Guild Wars 2

I have been testing the Ranger with different builds and noticed a huge thing on the pet.
(See attachment)
I believe the pathing is spiky because the Pet’s path is not updated often enough.

Not much more to say. It’s obvious that this is the reason to why pets can’t hit moving targets so well.

Swiftness and other types of speed boosts helps a little because the pet will be able to get to the destination faster before the enemy goes to far from the destination and out of melee range from it.

I always find the biggest issue is it being dead and useless nearly all the time (Don’t go on about stupid “pet managment” I don’t want to know).

But I like your charts.

Solid Gold.9310:

I always find the biggest issue is it being dead and useless nearly all the time (Don’t go on about stupid “pet managment” I don’t want to know).

But I like your charts.

Pet management (swap before death, call it back or send it in to get it out of aoe etc) help but the biggest issue is which pet the player uses.

Thanks

solrik.6028:

Solid Gold.9310:

I always find the biggest issue is it being dead and useless nearly all the time (Don’t go on about stupid “pet managment” I don’t want to know).

But I like your charts.

Pet management (swap before death, call it back or send it in to get it out of aoe etc) help but the biggest issue is which pet the player uses.

Thanks

I did say I didn’t want to hear about “pet managment”, that included which pet to use.

And pets are usually dead way before they “get out” of any AOE

bump

@Solid Gold
You’re like the Facebook meme; one who posts a status saying “This is my worst day in my life” and then says “I don’t want to talk about it” when someone asks through a comment

I honestly think that Ranger pets should be as strong as the Ranger that uses them- not just some punching bag- I love my ranger & I like all my pets, I just hate how they (pets) die so quickly. It takes forever for me to go down, so why not my pet?

IMO pets should share a certain % of the players attributes, many other mmos have done this with pet classes and it’s not OP or imbalanced.

Furajir.3815:

IMO pets should share a certain % of the players attributes, many other mmos have done this with pet classes and it’s not OP or imbalanced.

This is not those other MMO’s though. So you can not base OP or Balance like that. The pet system does need to be looked at. Pet management does help a good bit especially if you stay on top of it. But even so the pets still die to quick for my taste. Heck in WvW I generally run around with my pet at my side, rarely do I send them in to the fray cause they die in a matter of seconds.

Not basing anything, it’s an idea. Obviously it’s a different MMO. Even with 30BM the pets fall quickly even in 1v1’s 1v2’s etc.

I like that the pets’ attributes are not dependent on my own because it allows for more variation/flexibility in builds for the Ranger class.

I dislike that the pets attributes are not affected by my own because it means that a portion of my class gets weaker every time better gear becomes available in-game.

I think a happy median would be for the pets to retain their stat distributions as %s of the player’s overall stats, gear quality, or some other roughly equivalent measurement of the Ranger’s gear. This would mean:

• Ranger A in full exotic Berserker has a cat that does 1000k dmg
• Ranger B in full exotic Rabid has a cat that does 1000k dmg
• Ranger C in full masterwork Berserker has a cat that does 800 dmg
• Ranger D in full masterwork Rabid has a cat that does 800 dmg

• Ranger E in full exotic Berserker has a bear that does 500 dmg and has 40k health
• Ranger F in full exotic Soldier has a bear that does 500 dmg and has 40k health
• Ranger G in full masterwork Berserker has a bear that does 425 dmg and has 35k health
• Ranger H in full masterwork Soldier has a bear that does 425 dmg and has 35k health

The cats aren’t any more or less glassy or cannon-y due to the stats on the players’ gear. Instead, they are only better as the player’s stats are better. Throw a bear into this and it’ll do less damage but have more HP. The bears of the players in exotic will be more powerful than the bears of those in masterwork gear, just like the cats of the players in exotic are more powerful than the cats of those players in masterwork gear.

Since the pet is considered a part of the class, it should scale with the class.

The one issue I see with this is the use of celestial gear since it provides more stats overall. That is why the method of dictating the pets’ stats relative to the players is somewhat undecided to me. There are ways but you have to recognize the issues and deal with them … and that’s worth of a separate thread or PMs if anyone wants to discuss that … else we’ll be getting off-topic.

Sebrent.3625:

I like that the pets’ attributes are not dependent on my own because it allows for more variation/flexibility in builds for the Ranger class.

I dislike that the pets attributes are not affected by my own because it means that a portion of my class gets weaker every time better gear becomes available in-game.

I think a happy median would be for the pets to retain their stat distributions as %s of the player’s overall stats, gear quality, or some other roughly equivalent measurement of the Ranger’s gear. This would mean:

• Ranger A in full exotic Berserker has a cat that does 1000k dmg
• Ranger B in full exotic Rabid has a cat that does 1000k dmg
• Ranger C in full masterwork Berserker has a cat that does 800 dmg
• Ranger D in full masterwork Rabid has a cat that does 800 dmg

• Ranger E in full exotic Berserker has a bear that does 500 dmg and has 40k health
• Ranger F in full exotic Soldier has a bear that does 500 dmg and has 40k health
• Ranger G in full masterwork Berserker has a bear that does 425 dmg and has 35k health
• Ranger H in full masterwork Soldier has a bear that does 425 dmg and has 35k health

I hope you realize that your examples of differences between master and exotics are huge, right? A pet that deals 800 damage against 2k armor outputs 1.6million raw damage, divide it by 1000 (kinda like weapon strength) to get a power of 1600.
1000 damage raises it to 2000 power. Delta power would be 400!!!!!! Not even exotics vs master has that much! 35k health to 40k health means 500 vitality difference!

Those numbers are arbitrary. Tweak as you will.

Furajir.3815:

IMO pets should share a certain % of the players attributes, many other mmos have done this with pet classes and it’s not OP or imbalanced.

Here here. I’m not going to complain about sPVP or WvW and the borderline kittenation that is the pet A.I but let’s instead (for once) talk PVE, specifically fractals and dungeons, hell even events in Orr. The Ranger is inherently flawed due to a few reasons, poor pet A.I, poor pet pathing and tracking to target, the pet gains ZERO bonuses from the master besides the BM pet points, the BM trait line and selected traits from other choice lines. The Beastmaster pet points arguably do not scale well past a certain amount of points invested, 15 points is more than enough in the line. Investing more into the tree does not increase the pet damage or survivability by more than 15%, although I’m sure someone can pull out the correct figures as I’m guesstimating somewhat.

The point is why waste an extra 15 trait points in a line that does very little for damage and almost nothing for survivability. Ok, now lets talk about AOE. Specifically, PVE encounters where there is generally A LOT of AOE, the player can dodge roll out of these scenarios, besides some insane micro ability and some luck getting your pet out of the ‘danger zone’ is next to impossible. It will die and there is nothing you can do about it besides burn a heal, burning a heal to keep the pet alive is a bad mechanic that no player should be forced into, when you need that heal to keep yourself alive but you used it for your pet (we’re all guilty of doing it) your screwed. Pet swapping is not the solution, it’s a band aid to the bigger overall problem of survivability.

I’m going to draw a parallel with that ‘other’ MMO for a second. The developers realised at some point during beta of an expansion that the overall survivability of pets during PVE encounters needed addressing. The solution? Fairly simple and easily done, 80% damage reduction done to pets on AOE damage under PVE conditions, this was later increased to 90% as further expansions scaled in damage.

Final points reiterated, dumping 30 points into BM is no solution for pet survivability, players can dodge roll pets cannot, trying to micro the pet insistently is a trial in frustration due to pathing and poor A.I.

AC path 3 last boss … plenty of AOE … dead pet :-/

The biggest issue with pets, is that they still can’t kittening hit some players in spvp. The big issue is when my opponents are good players, that run and move all the time. I’ve been in fights that lasted several minutes, where my pets land maybe one attack / 30 seconds – at most.

I cripple them, I chill them, I use sigils that freeze them, I even use my elite entangle, hoping that ok, maybe now that kitten pet can land his attacks.

But nooo. The pets are bad, really really bad, when it comes to land attacks on players that knows what the hell they are doing. I know this myself, since I can avoid 90% of pets attacks just by moving and throwing in the occasional dodge every now and then. It’s a joke really, how easy it is to avoid other rangers’ pets.

The higher the skill level of your opponent is, the less you’re gonna have any use of your pet. Balanced? Like hell no! We can only get better ourselves, our pets will always be limited by bad ai, slow responsiveness and slow attacks. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WE CAN NEVER, EVER IMPROVE! We can’t teach our pet to become better in any way, even when we as players do get better at the game. We will still be stuck with an ai companion that by design is flawed. Thank you, balance devs, for this ill logic.

If crap like this doesnt get fixed in this patch I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore. As soon as you meet opponents that knows what the hell they are doing, our pets are useless – utterly useless.
Since we’re stuck with our pets, if this doesn’t get fixed like real soon, I think I’m gonna have a nervous breakdown.
The extreme frustration you feel when you see that kitten pet running around like some stupid goof, not landing anything that counts, is sometimes more than you can handle.
FIX THE PETS ONCE AND FOR ALL.

I just hate we’re the only kitten class whose class mechanic is a liability at times. Why are they being so stingy with pet buffs when there have been hundreds of posts on this forum explaining the myriad number of problems with them? In GW1 they eventually had to relent and give pets an AOE damage reduction, why they didn’t just start out this game learning from that past mistake is beyond me.

I hate how you have terrible, unreliable control over the pet’s abilities more.
But their pathing is a close second.

People have been complaining about this stuff since beta. Probably was one of the biggest beta complaints about ranger next to projectile speed, every other game lets you control your pets attacks…. but GW2… every other decent game doesn’t have trash pathing… but GW2…

Its been around long enough that I doubt they are going to dedicate anyone to change it. I guess its their lazy form of balancing… instead of tweaking numbers on pet abilities to be balanced, they just let their activations be random/spastic so innately mediocre no matter what special stuff the abilities do (short of just straight up dmg, which is why the felines and birds are pretty much the only pets run short of the wolf). In MMOs, having a pet that can’t coordinate with your teams spike… a pet that gets eaten by miscilaneos aoes… is just straight up bad in team situations.

Step 1: Fix pet AI
Step 2: Find some way to deal with the damage ratio between Ranger and pet
Step 3: Make it so the pets scale with the equipment (within their own niche, such as devourers getting more condition damage and vitality)
Step 4: Deal with the Ranger traitlines and the traits within (since some being in certain lines makes no sense, such as that active signet affecting the Ranger also trait in Marksmanship when it should be under Beastmaster)
Step 5: Fix the spirits and make them better in both survivability and active effects.
Step 6: ????
Step 7: Profit due to Rangers now being more viable in all forms of play.

But but my birds like to flip their wings twice or 3 times and do a Merry-go-round for a cool show after their first attack.
My Cats could do high damage always if the target is a Practice Golem.
My Spides like to Spit and Root Practice Golems too.
And my Drakes need a couple of secs to breath in loads of air for F2 to function