Guild Wars 2

Ranger:
Ranger pets are receiving a responsiveness pass and will be much easier to command. For example: Activating your F2 skill will now break your pet out of its current action in order to execute that ability.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Feature-Build-Balance-Preview/page/16#post3667926

Yeah… I cannot wait… Patch date?

About time. It looks like the programmers finally took some time to take a stab at it and managed to come up with a solution.

Now if only they would allow us to target AOE pet skills at an area instead of having the pet run up and center the effect around the pet target. Hmm, CDI suggestion pehaps?

Awesome…now to get them dodging or some form of AOE mitigation and we will be on the right path.

Stupid question, but what exactly does a “responsiveness pass” mean? I’ve never seen that kind of phrasing before.

I GET TO PLAY MY RANGER AGAIN! I hate weighing my team down even the slightest but wow I absolutely need to re-main my ranger <3 Finally they’re being changed.

NICE

Maybe I will be able to run some pets other than drakes/dogs now

Wow, this is huge for us.

Stupid question, but what exactly does a “responsiveness pass” mean? I’ve never seen that kind of phrasing before.

Not stupid at all.
They mean they iterated on it, and the thing they paid attention to was making the pet more responsive.

Pass is a term some computer programs use to describe rendering something in stages of increasing detail. So you might catch tech field people using it as a shorthand to describe their own workflow of going back over an area and polishing it to the next level.

Like this;
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials/passes_layers.html

Finally; they should have done this in game since launch… but no… It’s finally happening 1.5 years later.

Hopefully, they will have more in store for the ranger than just pets actually using their f2, but at least pet f2’s will hopefully be reliable now. I have been really irritated at pets like the jungle stalker putting its f2 on cool down just because you move and your moving “interrupts” the pet f2 orz

This won’t change anything on a bigger scale. Pets will still be as useless in WvW because they can’t mitigate AoE dmg, ranger will still be an outcast in WvW because of the lack of any real group support/area effect. We will still pigeonholed into one passive build in sPvP because we need 30 trait points in one tree to make any of our utilities useful, not to talk about condition removal. And lastly due to the sword rooting no one is using the only good dps weapon for pve because it takes just too much effort compared to other classes.

Sevans.4619:

Wow, this is huge for us.

And probably all we are going to get in a positive way, I expect the following patch to cut the pet damage again as the skills going off ‘breaks’ spvp

Devs: we fixed the pet! Rangers are now perfect!
WvW players: ranger is still useless
Devs: after we perfectly balanced the rangers we wont do anything with the pet for an other 1 and a half year. We move on our next topic: stealth for warriors!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand then it it will put on cooldown the current skill the pet interrupted Im pretty sure there is a catch in this, cant be that beautiful xD

Ranger:
Ranger pets are receiving a responsiveness pass and will be much easier to command. For example: Activating your F2 skill will now break your pet out of its current action in order to execute that ability.

kittening finally!
also, why didnt F2 work like that in the first place??

It’s nice, for PvP.
My Wolf will now fear the enemies when i need it.

But it won’t solve the problem in PvE.
Pets should be invulnerable against AoE.
Playing sword in melee is already squishy as a ranger, and all other weapons are just subpar.
Pets can walk out of aoe when we call them back but they can’t dodge it.
They should become invulnerable against everything when the ranger dodges.
Why can a big part of my damage just die, that makes no sense at all.
My first fractal lvl 30+ was no fun at all.
With my warrior twink im just lvl49 whatever Hundred Blades Pew Pew!

Don’t get all excited. There WILL be a downside to this. It’s anet after all.

thats nice.
But remember the last time we got “that awesome update” ?
We became freaking aquaman…

And the whole animal companion system is still creppes…
But then I stopped playing this game after seeing the two “balance team pros” doing there video…
I knew then and there that this game (and the Ranger) is going nowhere…

I fail to see why everyone is so happy about? Pet’s are still useless because they can’t hit a moving target! What good is the responsiveness if they can’t hit the target because the target is moving? This is what should have been fixed first. I still say we are better off if they just remove the stupid pet from the game because this responsiveness is useless until they do something about the pet making contact with moving targets!

Mardermann.7468:

thats nice.
But remember the last time we got “that awesome update” ?
We became freaking aquaman…

And the whole animal companion system is still creppes…
But then I stopped playing this game after seeing the two “balance team pros” doing there video…
I knew then and there that this game (and the Ranger) is going nowhere…

you stop playing this game? With that much time in your hands you could be writing a book about the perfect MMO, instead of posting in GW2 forums.

Dat aquaman patch left a scar..

Anyway its a step in the right direction, we cant deny this..Also it says the whole responsiveness not only the F2, they are using it as an example only.
Also they mention that it will be easier to command.

I know, i wont hold my breath about this..I geuss this improvements will be very minor.Like increasing pets speed for 5% or something.

Thats they way Anet delivers balance patches so far…
We receive the first pet improvements after half a year and we are receiving some new after 1 year and a half…Minor changes and very slow..

And we are talking about pets, the core mechanic of this class..Imagine when we will see improvements into shouts for example.

Dardamaniac.1295:

Dat aquaman patch left a scar..

Anyway its a step in the right direction, we cant deny this..Also it says the whole responsiveness not only the F2, they are using it as an example only.
Also they mention that it will be easier to command.

I know, i wont hold my breath about this..I geuss this improvements will be very minor.Like increasing pets speed for 5% or something.

Thats they way Anet delivers balance patches so far…
We receive the first pet improvements after half a year and we are receiving some new after 1 year and a half…Minor changes and very slow..

And we are talking about pets, the core mechanic of this class..Imagine when we will see improvements into shouts for example.

Have you seen the balance team last time? They didn´t even know where the traits are in the traitlines… thats how good they know the ranger class…

AEFA.9035:

Mardermann.7468:

thats nice.
But remember the last time we got “that awesome update” ?
We became freaking aquaman…

And the whole animal companion system is still creppes…
But then I stopped playing this game after seeing the two “balance team pros” doing there video…
I knew then and there that this game (and the Ranger) is going nowhere…

you stop playing this game? With that much time in your hands you could be writing a book about the perfect MMO, instead of posting in GW2 forums.

Yeah AEFA.. I stopped playing the game… but I bought it so I am entitled to my opinion and I can state it here… cause I have an account. Blew your mind, didn´t it?

Keep expectations low, people. Less room for disappointment that way.

The darkest, most cynical part of my soul keeps wondering if I’ll be able to complete the “interrupt skills” daily just by pressing f2 every time it’s up in combat and sending my pet into convulsions…

Mardermann.7468:

Have you seen the balance team last time? They didn´t even know where the traits are in the traitlines… thats how good they know the ranger class…

Make no mistake, the phrase “complete absence of credibility” is going to come up in the CDI thread.

More than once.

All they need now is to increase the range of pet melee from 130 to 250 via adding small lunges to the attacks, and melee pets will actually be useful 90% of the time. And as I said long ago…if this requires increasing the melee range of every mob that is of that pet’s type to pull this off, SO BE IT. Besides, it’s time that PvE players get their battles a little more difficult.

In my humble opinion I think there is no way they can turn this ship around…
the whole Ranger special ability around the pet is a wreck.

The animals should be your companions – yet they need to be switched around like crazy… they dont remember their names (why should they? They get switched around so often even I wouldn´t remember the name of the guy calling me ;-) )

They dont scale with you or your equipment…
their (our) traits are a mess… there even is a trait that resets if you switch your pet – switching beeing “the thing” in our petmechanics

I dont want to start with the AI or the poorly emplemented pathing.

so where do we start? Anet is not willing to change the mechanic… they stated as much.

Everything they can and probably will do ist building around a faulty mechanic and tweak a little bit here and a little bit there….

Thats the way they did it before and thats the way they will do it in the future…

Do you remember when we complained that no one uses the shortbow over the longbow?
yeah…. they nerfed the shortbow to make the Longbow “an option”
and you really think that they will change anything drastic?

there is lots of good ranger players out there (Durzlla, jcbroe, etc… hell even I played the ranger not that bad (I played it since beta) and I dont think thats a good thing for the class… cause they play with that gimpy kitten of an excuse of a class so well that I dont think anything “big” will happen to the ranger (no offense guys, I think you rock…)

There never was a “miracle” patch in any mmo for any class I played…
and so far I dont think there will be one in this game…
but I give it up to you guys who still play and have fun …

For you I wish that there will be something great coming (but I dont have any faith in the devs any more)

RyuDragnier.9476:

All they need now is to increase the range of pet melee from 130 to 250 via adding small lunges to the attacks, and melee pets will actually be useful 90% of the time. And as I said long ago…if this requires increasing the melee range of every mob that is of that pet’s type to pull this off, SO BE IT. Besides, it’s time that PvE players get their battles a little more difficult.

Bird pets (Ravens, Owls, Eagles etc.) have 300 range on their auto-attacks.

step in right direction but more or less a useless change on its own.

pets still melt outside of PVE and Spvp. f2 cast time is still not addressed. this infuriates me. most F2’s have a 2 second cast time. useless.

This is a great step forward, so glad to see they are progressing. I know you guys are saying “oh wow took so long” and I’m not saying that Anet is great at making class changes. However, I went back to SWTOR last weekend and I had not played in several months and the game was practically exactly the same as when I left (as far as the pvp “meta” was concerned). That is a game that doesn’t make any changes.

Glad to see that rangers are getting some much needed attention though!

DiamondMeteor.8345:

RyuDragnier.9476:

All they need now is to increase the range of pet melee from 130 to 250 via adding small lunges to the attacks, and melee pets will actually be useful 90% of the time. And as I said long ago…if this requires increasing the melee range of every mob that is of that pet’s type to pull this off, SO BE IT. Besides, it’s time that PvE players get their battles a little more difficult.

Bird pets (Ravens, Owls, Eagles etc.) have 300 range on their auto-attacks.

Which is why I don’t consider them melee. They’re mid-ranged.

Will F2 functions be instant instead of a cast? if so it would help a “bit” in wvw, unless pet dies in 2seconds like 99.99% of times

I would be more happy to see an overhaul on pets AI before going jolly on this “fix”

Ha, that’s actually going to take some getting used to. I’m so used to the delay on the wolf howl.

Oh so people can finally blind stomp effectively with Dual-Ravens. Can’t wait to run BM again.

I’m hoping they also fix the bug with long channel F2s cancelling midway, going on full cooldown without even using the skill. So many Jungle Staker might stacks, Wolf fears and Drakehound immobs failed for the stupidest reasons.

Oh man, drakehounds! I can’t wait to actually land that howl!

Since pets are more or less worthless in dungeons and fractals, how does this really help?

Dungeons and fractals are the only part of the game.

Fluffball.8307:

Dungeons and fractals are the only part of the game.

I suppose you wanted to write “dungeons and fractals are NOT…”.
Well of course they are not. But this is where rangers have most problems. I’m talking the everpresent antiranger pug hate.
The change they need to do should actualy make rangers overpowered to beat the prejudice which makes people type “no rangers” in their LFM posts on finder.
Nobody can kick you off WvW zerg, and you can PVP as much as you like. But dungeons and fractals are off limits unless you team with guildmates who will be more tolerant than pug.

Fext does have a point there. I do agreed with Stonish that there is no way that improvement is coming for ‘free’ and what he/or she is guessing at is probably going to be the case.
I could also see the F2 getting locked out for a few seconds after a swap to be the solution to pets interupting the F2 when used following the swap.