Guild Wars 2

I don’t know about every one else, but I feel a big part of rangers, their pets, lack enough synergy with the class.

What we currently have are a bunch of traits and abilities that would be considered abusive in real life.

Poisoned? Just poison your pet and you’ll be fine.
Bleeding out? Just start bleeding your pet!
Cancer? Just give it to your pet!

Then we have a few that are nice, stuff like quickness on pet swap, that only buff one or the other.

Then we have a few that just don’t seem to do very much for either party…

What I would like to see are more traits and abilities rewarding the player and pet for working together. I want to see stuff like: on pet swap remove a condition or remove this and that condition every few seconds while you have a companion (maybe both, but in different trait lines, or some variation of).

Some other traits I would like to see are maybe some buffs for both the pet and the player while you have a companion. Just more shared attributes in general.

Also, the ability to remove condition from out pets would be nice too… (yes, I know we can pet swap… but a pet can easily die from conditions in the short interval between pet swaps and heals).

Aren’t we supposed to be fighting as one? Then shouldn’t enemies in PvE and PvP alike have to fight us like that? Instead it usually ends up just one or the other, but enemies should have to work at both the player and the pets. I mean our damage and stuff is nerfed because we have a pet and our pets are supposed to be our “resource” mechanic, but it often feels far from that due to there only being a slight feeling of synergy between player and pet.

Our traits should tie the pet and player together more, but currently most seem to just work for one or the other. I want to see more unity between pet and player.

if it was for me i would remove the pet completely…i hate them because AN decided to low our damage because of them…and now at lvl 80 full glass cannon on exotic gear of the berserker…i do 2.4k crit with a longbow from 1500 range….wish they will give us the option to send them away and restore our damage.

i support ranger pet synergy. i dont have much useful input, but this is definitely the vision of a ranger i would like to see in the game.

I’d like to be able to easily see what conditions and boons are on my pet.

To go along with this topic it would be nice if pets would dodge with you. Mostly this would allow them to escape instant death abilities. This would add a lot of survivability to pets, and it would make them more connected to the character.

Certain skills have great pet synergy.

Sword #1
Greatsword #5
Shortbow #4
etc

But there needs to be more.

I think at this point there is too much invested in just the pet for what we are getting in return. I can not think of any other profession that has a much invested into a mechanic, let alone a mechanic that doesn’t function the second we he the function key.

As for synergy I would say first make all signet have an effect on both the ranger and the pet, second retool Signet of the Beastmaster to work as Written in Stone does for elementalist. Lastly look at every talent that only effect the pet and rework them to have an effect for the ranger as well, example being Companion’s Might would be critical hit grant might to your pet, and your pet’s critical hit grant might to you.

Pets don’t offer much, as someone said, and I have to agree.

In WvW especially, they’re either perma-dead or standing idle beside you being completely useless and kittening our damage. I feel more useless in keep defense/sieges than I do in any other part of the game and I just feel it shouldn’t be this way. Every other profession can function just fine in these scenarios without having to use their Mechanic but we are kittened because we can’t use it.

I would probably run a petless Ranger in WvW if given the option, just because I see little use for the pet in this part of the game.

I love the pet class but it just doesn’t work when your pet needs to do 45% of your damage and is as dumb gum or just work as needed . I much rather is them bring much need benefits , skill ,boons and relieve them of that burden of have to damage.

i am afraid i should have rolled an engineer, ranger does not cut it, i am so screwed, invested so much time to build my dream archer, full geared to exotic of the berserker….keep saying to myself" damage will increase" and my damage is /lol, the only thing i can really do successfully is sit on a tower and snipe people. and even in that case my damage is / almostlol.

forcing myself to 1500 range, paying attention to the surrounding and positioning, and then unleashing QZ+RF only to get a truck load OBSTRUCTED line of text and 800 damage.

i really hope the upcoming patch will show some love for us…roll thieves all the way otherwise.

look here…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-udk3CEtc7E

Just for skritts and giggkitten ost the ranger in some test to a level that would be acceptable for a class without pet as the pet is more of a gamble on can we get the effect we need when we need it where we need it. and see what happens.

Onto a different tangent for at least quality of life in world versus world could you increase the range on the ranged pet to 1200 so they can a least fire down onto those attacking. If not since they use a lot of the AI of normal creature why not let them go invulnerable for not being able to attack a target that is taking advantage of the pet not being able to path to reach them.

There’s actually a lot of synergy already there, with you and the pet causing boons, etc for each other and all that. The problem is the pet is buggy (no attack while moving being the worst), and the F2 skills are pretty lackluster. It’s really sad when the best pet skills (canine leap, devourer push, spider immobilize, bird swiftness, bear damage immunity, etc) are all AI controlled. There are a few good ones, but maybe like 70% of pet skills just inflict some short duration condition with a long cooldown. If more of these were unique, or worth using, and could actually hit the target, and activated when you told it to and not 2 or 5 seconds later, then the BM traitline would actually give a whole lot of synergy just as it stands now.

I think it just tried to censor “giggles”.