Guild Wars 2

It sounds stupid in the title, but what if:
- Ranger skills did more basic damage

And in trade:
- Pets did less damage (had less health, w/e)

BUT:
- Beast Mastery traits improve pet a tiny bit more than they currently do

Even if the changes are minor, like a low % damage difference, it would be positive. Think of the dungeon runs where pets die instantly, and wvw where pets fail to hit moving players. While working on that tough to fix stuff, it seems like a temporary fix would be to make the ranger less reliant on the pet for damage, but still give an option to make pets amazing (beast mastery in general pve is worth it at least).

Just an idea (>^-^)>

I would prefer them to fix the pet to attack while moving, and better survivability … And better responsiveness… and better survivability in dungeons and WvW.

But if they can’t fix those things, then sure, implement your idea.

Attacking while moving would be OP, they could however make the attack animation faster so the pet has easier time hitting. That or make the attack a “guaranteed” hit unless the target uses a dodge.

Mmm, I don’t agree that it would be overpowering. As long as the mob is standing still, my Ranger can kill it in the same amount of time as my Warrior and Ele.

I would like the opposite, stronger pets, slightly weaker rangers.
Ranger themselves already do little damage compare to other professions.
The problem of rangers’ overall damage is that pets do not do enough damage to achieve the 50% as they claimed to be. If pets were to be a lot more survivable and do more damage while able to attack on the move. It’ll solve a lot of our problems, which combines with bows’ projectile speed increase, ranger will be back to good standing.

I’d prefer a skill that lets you disable your pet being out for 30 seconds, and during those 30 seconds all your stats take a 20% increase. But the cooldown would be 3 minutes.

Fomby.4295:

Mmm, I don’t agree that it would be overpowering. As long as the mob is standing still, my Ranger can kill it in the same amount of time as my Warrior and Ele.

Pets run faster than players, making it hit while moving would be incredibly OP. By the time a player reaches you they would be already at 50% hp or even dead since you could just run away while the pet does the job for you.

Sleepy.2647:

Fomby.4295:

Mmm, I don’t agree that it would be overpowering. As long as the mob is standing still, my Ranger can kill it in the same amount of time as my Warrior and Ele.

Pets run faster than players, making it hit while moving would be incredibly OP. By the time a player reaches you they would be already at 50% hp or even dead since you could just run away while the pet does the job for you.

Oh, you mean players would have to respect the fact that there’s a pet attacking them?

I dunno, that sounds like a good thing.

Granted, I don’t think pets would deal that much damage on most melee player’s approach, given the leap and charge skills most melee players use in PvP situations.

Well, if that is in fact a problem. I’d have to experience it to tell since pets are affected by cripples and fears and other cc. So it would just mean that players would actually see our pet as a threat and have to deal with them instead of ignoring them. …. I got a little dreamy eyed thinking of that…

But anyways, maybe garuntee a pets hit or improve attack speed if they won’t let them attack while moving?

Wasdclick.1764:

Oh, you mean players would have to respect the fact that there’s a pet attacking them?

I dunno, that sounds like a good thing.

Granted, I don’t think pets would deal that much damage on most melee player’s approach, given the leap and charge skills most melee players use in PvP situations.

You don’t have to turn the pet into a kitten OP feature to make that happen, a pet is not supposed to hit moving targets all the time with no delay, if you can’t see how that’s OP then it’s pointless to argue about it. Pets outrun players in combat by a mile.

As i said, making the attack done a guaranteed hit would be the easier solution. Also improving a bit the AI. Pets already hit moving targets (in combat).

Where is the statement saying that pets aren’t supposed to be able to hit moving targets?

A ranger is normalized and balanced around pet DPS contributing to his own DPS. Even more so with Beastmaster Rangers, who make their pet better at expense to themselves.

So if you can slice off X% of a Ranger’s damage just by holding down a movement key, then something is wrong. Especially when players and enemy mobs don’t need to stop to take a swing at your face.

Pets are anything but OP right now. Making it able to attack on the move isn’t anything bad. Sure, a pet can be faster than most players with a trait for 30% extra move speed, but if that needs to sink down to 10 to 20%, or even be eliminated, in order to allow our pets to attack on the move, then so be it.

Attacking on the move is a core feature of GW2. Being rooted on an attack is a BIG DEAL. Like, crazy big. To have a core component of your class rooting on each and every attack is a tremendous issue, one that needs to be fixed.

They then would allow mesmer clones and other summons to do the same, and why not…mobs also should do the same.

The core feature is players being able to do it, and plenty of skills root you in place.

For now, players don’t even need to dodge to avoid the pet sometimes. Pets often halt before attacking, and the attack won’t connect if the player is just running about. I was just thinking that a damage increase would be a decent improvement, but now I realize that it would just take time to implement, might not work out too well, etc. I trust Anet will find the right solution eventually.

Wasdclick.1764:

Where is the statement saying that pets aren’t supposed to be able to hit moving targets?

.

Not to mention weapons like thief SB benefit greatly from your stupid pet giving them twice as much damage against you on top of the plethora of %damage increases they have through traits and signets.

I don’t really agree with all these ideas, other than the pet simply needs to work right and apply its damage. I mean c’mon, this class is not new to mmos the pet needs to work, anything less is not ok. I think Anet already knows that. The pet needs simplified and sped up. I care much much less about how it looks than how it works.

I should add I’ve mostly done wvw and that’s what I was was talking about. As someone who just started doing fractals, yeah, pet useless and a handicap.

I would honestly rather the same set up as GW1. Where we got to choose if we were going to be a beast master and use a pet or not. As it sits we are lumped with a pet period.

I would rather just lose the pet and gain the damage from the pet as a permanent buff to my Rangers damage. – Rather have the choice to be a beast master or just a ranger.

Don’t get me wrong, my pet has come in handy a few times and I am utilising the great many pets at my disposal. I just don’t like that I am forced into using it as part of the class. when I think Ranger I think Martin Longbow from the “Magician” book series.

Sleepy.2647:

They then would allow mesmer clones and other summons to do the same, and why not…mobs also should do the same.

The core feature is players being able to do it, and plenty of skills root you in place.

Yes, Mesmer clones should. Summons should too. And yes, even enemy mobs should. Heck, the Centaurs have been pretty good about chasing after me and attacking on the run.

But especially Mesmer clones and Ranger pets. The game’s combat is built around what the player can do. To give a class a core feature that can’t do all the things a player can means that there’s going to be problems. Ones that hurt the experience of playing the class. And when you take that to a PvP area, that class, and a class that is operating at full player skill efficiency, are going to be imbalanced. The limited feature of our less fortunate class means that it has to become unbalanced to be competitive. That gives us two solutions…

1) Buff the bejeebus out of pets or Rangers, making them cause enough damage that in a straight DPS test, they WILL out-class all other professions.

2) Eliminate as many limiting parts of the pet as possible. Rooting on attack is a limiting feature, as it means a Ranger must immobilize the target in order to have a chance of using their full potential. Not every weapon on the Ranger can do that reliably. Attacking on the move would remove that limit, and allow the Ranger to work towards their full potential, without limiting them to options that make their pet work properly.

So, then remove all the skills in the game that root players/mobs in place since everything has to be done while moving?
You don’t know what you are saying

Easiest fix for pets…buff their run speed (done with the new 25% signet) and make their hits a granted hit no matter how far they move after the pet started the animation.

Sleepy.2647:

So, then remove all the skills in the game that root players/mobs in place since everything has to be done while moving?
You don’t know what you are saying

Easiest fix for pets…buff their run speed (done with the new 25% signet) and make their hits a granted hit no matter how far they move after the pet started the animation.

No, I’m saying make PETS attack while moving, so they aren’t rooting every swing of the claws.

When a player has an attack that roots them, it’s got a cooldown, and they can easily pop a cripple or immobilize first. That’s called a “combo.” It’s something easy to do, that maximizes your effectiveness, without being invasive, and without being obligatory.

When you have to constantly apply cripple and immobilize to make your core class mechanic work… That’s called a “problem.” Because suddenly, you have to choose between ignoring your core mechanic that’s always on… Or limiting your choices until you can support that core mechanic. So you’re either limited down to a very slim selection of abilities, or you’re not living up to your full potential.

Think of it this way… Does a Mesmer have to take only clone and phantasm skills in order to maximize their potential because of shatters? No. They can use shatter as a versatile tool, or as their main way of obliterating their enemies.

Does an Engineer have to use kits? Nope. There’s plenty who just use their pistols or rifle and do a darn fine job of things.

Does a Necromancer have to maximize their uptime on Death Shroud to do “standard” levels of damage? Not at all. Many use it as an emergency button.

A Ranger has to use cripples and immobilizes in order to get up to par with other classes, because a quarter of their damage and utility potential is an AI controlled pet that can’t do jack-diddly-squat without it.

Faster speed won’t help much either. A pet will move the minimum distance required to attack, meaning they are at the furthest range from the target. They move slightly away, and the pet whiffs. The pet moves up to that same ill-fated range, and whiffs again because the person keeps moving.

Auto-hit won’t work either. Because it’s a dodge-based defensive game, players need to be rewarded for dodging properly and attacking from the right angles. Tactical movement is a thing that should be respected. Auto-hitting on the start of the animation would’t let players dodge the attack in any way, and would marginalize GW2’s unique combat structure.

(Also, walking out of a pet’s attack radius is not “tactical movement.” It’s cheeseing the AI. If you dodge out, that’s great. If the attack has a huge wind up and you can walk out in time, fine. But one shouldn’t simply walk out of autoattacks.)

Wasdclick.1764:

Auto-hit won’t work either. Because it’s a dodge-based defensive game, players need to be rewarded for dodging properly and attacking from the right angles. Tactical movement is a thing that should be respected. Auto-hitting on the start of the animation would’t let players dodge the attack in any way, and would marginalize GW2’s unique combat structure.

So, making a pet attack while moving doesn’t defeat your whole argument of “being able to dodge”? rolf…
A pet would always be hitting his target without a single chance of dodging because your target would always have a pet on their butt considering they run pretty much twice as fast as a player in combat when using the trait.

Yeah, because GW2 combat is so unique that several attacks (skills and autoattacks) are IMPOSSIBLE to be evaded unless you use dodge, which is no different than “auto-hitting” as you call it. That’s why i said that if a pet uses autoattack it shouldn’t miss unless the target uses dodge.

I must be insane for thinking pets would be OP by allowing them to hit while moving…so i hope they add this to the rangers. In fact…yeah, make pets hit while moving.

Pets are already weak enough, there is no reason to make them any weaker, they need to be stronger and rangers need to be stronger. Pets need survivability, stat scaling with your gear, quicker response time with skills, attacking while moving like everything else does in the game.

Since some people seem to have issue with pets hitting moving objects, i give you this “The problems are deeper, in pets ability to hit moving targets…”

Just remove pets from rangers when they go in a dungeon or spvp.

and make ranger class redirect to warrior on character creation

For starters, the pet shouldn’t account for much real damage. A ranger without a pet should do maybe 5% less damage than another DPS class and a ranger with a pet should do maybe 5% more damage than another DPS class. This way the pet is properly balanced for periods of inactivity.

Secondly, they will need to do the same thing that WoW did to their Hunters. Make AE’s do about 95% less damage to pets, make pets always attack from behind a target to avoid the bulk of AE’s, and make the pets amount to next to nothing for the class as a whole.

In WoW, a pet was little more than a taunting machine and a DOT. In this game it should be about the same, but make the bulk of the Hunter’s group utility come from the pet’s shout. Since this class has horrible burst potential, they should also consider making the pet do the rangers burst damage in a way that won’t mess up it’s PvE damage. The way to do this would be to make the pet consume condition effects like bleeds, dazes, and stuns and convert this to large amounts of damage. In PvE you would’t want to remove bleeds till the very end because they’ll do more damage and things like the dazes and stuns don’t work on a lot of stuff in PvE.

If they’re worried about another pet button, that’s easy to resolve too by simply making the attack pet button (F1) a toggle so if the pet is active F1 will make it return. If the pet isn’t attacking, hitting F1 will send it out.

Wasdclick.1764:

Oh, you mean players would have to respect the fact that there’s a pet attacking them?

I dunno, that sounds like a good thing.

Granted, I don’t think pets would deal that much damage on most melee player’s approach, given the leap and charge skills most melee players use in PvP situations.

There is difference between threat, and an imbalanced threat….
Anyways, I run canines and just play them well so don’t really notice the missing issue all that much.
At worst I have to unclick my target for the canine F2 and/or give in to the typical delay, which is fine since an on demand aoe fear on a pet that hits for 800->3k… is a bit much.
Then again I do run a condition spec so do have cripples/chills out the kitten

I wouldn’t mind having a trait for 1/2 CC durations on yourself, or buffs to spirits. Both would help the class use its amazing dodging and/or get them to work with others a bit better. The class needs a bit of help in both aspects…
Compared to mesmers, rangers are just in the hole… multiple mesmer specs can 1v1 as good if not better (and lets face it, that’s the best thing the ranger class has going for itself atm) and to boot mesmers can pull it off in spike dmg… which is the best kind of dmg. To boot they have as good of evading as rangers because of that silly ‘vigor on crit’ minor trait on top of distortion, invisibility, stuns/dazes… Rangers need a terrible amount of buffing to compete, at least competitively… what mesmers are doing right now with their semi-bunker deal is what rangers actually seem to be made for since they have bad->terrible synergy with others, yet stand alone pretty well… but rangers are just all around worse at it…

Wasdclick.1764:

So if you can slice off X% of a Ranger’s damage just by holding down a movement key, then something is wrong. Especially when players and enemy mobs don’t need to stop to take a swing at your face.

Have you shot a longbow?

In all serious, I agree. If pets are part of the core mechanic and an expected contributor to damage, the should have a reasonable chance to hit a moving target.

I’ve noticed that there are a few ways to go about dealing with compensating for pets not being able to attack players. they are stun-daze, freeze, cripple, immobilize, more cripple, more freeze, more daze, knockback+knockdown, attack speed increase ‘’Sick Em’’.

in short, i’ve found to be a great DPS machine while using the tools for slowing my enemy to let my pet hit them, since my pet hits almost 3x more dmg that i do i find that satisfying. the axe mainhand has a nice freeze, the dagger offhand has a good cripple along with a dodge+poison, both bows have a cripple, shortbow has a stun with daze added in, while the longbow has a knockdown but weakness+IMS [increase movement speed]. for greatsword you have a good block for yourself and a knockdown when blocking in melee range, and a daze +stun when behind. there are a lot of great ways to create slowed movement speed, we have frost trap, spike, muddy terrain [my favorite immobilize +cripple] and elite skill entangle. theres also the trait that causes cripple when hitting someone under % hp. oh yeah and the last and undeniably the most efficent way- sword autoattack hit 1=cripple hit2=leap with cripple hit 3=pet might.

I like the idea as long as a pet with a full investment in BM did as much as they currently do.

WeWantWaffles.2873:

It sounds stupid in the title, but what if:
- Ranger skills did more basic damage

And in trade:
- Pets did less damage (had less health, w/e)

BUT:
- Beast Mastery traits improve pet a tiny bit more than they currently do

Even if the changes are minor, like a low % damage difference, it would be positive. Think of the dungeon runs where pets die instantly, and wvw where pets fail to hit moving players. While working on that tough to fix stuff, it seems like a temporary fix would be to make the ranger less reliant on the pet for damage, but still give an option to make pets amazing (beast mastery in general pve is worth it at least).

Just an idea (>^-^)>

Genius Like in other mmos no way most will fight this idea. Since Pets will get fixed sometime next year and we all love waiting as less people play rangers and more quit Thiefwars 2 or is stealthwars 2 a better name?

Pets are just terrible, i could just have the option to not use them and get a tiny bonus i would be happy.

agreed on the weaker pets stronger rangers.
I liked it better in gw1, where pets were essentially meatshields, unless you picked up skills for them and put points in beastmastery.

Thats how it should be, transferring a big chunk of dps to something out of player’s control is a BAD idea. Sure, you can order them around, but they’re still not you. They dont dodge, don’t pick the shortest path, don’t reposition in order to maximize damage, and in many istances you HAVE to keep them on peaceful at your side most of the time if you dont want to screw up your party.

Making the AI better is good, but many of these issues can’t be fully resolved, so let the players CHOOSE, via traits and uilities, what they want their pet to be, a meatshield (default) or an integral part of their build.