Guild Wars 2

I don’t have a Ranger because I personally didn’t want to sit back and let a pet do all the work. Seems like that could get boring. So A thought came to me, " Can a Ranger be played without a pet ? "

Is it possible to run a Ranger without a pet ? Are there any Rangers out there that run without a pets ?

I pray for the day the Heavenly Father blesses Rangers with the ability to go without a pet. I hope and I pray that one day Anet turns an about face and allows us to perma-stow our pet and give the Ranger that 30-40% damage back.

Anet’s current stance is that we are suppose to play the way they want and that is with a pet anytime you are in combat. Of course, you can play with pet on passive but then you are missing that DPS the pet is supposed to provide, artificially handicapping yourself and F2 abilities.

thefantasticg.3984:

I pray for the day the Heavenly Father blesses Rangers with the ability to go without a pet. I hope and I pray that one day Anet turns an about face and allows us to perma-stow our pet and give the Ranger that 30-40% damage back.

Anet’s current stance is that we are suppose to play the way they want and that is with a pet anytime you are in combat. Of course, you can play with pet on passive but then you are missing that DPS the pet is supposed to provide, artificially handicapping yourself and F2 abilities.

Ahhh okay, thanks for the reply.

we cant hide pets in combat, but i play wvw and pets useless in tower attacks or deffens, zerg fights etc.. i just dont care about it. no point on beast master, no trait for pet etc. i wont care about a mechanism what not working in my favourite game mode (wvw)

Personally and as I’ve said before I’d be in favor of a dual class mechanic.

Pets
OR
Preparations

This would allow Rangers who like to do content that pets (as an overall idea) are not really suitable for (such as WvW) without losing their class mechanic or if you just don’t like the available pets. “Stow pet” would put the pet away and pop up 3-4 unique preparations (like the Mesmer’s Shatters) that apply to our attacks that we could switch between(thus only one active) much the same way they worked in the last game. I really miss being able to drastically change my role and the adaptability I had as a Ranger in the last game. I appreciate the recent buffs but I feel core issues are being pushed to the side, intentionally or not, and it makes my current Ranger feel like a shell of my real GW Ranger. I doubt that will ever happen though. Devs seem rather hard set on the pet mechanic because it failed so much the last GW despite the fact it’s just not a viable option for certain game types.

Regarding your question, the valkriye ranger has been known to guard a wolf onto a point in spvp, then roam solo. Enjoy

To the people for removing pet: This question has been asked since the beginning of time, devs response always the same: use your pets!

Personally I hate my pet, I wish I could just use my skills and forget about the pet, but pets do damage so its just a nerf to not use them.

I wish rangers didn’t have pets.
I loved the aspects of the ranger and I simply just ignored my pet and let it auto attack. worked out well overall.
as long as you get your pet on your target and it can tank, then you get the damage bonus, but pets are sstill not fixed out of their kitten ed stupidity so its almost like…pointless to really worry about them.

I think it’s OK that Rangers have pets, but it’s not OK that they are so dumb. They have trouble hitting moving targets for instance, which makes them WAAY weaker in PvP than in PvE.

If we could control our pets better, and if their AI was less kittened, then I’d love them, as it is they’re basically just a free DOT, except a dot that works poorly in PvP.

Mike.7236:

I think it’s OK that Rangers have pets, but it’s not OK that they are so dumb. They have trouble hitting moving targets for instance, which makes them WAAY weaker in PvP than in PvE.

If we could control our pets better, and if their AI was less kittened, then I’d love them, as it is they’re basically just a free DOT, except a dot that works poorly in PvP.

This so much.

Personally I’m just hoping for QoL changes for pets. For example, something that indicates what buffs/debuffs the pet has.

thefantasticg.3984:

I pray for the day the Heavenly Father blesses Rangers with the ability to go without a pet. I hope and I pray that one day Anet turns an about face and allows us to perma-stow our pet and give the Ranger that 30-40% damage back.

Anet’s current stance is that we are suppose to play the way they want and that is with a pet anytime you are in combat. Of course, you can play with pet on passive but then you are missing that DPS the pet is supposed to provide, artificially handicapping yourself and F2 abilities.

^This. I wish that the pet was just a secondary skill bar and did little or no damage. As it is, the stupid pet makes this class almost impossible to balance.

FranBunnyFFXII.3508:

Personally I hate my pet, I wish I could just use my skills and forget about the pet, but pets do damage so its just a nerf to not use them.

I wish rangers didn’t have pets.

^^^ This.

I actually like the dual nature of Ranger/Pet. I just want more fine-tuned AI on the ’lil guys.

Pet mechanic was really bad implemented in this game. They probably decided to turn the ranger into a pet based class a bit too late (why anet? WHY??) so they had no time to develop pet mechanic or even test it. Pet AI at release was terrible, now is better but still kinda bad. Who knows i suppose some anet devs are just animal lovers lol “ohhh i want a cute kitty cat”.
Anyway in spvp pet is not really a problem, is actually an advantage (that’s why bm rangers used to be so good, the devs had not even tested pet damage). In pve…i don’t really care about pve tbh, but i don’t have problems with pets there. But when i play wvw i wish i could just delete my kittening pet, and i don’t even play in zerg fights.
Guys don’t keep your hopes up too high, they are not going to rework pet mechanic. Ranger without pet will never exist in this game. For anet the ranger is a pet class, they don’t care if 90% of ranger players hate pets or don’t like them. I know it sucks, that’s actually one of the things i hate the most in this game.

Exactly. They made their choice and as much as I love having pets there is a lot of content that they are just not suited for. I love the idea of having my pet wolf fight with me all the time but that’s what I love, the idea, not what it actually has become. As a whole I honestly just feel like an empty husk pretending to be a Ranger.

I miss the old Barrage, punishing groups and groups of foes for stacking up.
I miss the old Traps, especially Dust Trap.
I miss the old Spirits, applying battle changing effects that had to be dealt with.
I miss the old Preparations, giving me true adaptability against any kind of foe.

I don’t mean to insult the Devs who worked hard to bring us this GW2 profession but I really can’t love it like I did my GW GWAMM Ranger. I feel everything that made the Ranger a Ranger from the last game was left out when it didn’t have to be.

There are just so many things that I have problems about this class that 250 years ago were not even problems but instead strengths. How did that happen?

I feel the trait and utility skill system really works against the Ranger. Ranger’s used to be defined by their utility. You were a Trapper, Spirit Spammer, Barrage, Beastmaster, or Interrupter. Yes there was tons of other builds but that narrows it down. Many of the those things made it to GW2 but look at how they did.

Trapper gives up all utility skills and half his traits to do it. Can’t even lay duplicate traps nor do any of these traps have real defense. Where do weapon skills come in?
Spirt Spammer, same as trapper. Give up all utilities and half traits just to make them usable. What about weapon?
Then, on top of all of that, at the same time we try to be Beastmasters.
etc.

We as Rangers are dependent on our utility, traits, and mechanic instead of our weapons and choices. Our mechanic is not an accent to our profession as much as it is a forced playstyle.

On my Mesmer I don’t have to spec 30 into shatters to make them useful. I then certainly don’t have to waste another 30 trait points making one type of utility skill not useless. There isn’t a problem sending a Phantasm into a zerg to die. I’m not dependent on it.

My favorite option would be a new class of pets, which act more like D&D familiars than (current) GW2 pets. Having one of these active would grant passive effects and active skills which are entire supportive in nature. These pets would be unable to take damage or be defeated, and would be unable to deal damage as well. That way, you could use a fighting pet when you wanted the aggro management and other such benefits, and you could take a non-combat pet in situations where relying on an AI-controlled companion puts you at a disadvantage. It would keep alive the ‘always have a pet by your side’ class aesthetic, and it would give the flexibility of making pets optional at the same time.

Edit: what I mean is that having one of these new pets out would give a damage boost equivalent to the damage a fighting pet would deal, affected by the beast mastery trait. They would also have skills on the F1-F4 keys which would give other benefits, such as adding cc to your attacks, that pets often have. Passive effects could include further increased damage, innate regeneration or a boost to toughness, increased endurance generation, etc. Plus, they could give us pets that we wouldn’t otherwise get, such as raccoons, squirrels, weasels, hummingbirds, rabbits and such.