Guild Wars 2

Am I doing something wrong?

I got to the the battle for claw island then I went and fought some other risen, and found that they just totally ignore the pet. 60ish levels of pet tanks I DPS just like every other ranger/hunter in every other game. Then suddenly the game becomes run in circles while my pet is unable to hit a moving target.

What is up with their AI?! is it a bug, or intentional?

I’m fine with kiting, I do it on my elementalist, but everything up to this point, and from every other game I’ve ever played says that a ranger pet should be able to get aggro and tank if I spec for it. Why then does the primary mob you get to be around after 60-70 ignore everything that your leveling told you to do? It’s insanely frustrating.

Even if I do nothing other than send my pet in, the risen run straight for me! I’ve done nothing to them for me to even be on their aggro table!!!

I really want to play my ranger, It’s my favorite class type in any game, but the risen are driving me absolutely nuts…

This is just the way AI works, mobs have different variables which determines who they attack and how, and Risen chose to attack the player over the pet, there’s a few other mobs which also do this, mostly Champions and Veterans will also ignore the pet. It sometimes helpes if you send your pet in with F1 then attack after your pets taking damage

Try using a different pet. I had the same problem with bears and one other pet, I cannot remember which (maybe Moas?). When I hit level 80, my bear pet would run up to a mob, I would not even attack it, and the mob would ignore my pet and come for me. This was a change in a patch, I believe to help with the botting problem. I use the wolf now and don’t have as big a problem with it.

Personally i wish all PvE enemies would do this, it allows the pet to last a lot longer, this is the problem that Robert Hrouda was saying about when they tried giving pets reduced AOE damage form attacks that rangers could easily beat bosses with smart pet changing, if the enemy just went for the player there wouldn’t be that problem.

Tanthalas.1569:

Try using a different pet. I had the same problem with bears and one other pet, I cannot remember which (maybe Moas?). When I hit level 80, my bear pet would run up to a mob, I would not even attack it, and the mob would ignore my pet and come for me. This was a change in a patch, I believe to help with the botting problem. I use the wolf now and don’t have as big a problem with it.

This. Toughness (including armor) is one of the factors that attracts aggro. Damage, proximity, and ranged attacks also matter. A canine has both more toughness than a bear and higher power. Drakes are identical stats, but have AoE attacks.

Find the mob that’s ignoring your pet, and try different pet families on it until you find what works for you. I run high toughness, so I need really tough pets if I want them to tank.

Risen completely ignoring the pet?

Sounds like risen might be devs in disguise… :P

Use high dps pets against risens; not the tanky ones (cause they go after you anyway).

you’re using Signet of the Wild I bet?

If so, remove that signet and watch as they ignore you and go back to your pet.

For those who don’t know..Signet of the Wild is a Huge aggression magnet for the ranger.

Or equip drakes, take a flame trap, pull them in and watch them melt… I anchor for my pet all the time. plus when you swap it gets the full bonus of quickness, yay bonus awesome.

If you’re glass this obviously doesn’t work as well. Bring along muddy terrain as well as fire trap and kite a little. It is a really long CC that dumb AI fail to get out of.

I’ve soloed the one crystal champ with the 20 something army (invulnerable til you take out everyone). Kited them to hell with traps and then my wolves and I went to town on the boss. (not even trap spec’d and it works awesome)

Swap around utilities, rangers are highly adaptive with what we get.

Risen in general tend to ignore most pets / summons and go only after players (or NPCs). Just one of the quirks of the different creature AI’s. I don’t think its like some others have mentioned where you simply need a pet with more Toughness, I think its just Risen AI that they (mostly) ignore pets. I run full Beastmastery with Cleric’s gear and Risen still tend to target me a lot.