Either directly or indirectly, the biggest complaint of rangers on the forums seems to be their pets. As far as I can tell, none of the developers play ranger as their main, meaning we don’t have an advocate. So where does that leave rangers? Crying over our spilt milk.
Personally, I think the devs really need to rework the beastmastery line and make pets reflect more how we set up our rangers. Below are a few suggestions as to how that might work.
A) Our pets act as part of our damage and health pool. Placing pet in peace mode should not cripple rangers by essentially removing the pet. Instead peace mode should be potentially another strategic option for rangers by triggering a boon. The boon is replacing the large loss in DPS.
Ex. for peace mode boons:
Shared pain (half of damage taken by ranger is taken by pet instead) -or-
Swiftness (pet is no longer guarding so ranger and pet can run full out) -or-
Stability (pet is not actively attacking mob, but “actively” supporting the ranger) -or-
Soothe hurts (pet takes conditions from ranger)
B) Trait line point bonuses should affect the pet as well as the ranger. If a ranger dumps 6 trait points into marksmanship to make their attacks hit harder (+power), then pets attacks (~30% of ranger DPS) should also hit harder. Same goes for precision, toughness and/or vitality. I’m not suggesting that equipment bonuses should affect the pet either. Why should ~30% of what makes us rangers be unaffected by our trait point choices. We can’t spec out of our pet like the necros can theirs if they choose not to buff them.
C) Spending points in the beastmastery line should enhance pets far more than it does. While it does help the pet/ranger a tiny bit, I find the points much better spent and more cost effective anywhere else. You can tell how bad it’s going to be with the first point spent. Instinctual bond….seriously? Painful bond would have been better with the pet taking 10% of damage dealt to the ranger.
Rending attacks, stability training and intimidation training, why are these restricted to work with only certain pets? Intimidation would actually be worthwhile if it applied to all pets.
Zephyr’s speed should be replaced completely. I’d rather see something where any boon the pet/ranger gets is shared with the other (Fortifying bond only goes from ranger to pet). That is a much better grandmaster trait.
Conclusion
It doesn’t have to be about DPS or the health pool. Utility is just as useful. A pet could be ccing, or stripping boons or absorbing damage or eating conditions off the ranger. There is some of this dispersed in the trait lines, but those would be a better fit in the beastmastery line. Anything to make it so you have to kill the ranger/pet team instead of just the ranger or the pet.
Ever since the first MMO’s came out and rangers kited melees into the dirt, developers have made rangers the “bottom of the food chain” and weak. For some reason, they think “historically” melees were on top and should be in an MMO. They forget the longbow put Britain on top as much as their navy. Genghis Khan’s warriors wielded the recurve bow, not the sword, from horseback to win their battles. Or, maybe they all play melee and don’t want a fair fight.
Kiting ability is fairly poor in GW2. The ranger profession mechanic (pets) has some significant issues. This can be most felt in PvP situations, but affects PvE as well (group situations more acutely). Rangers have very little control over their profession mechanic. If the devs can’t fix AI issues and don’t want to increase DPS, then perhaps increased pet utility is the way to go.
Rangers should not be considered a “free kill” in PvP or the unwanted/auto kick class in dungeons.