Guild Wars 2

So this came from a discussion with my ranger friends, as well as my musings have recently rolled a ranger myself.

One of the more prominent things is how pets don’t have any inherent AI to move out of danger patches while they attack (Which is terrible) but part of that solution could be allowing pets to ‘dodge’ or ‘evade’ when the ranger dodges. It’s not a perfect solution at all, but I feel it does allow tactical gameplay, rewarding rangers who could use this to have their pet eat more damage in PvE with well timed dodges and builds.

At the minimum for those who do not possess that skill level, it allows of pets to avoid some of the beefier incoming damage/AoE that a ranger is dodging at the same time.

The idea would be the pet dodging towards the ranger when the ranger dodges, or simply has evade frames like the ranger does during a dodge as well.

Thoughts?

I have same idea posted in this thread

It’s been something that we’ve asked for for a while along with maybe some kind of reduction in the damage they take from AoE but we’ve never really seen any real sign that it will ever happen.

This is a must, i also posted the idea on the french GW2 forum

I have to say, reading that thread keenlam, that I agree fully with quite a few things of what’s posted in there.

I wasn’t even contemplating being able to use our pet skills but that’d be beyond fantastic.

I’d prefer the pet dodge on its own, like if it takes 10% damage in one hit kind of deal. Sometimes I’m running around dodging whiles its cleaning up for me.

Oh look… It’s this idea again… I preferred the idea where every X seconds your pet gets a stack of “Natural Evasiveness”, dodging would also grant this, and it causes the next attack against the pet to cause them to evade for 1s.

I’d rather it situational, so it can avoid spikes from zergs for a few seconds now and then.

Durzlla.6295:

Oh look… It’s this idea again… I preferred the idea where every X seconds your pet gets a stack of “Natural Evasiveness”, dodging would also grant this, and it causes the next attack against the pet to cause them to evade for 1s.

This would be next to useless. You couldn’t predict or control the attack against your pet, it’d be like Aegis where it can be plinked away by an attack to strip it, before being hit by a harder spike. The ability to dodge/gain evade frames when you do adds skillful gameplay tied to your pet.

Ars Valde.8693:

Durzlla.6295:

Oh look… It’s this idea again… I preferred the idea where every X seconds your pet gets a stack of “Natural Evasiveness”, dodging would also grant this, and it causes the next attack against the pet to cause them to evade for 1s.

This would be next to useless. You couldn’t predict or control the attack against your pet, it’d be like Aegis where it can be plinked away by an attack to strip it, before being hit by a harder spike. The ability to dodge/gain evade frames when you do adds skillful gameplay tied to your pet.

seeing as how it’d also be gained when you dodge…. yeah you could…

Durzlla.6295:

seeing as how it’d also be gained when you dodge…. yeah you could…

The problem with linked dodges is that we’d need to burn a dodge to make our pet dodge. So we’d run out of stamina much more often as many AoE’s would force us to dodge for both us and for our pet, draining it in one go. It’d only really be viable if we had yet another boost to our endurance regen. But that might cause balance issues as we already have some of the highest endurance regen, and we we focused all that to only ourselves we’d be even harder to kill in PvP/WvW than we already are.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Durzlla.6295:

seeing as how it’d also be gained when you dodge…. yeah you could…

The problem with linked dodges is that we’d need to burn a dodge to make our pet dodge. So we’d run out of stamina much more often as many AoE’s would force us to dodge for both us and for our pet, draining it in one go. It’d only really be viable if we had yet another boost to our endurance regen. But that might cause balance issues as we already have some of the highest endurance regen, and we we focused all that to only ourselves we’d be even harder to kill in PvP/WvW than we already are.

God kitten did anyone read my post? It’d both be gained every X seconds (X = or < 15)

Durzlla.6295:

God kitten did anyone read my post? It’d both be gained every X seconds (X = or < 15)

Yes. I did, at least. The problems are both the auto-usage and how to limit how many ‘dodges’ you could stack. Oh, and the fact that even evades won’t really save your pet from many of the insta-death field mechanics that are being added in late-game PvE content.

Argh, this again… “Pets dodge when you do” – HELL NO! If ppl can’t see the flaws with that, go back and think again. And again.

SynfulChaot.3169:

Durzlla.6295:

God kitten did anyone read my post? It’d both be gained every X seconds (X = or < 15)

Yes. I did, at least. The problems are both the auto-usage and how to limit how many ‘dodges’ you could stack. Oh, and the fact that even evades won’t really save your pet from many of the insta-death field mechanics that are being added in late-game PvE content.

What insta kill mechanic in this game can you not evade? You could even evade through those walls in AR could be evaded through as long as your evade lasted long enough.

Durzlla.6295:

What insta kill mechanic in this game can you not evade? You could even evade through those walls in AR could be evaded through as long as your evade lasted long enough.

With how fast that wall moved, even if your pet got hit by nothing else your pet would still run out of dodges and die.

I would the pets to have an endurance bar just like us (including the ability to receive vigor from AoE vigor buffs), and when a pet is hit with AoE damage and only AoE damage it burns 50% of that bar, has a 50% chance of avoiding the triggering damage’s initial pulse (loosely simulating a player’s ability to get the hell out of the way in the first place), and then always begins 1 second of evade.

It doesn’t even have to move (which may be too clever of an AI routine to expect from the server…). It just need to dodge in place. If I see a big EVADE pop over my pet’s head and get a 1 second grace period, I’ll recall it (f3) myself if need be.