Guild Wars 2

Tracker Wolf.2587:

I guess I wasn’t clear on what I meant. I mean that pets or no pets, the ranger class isn’t in a good place at the moment, and I think it might have been because they tried to merge two different concepts. Whether you guys like the result or not, we can still argue that the class isn’t as good as it could be in relation with other classes.

Oh I’d never claim that the class balance is perfect, and realistically I doubt it ever will be.

But that’s not to say that the core principles or design of the classes are wrong, just that some values could do with tweaking, etc.

Jestunhi.7429:

Secondly, if you are constantly using the pet in slot 2 did you ever consider putting it in slot 1 instead? It wouldn’t stop it unstowing from fall damage, etc but at least the pet that you actually use would come out instead of the bear.

jesus christ, pal.

okay, troll. i’ll bite…

Yes, it has occurred to me that I will have to do illogical actions to lower the frustration level by 4.815162342% since the mechanics are either sloppy or broken.

But just so you can be educated and finally “get it”, I will treat you with the Reason.

Pet 1 is set to “Bear” or a “tanking pet”.
Pet 2 is set to “Moa” or a “dps pet”.

Since you seem to be struggling I’ll try and cover all the bases by saying: "I use the pet in slot 1 for soloing and/or harder monsters/encounters. And I use slot 2 for dungeons/party and/or easier monsters/encounters.

Make sense now, troll?

TheAltarBoy.3176:

Ebs.6280:

Saying you like the Ranger but not the pet is like saying you don’t like the Ranger. Pets are part of the class so my advice to you would be to not play a Ranger.

No. Saying you like the ranger but not the pets is like saying you like the elementalist but you don’t like fire spells, or you like the thief but don’t like stealth.

Pets are just one aspect of ranger gameplay. Maybe I like the ranger because of all his ranged abilities, his spirits (which are also weak), or his traps. It is entirely valid to like most of a given profession without liking their entire profession.

Exactly. You can like the class but not an aspect of it.

I literally love EVERYTHING…the skills, the traits, the weapon choices (other then we need a Xbow and dual swords) EXCEPT the pet.

I think it’s pretty obvious there is a large group of people that want that medium armored melee fighter but don’t want the ranger due to the pets and don’t want the rogue due to the stealth/poisons/dark aspect of it and ranger probably is the closer one that can fulfill that.

If GW1 again had the petless ranger, then GW2 really should have it. Just like the Necro can go minion-less, so should the Ranger have something like that.

A Ranger is someone who is a fighter type who is very good in the wild, at camoflauge, trapping, and moving quick over terrain. That shouldn’t automatically make them have a pet. Look at the Ranger from D&D. Look at say Aragorn. Look at Army Rangers, etc. To automatically attach a pet when in all sense of the history of other forms of rangers (and yes, this is GW2/Arenanet’s vision)…is kinda silly.

I don’t know why they didn’t do both. It would resolve a lot of issues. You should have the Ranger and two types…the Scout and the Beastmaster.

^ no need for a harsh response I don’t think there was any trolling intended. Simply didn’t understand your situation. Though I have a completely different selection of pets and don’t think bears are great for tanking or pve or soloing or anything much at all LOL anyway

I did not know that! We had an elite that could bring out three pets??? Wth anet really destroyed the ranger class. With the patch now and all the updates that would ignore out feedback and bugs and issues…. Geez

I always play Ranger in any game that offers one, and I always hope it’s a non-pet implementation like EQ2, DDO, Vanguard, etc.

But here we are a pet class so you’ll have to deal with it. The best we can do is hope they fix all the pet problems — the very reason I always hope a game will have petless Rangers!

Specifically, I find that

— My pet couldn’t hold aggro if I glued the mob to its bloody paws

— This forces me to kite, which would be OK except that my pet goes into stupid mode when the mobs are moving. It does not attack for long stretches of time, and you can practically hear the wheels grinding in its head as it sits there and thinks, “durrrrrrrrrr”

It would be lovely if they could find some time to fix these problems in between nerfing things that worked perfectly fine.

LOL, I like how many people have drank the koolaid in this thread.

To suggest flaws and bugs in the class are features and that modifying it would change the spirit of the class is plain ridiculous….first MMO?

MMOs are dynamic and exist in a state of flux and skills and features should be changed and be rebalanced accordingly.

Why do you care if people want a pet less ranger? I don’t care for the idea myself but I wouldn’t try to argue against it because the alternative of no change is all is not acceptable. If you think the current system is fine the way it is, then go play the game since you have the game you want right now and whatever buff the ranger gets doesn’t apply to you. Or maybe is it deep down you know the current scheme is broken but misery loves company? Or maybe you don’t even really play the class? Because it sounds to me a lot of people haven’t even tried the class in every aspect that the game offers at wvw, spvp, pve, and dungeons so they don’t see the flaws of the current system.

What it boils down to it’s very simple.

Pet damage + Ranger damage = Total Class Damage

A + B = C

It’s how the damage should be balanced.

There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t get a passive buff to fold the non attacking pet’s missing DPS into the ranger because you cannot use the pet in every instance of the game. I argue in favor of the passive pet because it fits the theme of the class, while others opt for pet less completely. Avenue is different but the goal is the same; it’s to get back the missing DPS that should’ve been there because pets are not viable at all times. I don’t know what percentage the buff should be since I don’t know what Anet has in mind for the A, B, C equation split from above. What I do know is that, it’s really a misnomer to call it a pet less buff. It’s not a buff; it’s merely asking for the damage that should’ve been there in the first place.

If you say buffing the ranger while the pet is passive will overpower the class, let’s follow that idea to its logical conclusion: What you’re saying then is:

Pet Damage + Ranger Damage = Total Class Damage

A + B = C

But…

Ranger Damage = Total Class Damage

B = C

Eh?

If that’s the case, please make a thread to call for a ranger nerf because you’re saying indirectly is that rangers in all cases has the same DPS with or without a pet. Good luck with that.

I think people who says wait for an AI and/or pathing fix is missing the point. It will not come, I guarantee it. Because there’s no way to properly balance a bot, which is what a pet is, for a competitive pvp game. You make them hit too often and on the run, you’ll get dungeon mobs which is almost like an aimbot; non rangers QQ. You make them kitten like they are currently that can’t even jump down a meter ledge to attack a target almost right in your face; rangers QQ. When you introduce a summon/pet that’s not 100% in control of the player, this is the end result. This is just par for the course.

Seems to be me the only logically place we can go to that doesn’t swing to the extremes is to have a buff for the ranger when the pet is passive so players get that missing DPS back and the ranger would still have to actively manage their pets.

Support

Pets, while they have their uses, require a unreasonable trait investment to be useful. In groups, more specifically, the pet is a wasted feature beacuse even bear types get killed within seconds. Also, pets in a condition build is a joke. The only real condition-y thing i use my pet murrelow for is a poison field for shooting through. I tried lynx, the condition damage on my pet’s bleeds did way less then half my actual PC’s bleed damage.

Loose the pet, boost in stat, focus trait points into worthwhile investments.

pets are great for pve, but, other then taking knockdowns etc.. not really suited for wvw or pvp. Id like to have petless trait line and/or a pet specific trait line… then I can choose what I like. Doesnt have to be either or, folks, we can have our cake and eat it too.

i disagree completely the pet should be here to stay i love the pet and its uses, while it is buggy and sometimes nonfunctional when those bugs get fixed and the tweak them a bit it will be amazing, i believe if you want a class without pets then you should play a class with out pets.

I don’t exactly understand the argument where people say “Oh, there’s no way rangers can receive a bonus for ignoring his class mechanic, no other class gets that kind of compensation!”

Clearly these people must be playing a different game. Either that, or they haven’t heard of traits like Berserker’s Power for warrior, which is a TIER ONE trait. It increases your damage by an impressive 12% when at full adrenaline. It clearly punishes you for using your class mechanic, providing only a small burst damage boost if you use ever use your f1, in comparison to a forever-lasting sustained dps boost. If you take this trait in PvE, it would almost never be a good idea to use your class mechanic.

In addition, the argument that “it’s been implemented by the devs, they intended you to use it!” doesn’t hold in many other aspects of the game, either. Otherwise, traits that benefited you when your endurance was full wouldn’t exist.

It is very interesting that you all say the ranger is defined as the pet class by ANet. Here is the official description from their ranger profession page:

“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”

Notice how the fact that rangers are unparalleled archers first and how all the other functions are described to help adapt the class. No where does it say the class is a beast master first, archer second.

Secondly, there are many classes that CAN ignore their F1-F4 skills most of the time and succeed. Let me list them as I have 5 lvl 80s worth of experience to speak from.

Elementalist: Every trait line has one trait that cools down that attunement skills faster. So most pure DPS people will stay in fire and sometimes jump to another attunement. Heck this with staff, fire DPS is so much higher than the other 3 when traited that switching is a huge hit to DPS most cases. In group situations, if you play smart and have a good group, you mostly won’t need the utility of the other 3 attunements.

Warrior: someone already mentioned this but, there are 2 traits that increase your damage for not using your burst skills. Not to mention some are just flat terrible.

Mesmer: 1 trait that boosts DPS and another that reduces damage for keeping your illusions up. Also many traits that apply affects when illusions are killed and not forced to shatter. Plus a staff condition build does not rely on shatters for damage but the massive dot stacks from clones. Thus you can avoid shattering most times.

Thief: well let’s not even go here….stealing lol. Thiefs have the opposite problem, their class mechanic does not really add value consistently because it so freaking unpredictable.

Guardian: there are so many builds that do not require active use of virtues, plus many traits make passive effects better, or you can spec into using them more often.

Engineer: depends on the build but many of the tool belt skills are oh kitten buttons so not required to be used often.

Necro: cannot comment as I have not played one extensively.

The point I’m making is most classes CAN benefit DPS/survivabilty wise by choosing to not use their f1-f4 skills. The ranger is the only classy that is actually penalized for not using them. Many of you have pointed out the nice just in case skills that many pets have as their F2 but that would not go away if there was some stat (stat over DPS because that would always benefit the build the player is in rather than just DPS) buff for the pet being in passive mode.

RNG-pet should change Utility skill , like GW1 “Charm Animal” skill. and scaling =)

Joey.3928:

Then I do not see the issue here. You can stow the pet when not fighting (so they dont grab aggro). When you are in combat, just let your pet die…it is like it isn’t even there. Plus it will distract mobs from attacking you initially.

Good thing you didn’t play GW1. When your pet died, all your skills went on cooldown.

In guild wars 1 pets were infact optional and usually unless you had a beast mastery build you did not put the charm amimal or heal pet (both skills that bring your pet out for combat) skills on your hotbar, their main mechanic was skills that do special things to their arrows(like auto attack arrows will cause poison for like 30seconds, or deal fire damage with arrows) or special archer shots ( cripples, bleeds, interupts, poisons), traps, and spirits that effect both allys and enemies, and a bit of beast mastery. but the beast mastery would be the rarest spec to find builds unless the build involves an off-class (i.e. Ranger/assassin or Ranger/Dervish)