Guild Wars 2

I run a lvl 80 ranger and really enjoy the play style. Had several hunters in WOW so rolling up a ranger was only natural. The only aspect I don’t enjoy is the pet system.
I’m not even sure where to begin with the problems I have with ranger pets so I won’t.
What I would like to know is how other rangers feel about the choice of running a ranger build without pets. For example, if you really wanted a pet then you would have to throw points into beastmaster traits. For rangers that didn’t want a pet then they would have pet damage factored into weapon damage and deal with creating a build that would have to down opponents asap before they got into melee range.
Anyway just food for thought b/c I’m really getting fed up with how useless pets are in areas of the game like WvW.

This has been brought up as a “solution” many times.

But, the solution that the development team has given is, if you don’t want a pet, don’t roll a ranger. They are not intending to implement any perma-stow functionality, so either learn to use your pet with your build, learn to do what you want with your pet dead and limping at your side, or don’t play the ranger.

I’m sorry if that came out being dismissive in an way, but I don’t know how else to phrase the situation.

I have always liked the idea of stowing a pet and gaining bonus stats instead, it is a common thought among rangers. I like pets personally, I wish they worked a little bit smoother, but I would like to have more options with my builds, and stowing a pet would be a way of doing that.

However, I thought up an interesting idea on this topic. What if instead of gaining a stat boost, our pet commands actually turned into the stowed pet’s abilities? (Their auto as a spike damage, their random ability, and their special ability) You would lose out on their auto damage, and their ability to absorb damage instead of you. But you would gain control of certain skills which were otherwise random and more difficult to pull off.

It would be like you absorbed the spirit of your pet…. it could be interesting.

Paken Kai.5970:

This has been brought up as a “solution” many times.

But, the solution that the development team has given is, if you don’t want a pet, don’t roll a ranger. They are not intending to implement any perma-stow functionality, so either learn to use your pet with your build, learn to do what you want with your pet dead and limping at your side, or don’t play the ranger.

I’m sorry if that came out being dismissive in an way, but I don’t know how else to phrase the situation.

I’d love a non-pet ranger. If that is impossible, I’d like the AI for pets to be dramatically improved very soon.

danbuter.2314:

I’d love a non-pet ranger. If that is impossible, I’d like the AI for pets to be dramatically improved very soon.

They should have scrapped the pets in beta. I wonder how on earth such a poor implementation of pets slipped through to release?
They can’t scrap pets now, it would be like admitting their own failure. Designers are not usually very eager to admit that :P

Boomstin.3460:

danbuter.2314:

I’d love a non-pet ranger. If that is impossible, I’d like the AI for pets to be dramatically improved very soon.

They should have scrapped the pets in beta. I wonder how on earth such a poor implementation of pets slipped through to release?
They can’t scrap pets now, it would be like admitting their own failure. Designers are not usually very eager to admit that :P

But they did admit that there were problems with the Ranger’s pet before release.

They should have just renamed it to Hunter/Tracker/Stalker and scrap the pet as you said.

But I think they wanted the pet to define the profession so they kept it.

The stupidity of the AI is not only limited to Ranger’s pet, this AI controls all other pet/companion/minions. And I have a feeling that the GW2 team is using the GW1 henchman AI, since I am experiencing the same frustration as I did with Alesia. >.<’

You can pretty much build your ranger to not be pet dependent. Just don’t put anything into BM and focus entirely on damage and survival. It wouldn’t matter if it was dead or alive then so nothing to worry about.

However, the Ranger class IS better with a pet and learning how to manage one. Even just using the pet swap for 2 secs of quickness every 15 seconds is amazingly good (especially with LB)

Just imagine if the pet wasn’t there. Don’t spec for a build that requires the use of the pet. Problem solved.

KensaiZen.3740:

Just imagine if the pet wasn’t there. Don’t spec for a build that requires the use of the pet. Problem solved.

That doesn’t solve anything. The pet still amounts to certain percent of rangers damage which we can’t properly use at the moment.
Imagine is some other profession had a bug after 7 months since release that made them lose 30 percent of their damage by pretty much default agains’t player targets. Sounds awesome.

Boomstin.3460:

KensaiZen.3740:

Just imagine if the pet wasn’t there. Don’t spec for a build that requires the use of the pet. Problem solved.

That doesn’t solve anything. The pet still amounts to certain percent of rangers damage which we can’t properly use at the moment.
Imagine is some other profession had a bug after 7 months since release that made them lose 30 percent of their damage by pretty much default agains’t player targets. Sounds awesome.

Unless you spec for BM, pet do little to no dmg. You lose potential DPS if you allocate a lot of trait points to BM, that’s a given. Pet don’t attack fast enough or hard enough to even count their DPS as a gain/loss. What pet brings to the table is their Pet Skill (F2) and they should always be swapped anyway so the damage is distributed between the pets and so that they also drop aggro.

Do you realise even with that damage reduction you are still hitting like a truck? the pet is extra damage like a condition.

If spec right, you don’t need the pet dmg to kill. if you equip “protect me” you essentially give yourself 2 extra health bars (laughing at DS necro its more than enough time to survive a burst and then burst back after their skills are on CD. Not to mention SoS to make you invulnerable for another 6 seconds. Perhaps they can lower the CD on SoS a bit to make it a more appealing to players.

The Ranger class has tonnes of nice tricks like this but for some strange reason everyone just wants to do dmg be it direct or condition and not thinking about these types of utilities.

If you can go toe to toe with a warrior and face tank 2 rounds of HB and kill his kitten with 90% of your HP left… you are doing something right.

KensaiZen.3740:

Do you realise even with that damage reduction you are still hitting like a truck? the pet is extra damage like a condition.

No , pet damage isn’t ‘extra damage’ , pets are designed to be certain portion of the rangers damage.

Whoever thinks that rangers can do great damage with a dead pet has to be fully oblivious of what other classes can achieve while facerolling.

I got a maxed out Thief, Warrior and Elementalist with different builds, different gear and thus different roles. The Ranger is inferior to all of them in every role he can take. Even WITH the pet.

Why is that, you ask? Simple…

Ranger is the only profession/class where its effectiveness is RELIANT on the pet surviving alsmost all the time. But to make this happen, we have to actively trait for that! We have to actively trait into our class mechanic. No other class has to do this to be at least somewhat effective in some role.
Sure… one can build a Ranger that goes 100% for player damage or whatever role he desires. But then the real problem comes up. Even when spending 100% of traits for the Ranger himself, he’s still vastly subpar to almost every other class. And crappy utility skills, trait lines and the damage split between Ranger and Pet ensure that you will never be as effective as any other class in any role they play.

I really love pet classes and I WANT to love the Ranger. But right now it doesn’t matter what I do, I always KNOW (since I got direct comparison!) that other classes can do much better whatever I want to roll.

Don’t get me wrong… I love our class mechanic! I love the pet! Or I WOULD love it, if it worked as intended…
But when I play my Warrior who doesn’t give a kitten about his class mechanic (traits even encourage not using the F1 AT ALL), or my Thief where the only purpose of F1 is to get 3 boons for a short amount of time and being able to shadowstep every X seconds…. I really ask myself why any group would put up with the extra baggage I offer with my Ranger – who right now has to play PERFECT to even be slighty efficient and not useless or even a burden to the group.

I love what they want to do with the Ranger. But I hate the way it works right now. Because it doesn’t. And that’s the problem.

So to answer OP’s question…

No I don’t want a Ranger who can play without his pet. But I want there to be the OPTION to do that, even if I wouldn’t want to play that way.
Every other class can choose to ignore their F1 mechanics, why don’t we?

Yes I understand the mechanics of it, but when you spec into trait line 1 and 2 you have more then enough dmg to kill by yourself. Anything the pet does is just a bonus.

This is what I mean by just treating the pet like it doesn’t exist. Without points in BM the pet is pretty much useless anyway. The extra points into the other damage traits more then make up for the missing pet dmg.

The Ranger can spec for glass cannon but has access to make them not take damage. It’s insanely powerful. Imagine a thief with 6 seconds of invulnerability and 2 health bars ( to absorb 6 seconds of damage to pet)

The only prof I have seen in this game to be able to do such a thing.

KensaiZen.3740:

Yes I understand the mechanics of it, but when you spec into trait line 1 and 2 you have more then enough dmg to kill by yourself. Anything the pet does is just a bonus.

This is what I mean by just treating the pet like it doesn’t exist. Without points in BM the pet is pretty much useless anyway. The extra points into the other damage traits more then make up for the missing pet dmg.

You must be playing an entirely different game, since I know that this isn’t true. This is no opinion of mine, it is a FACT. You cannot argue with facts. It’s simply not true. The dps a Ranger without pet can achieve is lower than every other class’s. There is no room to argue, when it’s a fact.

To your “pet is just extra damage” theory. No – even the devs say that Ranger damage and Ranger in general is designed to ALWAYS have an active pet.

What you’re saying is simply not true, so I have to ask what you are trying to achieve by stating what is simply false in every way.

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

You must be playing an entirely different game, since I know that this isn’t true. This is no opinion of mine, it is a FACT. You cannot argue with facts. It’s simply not true. The dps a Ranger without pet can achieve is lower than every other class’s. There is no room to argue, when it’s a fact.

Shouting about FACTS isn’t going to convince anyone. How about you do some DPS tests to prove your hypothesis?

Just from my previous tests, a Ranger without a pet and SB does slightly more single-target ranged DPS than a Warrior Rifle.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Shortbow-vs-Warrior-Rifle-DPS-tests/first

Of course, it’s the only comparison I’ve tested really comprehensively. If you want to run other comparisons, feel free too. But yelling about FACTS isn’t conductive to good discussion. I’ll have to ask what you’re trying to achieve by stating “facts” without any data/experimental results to back up your claims. Obviously not for good discussion, I’m sure.

EDIT: Props to the Toradora reference, BTW.

Ursan.7846:

Shouting about FACTS isn’t going to convince anyone. How about you do some DPS tests to prove your hypothesis?

Just from my previous tests, a Ranger with a pet and SB does more single-target ranged DPS than a Warrior Rifle.

I tested hours and hours. I also said “Ranger without Pet”. My statement is still a fact and not false at all.
I’m a very theorycrafty guy. I got tons of calculations about how to max out my characters. Since I want to enjoy the Ranger I got more of him than any other class by now.

Of course we deal average damage with our pet being alive, that’s how the class is designed. But someone argued about our damage still being great without using the pet at all – which is utter nonsense.
Without our pet we’d do much less than Warrior Rifle.
Without our pet we lose a large portion of our max possible dps, which puts us beneath almost every other class/spec.

And as I said – even the devs confirm that Ranger damage is designed with an always alive pet. So of course we do ok like that. But there are still lots of problems with how the Ranger works right now.

Just to say it again. Yes you are right in what you say. But I didn’t talk about Ranger with 100% pet uptime.

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

Ursan.7846:

Shouting about FACTS isn’t going to convince anyone. How about you do some DPS tests to prove your hypothesis?

Just from my previous tests, a Ranger with a pet and SB does more single-target ranged DPS than a Warrior Rifle.

I tested hours and hours. I also said “Ranger without Pet”. My statement is still a fact and not false at all.
I’m a very theorycrafty guy. I got tons of calculations about how to max out my characters. Since I want to enjoy the Ranger I got more of him than any other class by now.

Of course we deal average damage with our pet being alive, that’s how the class is designed. But someone argued about our damage still being great without using the pet at all – which is utter nonsense.
Without our pet we’d do much less than Warrior Rifle.
Without our pet we lose a large portion of our max possible dps, which puts us beneath almost every other class/spec.

And as I said – even the devs confirm that Ranger damage is designed with an always alive pet. So of course we do ok like that. But there are still lots of problems with how the Ranger works right now.

Just to say it again. Yes you are right in what you say. But I didn’t talk about Ranger with 100% pet uptime.

Editted my post, since I mistyped. Ranger SB WITHOUT pet does slightly more damage than War rifle in my tests. Look in the results in the thread!

PS I’m not saying you’re right or wrong, but absolute, blanket statements like the ones you are making usually isn’t very conductive to good discussion.

I didn’t fully read your thread since it’s 0:09 where I am right now and I’m tired.

But I got a Warrior and play him with the Rifle, so I got experience in that, too. And he outdamages my Ranger without his pet when both are build for raw dps – and without pet I mean no points in beastmaster since we’re talking about a “ignore pet entirely” scenario. (so the quickness with swap for example is a non thing to test except you only do it once a minute – simulating a dead pet)

As I said I didn’t fully read your thread and calculations, I may do so tomorrow. And your numbers may be accurate or not. But that doesn’t look too accurate to me…
Have you considered testing with the “Steady” weapons?
The results are much much… MUCH more accurate unless you’re testing conditions, since they don’t scale with the weapon.

Ursan.7846:

PS I’m not saying you’re right or wrong, but absolute, blanket statements like the ones you are making usually isn’t very conductive to good discussion.

i know. i’m just too tired to go in depth right now. no offense taken and so on… ^^

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

I didn’t fully read your thread since it’s 0:09 where I am right now and I’m tired.

But I got a Warrior and play him with the Rifle, so I got experience in that, too. And he outdamages my Ranger without his pet when both are build for raw dps – and without pet I mean no points in beastmaster since we’re talking about a “ignore pet entirely” scenario.

As I said I didn’t fully read your thread and calculations, I may do so tomorrow. And your numbers may be accurate or not. But that doesn’t look too accurate to me…
Have you considered testing with the “Steady” weapons?
The results are much much… MUCH more accurate unless you’re testing conditions, since they don’t scale with the weapon.

I didn’t use steady weapons because of the Crossfire bleed affect, obviously. Each run was done 3 times to average any randomness (of crit chances) but just for the record, the standard deviation (which I didn’t post) aren’t too large.

One thing to note though, I did have 15 traits in Beastmastery, and used the pet swap quickness but told the pet not to attack. Of course, not using 15 in Beastmastery simply means 100 more power and 50 precision and 5% crit in a pure, pure non-pet trait build. How that affects the over dps? I have no idea. Whatever the difference though, I can’t imagine it to be too large.

Obviously this ignores lots of things. Like the War’s ability to apply party-wide might and fury, the fact that War’s burst damage is tons higher, the fact that Rangers have to flank to hit that optimal damage, etc…

But you’d be surprised at how much DPS the Ranger SB is capable of.

Ursan.7846:

But you’d be surprised at how much DPS the Ranger SB is capable of.

No, not really. I use the SB with my Ranger and even roll a quite similar build to what you tested with.
I know what the SB is capable of. But it’s still low end tier without pet. Warrior Rifle and Ranger SB may be in about the same dps tier – as I said, I don’t say you’re fully wrong.

But think about it that way… you have to play great for 100% uptime with the strongest ranged weapon available to you (doing what you’re best at: ranged damage) to come close to or minimally exceed another class’s ranged damage, which is not designed to do that and would deal a ton of damage more with another weapon.
Like… warrior with axe or greatsword dps build. They don’t have 100% uptime, since they got to dodge and run around/swap to range and swap back to melee etc – but that’s still more than they’d do with range only, since they are not designed to be played fully ranged, while the ranger is designed to be playable 100% range only.

so you’re comparing a class that’s not designed for “range only” to a class which is designed to be playable “range only”.
See what my gripes are about with that? It’s like comparing apples to oranges.

Of course the Ranger can exceed other classes IN CERTAIN SCENARIOS – but one has to test – when comparing classes – by playing both classes the way they are intended to. and warrior is not really intended to be played ranged only. it’s a possibility, of course… but why would someone who wants to max out his warior dps-wise play ranged only?

so you compared a ranger that tries to do max dps with a warrior that plays rifle only which means not maxing out the class.

see what i mean?

edit: but in your thread you say you wanted to test exactly that. so it’s no criticism – i just say that it doesn’t apply to the overall damage capability discussion.

edit2: i got an Elementalist named Taiga Aisaka….. doesn’t add anything to the discussion…. just sayin, tho… gg

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

Ursan.7846:

But you’d be surprised at how much DPS the Ranger SB is capable of.

No, not really. I use the SB with my Ranger and even roll a quite similar build to what you tested with.
I know what the SB is capable of. But it’s still low end tier without pet. Warrior Rifle and Ranger SB may be in about the same dps tier – as I said, I don’t say you’re fully wrong.

But think about it that way… you have to play great for 100% uptime with the strongest ranged weapon available to you (doing what you’re best at: ranged damage) to come close to or minimally exceed another class’s ranged damage, which is not designed to do that and would deal a ton of damage more with another weapon.
Like… warrior with axe or greatsword dps build. They don’t have 100% uptime, since they got to dodge and run around/swap to range and swap back to melee etc – but that’s still more than they’d do with range only, since they are not designed to be played fully ranged, while the ranger is designed to be playable 100% range only.

so you’re comparing a class that’s not designed for “only range” to a class which is designed to be playable “only range”.
See what my gripes are about with that? It’s like comparing apples to oranges.

Of course the Ranger can exceed other classes IN CERTAIN SCENARIOS – but one has to test – when comparing classes – by playing both classes the way they are intended to. and warrior is not really intended to be played ranged only. it’s a possibility, of course… but why would someone who wants to max out his warior dps-wise play ranged only?

so you compared a ranger that tries to do max dps with a warrior that plays rifle only which means not maxing out the class.

see what i mean?

I don’t think anyone is arguing that a Ranger, handicapped without a pet, can out-dps a Warrior GS, probably the highest DPS in the game.

I’d say that it’s a moot point. If you completely ignore a class’s core mechanic, of course you’ll do subpar damage. That the Ranger SB can still slightly outdamage a War Rifle without a pet is a testament to the class’s considerable (according to Anet, the best) single-target ranged dps abilities.

I’d also like to point out that the Ranger is not a ranged only class (Sword does more dps than SB, according to my tests).

EDIT: Toradora is one of the most quality romance animes I’ve had the pleasure of watching in a long kitten time.

EDIT 2: My apologies, but I feel like I’ve gotten way off topic. People who disregard the pet often focus on its lack of damage while dead and ignores the many many benefits pets bring. Yea, pets are a source of damage. They are also 4 extra utilities, another target to draw aggro from you, and a source of great adaptability. What other class can bring in KD twice within a few seconds of each other? (With double dog). What other class can summon a minion that can attack while stealthed?

If all you want is to do damage, play a Warrior or Thief.

Ursan.7846:

I don’t think anyone is arguing that a Ranger, handicapped without a pet, can out-dps a Warrior GS, probably the highest DPS in the game.

We could potentially, since we have 100% uptime and the Warrior doesn’t (with few exceptions where he has 100% uptime – then he is really the strongest dps in the game)
But many things would have to be fixed to bring us even close to what the Warrior still does while not having 100% uptime.

Ursan.7846:

I’d say that it’s a moot point. If you completely ignore a class’s core mechanic, of course you’ll do subpar damage.

Yes. That’s what I am trying to say, too.
Someone mentioned that Ranger would still do great damage without his pet. It’s a matter of how one defines “great” though. Ranger does NOT do great dps without pet in MY and I guess also YOUR opinion. So we agree on that one. That was my sole purpose of posting in here ^^

Ursan.7846:

I’d also like to point out that the Ranger is not a ranged only class (Sword does more dps than SB, according to my tests).

It does more dps.
I only said that Ranger is designed in a way that it’s a viable possibility to play ranged only.
Also: Sword is sadly not really playable in difficult dungeons/fractals atm, since you’re constantly rooted and the damage is not worth it risking your life more than any other melee everytime you start attacking. Hell… you can’t even dodge during the kitten autohit animation…
(i want to play sword since it looks awesome)

edit: still have to come across a better romance anime… toradora is great i also liked sukitte ii na yo (fairly recent anime) but it was pretty much cliche after cliche in that one

edit2:

EDIT 2: My apologies, but I feel like I’ve gotten way off topic. People who disregard the pet often focus on its lack of damage while dead and ignores the many many benefits pets bring. Yea, pets are a source of damage. They are also 4 extra utilities, another target to draw aggro from you, and a source of great adaptability. What other class can bring in KD twice within a few seconds of each other? (With double dog). What other class can summon a minion that can attack while stealthed?

If all you want is to do damage, play a Warrior or Thief.

yep this^
that’s why I posted in here. I don’t like the idea of a completely pet-less ranger. and I wouldn’t want to play that way.
problem is – and gladly the devs agree in this one! – that we got pretty “meh” support atm. yes, knockdown is great etc, but almost useless for bosses. and the low survivability of the pet right now in fractals make the ranger more of a baggage than anything else. our support utilities are mostly crap. much of what we do is reliant on an active pet (which would be great if it weren’t constantly dead) and our “without pet” damage is “meh”, too…

i don’t like being considered useless by other players, just because I happen to enjoy a Ranger =/

I Will Avenge You!

Problem solved- when your pet dies you gain might and attack speed. GW1 skill.

The solution isn’t hard, It’s just that Anet don’t consider wvw when they do anything, all they care about is pve where they are worried buffing pets will make soloing bosses etc too easy….like any Dragon is seriously a challenge with 100+ people wailing on them, total lag and only skill auto atatck working.

Who said anything about using a SB?

I’ve just tested it in Mists. Heavy Golem dies in just under 6 seconds. Medium the same. Light was almost instant death.

This isn’t about who hits higher than who. To even try to compare dmg is stupid in itself. The ranger does not out damage a warrior and never will. However, It doesn’t require 20k damage to kill someone with 10k, get it?

Warriors high burst comes from HB which is a static skill. Anyone and their mother can dodge it or do something to stop it. The Ranger does not have a high burst skill but it has access to a weapon that sticks to the opponent like glue and deal considerable damage. At present my 1h sword crits for around 1.6k to 1.7k. Whats so good about it is there is no escape from it by simply dodging. Add in 2 seconds of quickness and there is your small burst of high dmg.

6 seconds is the threshold since there is a skill that makes you invulnerable to direct attacks for 6 seconds. There is also a skill that transfers all dmg to pet for 6 seconds.

6 seconds is all the time you need to kill someone. Considering you take no direct damage and have a elite that gives you 20 seconds of stability. What is stopping you from killing your target?

Also bear in mind you’ve probably already hit them for a few thousand points of damage as you can shoot them from range.

There is a reason why there are long kitten CD’s on those skills. It is because they are VERY powerful.

None of this factors in the pet at all. With pet damage it will speed things up even faster. if you use a bird of prey with longbow you get to give your enemy a nice 20 stacks of vulnerability just as they enter melee range. Even more damage. Without pet its 10 stacks which is still good enough.

Rangers dmg isn’t as high as warriors. So what? You don’t need to one shot people. You just need to be successful in getting that damage across. What good is a high damage skill if it is dodged?

All you really need is 10 pts in BM to have access to the quickness-on-pet-swap and just keep your pet out of combat at all times, then only send them in after activating a signet where they do a burst damage, then call them back.

Pets don’t need to actively DPS., its more important that they stay alive so you get to use the buff from F2. I rather take a partial loss of DPS (really miniscule) rather than having 100% loss of DPS (dead pet). Either way, pet is not engaged in DPS until I told it to.

Sigh, so many wise words yet nothing is done about it. If they did listen every ranger (almost) would be happy because their would be an option suitable for both “sides” (pet or no pet). A thief is not a ranger, a warrior is not a ranger…

This discussion is the reason I only played for two weeks, weird but true.
Maybe one day the ranger could be more like in first gw, but I dont think so.

From looking at the class as whole, it becomes clear that they designed the ranger with 2 distinct mechanics at each pole.

1, Range support. You use the LB to bomb the enemy from VERY far away. You have long range pets that can use range and AoE (surprise surprise). Spirits that give you buff on hit that is not meant to be used any where near the enemy. Traits that turn you into an AoE machine..with every shot!

2, Close range skirmisher. You are given a weapon that makes you stick like glue to an enemy and keeps them crippled 100% and jumps to them even if they dodge. Quickness abilities for short bursts. Utilities that make you take no damage. Many evade skills. evade traits.

Then you have hybrids which are a mix of both but not strong at either.

These do not fall under DPS or tank. As the ranger does incredible AoE damage whilst moving! Warriors do higher DPS but they have to be standing still. I would rather have DPS that hits 90% of the time then a massive DPS skill that hits 10% of the time (if you cant dodge warrior HB or killshot… there is no helping you)

The Pet mechanic is not a be all and end all of the class. Sure it gives a boost to damage (who says the ranger is supposed to hit that high in the first place? most all pets do 30% of your dmg) Pets give rangers access to many utilities that isn’t available in his skill set.

Pets are not purely there for DPS. People are too fixated on DPS. Rangers in GW1 were masters of crowed control. In GW2 they are still masters of crowed control. They aren’t DPS machines like in other standard MMO’s. You can play a ranger without even thinking about the pet. It will still help you do extra dmg and use its skills when it can. If it doesn’t? well you haven’t really lost out on much as it was never traited for and would have done kittenty dmg anyway.

The pet mechanic is a very important part of the Ranger. However, how many Rangers out there have managed to complete dungeons and boss fights with a dead pet? In WvW Rangers are still a pain in the kitten to fight if played properly.

OMFG DPS win! is not a role. From my perspective the Ranger class does what it is supposed to do very well (I have tried both Melee and Range and hybrid builds) So the Ranger is filling its role very well. However, this role is not the same one that is envisioned by most players.

Can’t help those people who try to make an apple into an orange. L2P.

Saying “L2P” in such a discussion is like saying “Well you just have to cope with it” to someone that lives in a dictatorship state.
“You don’t like how it is? Well sucks to be you! Cope with it or shut up!”

It is every human beings first duty to raise his voice when he wholeheartedly thinks that something is wrong and has to change.
One’s concerns will never be heard if you don’t bring them up. Simple as that.

Thousands of Rangers think that something is wrong with the class. Thousands of Rangers raise their voice and want to be heard. Who are YOU to say that they just suck and have to L2P?
No no no… YOU are okay with how the class rolls right now, so you don’t want it to be changed, simply ignoring everyone’s concerns, since they aren’t yours.
Most of the wanted changes of the Ranger community would not even affect you in any way shape or form, but since you are okay with it right now, so has anyone else to be, right?

Sorry, but people like you simply disgust me.

What you say is partially true. We are not supposed to be the uber dps monster many people want to be. And I agree. The Ranger should be more than just being degraded to dps like many other classes/builds.
But the other stuff (besides dps) is subpar to every other class. We do kittenty support, got kittenty traits and kittenty utility skills. That’s not even ME saying that, it’s been said by devs MONTHS ago – still no change.

Maybe you should consider thinking out of the box and stop thinking that everyone has to be content with a situation YOU are content with.
Because – now comes a shocker – many many people aren’t.

ps: i’m sorry in advance for everything that may have sounded aggressive or insulting towards you

@KensaiZen – That is by far, the most shortsighted, tunnel visioned, self-opinionated post I have ever read. So you’re perfectly fine if a pet dies, that you said does 30% of your rangers damage, I can see why you’re not fixated on damage because it’s already low in my eyes. Just because rangers complete dungeons, doesn’t mean it’s easier on the group as a whole, it means you where carried. If you’re going to do a L2P post, at least avoid rangers in dungeons altogether.

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

Thousands of Rangers think that something is wrong with the class. Thousands of Rangers raise their voice and want to be heard. Who are YOU to say that they just suck and have to L2P?

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

Maybe you should consider thinking out of the box and stop thinking that everyone has to be content with a situation YOU are content with.
Because – now comes a shocker – many many people aren’t.

These quotes really annoy me. Thousands of rangers share your opinion but no one shares his opinion? Here’s a shocker also, many people actually share his opinions too.

If you’re going to call someone out for implying his opinion is shared by many people, you should at least attempt to not do it yourself…

Seriously? Rangers have crap support? Do you know how powerful maintaining ape protection on your group is? And main training it for 1 whole minute!

The other factor, we have access to 2 count it 2 skills that can pick up dead people. Not downed. Completely dead. This alone is worth it’s weight in gold as it prevents a wipe.

Add to this the DMG boost buffs from spirits. Ability to draw all conditions from allies.

If you people are having trouble as a ranger in a dungeon, you need to reevaluate how you are playing the class.

There are other rangers out there who have no troubles in dungeons too. It is a L2 kitten ue. Rangers in gw2 is not like any other game. L2P. Pets keep dying? L2P. Trying to DPS instead of controlling the flow of the fight? L2P.

Do you want to know what the ranger is good at that no other class can do? Long range AoE and control. No other class can match rangers in this field. People don’t understand this because there are no numbers too crunch, no obvious figures to read.

The ranger can do with a few tweaks here and there but a class that is considered to be the best duelist in the game claim to be unplayable broken? You have got to be kittenting me.

Anet designed the ranger a certain way. You can’t make it work and you want to change it to suit your simplistic play style.

As for the issue with the pet. Compare your damage with non DPS classes like a engineer, necro or guardian then tell me you don’t do enough damage without a pet.

It’s because people always complain and want this and that and “it’s not fair” BS that there have been many nerfs to every profession. Keep going with that mentality, you will never get a super buff. You will never get a fundamental change on the class design. All you will get are narrow minded sheep who can’t see the ranger for what it is and only focus on the things it was not designed to do.

Of you want a class with uber damage and no pet. Roll a warrior. Not try to turn the ranger into one. The ranger has tools and utilities up make a great class especially in group combat. L2P.

Ursan.7846:

Thousands of rangers share your opinion but no one shares his opinion?

Did I say this? No.
Did I imply this? No.

I myself share his opinion partially.

But saying crap like “learn to play” implies that those people complaining are just bad at the game/class and that there’s no argument to be had, since the class is fine and everyone complaining is just not doing it right.

Did I complain? No.
I always have to repeat myself in this matter… But I defend those complaining people against other people who simply say “you are bad, learn to play!”

I myself have no problem in dungeons with the Ranger.
I almost never die. My pet almost never dies. But that’s because I got over 8 years of MMO experience and am quite good at the game.

What I DO say is… that it’s unfair that Rangers have to be awesome players to even be remotely effective, while other classes just roll their faces on their keyboards and do equal or better than us, since we lack in certain IMPORTANT areas – which is ACKNOWLEDGED by the developers. Again… I have to repeat myself… these are no speculations – these are statements by the guys who MADE the game and its classes. Is that too hard to understand? Where does the hostility come from? ^^

@kaizen.whatever
you are starting to redicule yourself and this thread so i’m not even going to dignify your obvious “my jimmies are rustled” provocation with a real answer.

Seriously guys… can never a discussion be had without someone going apekitten and feeling insulted? We aren’t twelve, guys… at least I think / hope.

edit: it’s funny how people on the internet always only defend their OWN opinions… I myself try to defend everyone’s LEGIT opinion (which means not arguing like a 6yo) since everyone’s got a right on opinion. and if you don’t like said person’s opinion then so be it… but don’t start those little “my opinion is more valuable than yours” wars…

Victory.2879:

all they care about is pve where they are worried buffing pets will make soloing bosses etc too easy…

problem is… that they are actually right.
Ranger is very frickin powerful in open world pve…
but why is it that anet is so concerned with leveling or “farming” content, while at the same time acknowledging that there definitely ARE problems in other areas.
why do they value those few days of leveling content higher than the content that should keep players actually playing?
i just don’t get it…

they say they want to change the ranger for example dungeon-wise (which is considered end game “keeps you playing” content) but in the same sentence they mention that they don’t know how to do it without making the ranger “too powerful” in open world pve…

it’s my subjective opinion… but shouldn’t dungeon content be a higher priority for them?

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

Did I imply this? No.

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

Thousands of Rangers think that something is wrong with the class. Thousands of Rangers raise their voice and want to be heard. Who are YOU to say that they just suck and have to L2P?

You imply that the OP’s opinion is invalid because “thousands” disagree with him, and he’s the only one who agrees with his own opinions.

PalmtopTaiga.8043:

Maybe you should consider thinking out of the box and stop thinking that everyone has to be content with a situation YOU are content with.
Because – now comes a shocker – many many people aren’t.

Again, you’re implying that the OP’s opinion is invalid because many people disagree with him, and no one agrees with him? If you make the admission that there are many people who do agree with him, your statement falls flat on its face.

Appealing to the majority is a logical fallacy which should be avoided if you wish to hold serious discussions.

Ursan.7846:

You imply that the OP’s opinion is invalid because “thousands” disagree with him, and he’s the only one who agrees with his own opinions.

Nope. I imply that it’s childish to argument with “learn to play” since it implies that everyone who doesn’t do it the way he thinks it should be done is a bad player.
which removes him from any serious and mature discussion.

I imply that maybe there’s a reason for all those complaints that are not simply explained with “you are bad!”
I imply again and again that I don’t have a severe problem with how the Ranger is right now, but that I agree with the DEVELOPERS (i try to write it in caps since you manage to not see it every time) who say that certain things need to be fixed.

Just because you want to be right, doesn’t make you right.

Can we please stop derailing the thread now? It’s getting ridiculous. Nobody in the world cares about who of us is right… if anyone of us is even right at all. So please just stop the opinion war before a mod might get the idea of closing this thread, because of us idiots fighting like children.

I don’t think some of you are even playing the same game as me.

Yeah Rangers without pets, lets have the option, keep everybody happy.

The option would still allow those of you that want to drag around a dead pet to still do it.

“I almost never die. My pet almost never dies. But that’s because I got over 8 years of MMO experience and am quite good at the game.”

So you’ve learned to play. Are you saying you are that awesome that those other people cant? Are those people out there who get absolutely destroyed in dungeons are just too stupid that they have to dumb down the class so any idiot can play it?

The Ranger may need a few tweaks here and there but the MECHANICS OF THE CLASS IS NOT BROKEN. It is as designed. It will never change. Learn to adapt to the mechanic of a GW2 ranger rather than a WoW Ranger.

In the spirit of fairness we may as well give thief class higher toughness and healing and the Guardian some effective range weapons. Better yet, may as well give all of them the same DPS as warriors too.

@Solid

I’m sure that’s not exactly what those people who complain about it want. They want Ranger to be able to do 100% of the damage by itself without the pet. Which is changing the mechanic of the entire class. Longbow to do 2k-3k per shot non crit. This is how ridiculous these cry babies want.

If it’s just stowing the pet because they don’t want it to agro stuff. That’s a good idea and will be good and easy to implement. Though tbh it’s not like the pet will agro much if its set to follow anyway, but there are times it does.

raoul.4218:

I run a lvl 80 ranger and really enjoy the play style. Had several hunters in WOW so rolling up a ranger was only natural. The only aspect I don’t enjoy is the pet system.
I’m not even sure where to begin with the problems I have with ranger pets so I won’t.
What I would like to know is how other rangers feel about the choice of running a ranger build without pets. For example, if you really wanted a pet then you would have to throw points into beastmaster traits. For rangers that didn’t want a pet then they would have pet damage factored into weapon damage and deal with creating a build that would have to down opponents asap before they got into melee range.
Anyway just food for thought b/c I’m really getting fed up with how useless pets are in areas of the game like WvW.

Place the trait as I have in my signature, it works and you are able to survive, if any more questions. Feel free to whisp me ingame

Even WoW hunters can run no pet now.

I love the pet mechanic and it’s part of the reason i chose ranger BUT it needs serious overhauls.

Pets need a massive health boost and boost to their AoE and condi resistance. Right now they are useless in zergs and even in small fights vs condi classes. In all the other mmos i’ve played pets have been something you don’t even bother to go after because it simply isn’t worth it. they could survive in group fights, they could tank bosses and they were useful.

GW2 pets are frankly garbage because they aggro everything, attack on passive, and die to a fart. if they gave them the HP boost they got in pve in wvw it would help a lot and i can’t for the life of me figure out why they chose not to give it to them.

There’s really not much to say other than…

blake.2590:

Even WoW hunters can run no pet now.

Yeah, problem is that it wasn’t implemented too well, as it became the optimum choice, rather than an equal one.

IDK if that is still the case?

Hopefully, they will have either sorted it out, or be working on doing so.

As it’s obviously not good design to make one option (especially the more convenient, less class-appropriate one) the only good option.

That is what I would be concerned would happen here, as well and Rangers are in quite enough of a “You must play like this and not like that!” mess already.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Boomstin.3460:

KensaiZen.3740:

Just imagine if the pet wasn’t there. Don’t spec for a build that requires the use of the pet. Problem solved.

That doesn’t solve anything. The pet still amounts to certain percent of rangers damage which we can’t properly use at the moment.
Imagine is some other profession had a bug after 7 months since release that made them lose 30 percent of their damage by pretty much default agains’t player targets. Sounds awesome.

Unless you spec for BM, pet do little to no dmg. You lose potential DPS if you allocate a lot of trait points to BM, that’s a given. Pet don’t attack fast enough or hard enough to even count their DPS as a gain/loss. What pet brings to the table is their Pet Skill (F2) and they should always be swapped anyway so the damage is distributed between the pets and so that they also drop aggro.

Doing that loses you some damage, quite a bit of utility and pretty much all of your condition cleanse. Plus, thieves can still C&D off of your pet, which is a pain.