over 10K in spvp so easily without even doing much. Example: summon swordsman, change to greatsword, summon berserker, auto attack with GS. This basic combo lets me wreck anyone from range because my pets always hit as soon as they are summoned and my auto attack damage is quite good as well. The opponent can be standing anywhere, on a roof, hill, wall my pet will get them. There is no need to cc them, no need to rely on lucky procs, it just works. And this doesn’t even take into account what I can then do with shattering.

Perhaps mesmer is an example of what happens when you implement a pet mechanic too well, but if such a mechanic is to stay with ranger even as a choice like the OP suggests, then the fundamental way they work needs to be looked at.

what about having instead of the stow option a merge with pet option and get 20% of the pets stats and it’s utility skill, i think this would be a simple and fun fix since choosing the right pet would still be important and people that still like using a pet just have the option of not using it.

Yasha.5963:

In pvp one of the main differences in power between mesmer and ranger is the pet mechanic.

On the one hand you have mesmer pets (esp. phantasms) that mesh perfectly to aid the mesmer in delivering huge burst as well as a shatter mechanic that works smoothly to deliver damage or CC.

Then you have ranger pets, where you have to 1) work hard to even get the pet to hit a target by ccing it at the right time, 2) rely on the opponent standing still, 3) have most of the pets secondary abilities trigger randomly giving you some luck-based opportunities with knockdowns etc, and 4) having its main ability that you trigger very often miss.

The class doesn’t need the huge reworking listed by kirby if pets remain as they are now, you know why? Because what will happen is that in pvp everyone who wants to be competitive will take the “Ranger damage” and “marksman” type build he talks about. Its not providing an option at all.

If the ranger class’s damage is based nearly 50% on pets then they need to be as effective as mesmer pets. Do that and ranger is estentially fixed.

On my mesmer I can burst for over 10K in spvp so easily without even doing much. Example: summon swordsman, change to greatsword, summon berserker, auto attack with GS. This basic combo lets me wreck anyone from range because my pets always hit as soon as they are summoned and my auto attack damage is quite good as well. The opponent can be standing anywhere, on a roof, hill, wall my pet will get them. There is no need to cc them, no need to rely on lucky procs, it just works. And this doesn’t even take into account what I can then do with shattering.

Perhaps mesmer is an example of what happens when you implement a pet mechanic too well, but if such a mechanic is to stay with ranger even as a choice like the OP suggests, then the fundamental way they work needs to be looked at.

I think your idea that a player, with the option to do all the damage or spec his pet to do all the damage, will always choose to spec into damage himself is wrong. I personally would run pet damage most of the time because players tend to attack other players and ignore pets. Building like a bunker and supporting your pet would be a really fun play style that would be outstanding in 1v1 situations.

If you look at past games with classes that use pets you can see that the AI plays an important role.

• World of warcraft had good pet ai and you had completely different play styles with beastmastery being pet damage based and marksman being hunter damage.
• If you look at Rift (which had the worst AI on a pet I have ever experienced) pets were almost useless and no one played the “ranger” spec because of poor pet AI.

This means that with good AI on the pet, the game then becomes a factor of the division between pet and player.

You totally miss the point.

As you say in the last sentence above “This means that with good AI on the pet, the game then becomes a factor of the division between pet and player.”

That is the key point. At the moment ranger pets are not awesome they are lame.

The huge gap in effectiveness between mesmer and ranger pets illustrates how lame they really are. Of course if the AI/how they behaved functioned was changed then pets would be awesome- as mesmer pets are awesome. And in that case the build options you noted would actually be options.

HOWEVER, if ranger pets were as good as mesmer pets there wouldn’t even be a need to offer the options you suggest because we could choose to buff pets or personal damage through the trait lines.

I heard what you said, but there isn’t this horrible pet AI in GW2. The only thing that can be criticized is the choice to give pet abilities cast times and not being able to attack while moving. Other then that pets, in my experience, do what I tell it to do.

From Kirby: “I heard what you said, but there isn’t this horrible pet AI in GW2. The only thing that can be criticized is the choice to give pet abilities cast times and not being able to attack while moving. Other then that pets, in my experience, do what I tell it to do.”

Whether it is AI or some other factor, ranger pets are vastly inferior to mesmer pets in pvp, as I outlined briefly above. If that issue is not resolved only a noob or someone who liked being kittened would build around an ineffective pet in pvp.

In addition, if ranger pets were to be changed so that they were on par with the power of mesmer pets, you can pretty much do what you suggest now with the trait set up as is, although traits could be slightly tweaked to further accentuate this

The only problem is that ranger pets are awful. Awful compared to mesmer pets, awful compared to pets in other games I’ve played.

Note: I am refering only to the pvp side of things.

So based on your judgement of ranger pets what specifically makes them so much worse then mesmer clones?

Rangers have more control over their pets then mesmers, so it may be harder for someone to properly control a ranger pet where a mesmer just makes clones and lets them do their own thing.

All of this has led me to believe that the we as rangers all get to drag around our own personal Mystic Forge… The only way it gives us anything viable is based on pure RNG, and since Anet seems to love RNG i think were gonna be stuck with the personal forges…

@Kirby
IMO mesmer clones/phantasms do have an edge over pets, but it is not due to AI. It is more how they function.

1. Mesmer clones can trick people into attacking them instead of you (your pet doesn’t trick people).
2. They are often created near their target. For example, a pet is mostly useless for attacking during a siege in wvw because it can’t do anything from either on the walls defending, or on the ground attacking. A mesmer phantasm is created where it can attack, and the walls do not hinder it at all.
3. Mesmer clones/phantasms are disposable, and easily replaced. They are made quite quickly with multiple cds to replace them, and you are not punished if they die. (Pets have a longer cd if they are killed.)

Due to the speed the clones/phantasms can be replaced, they do not require additional control. Cast and shatter when about to die, then replace.

I agree 100% Thighum that mesmer clones are better then pets. Just making the point that it’s not due to a lack in pet ai for ranger pets. It’s more due to the reasons you just listed. Since those are not the fault of the AI of pets then there are other issues that need to be addressed like making pets stronger or (like i suggested) adjusting the division between ranger and pet.

@ kirby… if you think the pet AI is decent as is then you are nuts sir lol. There is no need to adjust the division between ranger and pet because it would be fine pets worked right… I.E attacking while moving, better pathing, and actually using their abilities when you tell them to.

I hate the fact that when im up at Keep, even my kittening bird, cant fly down from the perches and attack, and instead chooses to go all the way down the hill and come all the way back up through the NPC type routing path… this is not good AI

Fix these things first and formost and then there would be no division between ranger and pet, for the pet would actually deal its dmg reliably there for boosting rangers dps output significantly simply by fixing crappy AI.

Like I said before, cast times on pet abilities and not allowing pets to attack while moving are not AI issues. Those were most likely balance reasons to make sure pets were not too powerful. The bird is not actually flying so its path is the same path as a land animal. Although it would be cool if I could command my pet to jump down and attack a target from a ledge. But it does not sound like something that I want to happen right now there are much bigger issues to fix then a pet being able to jump off a ledge.

Again I doubt they were balance reason, why should my pet not have its attacks hit simply because of an animation… how is that balance? Why should a BIRD behave like a friggin land animal! And i dont mean cast time, take the wolf fear for example, why does the wolf run to the target and start to cast it but then fail if the target moves to far before his animation locks in? I want him to howl he should just kitten howl when i say…

Another thing is pets behave just like NPC, the pet is supposed to be an extension of me not an NPC… I like my comparison in my earlier post of the pet being like the Mystic Forge its all RNG if its gonna work or not.

P.S. If the devs say pet AI is fine and its meant to be that way because of balance issues then I will gladly stick to my guardian.

Kirby.4951:

So based on your judgement of ranger pets what specifically makes them so much worse then mesmer clones?

Rangers have more control over their pets then mesmers, so it may be harder for someone to properly control a ranger pet where a mesmer just makes clones and lets them do their own thing.

Thighum.7295 covered some reasons above, and also I think my example of how simple it is to create massive burst with mesmer pets shows another angle.

So to reiterate, mesmer pets can 1) attack anywhere/chase anywhere 2) reliably hit their target and do high damage 3) can be used for massive burst because they attack (and generally hit) as soon as summoned, 4) two high damage hard hitting phantasms (that reliably hit) can be out at the same time, 5) they relock onto target after stealth, 6) they do all the above without the mesmer needing to micro manage them, 7) they can apply reliable and effective cc easily through the shatter mechanism (note also that clones/illusions can apply this shatter cc damage as well).

A ranger pet will be a better tank in pve of course, but in pvp the pet of choice is the phantasm. The mechanic just suits pvp so much better. Its not that ranger pets are totally useless, in spvp at least they can be a big help with random knockdowns, fearing off downstate etc (if the pet actually responds to the F2 command!). Compared to a mesmer pet though they are lamearse.

And for all the advantages the mesmer pet has, it requires little to no micromanagement (apart from shatter); Ranger pets have to be micromanaged and “helped” by ccing targets so they can hit to be effective and are still far worse than mesmer pets; that is the core issue I think (for pvp).