Guild Wars 2

shimmerless.4560:

I’ll wear my newbieness on my sleeve, I’m not much of a Ranger by any means and I only really play mine if I’m in a nature-y kind of mood, but I’ve never noticed most of the problems people seem to have with pets.

I mean, you look at your first skill tray while you’re levelling, and you suss, “Huh, obviously a lot of my damage must be balanced out in my pet”. So I just tried to figure out how best to manage it, and as it turns out you can make liberal use of the call/return commands to keep them out of harm’s way, as well as using your heal if only for them and less for yourself. I don’t really know if Rangers see it as a good skill or not but I found Sick ’Em was quite powerful at opportune moments. Lick Wounds is one of the strongest (if not the strongest) downed skills I know of.

AI is always going to be problematic in games and especially those where commands have to be relatively simple to keep bandwidth costs under control, but I still don’t think it’s even nearly as dire as some seem to believe.

Well pets and in general AI aren’t problematic in games But those MMOs that uses them have long Years of Knowledge and experience in that matter – Blizzard is best example.

While ago ( a bit while ago… ) In WoW pets were taking full dmg From Any kind of AoE skill so they died often, very often. You don’t have pet swap skills etc. So it was pathetic. At some poit Blizzard decided to implement 90% dmg reduction for Pets From attacks marked as AoE and PbAoE. In GW2 case it would be for example Elem D/D #5 earth skill, ranger #5 LB skill etc.

Problem in GW2 is that PET is FAR better – Read is stronger – as to comapre it to WoW.
In WoW Your pet in BM build did around 30% dmg at max with most skills taken for it. In usual Marksman build it did maybe ~10% dmg.

Here in GW2 Your pet Does at lest 30-50% of Your dmg. Im sometimes shocked when in tpvp/spvp with full zerker my Jag can CRIT up for 3-4,5k with his ~30Cd skill and does near to 1,5-1,7k Crits with basic ones. Add bleeds to that.

So now imagine that in GW2 pets would get 90% DMG reduction From all kill of AOE skills like:
Guardian: staff #1/gs #2/3/4/5 etc etc.
That would mean that in some cases even weapon #1 skill would not deal enough dmg to pet – the guardian Staff #1 as example. If You fight BM ranger in GW2 best way to win is to LoS ranger and kill his pet, and then after swap do the same to lock him up – which woudl be impossible as of how much of active dmg for some classes AOE means.

using only #1 skill on most weapons doesn’t bring enough dmg to kill pet fast enough.
I could bet that my Jaguar could beat 1v1 most classes who could only do dmg with #1 skill. Giving such dmg resistance ( 90% form aoe or even 50-60% ) is overkill for Ranger class and Would be such a great buff that rangers would be to OP.

In this case there are 2 options available because of how GW2 pets and ranger was designed:
1) Reduce Pet DMG with transfering huge part of it to ranger skills and then granting pet huge DMG reduction buffs from AOE skills ( for example pet: normal builds (non BM) 10% and BM 20% of rangers dmg ))
2) Allow pet to gain Buff like protection after it gets hit by AoE skill for short period of time ( 1-3s ) and give it Distorsion ( evasion ) for same amount of time that ranger dodge does. You could also try to fix ranger pet Death problem by allowing rangers to have 3 active pets. Assuming that each pet can survive ~15-25 seconds at tops in PvP, swaping 3 pets would mean that ranger always have pet in fight and ins’t handicaped – same solution would work for dungeons and WvW.

Also I would consider getting more Ranged pets. let’s be honest this is MMO, placed in fantasy world with wierd “rats” as asuras, huge golems etc. Im sure Anet can find some designs for more ranged pets ^.^ – also giving them 1200 range

Also Big problem also is WvW when Ranger is in offence or defence in POint/Tower/Keep. Cause Your pet in that time is mostly inactive which makes You handicaped in terms of DMG as Your pet does noone of it – and usualy it does a god part of it.

As for hitting moving targets -theres fast and easy solution to it. make all pet attack, shorter and easier animation or fasten it up. Cause most of thier skills miss because They can’t end animation fast enough, and then target is away to it fails to land.

I don’t know how to fix that because im not a programer, but surely some game did made totaly workable AI pets who don’t have any problems with hitting moving targets. Sometimes it’s nice to consult others

shimmerless.4560:

I’ll wear my newbieness on my sleeve, I’m not much of a Ranger by any means and I only really play mine if I’m in a nature-y kind of mood, but I’ve never noticed most of the problems people seem to have with pets.

I mean, you look at your first skill tray while you’re levelling, and you suss, “Huh, obviously a lot of my damage must be balanced out in my pet”. So I just tried to figure out how best to manage it, and as it turns out you can make liberal use of the call/return commands to keep them out of harm’s way, as well as using your heal if only for them and less for yourself. I don’t really know if Rangers see it as a good skill or not but I found Sick ’Em was quite powerful at opportune moments. Lick Wounds is one of the strongest (if not the strongest) downed skills I know of.

AI is always going to be problematic in games and especially those where commands have to be relatively simple to keep bandwidth costs under control, but I still don’t think it’s even nearly as dire as some seem to believe.

In open-world PvE, the Ranger’s fine, if not great. Our pets can generally survive, if not dominate most of the open-world mobs, sometimes even taking on veterans and such on their own. In dungeons and fractals, however, pets often have seconds to live in nearly any engagement unless you set them to passive, whichs deprives the Ranger of xx% of his/her total dps output.

I’m probably oversimplifying, but basically every moment a pet’s not actively attacking is a moment in which a Ranger is missing xx% of his/her total dps output, and in dungeons and fractals where pets aren’t attacking most of the time due to either death or passivity, Rangers come out to be xx% less effective compared to any other class most of the time, and we don’t have the kind of utilities that Guardians and Mesmers have (portalling, for instance) that can make up for that disadvantage.

Posted this in another thread, but figured it would do well to be placed here as well:

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The only real issue I have with ArenaNet’s concept of the Ranger is that my pet has to account for ~40% of my damage. Because of its mediocre ‘AI’, inability to hit moving targets reliably and subsequent deaths whenever an AoE is flung in its general direction; you are left with a Ranger operating at ~60% potential most of the time in damage-heavy encounters (WvW and dungeons).

In a nutshell; the Ranger’s damage potential is kitten because there is too much (theoretical) damage potential allocated to a secondary computer controlled entity that does not function properly.

Next to that we have this active combat system where positioning and dodging are key to survival. Yet our pets can’t position nor dodge and basically seem to operate with a limited version of WoW style AI mechanics (and there pets had 90% reduced damage from AoE to compensate for their limited AI).

As such I believe that ArenaNet should change the Ranger60%/Pet40% to Ranger80%/Pet20%. Bring the focus back that our pet is a ‘support class’ with a special ability to supplement our own arsenal; not something that takes away 40% of the Ranger’s damage potential but is incapable of providing it during combat.

Next up they should focus on giving pets the same Agony Resistance as the Ranger and either give the pet some form of passive defenses to help it survive. A passive resistance to AoE spells and effects could be such a means of defense.

But I sincerely hope they will not simply add more and more buttons so we will effectively be forced to micromanage 2 characters in order to function. If we are forced to play with a computer controlled entity, at least try and give it some form of ‘intelligence’.

Just my opinion on the matter…

I mean, you look at your first skill tray while you’re levelling, and you suss, “Huh, obviously a lot of my damage must be balanced out in my pet”. So I just tried to figure out how best to manage it, and as it turns out you can make liberal use of the call/return commands to keep them out of harm’s way, as well as using your heal if only for them and less for yourself.

When people say Pet Survivability it’s not so much referring to the pet surviving, per se’, but that they have the survivability necessary to stay on target more often. So yeah, it’s true that F1 And F3 can handle alot, but relying on solely this ultimately causes the pet’s to spend way too much time in transit.

It’s not enough that the pet just stays Alive, they need to stay Productive.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Moddo.7105:

Is this first time pets has ever been discussed? If not could we get a list of things been there done that at meetings.

We talk about anything pertaining to game balance. Yes pets have been brought up before many times.

I don’t imagine we’ll post a transcript of topics. The things we talk about are best reflected by patch notes.

Actually, I think it would be a very good idea to post a transcript, considering the patch notes don’t cover everything in the update, and haven’t since launch. There are those of us wondering if our classes are even being paid attention to, especially when it comes to the engineer and the ranger; the mixed traits, weapon skills, and in the case of the engineer, the sheer amount of bugged traitlines are a major cause of concern.

Posting a transcript would at least let us know where exactly the development team is going with each specific class, instead of relying on patch notes that come up once or twice a month.

On topic, I’m finding myself agreeing with a few individuals. The idea to turn pets into what heroes were in the original game by giving them species specific skills, along with a large pool of various general animal abilities, would be a great one alongside some form of AOE resistance; Rangers cannot function as a contributing member of a dungeon team as they are now due to these pet issues; allowing a more customizable skill pool and aoe resistance to make up for poor AI would be a slightly better trade-off then what rangers currently have.

I think a good idea of a pet “dodge” wouldn’t necessarily be a dodge. Lets say they combined F1 and F3 and left the F3 open.

New F3: Pet mist form.

When in mist form all targeting is relinquished and the pet cannot be targetted (as if the pet entered cloak). AoE damage is reduced 75% during the duration and new conditions cannot be applied. The downside however is that the pet loses all aggro and cannot attack, it simply holds its position stalking your target.

Mist form for your pet would be a toggle that lasts up to Xs and has an Xs cooldown. The pet immediately resumes attacking afterward unless you returned it with F1.

haven’t read whole thread but two things really annoy me, my AR doesn’t translate to my pet and why can’t i put my pet away if i so choose and call it back when i’m ready ?

Please check this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/iR-RANGER-Redesign/first#post1609295

There are solutions for some issue what we have.
I’m working on the new traits actualy.

it’s nice to see someone thinking hard about issues, but a redesign will never happen.
That would be terrible for many players.
Imagine that you play your class and like it and the next day it’s completely redesigned or some skills/traits are missing etc.
Sure, many players would like that, if it makes your class less buggy and more usefull, but there are also many many players which are happy with their ranger (and Lv2 ranger are as important as LV80, because every player is important for a game)

Robert Hrouda.1327:

sjarulfa.2496:

PS – Robert, could you ask whoever deals with pet stats to see if the white raven (HoM) and regular raven have the same stats. Its often reported the white has less vit with no corresponding increase elsewhere.

that is something I can personally do

Both the white raven and the black raven share identical stats. There is no differences between them with the exception that one is black and one is white. Just cosmetic differences – all the numbers are the same.

EDIT/UPDATE:
Turns out there is currently a health discrepancy between the white raven and black raven – I was checking our current information for our next patch, which showed that they were the same.
Right now it is true though, they have a bit less HP. Our next patch will address and fix this.

This might cause some issues in PvP. Now players who have gotten this pet and the black widow in GW1 can have an advantage as raven is one of the hardest hitting birds and some players can now have 2 of them. The spider also has 2 immobilizes so now players get 2 of them. This seems a bit unfair that some players have access and others do not to these better pets in PvP. I do have these pets btw.

Edit: The guy below answered me. Thanks xev. I figured that was true anyway.

Eurantien.4632:

This might cause some issues in PvP. Now players who have gotten this pet and the black widow in GW1 can have an advantage as raven is one of the hardest hitting birds and some players can now have 2 of them. The spider also has 2 immobilizes so now players get 2 of them. This seems a bit unfair that some players have access and others do not to these better pets in PvP. I do have these pets btw.

Everyone has access to all pets in PvP, even HoM pets.

Yes, in sPvP, players have access to all pets.

However, there is also WvW, another form of PvP.

Recent posts have ANet mentioning they are thinking of WvW as a form of end-game content.

Much earlier posts by ANet had mentioned that HoM rewards would not give in-game advantages to players.

Ever since Rangers were no longer allowed to take 2 pets of the exact same type, having access to the HoM pet rewards has been an in-game advantage.

Those without the Black Moa cannot have 2 Moa pets with a Daze.
Those without the Rainbow Jellyfish cannot have 2 Jellyfish pets with a Chill.
Those without the White Raven cannot have 2 Birds pets with that great burst damage.
Those without the Black Widow cannot have 2 Spider pets with a stun.

These are in-game advantages for Rangers with the appropriate number of HoM points when we were told people would not have in-game advantages from HoM points.

Moddo.7105:

raptor.1064:

Here is a pet window showing buffs/debuffs with duration that you can see at all times, way more helpful than the awful bar in this game, maybe it can help give you some ideas on how to do it right.

Hell everquest around 2000 had a better UI for pets than GW2. So sad how bad and archaic Anet made this UI. No text file logging combat dmg windows does not work 1/2 time. No pet dmg in combat windows. And all chat stuck to only 1 allowable window. Wow 2000 is calling Anet they want there UI back.

Agree. Not only pet’s but overall UI is really awful and non-informative
Maybe, default UI of WoW or WAR are not good too, but they allow users to make their addons to make it more useful and cool.

Ooops, this is wrong thread for this…

Rob, are you still taking questions? Can we get an official comment on why crossfire only gets 50% speed from quickness?

Dear Robert,

Thieves has incredible dmg for offence and incredibly annoying stealth for mitigating most of their enemies offence.

Can ranger and/or pet have incredible dmg for offence as well?

Please buff our ranger and/or pet dmg so that all we need to do is press 5 buttons to kill someone with 3.2k toughness under 5 seconds

press first button = 4.2K dmg
press second button two times = 9.2k dmg
press 4th button = 3.2k dmg
press 5th button =7.8k dmg
24.4k dmg under 5 secs,pressing 5 buttons only awesome balance

Verdelet Arconia.6987:

Dear Robert,

Thieves has incredible dmg for offence and incredibly annoying stealth for mitigating most of their enemies offence.

Can ranger and/or pet have incredible dmg for offence as well?

Please buff our ranger and/or pet dmg so that all we need to do is press 5 buttons to kill someone with 3.2k toughness under 5 seconds

press first button = 4.2K dmg
press second button two times = 9.2k dmg
press 4th button = 3.2k dmg
press 5th button =7.8k dmg
24.4k dmg under 5 secs,pressing 5 buttons only awesome balance

If this is a joke intended then I laugh with you buddy. Otherwise, what’s the point of killing everything in 5 key presses? If anything thief players should be the ones forced to work a bit harder for their kills. Besides toughness related builds have been widely discussed in the forums, view here for example:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Little-Ranger-Tips/first

Rangers can be efficient thief killing machines when traited and used properly.

Back to topic. I keep on experiencing a great lack of ‘something’ when doing dungeons and fractal runs. I have often wondered what could be done regarding spirits in order to better integrate them into dungeon runs. I find them hard to implement in fractals specially, since the environment is constantly on the move, your best choice is to adapt and not to use spirits in dungeons. Rather use other more useful skills. I fear the spirit build is simply underrated and it would be great for something to be done to improve it. Would love to hear some dev feedback on this, if there hasn’t been any that is.

By the way Robert, are you guys only discussing the pet aspect during these meetings; or also utility skills that primarily function on the pet?

If so, please give the team a nudge regarding our Utilities; most notably Signets and Shouts.

Signets: the active component on signets only work for our pet (unless traited with a Grandmaster trait) and is either pretty pitiful (Hunt) or even dangerous (Renewal) to use.

Main example of an underpowered Signet is Signet of the Hunt. 50% damage increase for one (auto)attack at the cost of your 25% movement speed.

I personally wouldn’t mind it if ANet would simply remove the active ability on our current Signet of the Hunt and give us something similar to what we saw with the Wintersday Scout ability (invisibility/swiftness).

Signet of the Hunt
Active – Your pet becomes invisible (3s) and gain swiftness (10s).
(which would also apply to you if you have Signet of the Beastmaster)

Also, regarding Shouts. These seem to have been slapped on at the last minute because the team needed to fill up the number of Utilities, but no regard was given on how they would function. However, in my opinion they should never have been made into Utility skills, but they should have been an integral part of the Pet AI! Heck, some even have names that other MMO’s used for their Pet-AI packages.

As such I’d suggest removing the Ranger shouts and rework them into Pet AI modes:

Agressive (Sic ’em) – Guard (Guard/Protect me) – Support (S&R) – Passive

• Sic ’Em: Pet agressively attacks anything that attacks him or the Ranger (pet also gives Fury and Retaliation at intervals)
• Guard/Protect Me: Pet guards the Ranger and only attacks targets close to him (pet also gives Protection and Aegis at intervals).
• Search and Rescue: Pet will fight normally, but will attempt to revive downed allies as priority (pet also gives Regeneration and Swiftness at intervals)
• Passive: Pet will not attack anything (but Ranger gets a permanent 20% damage boost while in this mode because his pet is awesome like that)

I hope this is something you would like and be willing to discuss during a meeting

Making pet dodging while ranger dodging isn’t such bad idea, as it was stated lot posts ago. I think it’s not really forces rangers to spend stamina for saving pets, but giving them opportunity to keep pets alive against enemies damaging all around, like Liutenant Kohler in Ascalonian Catacombs.

One thing that I did think about that the pet dodging wouldn’t fix is when you have to dodge AOEs that get placed on a large majority of the map and don’t all fall at the same time. You’d run out of vigor dodging for yourself and your pet as you have to get each to dodge different AOEs.

This is just a minor suggestion and were it to come to pass some might find it irritating, but I would probably like it if my Ranger would say “I’ll save you!” when my pet dipped below 50% health. It seems like ANet put that in as a audible heads-up to the Ranger, but by the time I hear it, it’s usually too late to save the pet.

I’ll echo a suggestion I’ve seen earlier that if upgrading the AI/abilities of pets to dodge is not workable….

Re-balance the pets so that they are not intended to be permanently out; but instead they are selectable f1-f4 abilities that the Ranger can summon at need to perform a task, then they go poof.

An enemy can still CC/kill them if summoned at the wrong time; but the Ranger is not constantly burdened with the headache of the AI as it currently stands, as now the micromanagement comes from choosing the right pets to have loaded up and when to deploy them.

Just make sure they are powerful enough of an effect on the fight to make up for the Ranger technically not always having them as a constant DPS source anymore.

Might even be far simpler to just do it that way, and for the people that dislike pets, well, it’ll make them a tad happier too as they can choose not to use it even though they are losing out on the pet damage and abilities if they don’t.

While you guys are fixing HoM pets, can you please fix the Rainbow Jellyfish’s appearance? It has the exact same model as the Blue Jellyfish.

achensherd.2735:

I’m probably oversimplifying, but basically every moment a pet’s not actively attacking is a moment in which a Ranger is missing xx% of his/her total dps output, and in dungeons and fractals where pets aren’t attacking most of the time due to either death or passivity, Rangers come out to be xx% less effective compared to any other class most of the time, and we don’t have the kind of utilities that Guardians and Mesmers have (portalling, for instance) that can make up for that disadvantage.

This is oversimplified, but not by much. I think it’s a pretty succinct summary of the state of the ranger in anything but open-world pve. Any ranger disagree?

Hoyvin.3241:

achensherd.2735:

I’m probably oversimplifying, but basically every moment a pet’s not actively attacking is a moment in which a Ranger is missing xx% of his/her total dps output, and in dungeons and fractals where pets aren’t attacking most of the time due to either death or passivity, Rangers come out to be xx% less effective compared to any other class most of the time, and we don’t have the kind of utilities that Guardians and Mesmers have (portalling, for instance) that can make up for that disadvantage.

This is oversimplified, but not by much. I think it’s a pretty succinct summary of the state of the ranger in anything but open-world pve. Any ranger disagree?

No, the sentiment is right. In my case, my pet accounts for a majority of my damage output. It’s not dead “most of the time” in dungeons or low-level fractals, but there are fights (looking at you, Kholer & Subject Alpha) which are hopeless for it and thus my DPS. Level 12 fractals were rough for pets, although I was able to keep a devourer up almost all the time in the volcano fractal boss fight, despite the burning. I expect the agony jump at level 20 to completely overwhelm my healing.

The fractal I feel most useless on is the grawl boss fight, due to the need for kiting. Maybe if I had stronger player skills, I could kite with a pet.

GW2 combat is based on damage avoidance, not damage mitigation.

Unfortunately for whatever reason, the current pet combat design is built around damage mitigation.

This works OK with most average PVE trash mobs. The pet can absorb damage long enough for the combined damage of pet and ranger to take down the trash mob.

This breaks down in dungeons or even large dynamic events with multiple foes and veteran or better foes. Pets have no chance face tanking in those situations regardless of how often you want to piddle around with recall/attack. Pet transit time is wasted time (run up to the boss, run back etc.)

The proposed solution of adding a player controlled pet dodge is not likely to succeed.
Dynamic events and many dungeon fights make it almost impossible to see ones pet to even know if they are about to get clobbered, factor in the already glacial responsiveness of pet commands and this approach just does appear feasible.

The combat design of damage avoidance dictates a solution should give pets a method to avoid damage.

One simple AI behavior that would help is for ranged pets to maintain maximum range between themselves and foes. It’s sad to watch a ranged pet run up to melee distance of a champion before starting their ranged attack. It’s just as sad to watch a ranged pet run into pack of foes just to be in melee range of their target before starting their ranged attack.

Is this easy to fix via AI? I don’t know but it seems that many in game mobs seem to have it already, (pirates, outlaws, risen etc. ) they stay at range and some even use knock backs to maintain it.

The second AI behavior is attack avoidance. Again some in game mobs already exhibit this behavior. Some mobs will run out of your AOE attacks and not simply stand on one place and try to face tank.

There needs to be some pet AI that senses red circles of doom and other attack tells, and gives the pet a reasonable ability to dodge out of or avoid these threats. This could be a sliding scale sort of skill that the ranger can set. 0 – attack at all costs and never dodge, to 100 – dodge as much as possible, and only attack when safe.

I suspect these represent more AI programming time than what the organization is willing to commit, so instead we hear these magic number proposals to just give them the same AR as the ranger, or jack up a few of their stats in dungeons. These are the quick and dirty kludges of desperation. If magic numbers are the only solution feasible then perhaps giving pets an evades stat would be useful. Turn up the evades stat turns down the attack stat etc. as the situation merits.

I just hope all of this energy and discussion does not end up being hot air.

Robert, this has been a wonderfully enlightening and encouraging thread to follow. Is there any chance of seeing discussions like this from devs more often regarding class issues elsewhere?

Jalad Lantana.3027:

GW2 combat is based on damage avoidance, not damage mitigation.

Unfortunately for whatever reason, the current pet combat design is built around damage mitigation.

This works OK with most average PVE trash mobs. The pet can absorb damage long enough for the combined damage of pet and ranger to take down the trash mob.

This breaks down in dungeons or even large dynamic events with multiple foes and veteran or better foes. Pets have no chance face tanking in those situations regardless of how often you want to piddle around with recall/attack. Pet transit time is wasted time (run up to the boss, run back etc.)

The proposed solution of adding a player controlled pet dodge is not likely to succeed.
Dynamic events and many dungeon fights make it almost impossible to see ones pet to even know if they are about to get clobbered, factor in the already glacial responsiveness of pet commands and this approach just does appear feasible.

The combat design of damage avoidance dictates a solution should give pets a method to avoid damage.

One simple AI behavior that would help is for ranged pets to maintain maximum range between themselves and foes. It’s sad to watch a ranged pet run up to melee distance of a champion before starting their ranged attack. It’s just as sad to watch a ranged pet run into pack of foes just to be in melee range of their target before starting their ranged attack.

Is this easy to fix via AI? I don’t know but it seems that many in game mobs seem to have it already, (pirates, outlaws, risen etc. ) they stay at range and some even use knock backs to maintain it.

The second AI behavior is attack avoidance. Again some in game mobs already exhibit this behavior. Some mobs will run out of your AOE attacks and not simply stand on one place and try to face tank.

There needs to be some pet AI that senses red circles of doom and other attack tells, and gives the pet a reasonable ability to dodge out of or avoid these threats. This could be a sliding scale sort of skill that the ranger can set. 0 – attack at all costs and never dodge, to 100 – dodge as much as possible, and only attack when safe.

I suspect these represent more AI programming time than what the organization is willing to commit, so instead we hear these magic number proposals to just give them the same AR as the ranger, or jack up a few of their stats in dungeons. These are the quick and dirty kludges of desperation. If magic numbers are the only solution feasible then perhaps giving pets an evades stat would be useful. Turn up the evades stat turns down the attack stat etc. as the situation merits.

I just hope all of this energy and discussion does not end up being hot air.

Very nice post. I also think that the pet AI is the problem. I dont think that a dodge for the pet is a good option because of 2 things:
a) Particle effects – its really hard to see what the boss is doing in mele range when – youre using a LB and you’re keeping 1200(1500) range from it and when you’re using SB and the best spot is behind the boss(or flanking it)

b) Again – pet AI. What Jalad said about pets’ AI. I dont think a simple dodge would be the best solution

Just fix our kittening pets, please.

If the mechanics won’t change between game modes, then there will always be pets/builds more appropriate for that game mode.

• Tanky pets… They tank very well in PvE, but enemy players will just ignore them in pvp.
• High Damage pets… They hit hard in PvE and PvP, but might die very fast in dungeons and zergs.
• Support pets… let’s talk about support pets, specifically Moas.

Harmonic Cry (the moa AoE heal) is often wasted because the pet happens to be slightly injured and heals itself for a small amount, when it could have healed each member of the group for 4k. Concentration Training fails often because the pet isn’t in combat before the buffing skill is started. Vigorous Training doesn’t receive extended duration from you or Concentration Training (probably because of Concentration failing.) Compassion Training helps Moa (and Drake) heal skills by only 5%.

1. Give some predictability to Harmonic Cry. Make Moas use it at a certain percentage of health, even in passive mode, even when there is no viable target. In some boss fights and wall fights Moas would become immensely more valuable as the incoming AoE damage would trigger decent AoE heals with some predictability instead of just standing around doing nothing.
2. Make Concentration Training work reliably.
3. Make Vigorous Training extendable, either through functional Concentration Training or ranger’s boon duration.
4. Make Compassion Training worth using with the majority of pets that list healing skills.

If support pets were seen as a more viable option when others are too risky, would that help anything? Many people take two canines in PvP for all the anti-stomp, and with the above changes, rangers would at least have the option of taking two support pets for effective boons and/or heals when nothing else will survive. It may not be a likeable solution having support pets be your best option, but they could be worked into a viable option.

We don’t have the option of running 2 moas in tPvP? This is news to me…

You can run whatever you want.

My point is that NPCs, players, zergs, walls, and one-shot bosses present unique problems and opportunities to our pets. Anti-Stomp is not a big concern in PvE, but it makes wolves quite popular in PvP. Tanking with a bear is easy in PvE, but for some reasons humans just run past the bear in PvP. The mechanics we have to work with are the same from one game-mode to another, but the results end up different.

The support pets have a chance to be the best option in the fights where no other pet is going to be able to deal high damage or tank. To that end, they could use some improvements because right now adding support traits to support pets is not getting a great return. When I run Moas, I check periodically… was that a 22.5s Fury or a 15s Fury… ugh, didn’t get Concentration bonus. I know how to get a Moa to use its heal on demand as long as it has a valid target, it is injured, the range is right, and the skill is off cooldown, but adding Compassion Training is a waste on our big pet healing skill. I like Moas, but they could work better and you shouldn’t have to wait for them to land a hit before you use their buffs just to make sure that they last the full duration.

@ Robert Hrouda
can you see if you can get the dmg on ranged pets bumped up abit or get projectile speed bumped up?
really there should be no reason why ranged pets should be doing half the dmg of melee pets on auto attacks, rangers own rang skills are balanced to take the hit for ranged dmg already compared to the melee weapons, and also rangers are balanced to do less dmg then any other class with ranged damage since the pet is factored in for ranged dmg on ranger…. it just feels like a double hit to rangers using ranged pets while using ranged weapons cause the only way to capitalize with a ranged weapon on a ranger is to use a melee pet right now since spider and devourer damage is really pathetic in comparison. it would probably open up ranged pets for more use in pvp as well since their projectiles are soo slow atm and do very little damage

Poor Robert. He’s gotta feel like the last single girl available when last call is announced.

Quirks with concentration training really kind of pales when you start to consider that Traits as a whole are in need of revamping.

Support-wise I mostly just think Moas could do with an AI tweak.
I honestly get better healing returns with Drake Tail Swipe’s blast finisher than I do Moa Harmonic Cry. Because I can easily manipulate the heck out of Tail Swipe, but effectively wringing a Harmonic Cry out of a Moa is an obnoxious experience. Keeping it at your side and sending it to the front lines in emergency situations so it can overreact to stubbing it’s toe in a somewhat less wasteful fashion.

In theory, I get how it’s supposed to work. The parameter ‘If Pet HP is less than Full; Then Harmonic Cry’ should exist as a way to recover your group from AOE, while also simultaneously allowing your pet to mind it’s own health in solo play….But it’s just not panning out in practice.

I think most of the issues people have with pets would be resolved if the cooldown on a dead pet wasn’t as long as 60 seconds. Having the cooldown be 3 times longer because the pet died is rather harsh. Often a pet dies in 1 single hit in some encounters.

The chance of your second pet dying is also 3 times more likely because of the 3 times longer cooldown on being able to switch it out. Which means, the chance the second pet will give a 60s cooldown is also multiplied by 3.

So, permanent stow would help keep your second pet available for when you need it while the other pet is on his 60 second cooldown. Switching isn’t always available because of the cooldown, but the game still punishes you severely if the pet dies, even if the option to switch or stow are not available.

so, in conclusion:
- reduce dead pet cooldown considerably. Put it down to 40s at least, but probably down to 30s and possibly down to 20s (no extra penalty on top of having a dead pet).
- allow stow to be permanent in-combat while the pet is in “Avoid Combat” mode

Anything less than this won’t even come close to being a solution and will leave me unsatistied with this game and ANet as a whole. Stop telling us what’s best for us, give us permanent stow without a buff! Also, stop punishing us for pets dying when you give us 0 options to keep him alive. I’ve often had 2 dead pets on 60s cooldowns, eventhough they were both bear pets on passive mode and I was fighing at 1500+ range.

I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. Pets should have never been designed as the ranger’s core mechanic. Pets work fine in some MMOs, but those MMOs have static tank ‘n spank gameplay. With the dodge or die mechanics which run rampant in GW2, NPC allies that cannot dodge just don’t work.

I would have been fine with ranger pets if they were utility skills, like necromancer minions. I probably would have never used them, but I wouldn’t take issue with them.

Has anyone ever wondered why TERA doesn’t have a pet class?

Quarktastic.1027:

Has anyone ever wondered why TERA doesn’t have a pet class?

Cuz a lot of those that made Tera were responsible for Lineage 2 and they saw how much of an abortion of a system it is to have dps pets/summons. There is no way to balance it for pve or pvp.

Those that don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

Anet will never Balance a Pet Ki and if Anet didnt want that we are able to stow our Pet, to reviece more Dmg ( 100% Dmg from Ranger ) then plz

Reduce the Dmg Output from our Pet !!!!!!!! if not traited to 10% not 40%!!!!! of Rangers Dmg.

Only if Beastmaster Specced the Pet should be able to do 50% Dmg of a Rangers Dmg

Plz read Mrowqa.3861 Post Robert

Robert Hrouda, could you please weigh in on whether or not things like the in-game advantages given by having HoM pets, etc. are also on the list of “issues” for the Ranger?

I think it would be beneficial if we knew where the community and the devs were on the same page. I think it’d be beneficial to the community to know what are the sort of things we know to simply “be patient” on. For example, we know to be patient on pet AI and pets have no Agony Resist in fractals. That’s comforting to know that those are acknowledged problems and being fixed.

Hello Robert,
Was wondering what was agreed upon in the last discussion and what currently is planned to change for rangers in this next patch? I realize that things may be added as you go, although at this point the team has to be working on items already just curious what they are and hoping they are more than health pool fixs for ravens etc.

Thank you.

Florgknight.1589:

I don’t see the longbow as a weak primary weapon at all. In WvW situations, as long as I’m not being snuck up on the longbow is great as deterrent to melee builds as I can dish out up to 4k crits with 1500 range.

Whilst the warrior can dish out 21k crits with killshot, hitting multiple enemies. 4k is nothing in comparison to what other professions can do.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Sebrent.3625:

Robert Hrouda, could you please weigh in on whether or not things like the in-game advantages given by having HoM pets, etc. are also on the list of “issues” for the Ranger?

I think it would be beneficial if we knew where the community and the devs were on the same page. I think it’d be beneficial to the community to know what are the sort of things we know to simply “be patient” on. For example, we know to be patient on pet AI and pets have no Agony Resist in fractals. That’s comforting to know that those are acknowledged problems and being fixed.

Robert, it’s the fact that if I want two spider pets that have a stun, I have to have the Black Widow. If I want two ravens, I have to have the White Raven. If I want two Moas with a stun, I have to have the Black Moa.

These are in-game skill choices that are not available without having the HoM pets. It’s similar to saying someone can’t have a particular weapon as part of their second weapon set because they didn’t have enough HoM points. A Ranger without the Black Widow has only the Jungle Spider for a stun on F2. One with the Black Widow can use Jungle Spider to stun on F2 and then swap out to Black Widow to have another Spider pet with a stun on F2.

This is the in-game advantage from HoM that I was asking about.

Is this acknowledged as an issue?

If so, are there plans for:

• Being able to either take two of the same pet (i.e. both my terrestial slots are a cave spider)
• Being able to obtain the HoM pets through other means
• Being able to obtain new pets of the same family and with the same F2 skills as the HoM pets

Thanks.

Sebrent.3625:

If so, are there plans for:

• Being able to either take two of the same pet (i.e. both my terrestial slots are a cave spider)
• Being able to obtain the HoM pets through other means
• Being able to obtain new pets of the same family and with the same F2 skills as the HoM pets

Thanks.

The easiest solution that wouldn’t make GW1 players grab their pitchforks would just be to add another Jellyfish and Spider as HoM alternatives.

But is this really important to anyone? Are there places where having two sets of paralyzing venom or chilling whirls is worth it with the long cool-down on pet specials? I’d think variety in your two pets and their special skills would be more useful most of the time.

Regardless, I’m just wondering. It sounds like an easy fix so it should probably be done sooner or later.

Sebrent.3625:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Sebrent.3625:

Robert Hrouda, could you please weigh in on whether or not things like the in-game advantages given by having HoM pets, etc. are also on the list of “issues” for the Ranger?

I think it would be beneficial if we knew where the community and the devs were on the same page. I think it’d be beneficial to the community to know what are the sort of things we know to simply “be patient” on. For example, we know to be patient on pet AI and pets have no Agony Resist in fractals. That’s comforting to know that those are acknowledged problems and being fixed.

Robert, it’s the fact that if I want two spider pets that have a stun, I have to have the Black Widow. If I want two ravens, I have to have the White Raven. If I want two Moas with a stun, I have to have the Black Moa.

Sebrent, of all the massive balance issues rangers face, this is the least important I can think of. Considering they’re obviously very limited in what they have time to work on, can we please agree to let stuff like this go by the wayside, at least until our true issues are fixed?

neverborne.4736:

Sebrent.3625:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Sebrent.3625:

Robert Hrouda, could you please weigh in on whether or not things like the in-game advantages given by having HoM pets, etc. are also on the list of “issues” for the Ranger?

I think it would be beneficial if we knew where the community and the devs were on the same page. I think it’d be beneficial to the community to know what are the sort of things we know to simply “be patient” on. For example, we know to be patient on pet AI and pets have no Agony Resist in fractals. That’s comforting to know that those are acknowledged problems and being fixed.

Robert, it’s the fact that if I want two spider pets that have a stun, I have to have the Black Widow. If I want two ravens, I have to have the White Raven. If I want two Moas with a stun, I have to have the Black Moa.

Sebrent, of all the massive balance issues rangers face, this is the least important I can think of. Considering they’re obviously very limited in what they have time to work on, can we please agree to let stuff like this go by the wayside, at least until our true issues are fixed?

I don’t think this fix would take that long if they simply reverted it back to how it was back in beta when we were allowed to have two of the exact same pet as our two active pets. People who earned their HoM pets would still have their special skins while they would not have any in-game advantage over the rest of us as a Black Widow + Jungle Spider would be no different gameplay-wise as a Jungle Spider + Jungle Spider.

Thanks Robert,
I realize that pets are not going to be an easy fix and that it is just not changing a few numbers. We also know that much more is wrong with rangers than just their pets especially in wvw. Would be nice to have some information on what was decided about the class, what they are currently working on and what they plan on working on for the next patch. How much time the rangers have been slotted for with the balance team for the next patch etc.

I appreciate the reply, I realize that things can come up and derail the team although I would prefer to have the info of this is what was decided, this is what we are starting with and this is what we decided did not matter etc. Frustrating being in the state we are when sitting next to me I have a warrior, mocking me that their range is actually useful and a thief who taking out targets in melee range with no trouble with both class’s bringing so much more than the ranger….thank god our groups messer and guardian had sick kids so our class didn’t look that much weaker.

FYI For people who do not have the HOM skin.

The abilities share the same cooldown between the two different skins. For example, if I have the white raven and normal raven and using blinding slash on the white and switch to the normal raven the ability will be on cooldown for him as well. There is no reason to use both of them.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Thanks, I’m trying! As for other discussions like this, not really. I try to encourage my work mates to get on the forums more, but they are very busy – especially the balance folks. I work hard too, but I try to schedule in time to go onto the forums and interact instead of just lurk and skim topics. Also I try to take the opportunity of loading screens to steal a quick glance and see if there is anything I could post quickly in… however that doesn’t always go as planned and I end up spending too much time on the forums, lol.

That’s a shame, for sure other classes too (ex engies ;D) would love to hear what is going on with them but its always great to hear whats going on for any class so thanks for dropping by! It helps keep morale up for many!

Alphring.2180:

FYI For people who do not have the HOM skin.

The abilities share the same cooldown between the two different skins. For example, if I have the white raven and normal raven and using blinding slash on the white and switch to the normal raven the ability will be on cooldown for him as well. There is no reason to use both of them.

Ahh, if thats the case, yea no big deal then..I never heard of this being the case though.