Guild Wars 2

Vox Hollow.2736:

Depth is when you come across these moments while you’re playing where you have to choose between two or more equally appealing options, it’s not just being presented with any two options at all that have associated pros and cons which rationally dictates their situational usefulness. It’s in the act of making Choices, it’s not just granted by virtue of Options existing.

And that still doesn’t address that a stow-buff is a Non-mechanic. You’re not managing a resource, you don’t have overarching circumstances that frame the combat experience specific to your class, your not constantly actively thinking of something in particular in the middle of a fight. There’s no actual gameplay in this mode, it’s just a blank numbers increase.

Well here’s my suggestion.

First, reveal all of the pets skills to us. Instead of just an F2 skill, give us all the special skills for a pet to use on command. If i get a spider and he has an AOE poison attack, i want to be able to control it instead of him just doing it randomly.

Second, let us stow our pets, but allow us to use all those special skills. Give us a buff depending on what pet we stow. If we stow a bear, for example, we get more health and defense, but if we stow a bird we get more precision.

This way you can make a choice as a ranger. You can either keep a separate entity that can CC and damage others independently from you and can help you in your downed state, or stow the pet for more reliability.

It’s already been stated but a ranger without a pet is like a mesmer without clones. You are free to want but you want, but if ranger pet is such a problem you should just reroll as something else.

Ergo Proxy.6219:

It’s already been stated but a ranger without a pet is like a mesmer without clones. You are free to want but you want, but if ranger pet is such a problem you should just reroll as something else.

A mesmers class mechanic is shatters, not illusions.

A pet is not the only reason people like rangers. It’s a great class in general and neither the warrior or the thief give off the same feeling.

we are the only class that share damage with our summon, necromancer don’t get reduced damage for every minion they spawn, same apply to mesmer clone, and i am trowing thief in too, when he summon the 2 thief from the elite skill and 1 from the trap (total of 3) do he get his raw damage reduced?

you guys just don’t see the point here, our class mechanic trow us directly on the bottom of the usefulness list of this game.

Glad you are happy while making screenshot of your pet.

btw i rerolled a warrior, not even thinking about ranged build. I don’t need a surrogate of an archer, would you build a ranger tank?

A pet is part and parcel of the ranger, an extension of him. Either you accept the whole thing or go reroll another class. ANET will never implement stowing pets to give you buffs, that will be them shooting themselves in the foot.

Skills aren’t randomly constructed without any regard to the profession mechanic. It’s not some happy accident Mesmer gets shatter and also gets all of these things to use shatter on.

You have access to such a wide spread of boons and conditions because you’re working with a partner whose toes you don’t want to step on, you have such easy access to movement manipulation because being outmaneuvered is one of your weaknesses and being in two places at once is your strength. If you change Ranger into a Guardian who gets to customize their Virtues, not only do you no longer need these things, it’s probably not balanced to allow you to keep them.

monepipi.5160:

A pet is part and parcel of the ranger, an extension of him. Either you accept the whole thing or go reroll another class. ANET will never implement stowing pets to give you buffs, that will be them shooting themselves in the foot.

Maybe they should have lived up to their promise that game wouldn’t be released before pets are working properly.
Oh and no need to shoot anyone in the foot. Our broken pets have us already limping quite nicely.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Skills aren’t randomly constructed without any regard to the profession mechanic. It’s not some happy accident Mesmer gets shatter and also gets all of these things to use shatter on.

You have access to such a wide spread of boons and conditions because you’re working with a partner whose toes you don’t want to step on, you have such easy access to movement manipulation because being outmaneuvered is one of your weaknesses and being in two places at once is your strength. If you change Ranger into a Guardian who gets to customize their Virtues, not only do you no longer need these things, it’s probably not balanced to allow you to keep them.

That’s what we’re asking Anet to do. Balance it so we don’t have to rely on our pets. Like i said a few pages ago, we rely way too much on our class mechanic. Babysitting the AI is annoying and we don’t have any way to reliably control it. People want the option to get rid of their pets and enjoy all the other aspects of rangers.

I don’t agree with perma stow buffs. It’s a pet class, the pet should stay regardless of how much I dislike them ATM.

That said, I’m all for a buff when the pet is put on passive mode so that when they’re not attacking, the potential missing damage is folded back into the ranger itself. This fixes a lot of secondary issues with pet AI/pathing and balance and puts the control in the player’s hands without a lot of testing and debugging.

I also like having the option to send a pet out on the fly if someone managed to get up close and I like the checks and balance that it provides since it forces people to manage their pets.

What would be cool also is if pets have more characteristics in terms of passive bonus like some have suggested in the past. So switching pets in passive mode is like the ranger switching “stance” and it’ll play differently. i.e. hawk gives more crit power, bear gives more defense etc.

monepipi.5160:

A pet is part and parcel of the ranger, an extension of him. Either you accept the whole thing or go re-roll another class. ANET will never implement stowing pets to give you buffs, that will be them shooting themselves in the foot.

Well, I don’t see your point, you are giving me 2 choices, none of them makes any sense to me. But thanks for trying.

Do you have some sort of secret spy inside ANET that tells you what they “will or not will” do?

Do you think that a rifle warrior should be able to out-damage a class which is clearly designed under the “archer/hunter” archetype?
If you don’t believe me please go and read the description of the ranger, ill save u the time and write it:

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

I would like to focus my attention on this particular sentence:
“Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.”

This video show it all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0

I am not against pet but i would like some build diversity, make the beast-master trait more oriented to pet damage/condition/utility/whatever but give other option aswell, there are people who would like to rely less on the pet and people who want to kite and have the pet doing all the job, while other prefer a mix of both.

This is not WoW, we all know that, but to give you the example take the Hunter class, 3 different talent tree..survival, marksman, beastmaster, everyone happy.

The reason because i waste my time writing here is only one, I like the game and that’s why i want to see it improving.

Shilian.5873:

monepipi.5160:

A pet is part and parcel of the ranger, an extension of him. Either you accept the whole thing or go re-roll another class. ANET will never implement stowing pets to give you buffs, that will be them shooting themselves in the foot.

Well, I don’t see your point, you are giving me 2 choices, none of them makes any sense to me. But thanks for trying.

Do you have some sort of secret spy inside ANET that tells you what they “will or not will” do?

Do you think that a rifle warrior should be able to out-damage a class which is clearly designed under the “archer/hunter” archetype?
If you don’t believe me please go and read the description of the ranger, ill save u the time and write it:

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

I would like to focus my attention on this particular sentence:
“Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.”

This video show it all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru_rXq2LYg0

I am not against pet but i would like some build diversity, make the beast-master trait more oriented to pet damage/condition/utility/whatever but give other option aswell, there are people who would like to rely less on the pet and people who want to kite and have the pet doing all the job, while other prefer a mix of both.

This is not WoW, we all know that, but to give you the example take the Hunter class, 3 different talent tree..survival, marksman, beastmaster, everyone happy.

The reason because i waste my time writing here is only one, I like the game and that’s why i want to see it improving.

I agree with you completely. Id love to be the sniper/archer. Id like to be able to position well on a high ground area and pew pew without being weak because pet cant path. I mean its already unrealistic birds cant fly down, lets just make it so they can and every other pet leaps down. Lets make it so arrows move like bullets, combine a few traits and even add a few more if needed. Hopefully when 5 days are up it will happen.

/blink.
I can’t see any connection between what you quoted from me and what you wrote under it, Division. It’s alright you don’t agree that profession mechanics and skills go hand-in-hand, but it’s kind of confusing if you don’t say as much.

@Shilian
There’s no point getting upset with being told go try out warrior. If you want to talk to Arenanet directly, that’s what the suggestion forum is for. A post here is asking for our input as well. Suggesting alternative classes because the class you’re playing isn’t meeting your expectations is the only thing your fellow consumers can do for you.

Vox Hollow.2736:

/blink.
I can’t see any connection between what you quoted from me and what you wrote under it, Division. It’s alright you don’t agree that profession mechanics and skills go hand-in-hand, but it’s kind of confusing if you don’t say as much.

You’re saying that rangers are balanced around pets and changing it could cause problems right? I’m saying that Anet should rebalance skills so we aren’t reliant on pets and can implement the stowed pet buff idea. I don’t like the idea of being so reliant on an AI, especially in a game that relies so much on being able to dodge and move out of attacks rather than tanking hits and being healed by healers.

AI in this game does not fare very well in PVP. Engineers turrets and Necromancers minions are considered the worst builds of their class. The only reason most Ele’s use summons for their elite is because it’s a slightly better alternative to their other two horrible elites. Mesmers get away with it because their AI is incredibly simple, easily replaceable, and half the time is made for suicide bombing. I doubt that Anet can fix this problem without either making pets either OP or UP. The best solution for rangers would be to make pets more of a support role rather than almost half our damage.

Ah, I see the hangup.
I didn’t mean balanced like “damage”, I mean balanced more like overall structure.

I guess the better way of putting it is to say Rangers were built from the ground up with the expectation the profession mechanic would be there, so all the skills and traits you enjoy are things that were added onto that foundation. Even if they don’t expressly mention the pet, they were created with the understanding that the pet mechanic exists. And messing with the foundation of a thing can have repercussions for the rest of it.

…This is probably a bad example, because while the weapon concept is sound the way they went about achieving it ended up needing some work in the feel department (hopefully it’s one of the weapons being looked at). But it is one of the less confusing examples I can think of. So put aside somewhat less than stellar bug-like execution for a moment and think more conceptually.

So, our Sword.
It keeps a target locked down at the expense of your own mobility with the option to dodge away periodically. When you think about it all by itself that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. What’s the point of keeping something crowd controlled so consistently if the rest of your skills are mobility and not about following up that opportunity with a burst? But imagining how it works in tandem with the pet mechanic, especially a damage F2 skill every 15 seconds, suddenly it makes alot more sense. The weapon’s about holding something down so your pets can follow up and capitalize on the opportunity. Remove pets from the equation, even if you’re just putting it on your own skillbar, and the chain cripple concept is suddenly complete nonsense.

That’s what I’m getting at. A profession mechanic is something you’re supposed to be managing regardless of build, so developers took it’s existence for granted when they built the rest of the class. It’s not just Ranger, all professions are like that. There really isn’t a “Ranger without the Pet”, once you pluck that load-bearing jenga block from the bottom the resulting pile of sticks is not the Ranger we know.

I don’t agree that the ranger is based on the class mechanic other than pure DPS.

Taking your sword example, the cripple is not there to help the pet. It’s to help you keep up a constant autoattack without having to chase the enemy as much. Thief has the same cripple on the 3rd strike of their 1h sword. The only thing really making it a pet based weapon is the 5s might buff it gives pets on the 3rd attack, and that can simply be removed for more damage or something like that.

Maybe this is one of the problems i have with pets, but i don’t see how the ranger class is built upon them. They feel more artificially added on and unneeded, sometimes actually hindering instead of helping.

The sword has that slight synergy from that might buff, but both the sword and the GS also have a large dissonance with your pet. Because you’re using melee, your pet will die faster. The sword has a great dodge with a large invulnerability time that can easily roll through AOE but your pet will still get hit. The same problem exists with greatsword. With that you get one of the best blocks in the game to defend yourself and an auto dodge, but your pet will still get hit. The only solution to this is to get a ranged pet, but they are base damage and precision pets with high HP and toughness meaning you can’t be high damage melee.

I just can’t see how ranger is built on the pet. To me it feels more like it was added on for the sake of it. Most skills don’t do anything special for pet teamwork and the ones that do aren’t that impressive. If i could control my pet to do a single high damage attack, and then use hilt bash to boost their damage 50% for a pseudo-backstab thief effect, that would be great, but there are no such skills to work with on pets. Both the ranger and the pet seem to act as independently as possible.

I know everybody does it,
but taking weapons out of the context of their profession is always going to be pretty apples to oranges. Capitalizing on opportunities afforded by control skills is just a different experience for somebody who has the initiative system versus a pet system. We just don’t face the same challenges, so it’s really hard to compare. For the record, I feel this way when I hear people take up that Warrior Longbow argument too, so I’m not just singling you out, I’ve just been too lazy to type that up.

I’m actually pro-AOE damage reduction, so, no argument about that point.

It’s easy to see how Initiative altered the way Thief skills were put together, and how Toolbelt altered the way Engi skills were put together, but Ranger’s kind of a tricky wicket largely because it’s actively trying to give you the impression the Ranger and the Pet are two separate critters. Really, pet classes are more like playing a two-headed beast than two truly independent self-contained entities, but they sure do try their hardest to give you an impression otherwise. I can’t tell you how many (bad) MMORPG pet classes are just glorified DoTs with fur, but you’d never know it from the way people talked. Maybe GW2 has nailed the illusion of separation a bit too well if people aren’t really feeling any synergy with their pet.

For what it’s worth I find Drakes and Birds work well with our Attacks of Opportunity.

I dont want them to get rid of pets , not in the least. Just make it so we have the option to fight without our pet when needed. Because any good pvper or hell even pver here knows that pets arent always able to join the fray, and sometimes ( too much ) they die, usually in seconds. So being able to fight without them would be huge, say when in WvW group fights that include tons of aoe, or in dungeons where pets tend to draw mob attention and get 2 shotted. It would be nice to have the options.

Just because they’re different classes doesn’t mean they aren’t 100% incomparable. A sword/dagger thief has a lot of similarities to a sword/dagger hunter, with both of them being dodge based highly mobile weapon sets where most of the damage is in the autoattack. Thief is a lot better at it of course, but still the idea of both weapon sets is the same. Comparing Ranger longbow to Warrior longbow is bad because they serve a different purpose (straight up damage and fire combo fields respectively).

If pets are supposed to synergise somehow with rangers then i’m not getting it. Because their F2 skills are largely unresponsive, and that we have no control over any of their other skills, i can’t find a use for my pet other than a furry DoT. I can tell they made efforts to add synergy, but there’s nothing to justify taking out 45% of our damage and putting it on an AI.

Vox Hollow.2736:

/blink.
I can’t see any connection between what you quoted from me and what you wrote under it, Division. It’s alright you don’t agree that profession mechanics and skills go hand-in-hand, but it’s kind of confusing if you don’t say as much.

@Shilian
There’s no point getting upset with being told go try out warrior. If you want to talk to Arenanet directly, that’s what the suggestion forum is for. A post here is asking for our input as well. Suggesting alternative classes because the class you’re playing isn’t meeting your expectations is the only thing your fellow consumers can do for you.

you are right, sorry got almost upset, i read it totally in the wrong way ^^

Eladriel.7295:

What? Really a wanna be warrior? You obviously don’t know what a ranger really is. Rangers in a since are really no different than warriors. What skills separate them from warriors were trapping and tracking and the ability to tame animals to fight along side them. And they spent most of their time in the wilds. And their primary weapon was not just a bow..They mainly used a bow for hunting and fighting when needed. They could use a wide range of weapons including the sword just as well as a darn warrior. How many times did you see Aragorn in Lord of the Rings use a bow? Most mmos just take a ranger and make them to what they want.. GW2 is about the only game that comes close to making the ranger what they really are, but there still a lot of work to go. If they made the ranger as they should be then they can go toe to toe with a warrior. Rangers would just be a leather wearing counterpart to a warrior. They just wouldn’t be able to take as much damage, but they still could kick your warrior butt in melee. And they got the name Rangers from roving… Cause they roved around a x distance patrolling large areas. Some of these mmos had really done the ranger a lot of injustice and making them seem like a weak class when in fact they can be just as deadly as any class. And stop mistaking them to being just bow users cause they are not.

Your post brings the entire flaw with this argument to the front. Rangers are very different to warriors. A warrior is someone who’s spent time practising with weapons, perfecting drills, used to fighting in formation with other warriors and making sure their weapon is a natural extension of their body.

A ranger does not. A ranger does not spend all their time practising with a weapon. They divide practising with weapons with their animal companion, with wandering (ranging) the wilderness.
By the very nature of their profession’s lore, a warrior automatically becomes entitled to winning in a simple 1v1 fight with the ranger. You yourself imply this is to expected, when you say a ranger spends ‘most of their time in the wilds’. Ergo, they’re not spending most of their time practising with their weapons.

So the ranger’s animal companion helps compensate for this, and suddenly it’s 2v1. You yourself say it; the ranger’s about fighting with an animal companion. If they’re going to do that, and the animal companion is going to actually mean anything, then it’s going to have to be more than eye candy.

The thieves can get away with a 1v1 because they’re designed to make the fight unfair; stealth, poisons, cripple, their initiative allowing them to rapidly fire off attacks to push an advantage. Once again, pull those out of the equation and the warrior is going to brutalise their opponent.

Rangers should not, cannot become able to match a warrior in a simple 1v1 fight. That undermines the warrior, and I don’t want to see a return to Guildwars 1’s warrior. For those of you who haven’t played it, everyone could do the warrior’s job, even the squishy casters. To add insult to injury they could often do it better.

I’ve never seriously used a longbow on my ranger. I prefer the mobility or axes and the shortbow, but I’ve clocked the most time by far with a greatsword, and I’m currently messing around with a longsword+dagger combo-if you’d check my other posts you’d have seen I’m often pointing out rangers aren’t called so because they attack from range and people need to stop thinking they’re the pew-pew class.
A ranger, as I said before, cannot and should not match a warrior without the animal companion. It undermines the ranger’s distinction from another class and it undermines the warrior as a class.

^ big flaw in this theory, warrior has the potential to out-damage us on our field(range)
Plus i don’t understand why a war is entitled to win by default, are we talking about class balance or pure roleplay?…

last time a checked there was no holy trinity or rock, papers, scissor, lizard, spock in this game

Rangers are not archers Shilian. Warriors spend more time practising with a longbow, so by extension they should be ‘better’ at it. Their roles are quite different anyway, the Longbow for a warrior is more ranged support, the ranger’s longbow is more ‘single target’ orientated.

Furthermore, I’m talking about class balance. The warrior is the ‘kill stuff with weapons’ class. It’s designed from the ground up to win in a 1v1 hit-each-other-unil-one-of-you-falls-over fight. The other classes can (or at least should be able to) win against a warrior, but never through a simple slogging match. Thieves have to use stealth, condition damage and their initiative system to push an opening. Elementalists and engineers have to bounce around their elements and kits. Rangers have to use their pets, and expecting them to beat a warrior without them is pointless.
During the first beta rangers could indeed beat a warrior in a 1v1 without bothering about their pet… guess what was the very first thing that got nerfed for a ranger?

That’s right, the ability to beat a warrior in a 1v1 without bothering about the pet.

I don’t want to stow my pet all the time, and I very much doubt that that will be a thing. If we could have just ONE THING out of the next patch, I would probably want it to be that I want my pet to walk next to me. At all times. If I jump up a 8 inch ledge, that doesn’t mean my pet should run around the bend past the 2 dozen enemies and a champion. I would rather have pets look stupid and float around then be a constant cause of my deaths.

Iggy.9482:

I don’t want to stow my pet all the time, and I very much doubt that that will be a thing. If we could have just ONE THING out of the next patch, I would probably want it to be that I want my pet to walk next to me. At all times. If I jump up a 8 inch ledge, that doesn’t mean my pet should run around the bend past the 2 dozen enemies and a champion. I would rather have pets look stupid and float around then be a constant cause of my deaths.

Even if they allowed perma stowing its not forcing you to do it, I dont see the problem.

Ergo Proxy.6219:

It’s already been stated but a ranger without a pet is like a mesmer without clones. You are free to want but you want, but if ranger pet is such a problem you should just reroll as something else.

people play ranger not cuz of the pet its cuz of the class it self… the pet instead of complimenting the ranger it becomes the ranger’s liability

Swagger.1372:

Ergo Proxy.6219:

It’s already been stated but a ranger without a pet is like a mesmer without clones. You are free to want but you want, but if ranger pet is such a problem you should just reroll as something else.

people play ranger not cuz of the pet its cuz of the class it self… the pet instead of complimenting the ranger it becomes the ranger’s liability

It varies, sometimes pet is useful sometimes it isnt.

There’s one VERY easy fix that they can do.

Rift had the same issue as GW2 does with the Rogue’s Ranger tree pets. What did they do? Made them immune to GROUND TARGETING AoE. Very, very simple fix that didn’t imbalance the pet at all.
Why? Any decent player can dodge out of a red circle. A pet cannot. It would require singling out the pet, or be caught in your melee auto attack to kill it.

It made it so that you would have to take your focus off of the ranger, and place it on the pet to be able to kill it. Albeit the pet dropped quickly when targeted, but you weren’t able to just ignore it and let someone else kill it with their barrage of AE.

Dante Dragonhand.2538:

Swagger.1372:

Ergo Proxy.6219:

It’s already been stated but a ranger without a pet is like a mesmer without clones. You are free to want but you want, but if ranger pet is such a problem you should just reroll as something else.

people play ranger not cuz of the pet its cuz of the class it self… the pet instead of complimenting the ranger it becomes the ranger’s liability

It varies, sometimes pet is useful sometimes it isnt.

its useful IF it actually works half the time you want it to work…

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

There’s one VERY easy fix that they can do.

Rift had the same issue as GW2 does with the Rogue’s Ranger tree pets. What did they do? Made them immune to GROUND TARGETING AoE. Very, very simple fix that didn’t imbalance the pet at all.
Why? Any decent player can dodge out of a red circle. A pet cannot. It would require singling out the pet, or be caught in your melee auto attack to kill it.

It made it so that you would have to take your focus off of the ranger, and place it on the pet to be able to kill it. Albeit the pet dropped quickly when targeted, but you weren’t able to just ignore it and let someone else kill it with their barrage of AE.

I remember this, and actually was a HUGE fan of this, it also made it so running with Sir Oinks A Lot in pvp kinda forced them to swiftch from me and maul the pet for a little bit in their futile attempts to kill my beloved porcine as i pew pewed at them!

ExpiredLifetime.1083:

There’s one VERY easy fix that they can do.

Rift had the same issue as GW2 does with the Rogue’s Ranger tree pets. What did they do? Made them immune to GROUND TARGETING AoE. Very, very simple fix that didn’t imbalance the pet at all.
Why? Any decent player can dodge out of a red circle. A pet cannot. It would require singling out the pet, or be caught in your melee auto attack to kill it.

It made it so that you would have to take your focus off of the ranger, and place it on the pet to be able to kill it. Albeit the pet dropped quickly when targeted, but you weren’t able to just ignore it and let someone else kill it with their barrage of AE.

Oh yea? Never touched that tree, always played marksman, archer without a pet was awesome. And marksman was actually feared later on when they buffed them and changed their rapid fire around to be 5 instant attacks. Rift definitely had the best archer class by far out of any game Ive played.

I’ve not really played a ranger much in this game so take this with a pinch of salt. But did ANet perhaps want to make the pet a majorly significant source of the ranger’s overall damage in order to make it more viable in pvp, where traditionally in 1v1 people entirely disregard a pet and go straight for you?

Given that other classes while not defined by their ranged ability per se, do have bows feature significantly in their arsenal. The one single thing that really sets the ranger apart is pet synergy, very much a defining characteristic of what would otherwise be just one of 3 ranged/melee classes.

I get why you guys want to go sans pet as my brief experience with them is that they’re a bit shonky currently. But it does seem obvious to me why ANet concentrated so much on trying to heavily emphasise the advantage of keeping your pet out. Surely if they were to beef up the AI routines and give the player a more reliable control over what they do, plus make them potentially far more durable in ground targeted AoE, then that puts paid to any major objections to them?

More fire and forget for those who want it, more potential to fine tune and manage for those who really dig the beastmaster role, and a pet that lives up to the devs intent. That seems the way forward, no?

If not the ability to stow the pet, then reducing the impact of the pet should be warranted. If instead of 30-50% of the ranger dps coming from the pet, it was rebalanced so that 10-50% of the dps was coming from the pet I think it would go a long way towards encouraging everyone’s desired play styles.

Basically, if you don’t put any focus on pet stats/traits/skills et, your pet would only be at most 10% of your potential, instead of the huge chunk it is currently. Rangers are the most heavily invested into their mechanic by default, and by a very large margin. This doesn’t encourage variably, or allow for as much customability. It pigeon holes the entire profession into a heavy reliance on their mechanic.

Answer these questions… Is there another profession that is forced into using their F mechanic? I mean forced… cannot choose to not use… obligatory and automatic. Is there another profession that by default has around 30% of their damage come though their F mechanic? Is there any other profession at all, that cannot spec so as to avoid using their mechanic completely… where there is a distinct advantage often to not use their F keys at all? If you can think of any, I’m all ears. Tell me what profession it is that has a third of their damage coming from their default mechanic, or over 50% from their traited version…. tell me which profession it is that doesn’t have a build where they simply ignore their F mechanic altogether in 99% of all situations, where it becomes simply an afterthought, or where they don’t benefit more from not using it…. I’m all ears. Is there another profession that has such a huge chunk of their functionality, control, dps etc being controlled by AI? Which one? Is it forced, or do they trait for giving a third or more of their functionality over to AI? Just a few questions I would like the naysayers to answer. I keep coming to the answer: Only Ranger.

Personally, I think the whole discussion is silly. It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that the ranger is the only profession being either carried or held back by AI to such a magnitude. There really isn’t even a close comparison… Right now, by choosing to play a ranger you are choosing to play at most 70% of a character. I find that ludicrous. There absolutely should be an option for rangers to take back a larger % of their character’s functionality! 80%… better. 90% Awesome! 95% Thanks the ANet gods!! 100%?? Holy sweet raptorjesus they really do care!!!!

I don’t understand why there is even any pushback to this idea. Having another option doesn’t force any changes on those who do not choose to select that option… Allowing rangers to free themselves from being so pet dependant doesn’t make you have to give up the whole pet concept… not even remotely. It is absolutely possible to be able to make the ranger pet still be a major role in most builds, and a minor/no role in just one/few builds. More diversity, more options, more play styles, more enjoyment…. there isn’t a downside here.

The only argument anyone is presenting that is remotely legible is along the lines of “ANet will never do it”, or “Ranger isn’t an archer, hurr”… But Anet could do it with relative ease, if they chose to do so. If the idea had enough support. If game balance was truly one of their goals… And Rangers are archers, saying they’re not is ignorant. Anet’s own description calls them “unparalleled archers”… saying otherwise is arguing from either ignorance, or blatantly being obtuse.

Comparing a cloneless mesmer to a petless ranger is moot. Mesmers can summon clones just by farting. A ranger with a dead pet loses half his dps and is for all intents and purposes taken into the back room by other classes with iron rods in their hands. The pets on my Ranger die just as quick (and sometimes quicker) as my Phantasms.

I’m in favor of the Lone Ranger. Let’s not forget how selfish it is though. This won’t solve any problems. All it does is penalize the people who DO want to play with pets because it dances around a more severe issue without actually solving it.

It would be nice, as someone mentioned earlier, to have a passive bonus trait when pets are stowed and to have perma-stow. It brings a welcome change of versatility (though serious reworkings would still need to be made to keep petless and pet rangers on par). Additionally this will bring QQ to our Ranger forums the likes of which we haven’t seen yet because of human nature (OMGWTF I loved pets why am I forced to use a petless build for wvw?!?!?!?!). Perhaps also if Rangers could use rifles and a new skillset was added for it then it could also help.

Mmm, also I don’t want to play warrior. It’s as simple as that. I don’t envision my character as a slow shooting, armored leviathan. I like agility, speed and cunning, but hate thief gameplay. I also like longbows. Also also, I like this game so I don’t want to find another one.

I dunno. I love my Ranger though. I’m just worried about my lovable, moronic, suicidal and possibly contemplatively murderous bear next to me.

Ravnodaus.5130:

If not the ability to stow the pet, then reducing the impact of the pet should be warranted. If instead of 30-50% of the ranger dps coming from the pet, it was rebalanced so that 10-50% of the dps was coming from the pet I think it would go a long way towards encouraging everyone’s desired play styles.

This is supposedly Anet’s vision based on the ranger description. But somewhere along the line, they just over nerfed the weapons and gave us crap traits and utilities. Aside from the low HP, inability to jump down ledges to path properly, and buggy F2, pets are probably working as intended. Pets are not meant to be a constant source of DPS and we ARE meant to use bows.

I hope they read their own description when they implemented the changes for the coming patch because it’s confusing as hell when they say the class is one thing but yet it plays like another.

Loki.4871:

Rant aside, the pets themselves are (ignoring the ‘quirks’) pretty kitten powerful. They also give you playstyles, in the sense depending on what pet you take, you yourself end up playing quite differently. The Jungle/canyon Spider lets you snare and dot a target. The dogs give good crowd control. Grabbing a sword or greatsword and wading in with a drake lets you belt out alarming amounts of damage in melee.

The thing is… it does NOT actually create play styles.
Lets take a look:
Power spec Ranger + Power pet = High damage / low survivability
Power spec Ranger + Tank pet = Low damage / low survivability
Defensive Ranger + Power pet = High damage / High survivability
Defensive Ranger + Tank pet = Low damage / High survivability

What looks the most appealing now?
You can pretend you have lots of ways to play now because your profession can spec into two different categories unlike any other however, the way it is now is actually having the opposite effect.
This is a very simplistic view but it does reflect the choices one has on a far left or far right table which tends to be the All-or-Nothing way people spec their characters.

What can I say: you’ve clearly made up your mind and nothing will dissuade you from your opinions.

Loki.4871:

What can I say: you’ve clearly made up your mind and nothing will dissuade you from your opinions.

I’m simply pointing out a very key point that I often see ignored.

DPS = Ranger + Pet
Survivability = Ranger

This is not a bad thing nor was I trying to imply it was. In fact, this is a very good thing to be blatantly honest. I was simply pointing out that in such a system there is actually less real diversity than I thought you were trying to imply and I certainly did not mean to offend.