Guild Wars 2

On a side note:
I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up, but this might be one of the reasons many rangers have been kicked off of fractal runs. The Jade maw has this infatuation with firing his beam of hyper death face roll at pets even if they are downed.

Florgknight.1589:

On a side note:
I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up, but this might be one of the reasons many rangers have been kicked off of fractal runs. The Jade maw has this infatuation with firing his beam of hyper death face roll at pets even if they are downed.

I’ve never got this argument, the majority of the damage is done by killing the tentacles, most higher level players I know don’t even bother with the crystals and just dodge as it’s safer, you are not going to see the slide by and fail to pick up bug, and your not going to have to go looking for a crystal. If the Maw is targeting the pet, then good, it means that people can concentrate on DPSing tentacles rather than dodging/finding crystals.

Also Mesmers have it far worse as they have 3 clones up most of the time rather than 1 pet so it’s going to target them more often.

Ratty.5176:

Florgknight.1589:

On a side note:
I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up, but this might be one of the reasons many rangers have been kicked off of fractal runs. The Jade maw has this infatuation with firing his beam of hyper death face roll at pets even if they are downed.

I’ve never got this argument, the majority of the damage is done by killing the tentacles, most higher level players I know don’t even bother with the crystals and just dodge as it’s safer, you are not going to see the slide by and fail to pick up bug, and your not going to have to go looking for a crystal. If the Maw is targeting the pet, then good, it means that people can concentrate on DPSing tentacles rather than dodging/finding crystals.

Well the thing about that it, it makes it take alot longer, I’ve had instances where the thing has shot my pet three times in a row, getting to the point where I just stand around not attacking so my pet doesn’t get unstowed since the tentacles will 2-4 hit any melee pet.

Florgknight.1589:

Ratty.5176:

Florgknight.1589:

On a side note:
I’m not sure if anyone has brought this up, but this might be one of the reasons many rangers have been kicked off of fractal runs. The Jade maw has this infatuation with firing his beam of hyper death face roll at pets even if they are downed.

I’ve never got this argument, the majority of the damage is done by killing the tentacles, most higher level players I know don’t even bother with the crystals and just dodge as it’s safer, you are not going to see the slide by and fail to pick up bug, and your not going to have to go looking for a crystal. If the Maw is targeting the pet, then good, it means that people can concentrate on DPSing tentacles rather than dodging/finding crystals.

Well the thing about that it, it makes it take alot longer, I’ve had instances where the thing has shot my pet three times in a row, getting to the point where I just stand around not attacking so my pet doesn’t get unstowed since the tentacles will 2-4 hit any melee pet.

But as I just said it Skulling you pet is not actually an issue. the amount of damage taken from throwing a crystal is fairly negligible compared to the damage done by killing tentacles. If your pet is constantly being targeted it should just mean your team can kill tentacles faster as they are not having to dodge. This more than makes up for the loss of thrown crystals in most cases. I think the issue is people not understanding that fight dynamics more than the pet. I’ve heard people say multiple times that only the crystals do damage. Which is not only incorrect but actually almost the opposite of the truth.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I am still here and watching. I’m currently composing a list of ideas and statements from this thread to bring to our balance meetings (held multiple times per week), that I can present to at least talk about with the group.
I go to the meetings as a representative for rangers and dungeons, since I play both of those things extensively. Here’s how my list is looking so far:

Core problems: (Note: we are very aware of both of these things)
-Pet AI.
-Pet management tools

Things to investigate:
-Pets auto attacks only hitting a single target.
-On “return” command, your pet gains swiftness so it can escape out of red rings more easily.
-A button that makes your pet momentarily not take damage. A sort of “Dodge” button for you to control. This is mainly due to us making sure players know how to use their dodge-roll or damage mitigation skills, which pets don’t have, and don’t always know how to escape properly when recalled without a direct pet swap. (NOTE: This is a springboard idea for pets being able to avoid damage)
-Pet/minion AR that is shared with the master’s stats.
-More defensive pet skills.
-Vigor applied to pets turns into swiftness or protection.
-In dungeons, pet’s get more health/armor.
-Lick wounds not always working. Pet just runs back and stands on your body.
-Search and Rescue buggy
-F2 skills activating faster.
-Health/stamina bars for pets
-pet names not being undone when removing them from the “kennel”

Since you run these meetings multiple time a week what was brought up at other meetings already. If given a idea what was discussed already (which alot of items you listed should of been) then we could not have redundant posting. Or is this the first time that pet ideas is even being discussed in one of the meetings?

I just would like to confirm that I would probabaly be very unsatisfied with a pet dodge button. I just did fractals and tried to imagine what it would be like, but to be honest, sometimes I don’t even know where my pet is; much less notice if it’s about to get hit. The pet dodge should be automatic or just a flat % damage reduction. Maybe a trait that gives pets aegis every 40 seconds (like the guardian has).

ItIsFinished.9462:

I think the best approach is to look at this from a logical stand point. We have to realize that our pet is 20-60% of our DPS, so it needs to be effective in its DPS distribution. So, logically, the pet needs to stay alive. Every situation will warrant a different method to managing your pet. So I propose a simple 4 choice config for our pets:

F2 click once ~ Attack/Single target mode
F2 click twice ~ Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe condition or boon)
F2 click thrice ~ Guard/Single target mode
F2 click fourth ~ Guard/Multiple target mode(aoe boon or condition)

F2 click fifth ~ Do not attack (currently implemented)

Basically, you can set your pet to be in 1 of 4 modes. Each pet would warrant specific skills depending on the pet and mode. So for example my Raven could have a whirlwind type aoe on Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe) that drops conditions and a Bear could have a boon type of aoe for the Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe) that way every pet could be used for every situation. I understand that would warrant quite a bit of work, but it would synergize the Ranger and their companions perfectly.

With that being said you wouldn’t have to change any UI elements. Just add a 5 mode toggle to F2. The 5th being a do not attack.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that when a pet is in a guard type stance there defense is raised so they can take more damage but at the same time they do less damage. And all pets have 4 types of attacks anyways, this would just allow the Ranger to proc those specific skills on demand instead of randomly.

Fantastic idea ^^

:D

Pets shouldn’t be affect by agony… or they should recieve the agony that the ranger has if the ranger has 30 resistance then the pet should have 30 agony resistance…. its ignorant to add a mechanic like agony and a resistance but not carry it over to what is supposed to be 50% of a professions DPS. BAD DESIGNERS BAD!

Again carrying over to pets most boss’s are very AOE heavy…. why make pets weak against a main mechanic that is easily avoided by the ranger? Poor design forethought again… hey guys lets make pets be a main stay of ranger dps, but if they get hit by AOE or Agony they are 1 shot…. Ya sounds good… then lets give them a fatty cooldown if the pet dies lol.

Talk about gimping a profession by design literally.

And then not talking about pets for a second wtf was the dev team smoking when they decided a ranger has to be flanking or behind a target to bleed…. yet every other profession can bleed from any angle lol….. last I check an arrow shooting through your gut and out the other side is gonna make someone bleed regardless of if it was from the front or back /facepalm….

Get it together and stop adding kitten mechanics to professions/bosses just for the sake of adding them. Flanking/and behind bleeding… what purpose was that suppose to serve?

Daemon.4295:

I would be happy just to transfer a portion of my pet’s power to me while in passive mode, but again, sigils and shouts are IMO the way to go about doing this.

I always advocated this. When the pet is in passive mode, the missing potential damage should be folded back in the ranger. Like a pet aura buff. The moment you command it to attack you lose the buff. The moment it dies, you lose it and the moment you stow the pet, you lose it. It’s a simple solution to get around the pathing issue and for situations where pets are not feasible, like when camping castle walls.

There’s zero reasons to target a pet in pvp and this would give actually people a reason to.

Oh and pets shouldn’t be auto unstowed if you attack something or take damage. If you stow the pet it should stay stowed till you unstow it perhaps that could be in the options menu ya?

Pet dodge?

How bout some boon generation and our pet ai fixed. Let’s start there and move on to the next. Foundation first, not specifics.

All I want is a pet that picks up all the loot bags. Don’t really use pet since Guard got nerfed.

Meryt.9823:

All I want is a pet that picks up all the loot bags. Don’t really use pet since Guard got nerfed.

Not nerfed, fixed.

About dodge. I believe this raises this more general and fundamental problem with AI not playing by the same rules as players. The devs say they want to avoid splitting skills between PvP and PvE, yet the AI is incapable of using core concepts of the game : mobs cannot dodge or use positionning, and conditions/buffs and their removal and manipulation are only used in a minimal and almost anecdotic quantity in PvE while they’re all over the place in PvP.
This leads to a PvE that doesn’t uses the full potential of this game’s mechanics. Interesting skills being disregarded because raw damage is just generally more appealing ; boss encouters that quickly become boring because their only defense comes from a lot of HP instead of dodges and blocks and mobility and then have to compensate their lack of appeal with enough damage to oneshot a player arbitrarily.
I would love to see, for once, bosses or even random mobs that you need to control in order to bring them down. Not just dazing them once in a while, but actually preventing them from moving and dodging. I would love to see mobs trying to dodge my skills based on the casting time and a bit of randomness to simulate human reflexes. I would love to see them flank me for more damage. I would love seeing them trying to keep their distance for more damage on their ranged attacks and I would love to see things as basic as them leaving my aoes, removing the conditions I put on them or stealing my boons.

Well, back to ranger. I’m all for a dodge on the return button (not even with a trait) as well as endurance bar for the pet so that it can be affected by vigor and weakness. But this souldn’t be only for the ranger’s pet, it should be the result of a general redesign aimed at using the full depth and complexity of GW2’s combat.
PvE is already very nice. It even manages to compensate for what I’m talking about by having some mechanics of its own, but until it evolves toward a more thorough use of all the game’s mechanics I believe it will remain a missed opportunity and the devs will have to split skills between PvE and PvP eventually

Namu.5712:

Meryt.9823:

All I want is a pet that picks up all the loot bags. Don’t really use pet since Guard got nerfed.

Not nerfed, fixed.

So will they be fixing Mesmers illusions?

I forgot to mention before, but really the cooldown on signet of stone could be altered as an alternative to pet dodging.

At the moment it gives 6 seconds of invulnerability but has a cooldown of 120 seconds. It could be get say, 40 seconds cooldown but 3 seconds of invulnerability. I believe that it is instant cast at the moment and could be used as another way of allowing people to have the invulnerability effect of a doge.

I think its interesting the idea of having them do an evasion move every time you recall them to yourself when you are in combat. Each family of pet could have their own skill. For example the Devourer family could use the ‘Devourer Retreat’ (tunneling skill) as soon as you recall them, and perhaps birds could fly above combat in the way flying AI enemies sometimes do.

Arkanakaz.7915:

I forgot to mention before, but really the cooldown on signet of stone could be altered as an alternative to pet dodging.

At the moment it gives 6 seconds of invulnerability but has a cooldown of 120 seconds. It could be get say, 40 seconds cooldown but 3 seconds of invulnerability. I believe that it is instant cast at the moment and could be used as another way of allowing people to have the invulnerability effect of a doge.

I think its interesting the idea of having them do an evasion move every time you recall them to yourself when you are in combat. Each family of pet could have their own skill. For example the Devourer family could use the ‘Devourer Retreat’ (tunneling skill) as soon as you recall them, and perhaps birds could fly above combat in the way flying AI enemies sometimes do.

Signets is a horrid way to go, under no circumstances should the solution be put into a skill. We should not be forced to give up a useful skill for bandage fix to poor programing. We already give up enough as it is with the pet being a portion of our damage.

Just wanted add my support to some of the existing ideas here. I want the following very reasonable enhancements to ranger pets.

1. Pets should inherit agony resistance.
This should be top priority because it has zero effect outside of FoTM. There’s even already a display for AR in the pet stats window – it just always reads zero.

2. Pet F2 abilities need faster animations.
I want to use F2 abilities to actually react to my enemy, but they’re just so slow. Take, for example, the brown bear’s condition removal. Often, the condition I want to remove may be gone by the time the F2 animation goes off.

3. Pets need a dodge.
So many of the dungeon encounters require players to dodge out of high damage AoE attacks. Just like a player, pets need some sort of escape to stay alive.

And another random pet gripe I’m sure many of you have experienced:
Pet F2 abilities that grant friendly buffs often activate as if they are attacks. For example, consider the red moa F2 – this ability grants fury to allies. If I have an enemy target when I use red moa F2, my red moa will run to 600 range of that enemy to activate the F2 animation. Then, regardless of whether or not my moa was on passive, my moa will go to attack the targeted enemy. I understand this is often desired with offensive F2 abilities, but my red moa and fern hound should not be moving in to attack an enemy when I want fury or regeneration.

I want to thank Robert for so many replies in this thread about the ranger. I didn’t read the whole thing but Robert you are the dungeon dev lead right? It would be nice to hear from the balancing team under “ranger” to hear their input.

Since the game devs have refused or halted on fixing the ranger problems I have not played the game since December and I won’t until my ranger which is my main is wanted in dungeons and other missions. I feared that the ranger might get snubbed in dungeons once the game came out and I saw how worthless the builds were and I was right. If you guys are having trouble finding groups get with your guild that’s the best way to do it. I might just be one player but I will not spend any money on microtransactions or extra content coming out until the Ranger is made a pure Ranger (no pet) or the pet situation is fixed along with spirits as it is stands right now it is severely broken. If nothing happens within one year then I will bed this game goodbye forever…I have played GW1 until GW2 came out and this would be sad but I will do it unless changes happen to the ranger that make it viable right now.

The fact that you guys leave the ranger like this for so long reaffirms 2 things too me.

1. At the cost of trampeling the Ranger Bot situation you guys are making the legit players suffer. Better solution would be to outright BAN these players no matter the consequences.

2. IF the Ranger has remain this broken for so long you guys really don’t care about this class at all.

I honestly think the answer to a lot of the rangers problems is simple. Take 40-50% of the damage the pet does and put it back on the ranger. Like the ranger was in BWE2. The ranger we all fell in love with that made us roll it at launch. Not the BWE3 monstrosity we are all used to playing now.

Since we’re on the topic of Pets (in general), can you push towards the fix of the Drake Pet bug where when it uses it’s healing attack (Chomp), it aoe heals enemies instead of healing itself? At least confirm this is being looked at? Thanks!

Just wanted to through some ideas into the hat on the topics of ranger pets and having better control of their actions.

I like some of the ideas that have been tossed around of various added functions to the F1-F4 keys.

In addition, I think that rangers as true pet masters, should have perfect (or near perfect) control of pet positioning within a certain range. This could be achieved by giving the ranger an ability (possibly on one of the F keys) to dictate the pet’s position using ground targeting. Dodging isn’t the only issue during dungeon fights, many AoE you’re just supposed to walk/run out of and save your dodge/block for the really nasty ones. The attack/recall mechanic doesn’t do that very well. Positioning via ground targeting could make interaction with the pet more intricate and raise the skill ceiling in a way that doesn’t feel as “clunky” as simply having toggles.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

What if a button existed that could make your pet dodge roll, or gave it evasion for a few frames (no animation!) It could be called the “Dodge!” button

Is that something you guys could consider?
Ranger pets are switchable but for instance Necro ones go on cooldown when oneshotted by a boss.
It would be pretty good if dodging on a pet class also made the pet evade.

Red Falcon.8257:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

What if a button existed that could make your pet dodge roll, or gave it evasion for a few frames (no animation!) It could be called the “Dodge!” button

Is that something you guys could consider?
Ranger pets are switchable but for instance Necro ones go on cooldown when oneshotted by a boss.
It would be pretty good if dodging on a pet class also made the pet evade.

Only if spirits are give the ability to move on their own and can fight, but then Guardian will want that for their spirit weapon and we are in a slippery slop there.

Pet’s also need to derive stat benefits from gear. Conditions from pets are far inferior to a ranger in full condi gear. Pets and minions and illusions do not benefit from condi damage or condi duration or crit damage. It’s silly that a ranger needs to trait for 30% extra crit damage on a pet, which means half of his damage is only 30% extra crit damage whereas other classes with 110% full crit damage get it applied to the entirety of their damage. It’s why berserker gear is weak on the ranger.

Pets also do not benefit from food and shaperning stones and other buffs, despite being half of a ranger’s damage.

How about you give rangers back 100% of their personal dps and take it away from the pet? And then add a BM trait (or change an existing one) that reduces our personal dps and gives it to the pet.

If you think that trait wouldn’t be worth it, then why do we have it by default?

And then you hire someone to actively react to bot reports and goes to have a quick look. If he sees them warping all over the place, he bans them on the spot and then investigates to see if the acount was stolen and all that. You could even give some trusted players that power and let them listen in on the bot reports. They’d do it for free too.

The toggable f1 making pet ‘attack target’ and ‘come to me’ is a good idea. It would make pet control easier. Just make sure the f1 icon chages everytime we press it.

I’m not looking forward to having to look and press 2 dodge buttons, one for me and my pet. It’s like having to pay attention to 2 characters in combat at once. Some rangers may find having the f3 pet dodge a good idea but I really prefer the current system, I dodge..pet dodge. Simple and easy.

The f3 could be the pets 3rd ability, I’m sure a lot would agree if you could control when your dogs would knockback or when your spiders fire an immobilize, would really turn the tide of battle. Robert said he wanted more micromanagement by players with their pets, giving us control of 2 of their skills seems like a good idea.

Ranger is broken as it is. Making pets effective is going to take a LOT more than number games (which, unfortunately, has most often been the majority of what ANet has done with regards to balancing professions and skills). I’m just going to drop pic related here for consideration. All of the skill specifics aren’t really fixed ideas, I just think that there should be two modes for the Ranger as it is. If you really want to make the pet meaningful and effective on the field, you’ll need more than 1 F-skill (IT’S SERIOUSLY JUST ONE SKILL—IT’S EFFECTIVELY THE WARRIOR) to bring out a pet’s potential.

You would need an entire skill set to really maximize a pet’s presence. It’s seriously a second body for the Ranger. I can’t believe that no designer has taken advantage of that.

ItIsFinished.9462:

I think the best approach is to look at this from a logical stand point. We have to realize that our pet is 20-60% of our DPS, so it needs to be effective in its DPS distribution. So, logically, the pet needs to stay alive. Every situation will warrant a different method to managing your pet. So I propose a simple 4 choice config for our pets:

F2 click once ~ Attack/Single target mode
F2 click twice ~ Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe condition or boon)
F2 click thrice ~ Guard/Single target mode
F2 click fourth ~ Guard/Multiple target mode(aoe boon or condition)

F2 click fifth ~ Do not attack (currently implemented)

Basically, you can set your pet to be in 1 of 4 modes. Each pet would warrant specific skills depending on the pet and mode. So for example my Raven could have a whirlwind type aoe on Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe) that drops conditions and a Bear could have a boon type of aoe for the Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe) that way every pet could be used for every situation. I understand that would warrant quite a bit of work, but it would synergize the Ranger and their companions perfectly.

With that being said you wouldn’t have to change any UI elements. Just add a 5 mode toggle to F2. The 5th being a do not attack.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that when a pet is in a guard type stance there defense is raised so they can take more damage but at the same time they do less damage. And all pets have 4 types of attacks anyways, this would just allow the Ranger to proc those specific skills on demand instead of randomly.

Also this is good. Really good. It’s a little unwieldy (what if you wanted to switch from mode 1 all the way to 5 really quickly?), but it’s honestly the best one could do with the game engine as it is.

has anyone mentioned ranger pets using some percentage of bas player stats to be added to their stats to keep them inline damage wise since ascended gear is being added and as player dmg and health is going up pets remain unaffected, also this would in pets being more in the rangers control by using stats rangers use, such as giving condition dmg to lynx since it is a very heavily condition pet with all the bleeds (if traited every single attack it can do can cause a bleed) it can do and the pet condition dmg trait isnt really worth it, its 5-8 more dmg a tick… not a whole lot from a greater trait, lol incomparison necros got a trait to give fear dmg, and that starts at around 500 a tick. pets getting some of the stats rangers spec in just seems more rewarding to the ranger to have the pets you want to since u can build them into your playstyle more than what they are now like the lynx for condition builds

Criminal.5627:

has anyone mentioned ranger pets using some percentage of bas player stats to be added to their stats to keep them inline damage wise since ascended gear is being added and as player dmg and health is going up pets remain unaffected, also this would in pets being more in the rangers control by using stats rangers use, such as giving condition dmg to lynx since it is a very heavily condition pet with all the bleeds (if traited every single attack it can do can cause a bleed) it can do and the pet condition dmg trait isnt really worth it, its 5-8 more dmg a tick… not a whole lot from a greater trait, lol incomparison necros got a trait to give fear dmg, and that starts at around 500 a tick. pets getting some of the stats rangers spec in just seems more rewarding to the ranger to have the pets you want to since u can build them into your playstyle more than what they are now like the lynx for condition builds

From the wiki:
“A pet’s base health, armor, and damage are based on that of the ranger. This means its basic abilities always match the ranger’s level.”
source: wiki
Either the information in the wiki needs an update or it doesn’t work as it should

I think many of you are overcomplicating the problems in order to find solutions.

Robert has already noted sensible and possible options to many of the ranger pet problems. The primary two for me are providing swiftness to a pet when you ask it to “return” as this would alleviate much of the damage it receives when travelling back to the ranger. With the second being providing the pet with a Boon or effect to become temporarily immune to damage when you dodge. This would be the most sensible solution to area of effect skills. Pets receiving Aegis or “Blur” when you dodge is a very viable idea and one that would likely result in alleviating many pet problems in dungeons.

Everything else Robert mentioned in his list is fantastic. What I don’t really agree with is “More defensive pet skills.” 99% of the rangers I know simply leave their pet to its own devices and then complain when it dies. Actively managed, pets can be really formiddable. Adding a greater number of defensive skills to pets would make those of us who actively manage them, far too powerful.

On the subject of perma-stow of pets, there are areas that pets NEED to be stowed-specifically Jumping Puzzles. They’re a distraction, block camera and just plain useless when jumping from ledge to ledge. The second I stub my toe falling 2 inches BAM! I got a bear in my face again. Hit a spike and suddenly there’s a Moa giving the walls an angry look…

If nothing else, how about making pets not reappear when taking falling/environmental damage. Hell, how about not putting ME into combat when I take falling damage – but i digress… Making it so that Pets only reappear when taking damage that’s not environmental [falling/spikes/etc] will solve the perma-stow problem, for me at least.

Yes, pets coming out of stow from falling/environmental damage makes the stow feature basically worthless. I like that the pet unstows when taking regular damage though. I just can’t imagine anyone wanting their pets to unstow when taking falling damage.

It would be nice to allow pets to never come out of stow when it’s in “Avoid Combat” mode, even when taking regular damage. No passive buff required either. Sometimes you just want your pet the stay unharmed for another part of the battle. Like stowing pets when the boss in the snow fractal moves to the ledge and uses all his area of effects all over the place.

Also, F1, F2, F3 and F4 shouldn’t be disabled while the pet is stowed, it should instead make the pet come out of stow and perform the command.

Stow also has an annoying cooldown of like 16 seconds, even when out of combat. Over-all I would like to see most pet cooldowns reduced drastically. 60s cooldown for a dead pet is far too long too. If it was reduced to 30s, people would complain less about dragging along dead pets in dungeons.

It’s a class mechanic, it shouldn’t be disabled most of the time. If it’s too easy to solo bosses with low cooldown pets, then let aggro on pets sometimes randomly transfer to the player. As if the mob suddenly realizes who the real enemy is.

Also, maybe this:
F1 – pet attacks target
F2 – pet skill
F3 – stow/unstow pet
F4 – swap pet

Pressing F3 twice would make the pet reappear by the ranger’s side. This is combination with permanent stow in “Avoid Combat” mode, would make it perfect.

Edit: swapping pets already has the exact same effect, except you end up with a different pet.

Oh, by the way, make the Jade Maw stop attacking pets, turrets, and minions.
Last night we were doing FotM and we had a ranger. 75% of the time the Maw would target the pet instead of the players.

We actually saw it target a defeated pet 6 times in a row.

Hey Guys,

i am a Ranger from the German Community and i have a litte Question to Robert.

It would make me happy that it is possible to stow the Pet and gain a passive Dmg Bonus like 10% for example, until then the Pet is stowed.

Especially in WvW a Pet is in large Battles totally useless and thats a Fact.

Yeah i am a Ranger, but who the Hell tells me:

You are a Ranger and u have to use Pets! or play another Class.

I hope u can gave me/us a clearly Answer about my Question, what the German Devs are not be able to do………..

This can be one Solution for Players who want to fight without the Pet for Dungeons, and for Large Battles.

For Fractals/Dungeons we need another Solution to fix that Problem that our Pet dies so quickly ( except the ranged Pets )

Thank you

Regards Hadrians

Ps. i feel sry for my bad English Grammar

I think City of Heroes Masterminds dealt with this slightly differently, when in offensive mode the pet attacked, therefore giving you additional DPS, when in Defensive mode it buffed the Masterminds defenses. In this game it would probably be a passive toughness buff based on the pets toughness, or sharing a percentage of damage a Ranger takes with it’s pet.

This might not be a bad way to deal with things, it would mean low DPS, tough pets would give Rangers good defense when Passive, but lower DPS when Active, whereas things like cats would give good DPS when Active but less defense when Passive.

It might also add more depth to the Ranger, things are going bad, do you leave your pet attacking to clear mobs faster, or pull your pet back to give you a bit more time for your healing cooldowns to come up.

So, there is no troubles with pets out of dungeons? Lol, okay

Ok, let me start this by saying, its pretty good robert is involved here, and thanksThe fact is, he is one of the main people designing high end encounters, and ranger’s class mechanics need to work within that vision.

i think pet management has to be apart of the ranger class.

Ok: improving pet in difficult content.
i understand the micro management haters, i think the only way that pets are going to fit into this games mechanics is if they have a certain level of control. The game at its core, in high end play is one of reacting, predicting, etc.
If a pet wants to survive he will need similar mechanics, and i dont think its a good design to have the pet handle all of that alone.

that said, some people want direct control, and some want overall control over the pets general behavior.
I think the key here is accepting that people have different playstyles. i think every ranger should have to do some type of pet management, and be aware of the pet to be optimal, afterall its what the class is actually about. I think some pets should cater to different styles.

Ok, so heres what i think the overall pet functionality should be like.

f1 = attack target
f2 = activated ability
f3 = defensive ability which uses endurance like mechanic.
f4 = switch pet
bindable ability: stance shift. (going to passive will make it run to the player.)

now while i like the idea of giving evade frames on call back, i can see that not every one likes the idea of heavy micro, and it would require pressing more than some people can handle, so i think we should make this a defensive ability which works on an endurance mechanic, but which differs from pet to pet.

Overall i think different pets should have different behavior patterns, this will give ranger a more customizable pet behavior, without forcing everyone down one path.

A bear for example
tries to stay in close melee range
general behavior:holds ground
attacks cleave
behavior when not target of agro: uses faster attacks.
his defensive ability give him two seconds of flat reduction in incoming damage (seperate from protection)
this makes him more of a macro type pet, you can essentially just get a general damage reduction for 4 out 10 seconds, which when combined with tanking stats, healing, and normal boons should be enough to survive 15-20 seconds. The disadvantage is he does less damage, and he is more kitable, with less attacks that can hit moving targets well. The ranger who plays with this pet will probably have a style that focuses on cripples and immobilizes to keep the pet in the range of players. Less of a finesse pet and more of an overal strategy tank style pet.

Feline pet is different,
general behavior, face up when being targeted by target,
attacks single target
when not being targeted, tries to maintain a 400 distance while trying to flank the target.
defensive ability is dodge, with invulnerability frames. Attack animations are fast leaps, and quick multi hit attacks, think iswordsman, with a closer range. It has less hp, but using dodge at the right moment negates attacks, and since it tries to flank, and maintain distance will give naturally be easier to take in and out of aoe ranges, and avoid cones, this is more of a high damage micro pet.
it excels at movement, and is hard to kite due to high speed leaping attacks, and low cast times and animations. however its defense and hp isnt high

avians,
when being specifically targeted by a target, they fly upward and dont use damage abilities, other than f2 and swooping attacks. while flying high, all damage has 50% chance of glancing, however they dont attack very often.
when not targeted they attack fast and swoop, their attacks are multihit they try to maintain more distance than stalkers, in the direction of the ranger. (they will try to position themselves at the same angle as the ranger when not attacking but at say 600 or 700 range)
defensive ability, gain glancing damage buff to ranged, and evasion to melee damage for 1 second.
this pet is in between micro and macro, it has a good buff to incoming damage, when being targeted, but lowers its dps through few attacks, when not being targeted, using defensive ability allows it to attack while not taking damage when hit the right times. Its very good at harrying opponents who dont target it.

cannines close range, with defensive ability like counter hits for each attack blocked during ability duration. behavior when not targeted, flank, but generally stays close.

with other pets. Pets will feel more unique, and have different functionality.

*Essentially the idea this.
1)Different defensive abilities per species activated at will by player, some are reaction macro heavy, and some are general buffs depending on the pet.

2) different pet behaviors that fit different playstyles, some benefit from micro, some are less responsive, but require more overall stat/trait management in high level play to survive. This includes prefered positioning

3) pet ai behaves differently if being targeted by target

4)pets in peace mode should not cause agro unless they hit an enemy, or maybe use certain buffs in their presence. Chalk it up to being animals.*

this allows micro heavy players to have fun and pick certain pets, and macro heavy players to have fun

I play mostly wvw (melee ranger, usually small fights from 5v~5 to 15v~15) but this should apply to dungeons as well. There are many problem with pets but here are some I didn’t noticed yet.

If I call pet to me (F3) then it goes directly to my side (somewhere 300-500 units far from me). There are 2 problems. First the pet goes directly through countless aoes. Other problem is it goes to place that doesn’t have to be save (that’s why I’m not standing there and I’m standing where I’m standing). So if pet didn’t die while moving to me it will die on place where it stops…
If I’m in melee range of enemy and pet is hitting same enemy. There’s no way to tell the pet to go out of aoe or to go to me, because it is already near me. I can’t tell pet to attack from behind to not get hit from frontal aoes.
—-
I like the idea after F3 instantly porting pet under my feet. It could help pet survive at least the damage it would receive during travelling to ranger. Other option would be to let be the pet after using F3 invincible the whole time it goes to me and put CD there. But there will be problem with pet tripping traps on the way and doing additional invincible target. Instant teleport will be better and will help to lower amount of data transferred from and to server too.

With the nerf of Emphatic Bond there is one new now more visible problem. Pet and conditions. Pet doesn’t have condition removal. Pet is stupid and doesn’t go into healing springs / wells that remove conditions… When attacking it doesn’t go one step to left from red circle… Rangers have 3 ways to remove conditions from pet. First is pet swap but it has 20 s CD and 60 s if pet is dead. Pet is getting direct damage, condition damage and is moving through all aoe it can so it doesn’t live 20 s to be this effective… Second is healing spring which requires me standing in it and hoping pet will too (pet usually stands far from its range). Third are projectile finishers with light combo field (someone else have to create it) and having pet near target. Does this prioritize pet or other players? I would guess players. I’m not counting the elite spirit, it has so high CD and prioritize player over pets anyway. During fights none of these options is viable. The more conditions I get and Emphatic Bond removes, the faster pet dies and there’s not much I can do about it. When pet is dead ranger has one less condition removal. And dead pet means less damage as well…
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For the condition problem there’s not much to do. Let pet remove conditions from himself every few seconds or transfer it from pet to enemy when pet is attacking or something like that.

I know lot of problems I can solve by positioning myself better but then it will be the only thing I will be doing the whole fight… keeping me and pet alive without providing benefits for group…

(sorry for my English, I will get better one day…)

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I’ll admit I don’t WvW as much as I likely should. When I do though, I tend to avoid the larger battles due to culling and those pesky stealth thieves who seem to pick my Anet tag out of the crowd and proceed to stick daggers in my spine.
When I WvW, I tend to run off into areas where I can get the drop on someone who is running to an objective that is contested. Rangers are really powerful in 1v1, especially when you can get the jump on someone and have good daze\evasion. When I am caught up ikittenerg trying to push back another zerg, I tend to keep my pet in pacifist mode so it doesn’t go running off to its death.
In a 1v1-3 situation though, double hyenas and a trusty spider can be a real game changer and difference maker.

Rob, again, I understand you’re not a WvW dev, but I am going to hopefully keep this in your mind, especially if you’re going to advocate for our changes.

By your own admission you leave your pet on passive in large scale WvW (which is really 90% of WvW). Don’t you think that points to a problem that needs to be addressed? Yeah, rangers can 1v1 decently, especially if they spec traps. But no ranger who wants to be part of a WvW guild can build like that and consider themselves useful. If our pets are being essentially taken our of the equation in WvW (which for some of us is the WHOLE game) we really would like somebody to offer us some sort of solution.

neverborne.4736:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I’ll admit I don’t WvW as much as I likely should. When I do though, I tend to avoid the larger battles due to culling and those pesky stealth thieves who seem to pick my Anet tag out of the crowd and proceed to stick daggers in my spine.
When I WvW, I tend to run off into areas where I can get the drop on someone who is running to an objective that is contested. Rangers are really powerful in 1v1, especially when you can get the jump on someone and have good daze\evasion. When I am caught up ikittenerg trying to push back another zerg, I tend to keep my pet in pacifist mode so it doesn’t go running off to its death.
In a 1v1-3 situation though, double hyenas and a trusty spider can be a real game changer and difference maker.

Rob, again, I understand you’re not a WvW dev, but I am going to hopefully keep this in your mind, especially if you’re going to advocate for our changes.

By your own admission you leave your pet on passive in large scale WvW (which is really 90% of WvW). Don’t you think that points to a problem that needs to be addressed? Yeah, rangers can 1v1 decently, especially if they spec traps. But no ranger who wants to be part of a WvW guild can build like that and consider themselves useful. If our pets are being essentially taken our of the equation in WvW (which for some of us is the WHOLE game) we really would like somebody to offer us some sort of solution.

Totally True. Putting a pet on passive is just a bad solution of this problem. Basically its not even a solution it is simple what we are forced to do. A warrior can enter in full power in a large scale fight. We – with the pet on passive – enter shorthanded into the fight. I play mostly in WvW. Pets are usually dead ikittenergfight before they can trigger their (usually) broken f2 skill.

gaborkaldy.3210:

Totally True. Putting a pet on passive is just a bad solution of this problem. Basically its not even a solution it is simple what we are forced to do. A warrior can enter in full power in a large scale fight. We – with the pet on passive – enter shorthanded into the fight. I play mostly in WvW. Pets are usually dead ikittenergfight before they can trigger their (usually) broken f2 skill.

The idea with the rangers was something like the ranger working together with the pet as a team but unfortunately without constant handhelding and micromanaging the braindead pet is useless currently on multiple areas of the game.
They say they are trying to fix the pets and they are not giving into just letting us permastow the pet for a flat +damage increase or they would be admitting their own failure.
Meanwhile for 6 months rangers are stuck in a limbo and need to drag around their ball in a chain bringing them down.
Usually unfixable things get scrapped in beta.

pets in WvWvW are a problem, however, when he says he puts it on passive, that doesnt mean he doesnt attack with his pet, it means his pet is default to not attacking, and only attacks specfic targets when he hits attack command.

they main problem is that WvWvW is zerg heavy and AOE heavy, however, truth be told, players get melted just as easily, and pets dying, while making you weaker doesnt take you out the game, (like dying on another class does)as well you can swap out pets to get them back.

The problem with what many of you are suggesting is that you either want to make a pet into an invincible, or near invincible source of skills and damage, or you want to take it out of the game, neither one of those are viable solutions.
if pets can survive where even players cant with little risk, isnt that essentially overpowered?

didnt read all the posts, mainly the dev ones, but well.. its a bit sad that there will be no perma stow.. not that i want to get rid of my pet, no im even running a full beastmaster build and im a bit useless without pet, but in some situations you just want the pet to stay stowed.

my solution for this would be;
if you stow the pet while it is in defensive mode then it will not unstow on taking damage/going into combat.. but when its on aggressive then it should just act as it already does.

also things id like to see are a key for stowing the pet and all the pets boons and conditions should also be always displayed near/above the pet health/F1-3 controls, its uncomfortable to select the pet to see what boons/cons he got.

sorry if i repeat things which got already said, but better say it twice than not at all ;)

If the pet didn’t take a chunk out of the Ranger’s personal DPS, noone would have a problem with dragging along dead pets in certain areas of the game.

Pets really need their theoretical DPS reduced and given back to the Ranger. Just give the Ranger pets the same theoretical DPS that Mesmer illusions/clones should provide. If that makes a 30 point BM Jaguar crit for 1k max, then so be it.

phys.7689:

pets in WvWvW are a problem, however, when he says he puts it on passive, that doesnt mean he doesnt attack with his pet, it means his pet is default to not attacking, and only attacks specfic targets when he hits attack command.

they main problem is that WvWvW is zerg heavy and AOE heavy, however, truth be told, players get melted just as easily, and pets dying, while making you weaker doesnt take you out the game, (like dying on another class does)as well you can swap out pets to get them back.

The problem with what many of you are suggesting is that you either want to make a pet into an invincible, or near invincible source of skills and damage, or you want to take it out of the game, neither one of those are viable solutions.
if pets can survive where even players cant with little risk, isnt that essentially overpowered?

Why everyone forget that players can dodge and ranger has up to 1500 range with LB(not even mentioning defending from a wall)? Also a ranger without a pet is like a warrior without his F1 AOE stun with a hammer – he’s not dead but he’s losing a lot of his utility in a wvw

When will the next meeting take place and are there any other issues you want to discuss except pets?

Swagg.9236:

ItIsFinished.9462:

I think the best approach is to look at this from a logical stand point. We have to realize that our pet is 20-60% of our DPS, so it needs to be effective in its DPS distribution. So, logically, the pet needs to stay alive. Every situation will warrant a different method to managing your pet. So I propose a simple 4 choice config for our pets:

F2 click once ~ Attack/Single target mode
F2 click twice ~ Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe condition or boon)
F2 click thrice ~ Guard/Single target mode
F2 click fourth ~ Guard/Multiple target mode(aoe boon or condition)

F2 click fifth ~ Do not attack (currently implemented)

Basically, you can set your pet to be in 1 of 4 modes. Each pet would warrant specific skills depending on the pet and mode. So for example my Raven could have a whirlwind type aoe on Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe) that drops conditions and a Bear could have a boon type of aoe for the Attack/Multiple target mode(aoe) that way every pet could be used for every situation. I understand that would warrant quite a bit of work, but it would synergize the Ranger and their companions perfectly.

With that being said you wouldn’t have to change any UI elements. Just add a 5 mode toggle to F2. The 5th being a do not attack.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that when a pet is in a guard type stance there defense is raised so they can take more damage but at the same time they do less damage. And all pets have 4 types of attacks anyways, this would just allow the Ranger to proc those specific skills on demand instead of randomly.

Also this is good. Really good. It’s a little unwieldy (what if you wanted to switch from mode 1 all the way to 5 really quickly?), but it’s honestly the best one could do with the game engine as it is.

Yeah, switching modes might be a little clunky..I was trying to figure out a way without changing any UI elements.

Thanks for the thumbs up though!