Guild Wars 2

In Guild Wars 1, you had the choice of running with a pet. Some builds (such as the Bunny Thumper ranger) relied on a pet combined with weapon skills to deal damage. More often, builds were bow-focused, using skills like Barrage (often combined with Splinter Weapon) or Incendiary Arrows to spread conditions or deal large amounts of AoE damage (combined with Ignite Arrows).

By making the pet a mandatory companion, and tying a substantial amount of ranger’s DPS to the pet, I think GW2 has made a fairly big mistake. The complaining about Ranger’s usefulness in dungeons (and their former OPness in certain PVP formats) is symptomatic of the problems with this design approach.

I think an optional pet would make balancing the ranger much easier.

I was on and off with the pet in GW1. I mostly never used it until Nightfall when Never Rampage Alone was introduced, then I always had a spot for it on my bar. I’m of the opinion that you should have a pet when you put points in BM trait line or make it a passive of some elite skill. But that would require a complete rework of the ranger and its class mechanic that I’m sure Anet isn’t willing to do. I don’t mind the pet and manage it fairly well, but work needs to be done on them and up the usefulness of a lot of neglected pets.

YES thats what whould be best for rangers!

new f1-f4 skills and only have a pet when you put
the 5 points in the new trait in beastmastery called zookeeper

its not hard to change the new fail trait (instinctual bond) with the trait called zookeeper

Yes…. (it should have been optional)

hire this man ANET

I originally strongly supported the compulsary pet. I was always sad the pet was essentially useless in GW1 and I though if they made it a core part of the class, they would really flesh out the class and create a powerful, fun, rewarding and competitive pet mechanic. They would have to do that to make the class work. Instead they made it a core part of the class, didn’t bother to build in synergy or interaction with the pet and they have no idea how to balance the DPS between the two of them, which despite the class already being one of the lowest DPS classes in PvE, they still nerf it even more. There are plenty of OP builds and weapons yet for some reason weapons and builds that weren’t even top tier let alone OP were hit badly in this patch.

They don’t know how to make a pet class. That much is clear. They have no idea how to balance it let alone make it compelling to have a pet with you. I now wish the ranger was the same as GW1 with an optional pet, maybe then the class would have maintained its value instead of being dragged down into the depths of mediocrity because of the anchor that is the pet. Then again, ArenaNet is waging war on ranged weapons ensuring anyone who uses them in PvE (especially on a ranger) is punished for doing so, so the class would probably struggle either way.

Absolutely. And then following that, remove the Greatsword and absolutely buff all ranged weapons AND make pistol and rifle work for the Ranger.

It’s funny how the WARRIOR is able to make more damage with his rifle then the trained ranger with his bow. Oh wait, yes must be because one uses gunpowder. So, lets give them gunpowdered weapons – and tadaa – warriors rifle is still more powerfull.

I have a compromise: make a new category of pets which cannot be targeted or damaged, don’t have skills or damage of their own, but instead passively give a flat damage buff and some trait-like effects to bring the cc and damage of the ranger up to the level of other professions. This would keep the aesthetics of a pet class (and still make pet customizations work in case you want to swap to a traited pet in combat), while removing the forced reliance on an inherently unreliable mechanic. Besides, I want a pet weasel that sits on my shoulder.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I have a compromise: make a new category of pets which cannot be targeted or damaged, don’t have skills or damage of their own, but instead passively give a flat damage buff and some trait-like effects to bring the cc and damage of the ranger up to the level of other professions. This would keep the aesthetics of a pet class (and still make pet customizations work in case you want to swap to a traited pet in combat), while removing the forced reliance on an inherently unreliable mechanic. Besides, I want a pet weasel that sits on my shoulder.

Better idea, make the pets do that on passive. But instead, give a cooldown to where you can only switch between active and passive every 15 seconds, like an attunement cooldown.

Yes, it should. If the AI was better, I’d have had no issues with pets.

This is still a question?

only pet when rangers go with points in beastmastery or go with a skill like in gw1…
whould be best system for ranger, but just to late

when ppls go without pet, ranger should feel like a real RANGER,
with nice range dmg and new good f1-f4 skills depending on which weaponset ranger use.
that whould be so nice system make the ranger more interesting and diverse,
but thats to much work for anet…
ranger have so less skills in this game, thats make him fast sad to play and
the much passive skills beastmaster is for me not a ranger, its a zookeper…

but this pet system will never change, thats sure…
maybe they should give us finaly full pet controll over all skills the pet have!
and this kitten pets should do instant what i whant it should to do.
not first running around and do what it whant…

in my mind ranger is one of the classes which need nearly a full rework to be interesting again…
i have allrdy leave the ranger, but was much fun at beginning to play him, so its sad to see how anet have no idea about what to do with the ranger…

same problem at warrior in pvp atm
they just have no idea

i mean making a beastmastery 5 points trait to a grandmaster beastmastery 30 points trait and give the 30 points grandmaster trait to 5 points trait
is enough to see, they have no idea

this instinctual bond is just a trait they can remove from the game and work on a new one…

there is in each trait line ~4 useless traits which can be removed and give new ones there

minipet like passive pets with buffs! party or self buffs… hmm
or attument like change between pet and differet modes… yummi. sniper mode, survivor mode!

If a ranger could go without a pet, no one would use a pet.(except pve leveling).

They are a liability in most situations and their dps wouldn’t scare a ambient creature.

it makes sense to have the pets as a passive buff or something, then we wouldn’t have to worry about this terribad ai balancing garbage… “The ranger class gets his power from nature around him” or something cheesy like that.

Pushing a problem aside is not helping.
Come up with a solution for pets. I already came up with 2 solutions on my own and I am sure other’s can too.

Yes, pets either should have been optional, or pretty insignificant for anything other than utility unless traited specifically for pet damage.

that about ANet that wouldn’t change ranger mechanics…
You know that after a phew years of developing GW1 they totally rebuilded dervish class?
maybe eventually They will rebuild ranger in gw2