Guild Wars 2

Everyone who has played ranger in this game has probably noticed that you can’t just ignore your pet if you want to deal some actual damage. A lot of people think it is unfair for rangers to have a part of their dmg linked to the pet, and are asking for a permanent pet stow for a damage buff (never going to happen btw). I personally don’t think pets are that bad. I do have some issues with them when it comes to traits (or specializations, whatever they’re called now).

The problem is that when I want to make my pet actually usable for damage dealing, it requires me to use 2 specialization lines (beastmastery ofcourse and nature magic for buff stacking). In my opinion having to use 2 entire trait lines just to buff the class mechanic is a bit much, and this means there are very little options left to make a decent build.

The idea behind the ranger class is that the ranger and his pet fight as one, but as of now the pet is mostly dead weight and the ranger has to saccrifice a lot to make it better, and can no longer focus on increasing his own abilities.

So here’s an idea that might solve my problems with ranger and pet traits: Give the pet his own specialization line! This would make the pet an actual companion for the ranger, with its own abilities, instead of a permanent summoned creature. There is already a pet ui window, so just add a specializations tab to it.

The way i see this: Give the pet 1 specialization line. This gives your pet acces to 3 personal traits that can be selected out of 9 possibilities. 6 of those could be the same for every pet (base stat increases, attack speed,..) and 3 could be specific to the species of the pet (drake, bird,..).
Moving some traits that only affect the pet from the beastmastery line (or other trait lines) to the pet’s line would also free up space to add some actually interesting traits that focus more on pet-ranger interaction and active pet use. This system would also allow for better pet customization and more diversity between species.
It would for example make it possible to have a condition focused pet while the ranger is more direct-dmg focused, or the other way around. Or to have 2 pets who both have a different focus.

Let me know what my fellow rangers think of this idea!

I think that customisable stats on the pet (ie, choose a PvP amulet for them in all modes) to give their stats is all that is really needed, we already have enough traits and adding an entire other system is just too much really. I personally would like it, but ANet would not, guaranteed.

The stats of a pet are determined by the species, what would be the use of different species with different stats if you could change them? They really should add more pets with more usefull stat cominations though.

The pet family would make specific F2 skills available and the pet itself is just a skin. Something like this, imo, would be perfect.

That would be pretty usefull, but I doubt it will be implemented like that since pets also have their own skillset that complements their stats. Also it would kinda take the fun out of searching and taming new pets, something I really enjoyed when I just started playing.

Another way to diversify stat choices would be to make every pet have unique stats. Example: different color moa’s would have similar but different stats, ranging from more tanky to more dps stats. This way it would also be easier to add new pets to the game (otherwise every stat combo variant would require an entire new family of pets)

I agree, but they haven’t even touched the pet menu since beta (over 3 years). The pet menu has so much potential for improvement (as the screenshot given above).

All pet-only traits should be limited to Beastmastery.

I don’t pick Beastmastery since I’m trying to limit pet use (pets are worthless in too many WvW situations), but I’m stuck with Fortifying Bond because it comes with Nature Magic automatically.

Another bad pet trait is Alpha Training. It should be merged into Opening Strike. There should be no pet-only traits outside of Beastmastery.

These are some examples of traits which involve the pet, but are fine outside of Beastmastery:

• Clarion Bond (on-pet-swap is fine)
• Shared Anguish
• Emphatic Bond (but might be better in Beastmastery for other reasons)
• Allies’ Aid (love it in Nature Magic)

So I just want them to change Fortifying Bond and Alpha Training.

Alexander.6250:

That would be pretty usefull, but I doubt it will be implemented like that since pets also have their own skillset that complements their stats. Also it would kinda take the fun out of searching and taming new pets, something I really enjoyed when I just started playing.

Another way to diversify stat choices would be to make every pet have unique stats. Example: different color moa’s would have similar but different stats, ranging from more tanky to more dps stats. This way it would also be easier to add new pets to the game (otherwise every stat combo variant would require an entire new family of pets)

I agree with this. That would be a subtle improvement for pets with each one not only offering something unique with their [F2] command, but some with different stat layouts.

Also, I’ve been riding that train with other Rangers like Holland that want Alpha Training merged with Opening Strikes and Fortifying Bond moved to Beastmastery.

Holland.9351:

I agree, but they haven’t even touched the pet menu since beta (over 3 years). The pet menu has so much potential for improvement (as the screenshot given above).

All pet-only traits should be limited to Beastmastery.

I don’t pick Beastmastery since I’m trying to limit pet use (pets are worthless in too many WvW situations), but I’m stuck with Fortifying Bond because it comes with Nature Magic automatically.

Another bad pet trait is Alpha Training. It should be merged into Opening Strike. There should be no pet-only traits outside of Beastmastery.

These are some examples of traits which involve the pet, but are fine outside of Beastmastery:

• Clarion Bond (on-pet-swap is fine)
• Shared Anguish
• Emphatic Bond (but might be better in Beastmastery for other reasons)
• Allies’ Aid (love it in Nature Magic)

So I just want them to change Fortifying Bond and Alpha Training.

skills that you want on opening strike would mess up other builds.i don’t use bow so i have no reason to pick marksmanship trait line.i do however think every pet related trait belongs in beastmastery .for the fact they are pet traits

Remember the pet being able to be renamed yet it goes away on pet switch? lol Still here after 3 years.

Either way they’re gonna have to allow us to select stats for pets or nothing besides jaguars and drakes will ever be picked in PvE. The sustained damage of any pet but jaguar is so horrendously low, and even with the pet jaguar it brings the ranger to low middle tier DPS out of all the classes.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

The pet family would make specific F2 skills available and the pet itself is just a skin. Something like this, imo, would be perfect.

The only problem with this is players (opponents) know what to expect when facing different pets. I don’t think it would be fair to other classes in terms of counter play or adapting to what pet we have out.

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

The pet family would make specific F2 skills available and the pet itself is just a skin. Something like this, imo, would be perfect.

The only problem with this is players (opponents) know what to expect when facing different pets. I don’t think it would be fair to other classes in terms of counter play or adapting to what pet we have out.

I can say I don’t think that is a valid reason. Pet is not near effective enough to need a counter play other than just having swiftness.

If pets could give anyone a hard time, maybe, but as it is now, you can just move around normally and avoid majority of the damage. Since there are only certain F2 skills that are suitable for PvP and those would be tied to pet families, people will still know what you are going to use or just watch what happens and then immediately know.

I don’t know about that. Pink’s point is valid. It’s a small factor but one people take into account when they see our pet.

Imagine if as soon as you saw another class, you knew what stats they were running and what skills they have on their bar. Pets being structured is like that.

Pets having variable stats and F2 skills is like not knowing what build someone is running until you see them in action and pay attention to what is going on. It really makes no difference to anyone what the pet stats are because they account for such little damage and everyone knows what F2 skills are used in PvP anyway.

Ranger is the worst class in PvP for a reason. This won’t change that but would give us QoL. Everything about Ranger is hugely telegraphed and pet structure is just another nail in the coffin.

Again, still not sure about that. I feel that Anet would not attempt something like this due to the reason Pink pointed out and because it collides with their concept of what Alexander brings up about taming pets in the wild.

Then, there’s the fear of bad implementation. That point Zenith mentioned about pet names saving – I can imagine such a fiasco if Anet decided to do something like this. Imagine when you change pets you had to drop down and click 5 times for each pet you wanted to change. It’s not the right thing to do to shun an idea for the reason of faulty execution, but it’s safe.

I honestly think that fixing pets is in the too-hard basket for ANet and they just do not care. Ranger is the worst class in the mode that the game is balanced around and has been for a long time. A big portion of that is due to a barely functioning and easily countered mechanic.

I really don’t see how it collides with taming pets in the wild, like, you still have to go and get all of them to have access to all the skills in the family tree and all the skins to choose from, so there is no difference at all. As for name saving, well that just illustrates my 1st point, they just do not care.

I also fear Anet is not going to touch the pet system because it would require a lot of work and time they can use for making fancy-looking new stuff. If they are too lazy too fix the bad system, they should at least make some traits baseline and just give pets an overall stat boost. It’s an easy fix that would at least make pets a little more usable in pve, wouldn’t really do much for pvp though.
Even if they gave pets an insane dmg buff, nobody in pvp would even notice since all they hit is air…