Guild Wars 2

I have been playing a ranger for about 60 levels now, I am no means an expert on the class nor have I any idea what the endgame “expectation” of the ranger is. So if you you know better and want to correct me, go ahead I take no offense.
All that said, Ive noticed some quirks of the class and have some questions.

1) How do you handle conditions? I currently have healing spring slotted as my healing skill and would like to know if there is a means of condition removal that does not have obvious drawbacks.
Ie. heal spring is a fixed zone, removal traits are very condition specific, (signet?) basically cripples your pet.

2) How do you get Serpent Strike (sword 3) to land? I find that it sometimes misses on flat ground, let alone slopes.

3) What does F1 “attack my target” actually so? Assuming I don’t use it, what will the pet actually attack. Similarly, what is the difference between F3 “return” and setting behaviour to passive, besides the order for the pet to return.
TLDR – I cant figure out how the pet AI works.

4) Is there a reason why the Drake’s F2 “manual active” is a breath instead of its tail sweep? Wouldn’t it be better if the player had more control over a skill that has a combo finisher effect over one that didn’t?

5) Shouldn’t pets be stowable even in combat? that way pets can at least have a pseudo-dodge to avoid AOE attacks.

1) Lack of condition removal options is a problem with our class at the moment…so not much. Traited Signet of Renewal or Brown Bear’s F2 can help. I think there are a couple more but I don’t recall what they are right now.

2) Stay close? I’ve only had that problem when they move away in mid animation.

3) F1 forces your pet to attack the selected target. It will continue to do so until the target is dead, it dies, you tell it to attack another target, or you call it back to you with F3 (or downed skill 3). F3 will, in my observations, pulls the pet back to your side and keep it there until you tell it to attack or begin fighting a new target. Passive behavior means the pet wont attack anything without use of F1. Aggressive behavior means the pet will attack your current target.

Note: If you change targets while you have the pet set to aggressive and haven’t used F1, it will change targets also.

4)No special reason I know of.

5) Anet wants rangers to use the pet. There is a lot of debate in the community right now on if Anet should allow us to perma stow them or just fix their AI. A little pet management can help with AoE pet deaths.

I don’t claim to be an expert but these are my experiences.

ApplePearOrange.9281:

I have been playing a ranger for about 60 levels now, I am no means an expert on the class nor have I any idea what the endgame “expectation” of the ranger is. So if you you know better and want to correct me, go ahead I take no offense.
All that said, Ive noticed some quirks of the class and have some questions.

1) How do you handle conditions? I currently have healing spring slotted as my healing skill and would like to know if there is a means of condition removal that does not have obvious drawbacks.
Ie. heal spring is a fixed zone, removal traits are very condition specific, (signet?) basically cripples your pet.

2) How do you get Serpent Strike (sword 3) to land? I find that it sometimes misses on flat ground, let alone slopes.

3) What does F1 “attack my target” actually so? Assuming I don’t use it, what will the pet actually attack. Similarly, what is the difference between F3 “return” and setting behaviour to passive, besides the order for the pet to return.
TLDR – I cant figure out how the pet AI works.

4) Is there a reason why the Drake’s F2 “manual active” is a breath instead of its tail sweep? Wouldn’t it be better if the player had more control over a skill that has a combo finisher effect over one that didn’t?

5) Shouldn’t pets be stowable even in combat? that way pets can at least have a pseudo-dodge to avoid AOE attacks.

I’m just gonna answer my take a on few of these. For conditions, I don’t really have a lot of trouble outside of PVP/ WVW, in which case I just take the signet for it. For basic PVE healing spring is enough for most situations. We do need more CD removal, though.

And for the drakes f2, the breath attacks is actually one of the best attacks a ranger has for giant-sack-of-health type bosses, and the tail swipe is SEMI-controllable as a blast finisher actually. Drakes tend to use their tail swipe as soon as they are switched into, meaning you can set a field, switch pets, and almost always get the blast finisher off.

There is a grandmaster trait Empathic Bond that is not on-demand, but still a very strong condi removal skill. That’s pretty popular in PvP. It moves 3 condis off of you on to your pet, so be aware that it’s possible to kill your pet, or otherwise render it ineffective (blinded, crippled, etc.) Fortunately just swapping your pet will completely cleanse all conditions off it.

There is also a trait coming in the new patch that will be on-demand condi removal.

Ryoki’s point about the drake attack is a good thing to know about all pets. For example you can semi-control the canine knockdown by switching like that. Each pet has a rarer skill like that, and it’s important to control it in PvP.

ApplePearOrange.9281:

4) Is there a reason why the Drake’s F2 “manual active” is a breath instead of its tail sweep? Wouldn’t it be better if the player had more control over a skill that has a combo finisher effect over one that didn’t?

There is, because the Tail Swipe is the first skill it will use when attacking

There is a chance pets will autoattack rather than use their special attack. That’s why it’s only semi-controllable. I’ve seen them use as many as 4ish autoattacks when they had a special attack off cooldown.

1) Handling conditions is reserved specifically for people who stat into it, and it’s only 4-per-10 seconds. The Wilderness Survival grandmaster trait “Empathetic Bond” and the signet “Signet of Removal”. Going for these isn’t a bad option if you’re going for a regen build.

2) The pathing is broken, much like how most of our skills are.

3)
F1 with a target: move to this target
F1 without a target: aggressive stance
F3 with a target: return to me
F3 without a target: passive stance

what this basically means is that, your pet wont attack if you press f3 before combat. however, it sometimes starts attacking again.. idk, ai is clunky and changes behavior often.

4) I don’t think there was a grand scheme behind this.

5) They want to define rangers as “Beastmasters”. Stowing your pet effectively cuts off 30%(?) of your damage, doing so would be nothing more than a cripple.

Remember you can also control your pets secondary special with guard. when the pet comes out of stealth it opens with that ability.

Also with the pet AI being a silly as it is. the use of the attack and return buttons is especially important for placement on the battlefield. fiddle around with it and get it down…with things like drake breath ect i always call the pet back for a split second before i send it in for the f2..just to line it up so it doesnt miss.

jaxx

EDIT- after 10 years wow has planned to allow you to store you pet and get a flat damage increase/boosts for those who want to play more of a skirmisher/scout style without some fuzzy poop box following them. maybe Anet will catch on..in …8 more years hehe.

Firstly, thanks to all who replied.
You’ve been very helpful, especially with how pets use their uncontrolled moves.

Secondly, I was pondering the idea of in-combat pet stowing not because I dislike the pet but because of how in certain situations youd rather not have the pet around and I think its rather strange that the AI forces the descision for you.

1) condition of renewal and putting 30 points into WS to remove conditions periodically towards your useless pet will work
2) be smart when using your sword ? the sword is very finicky but when you practice with it you will learn how awesome it truly is.
3) “attack my target” f1 commands your awesome pet to attack the target that you have selected. what a concept. When the pet is aggressive and you press f3, the pet will return to you but will then attack after that as opposed to being passive and wont attack anything.
4) Good question, I’ve been wondering the same thing for more than a year now
5) Same as numero 4