Guild Wars 2

This topic is mostly for bolstering the aspect/permastow option requested by so many players, but in doing so due to a mechanical problem rangers face – an inherent disadvantage in WvW even when their pets are alive.

This problem is that pets cannot deal damage to targets on surfaces which the player cannot reach from his current location. This is to some degree frustrating when killing players across gaps, but is manageable. That said, a fundamental part of WvW is sieging and defending keeps and towers.

And pets cannot assist in the siege or defense of towers, forcing the ranger to be dealing substantially less damage (and thus therefore have less of an impact in a given siege/defense) than pretty much all other classes.

So without changing the behavior of structures (as doing so would allow for exploitation of traversing structures for player objects, too), there needs to be some kind of system in place which allows for rangers to be compensated for their lack of pet damage when placed in situations which their pet – even if alive – cannot partake in.

While I understand people like their pets, and I strongly encourage ANet to make beastmaster-style builds more effective in that style of play, something needs to be done to address the inherent discrepancies rangers face in WvW, even barring the fact that pets are completely worthless in zergs as they either die or must be forced into doing nothing.

This is also a problem in fractals as-well, an unstowed pet can get you killed and your team mates killed in FoTM. Such as in the one with the raving asura. In the solid ocean fractal pets draw aggro from the boss and make charging crystals take longer and draw the boss fight out way longer than it should be. You’re forced to keep your pet dead and stay in combat 24/7 lest your pet respawn and screw everything up.