Guild Wars 2

I was over in the Norn starting area doing some lowbie quests yesterday and I came across Honor the Spirit of Snow Leopard in Borealis Forest from Shaman Sigarr. Try this quest and you’ll be transformed into a snow leopard to hunt prey. Since the Snow Leopard is one of the pets I use consistently I found this extremely interesting.

In leopard form, it immediately became clear to me why our pets struggle so much with hitting moving targets and therefore are essentially useless in WvW. The leopards primary attack roots it in place and has a painfully long animation. I was grinding my teeth trying to hit the slow moving rabbits as they easily evaded me. Keep in mind these are dumb NPC’s moving in a straight line… not erratic humans intentionally trying to avoid being hit.

Interesting exercise if you want to understand your crummy pets better.

Most of the NPCs in this game do this. It’s why the PvE aspect of the game is horrible, and allows for say a Warrior in a glass canon build to solo Lupicus, or allows for anyone with half a brain to solo Champions.

Simply moving in this game is far better in PvE, than CC is. Cracks me up.

Seems like the fix is glaringly obvious. Take away the root effect of the auto attack skills and maybe increase pet in-combat movement speed a little bit. Zero impact to PvE, suddenly viable in PvP.

I’m 90% sure it works the way it does so the animation looks correct and the pet doesn’t slide along the ground as it swings its paw. While I appreciate the visual impact, gimping our whole class for it is a hell of a sacrifice.

It is also why all the Norn’s “Become the…” Elites are worthless.

Oglaf.1074:

It is also why all the Norn’s “Become the…” Elites are worthless.

at least thats just one elite.. and not one of the main sources of damage you have…

if only the devs realise there is a simple fix to this problem, just give all pet melee attack a hidden extension of range for example 400 units.The root will still happen with the attack animation but the actual dmg is ranged and will hit the target from a distance since by the time the attack animation starts,the target would be a few units away from the pet.This hidden extension of range should not be too far or else it will be too OP.

Problem with ranged pet attacks is that the projectile moves too slow.Another simple fix is using a part of “Beam technology” the one they mentioned in march SOTG for mesmer. By extending the width/radius of the projectile attack, it will increase the likelihood of hitting a strafing target via a wider beam hit zone.Piercing will be a bonus.

You know, I always found that heart a little annoying exclusively because of how tedious it is to hit things.

I have found you can compensate for it pretty effectively, but obviously, the AI never will. I had not made the correlation to our own pets though, and it really does make a lot of sense. I tend to just use pets for random bursts, and support f2 skills (like regen, or chilling opponents). Most of the time, I have them on passive. They have been extremely problematic otherwise.

Still doesnt explain their attitude problem when it comes to aggroing EVERYTHING around me. Dont know if its just me, but when on “aggressive,” my pet will literally aggro everything in site. Running from one mob to the next attacking. If I could get it to happen reliably, it might even be useful! But, no..

Tuluum.9638:

You know, I always found that heart a little annoying exclusively because of how tedious it is to hit things.

I have found you can compensate for it pretty effectively, but obviously, the AI never will. I had not made the correlation to our own pets though, and it really does make a lot of sense. I tend to just use pets for random bursts, and support f2 skills (like regen, or chilling opponents). Most of the time, I have them on passive. They have been extremely problematic otherwise.

Still doesnt explain their attitude problem when it comes to aggroing EVERYTHING around me. Dont know if its just me, but when on “aggressive,” my pet will literally aggro everything in site. Running from one mob to the next attacking. If I could get it to happen reliably, it might even be useful! But, no..

Yeah… that heart was a PITA for me until I figured out how to compensate. Still, the whole time I was like, “This is what it’s like as a pet? Okay, maybe I’ve been too hard on the furball.”

It seems like every melee pet has something akin to this, something I’ve compensated for by either crippling and/or stunning mobs long enough for my pet(s) to get at least a couple of good swipes in, or doing a role reversal by going melee myself and serving as aggro.

As for pets aggroing everything…

—Previously in Arah Exp 1—

“Raven, go claw the blobs out of those blobs! Raven, what are you doing? Raven, why are you flying past the blobs to attack the spiders? Raven, stahp!”

Party wipe

“Thanks, Raven. -_-”

funny that happened on the way to lupi the other night in arah p2 with my raven.

Dragikitten20:

funny that happened on the way to lupi the other night in arah p2 with my raven.

Every time my party tells me to get rid of my pet, I go, “Tell ANet that!”

achensherd.2735:

—Previously in Arah Exp 1—

“Raven, go claw the blobs out of those blobs! Raven, what are you doing? Raven, why are you flying past the blobs to attack the spiders? Raven, stahp!”

Party wipe

“Thanks, Raven. -_-”

After a tough couple of days, that was greatly appreciated! Sure made me laugh, hahaha.

I love noticing all-of-a-sudden that my pet is not by my side. Where for art thou, bear? I look off in the distance to see nothing but a bear butt surrounded by 20 red names bouncing and particle effects galore.

Its a double edged sword, it can be grandly entertaining in some situations. Ill frequently let them duke it out, and I have to say, the bear is a tough one. Takes like 3 days to burn through a few mobs, but I guess thats the price paid for being one tough SOB. I pretty much use the bear solely for this reason (its the only pet family that can take care of itself). Others, like birds and felines, seem to work in much better in overall play. Love the stealth jag with 30% crit damage increase. But now, because of this thread, I see exactly what the poor thing has to deal with.

I LOVE the sword main hand, but you can actually make that root work for you to an extreme degree. Even on that heart quest, the best you can do is compensate and hopefully just hit the darn rabbit. Certainly cant seem to make it work to your benefit. So, not only is the AI incapable of compensating for itself.. even if it could, it is too stifling for it to even use it for benefit.

Why are they rooted during their animation, again? Anet.. you gots some splainin to do! :P

Pets can be both utterly awesome and utterly atrocious in PvE at level 80.

Some days they can kill whatever’s bothering me while I’m rezzing someone, allow me to attack multiple, distant targets at once (e.g. claw the faces off the snipers in CM Exp 1 while I’m fighting the boss, or alternatively claw at the boss while I go upstairs to show the snipers what’s up), help rez me when no one else can, critically-hitting and killing something just in the nick of time, etc.

Other days, though…

“Attack, pet! Attack! ATTACK! What are you doing?! Don’t just stand there! GO! That colossus with all the arrows stuck in it now! Attack it! GO! All right, fine! (pulls out a sword and dagger) Let me show you how it’s done! See that colossus there? Lunge at it like this! See?! Now ATTACK! ATTAAACK!”

“Owwwww… that was a nasty fall. Kittening Risen Priest of Grenth. Aughhh… PET! Come lick my wounds! Come! Over here! My wounds, lick them! LICK THEM! Oh come on, I know I’m on a slightly elevated surface, but that doesn’t mean— oh god, he’s dropping me agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiinnnnnnn—!”

“Oh, not this again Raven— EVERYONE, INCOMING! My kittening pet did it again! I DID set him on passive! I CAN’T put him away! Whatever! Just RUNNNNN!”

=_=

neverborne.4736:

I was over in the Norn starting area doing some lowbie quests yesterday and I came across Honor the Spirit of Snow Leopard in Borealis Forest from Shaman Sigarr. Try this quest and you’ll be transformed into a snow leopard to hunt prey. Since the Snow Leopard is one of the pets I use consistently I found this extremely interesting.

In leopard form, it immediately became clear to me why our pets struggle so much with hitting moving targets and therefore are essentially useless in WvW. The leopards primary attack roots it in place and has a painfully long animation. I was grinding my teeth trying to hit the slow moving rabbits as they easily evaded me. Keep in mind these are dumb NPC’s moving in a straight line… not erratic humans intentionally trying to avoid being hit.

Interesting exercise if you want to understand your crummy pets better.

And Rangers total dps are shared with pets.

You run Past a few mobs to get to a quest etc and on the way one of them lands a hit on your pet, you press f3.. “come on leave him we’ve got more important things to do”. You get to the quest and after your first kill you end up fighting on your own, looking back you see your “trusty sidekick” disobeying you and goin bak for the mob you told em not to play with 5 minutes ago an now is half way across the map and you need to use pet swap or wait ages for them to run back… Every time why isn’t f3 permanent?

Mako.1942:

You run Past a few mobs to get to a quest etc and on the way one of them lands a hit on your pet, you press f3.. “come on leave him we’ve got more important things to do”. You get to the quest and after your first kill you end up fighting on your own, looking back you see your “trusty sidekick” disobeying you and goin bak for the mob you told em not to play with 5 minutes ago an now is half way across the map and you need to use pet swap or wait ages for them to run back… Every time why isn’t f3 permanent?

I’ve never had a problem like this… How far did you run after hitting F3? If you’re close enough, the monster could still be considered to be fighting your pet and will still be chasing your pet if that’s the case. Once you’re far enough away (about 3-4x SB range I’d say), your pet should break off and follow you, even if you never hit F3.

A guaranteed way to stop this is to wait till you’re out of combat, swap pets, then swap back. (I say wait till out of combat so you have the short CD).

Yes, it’s the stupid AI and lame animations.
C’mon, learn Bossfights from VINDICTUS please -.-’
(Plinx end Champion is the first sign for this suggestion)

What I HATE is how the pet always runs either to the left or right of you.

It essentially doubles your aggro width in dungeons and makes your team mates ever so frustrated with you!

Now what if they would exclude pets from a mob’s ‘agro radius’ as long as it doesn’t attack a mob? It might be a start to remove the frustration of accidental pulls.

Aveneo.2068:

Now what if they would exclude pets from a mob’s ‘agro radius’ as long as it doesn’t attack a mob? It might be a start to remove the frustration of accidental pulls.

Thats not a bad idea. It wouldnt reduce the “THIS IS SPARTA” moments where the pet decides to take an enemy down along with them wait a risen! That one too! ooh Another risen, Im taking you down with me too! perks little pet ears to the left That one too! And that one! And that one!

hahaha

On a different note, has anyone used Pigs much? I have been finding them incredibly effective. Bout to make a thread on it.