Guild Wars 2

This mostly goes for PvP, however, it fits anywhere I suppose – every pet skill locks the pet in place. Because of that:

1) there will never ever be a pet centered build in PvP
2) pets do close to nothing while the target is moving (for example, try pulling Svanir in heart of the mists and keep kiting the boss. Pay attention at your pet).
3) traits and utilities that grant pet speed bonus can be considered useless, since the pet will eventually stop when he reaches the target
4) 80% of the successfully cast pet skills will be out of line of sight in PvP

There has to be some major work done here, since at the moment pets are performing very poorly. For that any beasmaster will be unrewarded in both PvP and PvE, not to mention that pets should be like 30% of the ranger power, whereas now it’s only about 10%.

Regards,
Fellow ranger.

That’s so true, didn’t even think about that till I read it. Vangedas 2012!

Yes, the ranger’s pet is really quite ineffective. I kind of roll my eyes when I see rangers claim their pet does a lot of damage. (I’ve seen claims on this forum of the pet accounting for as much as 40% of the ranger’s total damage output.)

Try using Rampage as One for a while and just observe how often your pet grants you a stack of might by successfully landing an attack. It’ll give you an idea of what the thing’s effective DPS is in a real gameplay situation. And it’s not good.

Keeping the pet by your side in passive mode and only using its F2 ability is seldom a noticeable drop in combat performance except in solo PvE (the only type of play where you can easily control target positioning and the pet is unlikely to be killed by random AE when you order it to attack.)

Pets do damage, provided you can immobilize the guy long enough.

yea pets are pretty sad, i just use a spider and press f2 whevener its ready for the immobilize, other than that i dont expect anything from it, if my spider dies i switch to bear and just let it do its thing, hoping that is anything
i’d be happy if pets were just removed and rangers were given a slight buff (even if that is just a good #3 skill while downed)

@Stice, those players could be talking PvE rather than PvP. In PvE, the mobs tend to stand still too, making the pet far more effective. I could easily see builds where the pet does 40%+ in PvE.

I have noticed that my pet seems quite lazy most of the time.

I am just writing becouse at today’s patch there is nothing for the ranger.
So plz fix pets or remove them or make them less bound with the ranger. With emphasis at fix them. Really feeling i feel weird not using half of the builds that i have in mind couse the pets are not working as intented.

I don’t have issues with my pets…. Especially in pvp, I’m not punished for my pet being LoS from me, if I can send my pet on an adventure while I’m manning a treb, I think you could have your pet deal with people from behind a wall…

And you could always just go with a Melee weapon against another Melee and you will outshine them everytime with a pet build, not to mention ranged vs ranged ends up with you not taking kitten for damage if you play the “hide behind my pet as I shoot and he mauls you!” Game, it’s like “Protect Me” without a CD…

And for svanir I have NEVER had a fight with him were he focused on me before my pet… This pretty much just allowed my pet to stand there and maul him while I pew pew from the sidelines…

you are pretty much right on from my rangering point of view as well. I think the devs already know its an issue though. 94% of my spvp games have been on ranger, so I feel your pain
I only wanted to post to offer some temporary solutions to your/our issues in a pvp sense:
1) I have found the dog family to be actually fairly reliable with the knockdown move. It has even saved me in a downed state once or twice. Spiders too as some have mentioned have some merit.
2) cats will do good damage (and even more if you are dying to spec into Beast) but you almost have to carry something like spike trap and/or muddy terrain and hope for the best
3) 5 points in beast to me is worth it for the extra quickness. my personal playstyle (and i think its fairly common) is to bring QZ, and pew. Rotating pets does extra quickness for you and also gives you a quick use of the cc that any given pet may passively do
4)pets with aoe moves i feel have a better chance of success… and at the very least maybe you get a chance to pull off a combo move with their field and your projectile.

overall I absolutely agree though, and I think we will see some changes soonish. Hope these thoughts help out a bit with the struggles… I didn’t want to just beat a dead pet on the subject without offering at least something helpful

I wish they would do like WoW did. Pets take 80% less AOE damage.
pets get destroyed by AoE to easily, I cant micro manage them fast enough to avoid it.

I noticed the svanir thing today, definitely – the problem seems to be that the entire pet combat system seems reliant on the idea that the MOB will agro on the PET, causing them to stand in place, trading blows. If and when the MOB gets a clue and starts chasing the Ranger, however, the pet seems unable to attack. It’s like they forgot to code in the ability for pets to use their base skills on anything other than a totally still target.

One fix would be to give Rangers a base, fast-recharging kncoDOWN (not back) skill – this would at least allow us to stop one MOB at a time. Traps don’t seem to help much since most only slow (not root) the target. Might be imbalancing in PvP however, so I won’t hold my breath… (((sigh)))

I am having no issues getting my pets to land attacks. They also do a fair amount of damage. As for the comment about rampage as one my pet normally keeps 6-7 stacks on me.

You know what’s fun in PvE? Sending out an eagle to singlehandedly destroy same-level mobs. It’s fun. Sicing them on bats is even more fun. Full aerial combat!

So…are spiders gonna take over for bears now? Lotsa vitality (according to Wiki; I don’t use them) and immobilization?

I use canines heavily in PvE. Signet of stone and 10 in BM. Knockdown and cripple, so he’s usually good about staying in range.

Fluffycalico.2715:

I am having no issues getting my pets to land attacks. They also do a fair amount of damage. As for the comment about rampage as one my pet normally keeps 6-7 stacks on me.

People should really post if it’s PvE or PvP as Riku did above me – Cause info like this only stands for stationary targets in PvE! It’s the exact opposite in PvP!

How to screw people over with Pets in PvP, this mainly is for 100Blades Warriors and Pistol Whip Rogues..

Spec whatever Pet you like, I personally do 30 Skirmish/30 Beast/10 Wilderness

Use Jaguar Pet (Stealth) and QZ

Now go and put Superior Rune of Svanir on your armor, Watch as Warriors/Rogues teleport on top of you to drop their load, Proceed to pop Stealth/QZ because you’re now immune for 5 Seconds while your pets kills Warrior/Rogue in 3 seconds..

Been doing this to all the bursty Rogues/Warriors i’m running into, Really only works in a 1v1, Against two you’re going to die (you’ll down the guy, but He’ll just get ressed after the second one drops ya, and he will)…..But it’s still amusing..

/signed

(mostly coming from a PvE point of view…I can only imagine it’s worse in PvP).

As you get higher in level and gear, the pets get worse and worse at keeping aggro. This wouldn’t be a big deal, except that the pets are next to useless unless they are tanking. If you strip aggro – which I do constantly now, especially in Orr (why are those risen humanoids so mad at me?!) – they struggle in vain to keep up with the mob and land almost nothing…not to mention costing us even more dps by decreasing bleed stacks(if you’re rocking a shortbow bleed build).

Countless are the times I’ll F2 with my Lynx and he misses completely…even jumping in the exactly opposite direction. By and large, I don’t even bother with the F2 skill, anymore. It just takes so long to activate & land that it feels like a waste of a keystroke, for the most part.

They can be a bit more useful in dungeons, providing some okay CC and support (Dogs or Moas, for example), though even with a lot of micro-managing, the pets will most likely be dead most of the time.

Let’s not even get started on the pathing issues…

Yes, you can kinda spec the pets to be a bit better with the BM trait line, but seriously; the pets function so poorly there’s no way I’d sacrifice all my other great traits and nerf the crap out of myself just to make the pets less lame. And that’s entirely beside the point, anyway. Even if we trait the hell out of it, we still don’t get anywhere near the same sort of reliable return or functionality out our “special mechanic” as every other class gets right out of the box.

Now, is any of this deal breaking? Not for me. I still love the class, but this aspect of it leaves a lot to be desired.

Pets need a lot of work. That they do.

As most have said they need a HUGE AoE reduction in damage and the abilities they have need to be instant without some build up an animation or rooting them in place.

In the meantime use a Ranged pet, they are more effective imo for keeping damage on a target. Devourers are good in condition builds, are tanky and offer knockbacks. Spiders are good in any build and offer immobilizes/stuns.

In the end I like having a pet running around with me. The skins are nice so to that effect I would not want to see them go, but I wouldn’t care if they seriously made them into akittenminion like the Necro (albeit without using a Utility slot) and just up Ranger survival/damage to compensate.

Pets are fine in PvE. As already stated, most mobs don’t move once combat has been initiated, so it’s a non-issue in PvE. My pet DOES do the vast majority of my damage in PvE, because that’s how I have my Ranger built for PvE. I’d say my pet probably does greater than 50% of my damage in PvE. I can literally sit back and gather while my pet goes to town on a mob and in most cases it will be nearly dead by the time I’m done collecting.

In PvP, on the other hand…

[Edit: I should note that pets are fine in PvE for people who go with pet-centric builds.]

I thought pets would be a big deal or to say, major part of the Ranger proffesion. But so far I fail to see it. Mostly because they, as OP says don’t work properly or well enough to fill that role.

Why?

-Pets can’t attack when they move. That’s just silly and wrong. Very wrong.

-Majority of the pets die so fast it’s sad.

-They are not worth any focus or thought, in which and what pet to use were and when.

-Activated abilities (F2) are to slow, and I mean TO slow and weak.

Why would you give us Pets if they are nothing more than a distraction and contributes almost nothing?

Please consider supporting my suggestion thread regarding my pets, please also add suggestions of your own if you know anything. Thanks!

links here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Improving-Ranger-Pet-Functionality/first#post214173

Sometimes the activation of the F2 abilities can be too slow. I’m pretty sure they’re all ‘activate on next attack’ type abilities, which can make them seem incredibly slow on slow attacking pets (like bears).

Saying they’re weak though is crazy. Some pets have amazing burst potential. My snow owl F2 crits for nearly 3k (two times). That can half health most light/medium mobs.