Guild Wars 2

Whether it is because they continuously die in dungeon aoes that they cannot dodge, because they have difficulty hitting moving players, or because they will not attack objects, pets do not always contribute as they should. In addition, there are times when pets attract unwanted additional aggro due to how they can over shoot your location, and stand like 30 feet away from your character at times even while on passive.

When they are in a situation where they work properly I believe that pets are amazing. The open world is one such place where they are amazing. Using a bear as a tank I was able to kill a champion from a group event in malchor’s leap solo, though it did take quite a while and was hard, it was possible. This is one situation in which pets work very well, and is the reason there are so many bots that use rangers with bears.

However for all of the situations where pets do not contribute, or are a hinderance something must be changed.

I have seen a perma-stow option suggested many times. However I would like to see more than just a perma stow, I would like something that could provide a benefit to me when my pet is useless so that I feel like I am contributing just as much as other players during those situations.

I suggest changing it so that when a pet is stowed, the ranger “mimics” the stowed pet he is remembering. To do this I would suggest first, giving the ranger a slight stat boost, based on the pet equipped. Something like gain between 5-10% of the pet’s stats (the exact number would need to be tested to be balanced). Second, the F1 skill should be identical to the specific stowed pet’s ability. Third the F2 should provide a skill that would be representative of all the pets in a specific family (cats, canines, bears…etc). The F3 should act as a swap pets button, allowing you to mimic the second pet you have stowed. The F4 should call your pet back out, and cause you to stop mimicking it.

The restrictions on this should be: stowing your pet causes the pet swap cooldown, switching which pet you are remembering causes the cooldown, and recalling your pet out causes the cooldown.

I think that this would definitely fit the ranger as a profession, it would satisfy those who wish to play the ranger without a pet, and it would solve the problem of our profession mechanic being useless in certain situations by giving us something that could be useful.

I really do hope they consider a change like this for rangers.