Guild Wars 2

Looking for an answer from ArenaNet though any opinions on this topic is of course welcomed. The game that should not be named (who am I kidding, WoW, I am talking about WoW), has damage reduction for pets from AoE damage. This solves a lot of issues the Ranger equivalent has with their pets.

Why isn’t there something like this in Guild Wars 2? The pet is a large part of the Ranger class but completely useless in WvW, large events or even smaller fights that have AoE in it.

This has been requested since 2012.

Nice to hear and good afternoon!

Nice to see a red post again! welcome back! A flat boost to pet staffs, even just toughness and Vitality, would go a long way to make our pets more survivable. I think they need a boost across the board stat-wise but to prevent power creep just those two would help a lot. Even if this increase where only in PVE.

Thank you Irenio,
I feel delighted to finally hear some of your insights on how do you want your game to be. So far, we’ve been held in blindness.

While I believe PvE solution such as the Fractal effect (-50% damage from everything if not targeted) might solve everything, I can tell that it’s mathematically incorrect to implement it for PvP. Because every damage soaked by the pet is potential save of a player (5-men cap can include a pet instead of player).

Thank you for having such a dedication for our class. With your presence around I feel like we still have hope.

Notes:
I personally think that decreasing Pet damage income via Bark Skin for PvE is a good way to handle the things. That is one way how to handle the design.
The other is to give players better control of the pet. In their current form – they are way too random and easy to be abused. If rangers get more access to pet control, much of the mentioned could be solved.

Just one thing that comes to mind is in-combat pet stowing option. Without any buff to compensate. Just being able to save your pet from harm to have it ready for moments when you need it would be simple yet extremely effective solution.
For balance reasons giving it a same CD as Pet Swap (since it functions as such even now) is totally fine and would give plenty of smart play with pet control into action (you would be able to save your current pet instead of swapping it to another one – with the same CD as swapping it etc).
Any other active form of handling the ranger pet is what we need. Our pets mostly die because we can’t save them regardless of how we try.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

As somebody who mostly plays Mesmer and Ranger in PvE, I’m going to have to ask you to hurry up.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

Please do something.

Coming out of the dredge fractal with the ice elemental boss making me have my pet permanently on follow because otherwise it gets immediately downed by clustered ice spikes and all that lethal AoE spam is annoying. Same goes for Molten Duo.

In addition, this extends to bosses with melee cleave like Mossman and Archdiviner and Ettin who do such immense casual cleave damage with just melee autoattacks that I can’t even run jaguar pets to do as close to competitive DPS to other players in my group, having to instead resort to run to much lower DPS pets like drakes.

It’s also curious that out of all the melee pets we have, only drakes cleave. Which disadvantages the ranger specifically in cleave damage output compared to other classes, since the competitive DPS pet, the jaguar, does not cleave. A warrior, guardian, elementalist, engineer, reaper and thief are doing significantly more cleave damage.

Please also look into scaling pets to the player’s ascended stats. All other classes gain 100% benefit to their damage from ascended stats, yet ranger pets stay static so in the best case scenario of jaguar making 17% of our total damage (other pets do far less a %).

Pets also cannot achieve the same level of ferocity as a berzerker player, so in several ways our pet is not scaling as well as we are, and it makes the ranger fall behind the other classes as their damage output is balanced around the presence of a pet that doesn’t scale with potions, sigils, food, runes, or ascended gear stat upgrades.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

There’s a mistlock instability that reduce damages on untargeted foes. This could be a start and the technology exists.

arkealia.2713:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

There’s a mistlock instability that reduce damages on untargeted foes. This could be a start and the technology exists.

Excellent suggestion. The solution is already present ingame Irenio. Lets make it happen.

Indeed, nice to see you here Irenio, you bring some good news.

Tragic Positive.9356:

While I believe PvE solution such as the Fractal effect (-50% damage from everything if not targeted) might solve everything, I can tell that it’s mathematically incorrect to implement it for PvP. Because every damage soaked by the pet is potential save of a player (5-men cap can include a pet instead of player).

Yes, Heimskarl’s idea looks appropriate, for ranger’s pets at least.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

Please just reduce the pet swap cooldown on dead pets. Currently it goes from 20 seconds to 60 seconds, that’s 3 times the original amount. A very heavy punishment and often there is nothing that could have been done to prevent it.

Once a pet is dead the next pet will also likely die since it has to survive for 60 seconds instead of 20. So it quickly feels like the pet is completely worthless and dead the whole time.

I’d say make it 20 seconds, since it’s the class mechanic after all and all kinds of skills and traits and weapons need a living pet which are all unreliable because of it.

30 seconds might be fine too and maybe even 40, but that’s pushing it. 60s is way too long.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

Wouldn’t the code be something simple like:

Pet Defense ( If(PetAggro == true){Set PetDefense = 0;} else if(PetAggrp == false){Set PetDefense = 80;})

PetAggro would be for NPCs and if player has pet target, it then would come up true too. Just doesn’t seem to hard in theory to put in, or is the engine designed in such a way you can’t make these type of calls/checks?

Holland.9351:

Once a pet is dead the next pet will also likely die since it has to survive for 60 seconds instead of 20. So it quickly feels like the pet is completely worthless and dead the whole time.

^^This

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

Oh please don’t make minions even better damage sponges. It would be fine if AoE wasn’t capped but throwing a 40s well of corruption on a point and have literally 0 boons on players converted because tons of minions, pets and clones on the point are closer to the center of the AoE eating all the ticks is terrible. One of the strongest points of minions and pets is exactly that they eat up damage which could hurt players instead…

Sure give them AoE protection, but at the same time, increase the max target limit to 50+.

Varonth.5830:

Oh please don’t make minions even better damage sponges..

This I can agree with (as I mentioned already).
Having better control of our AI is what we need. We need a way to position/control our pets to prevent them from dying.

That would be the thing to distinguish good players from the bad.
OR
The survivability for pets could be implemented for PvE only, you know.

Good to See You Irenio, Please don’t leave us alone for so long again…. we grow lonely and terrified when roy comes in trying to remedy things..

Would definitely love some static % dmg reduction on pets

IF its possible, pet health and vitality should scale up according to the number of enemies in WvW like reaper shouts.

Pet stats should also scale to a maximum of +5% stats depending on the number of ascended gear equipped.

Also, pets do not benefit from vigor

And this https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/191360/Pet_UI.jpg PLEASEEEEEEEE don’t worry about cluttered UI, this would make it sooooo much better

I agree we need better control over our pets but we definitely need some sort of blanket aoe damage resistance. There are players that enjoy PvE and WvW where unavoidable aoe damage cripples a third of the characters effective damage regardless of that players skill. To not take this under consideration seems to do those players a disservice.

Tragic Positive.9356:

While I believe PvE solution such as the Fractal effect (-50% damage from everything if not targeted) might solve everything, I can tell that it’s mathematically incorrect to implement it for PvP. Because every damage soaked by the pet is potential save of a player (5-men cap can include a pet instead of player).

Any aoe (or cleave) damage reduction for pets would only be necessary in pve and wvw. Pvp is fine as it is, no need for such mechanics there.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

nice to hear man. we’ve been BEGGING for this for 3 years. it’s really rough for pets in wvw (raids, zergs, whatever) and pve. in conquest, they do just fine.

and yes, please be careful with minionmancers. we only have one pet, while they have multiple which act as aoe sponges. you’ll have to treat the two profs differently. not sure if gyros, turrets and spirit weapons would need a different treatment as well. some of these are meant to die quickly, whereas our pets need to last.

This is awesome, as pets are kind of vital for ranger dps, the pets make as whole and when they die in boss fights from aoes its just not cool thank you arena net, thank you.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

Another problem is that the system is built around the dodge roll, which pets lack. Putting ‘dodge or die’ attacks on bosses in dungeons and fractals must have seemed a great way to increase the challenge of these areas, but it can destroy the viability of ranger (and, to a lesser extent, mesmer) in those areas.

Better survivability is key. If you need to split pve and pvp to do this, then please do it. Don’t let pvp interfere with pve please.

I really wish you guys could make pets move and attack at the same time while you’re at it. It’s crippling for them to not have this in any raid that requires high movement.

Also, even though you don’t intend for pets to have AoE damage reduction I beg you to consider it for spirits. Especially since you made it so they cannot move. Once again if there is an issue with pvp, please split the skills.

edit: Just did the Legendary Wyvern event which seems buffed since the last time I fought it. Now this is fine, except my pets were dead for most of the fight. Very frustrating.

this makes me a bit happy to see that its somthing on their checklist of things to look at.

thanks a ton

The legendary Wyvern Fight in my honest opinion was amusing but extremely disappointing as playing a druid for it… Most of the time I felt as if I were drawing on the dragon with a laser pointer (damage was meaningless and extremely low) aside from that it became mash wisp whenever it was up…

When that got boring I ran around jumping and talking in chat as other classes were dead in the wyverns flames… just chatting til i could pick them up.

But all in all, yes… pet was dead 95% of the time

I have a novel suggestion. How about upping the pets ai. Visible aoe like wells will force the pet to take a different route to target or wait to engage (2-3 seconds). Give the pet its own stamina bar and the ai to dodge an incoming attack periodically. This could be useless or useful depending on how you use it. We know you guys could do it. Why not try it out and see if it helps?

TheGuy.3568:

I have a novel suggestion. How about upping the pets ai. Visible aoe like wells will force the pet to take a different route to target or wait to engage (2-3 seconds). Give the pet its own stamina bar and the ai to dodge an incoming attack periodically. This could be useless or useful depending on how you use it. We know you guys could do it. Why not try it out and see if it helps?

No. Making the pet sit dumb out of AoE doing zero DPS just so that it doesn’t die is readily available by jut setting your pet to follow.

The pets need to have aoe/cleave avoidance, and anything below drakes needs HP/toughness buffs to not be 1-2 shot by a boss when they get aggro.

They also need to get rid of that archaic 60 second death timer for the pet. It’s absurd.

Yup; 50% damage reduction when untargeted (mistlock instability: playing favorites), 0.75s evade on Ranger dodge and a 20s flat recharge on pet swaps when untraited would solve all the survivability issues.

Then give them a +20% base run speed like GW1 pets had so they are actually faster than a player. So when you trait into BM, they are actually 50% faster. GW1 was far slower than GW2 and yet the pets here, now, are slower still, no wonder they cannot hit anything. Also, increase the range of all pet melee attacks to 250-300 and normalize all the pet traits and skills that have a radius to a 450 radius instead of 240-600. See the picture attached for how crazy that is.

A fair bit of work, but that’s the vast majority of pet issues solved…

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

Please tell me illusions will be added into this is well. It is very frustrating to summon an illusion and have it explode before you can do anything with it. Wasn’t so bad at all when we had on death traits but now that we don’t, we summon it and it dies before it can make an attack or be used for a shatter.

Please tell me illusions will be added into this is well. It is very frustrating to summon an illusion and have it explode before you can do anything with it. Wasn’t so bad at all when we had on death traits but now that we don’t, we summon it and it dies before it can make an attack or be used for a shatter.

well first off wrong forum, second if you get a trait that grants illusions distortion on summon

Shoe.5821:

Please tell me illusions will be added into this is well. It is very frustrating to summon an illusion and have it explode before you can do anything with it. Wasn’t so bad at all when we had on death traits but now that we don’t, we summon it and it dies before it can make an attack or be used for a shatter.

well first off wrong forum, second if you get a trait that grants illusions distortion on summon

This is stupidly ignorant, please don’t post about classes you know nothing about.

Distortion on summon is only for phantasms, not clones, and it competes for reflection on focus which means it will never be taken in PvE because reflects are more important for your group.

More importantly, it’s on Inspiration traitline, a non-DPS traitline and since all mesmers must go chrono for alacrity for the group, you have to drop either domination or dueling for inspiration, which nerfs your damage immensely.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

The problem here is the lack of control precision over pet movement and terrible skills and f2 root. Pets often overrun and lagging behind from players movement. Yes, even when one dodged out of aoe and press the pet to return instantly all together.
Therefore, the whole positioning argument when it comes to pets is just completely out of the window.
Pets AI and movement need improvement. The request for AOE damage reduction on pets make sense when those 2 are problems with no solution on horizon.

This is stupidly ignorant, please don’t post about classes you know nothing about.
Distortion on summon is only for phantasms, not clones, and it competes for reflection on focus which means it will never be taken in PvE because reflects are more important for your group.

wow, i sure feel bad for getting something wrong about mesmer in the ranger forum!

if you mean clones say clones, ‘illusions’ means both. in any case, its amazing how traits have tradeoffs, funny how that works.

Well one of the things we can do is to remove/change pet killing traits and abilities and make so that Rangers self cleanse also cleanses the pet. Rangers evasion frames also need to be added to the pet, both from dodge and weapon skills.
Also, there is a pretty big difference between PvE and PvP,WvW when it comes to pet HPs. While I agree that perhaps, a HP buff in PvP would be OTT, WvW absolutely needs to have the same pet HP values as PvP.

So as far as pet survivability goes I would:
- use PvE pet HP values for WvW
- change Emphatic bond to have a positive effect for the pet. Instead of transfering let it convert 3 conditions on the ranger into 3 boons on the pet.
- change protect me to not kill the pet
- add a 1 second blurr effect when the Ranger dodges
- add blurr effects on the pet for every weapon and utility based effect the Ranger has, with the same duration.
- Make it so WS skills cleanse both the Ranger and the pet.

Even if some of these happen the Pet reliability will skyrocket!!

Zenith.7301:

TheGuy.3568:

I have a novel suggestion. How about upping the pets ai. Visible aoe like wells will force the pet to take a different route to target or wait to engage (2-3 seconds). Give the pet its own stamina bar and the ai to dodge an incoming attack periodically. This could be useless or useful depending on how you use it. We know you guys could do it. Why not try it out and see if it helps?

No. Making the pet sit dumb out of AoE doing zero DPS just so that it doesn’t die is readily available by jut setting your pet to follow.

The pets need to have aoe/cleave avoidance, and anything below drakes needs HP/toughness buffs to not be 1-2 shot by a boss when they get aggro.

They also need to get rid of that archaic 60 second death timer for the pet. It’s absurd.

I said path around too but thank you for ignoring that. I said dodge too but thank you for ignoring that too. I said delay (ie wait for a sustained skill like a well to run a bit then engage) but you ignored that too. Thank you for your feed back. I suggested upping the ai to that of a basic player and you said nope sounds bad.

Pets do not need an invul and players should not need to micro manage them to death. Give them better ai they will dodge big hits just like players do. I think maybe you might need an ai boost too. I kid but really?

TheGuy.3568:

Zenith.7301:

TheGuy.3568:

I have a novel suggestion. How about upping the pets ai. Visible aoe like wells will force the pet to take a different route to target or wait to engage (2-3 seconds). Give the pet its own stamina bar and the ai to dodge an incoming attack periodically. This could be useless or useful depending on how you use it. We know you guys could do it. Why not try it out and see if it helps?

No. Making the pet sit dumb out of AoE doing zero DPS just so that it doesn’t die is readily available by jut setting your pet to follow.

The pets need to have aoe/cleave avoidance, and anything below drakes needs HP/toughness buffs to not be 1-2 shot by a boss when they get aggro.

They also need to get rid of that archaic 60 second death timer for the pet. It’s absurd.

I said path around too but thank you for ignoring that. I said dodge too but thank you for ignoring that too. I said delay (ie wait for a sustained skill like a well to run a bit then engage) but you ignored that too. Thank you for your feed back. I suggested upping the ai to that of a basic player and you said nope sounds bad.

Pets do not need an invul and players should not need to micro manage them to death. Give them better ai they will dodge big hits just like players do. I think maybe you might need an ai boost too. I kid but really?

I wouldn’t be talking about people needing better AI if you can’t use F3 to micro the pet. Pet classes are micro classes.

Don’t be so bitter that your suggestions suck.

The pathing would fix nothing, most bosses place those aoe on top of themselves, meaning the pet would pathe away from them and do nothing. Most of the things that kill your pet are not only circle AoE, but autoattack melee cleaves like mossman or archdiviner who autoattack for 10k+ damage a hit.

So, neither your pathing or evade on dodge would truly fix anything given the frequency bosses cleave and aoe, the pet would be virtually self CC’d the entire encounter trying to dodge while doing no damage itself.

Pets need invuln to AoE, it’s that simple. This becomes even more evident in WvW zerg clashes. Who out of the 30+ players is the pet going to path around the spammed aoe? And whose hits is it going to try to evade when it’s a sustained barrage of aoe and cleave far beyond a couple of seconds of evade frames.

You people really have no clue how pervasive and sustained high damage aoe/cleave in this game is.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

if you’re argument is alot of attacks are aoe so that’s too many attacks my pet takes less damage from i disagree, any class can kill my pet in a handful of attacks a better idea would be for my dead pet to not go on a 60s cd on swap and instead keep it at 20s, there’s no reason to have our class mechanic knocked out for a minute

Shoe.5821:

This is stupidly ignorant, please don’t post about classes you know nothing about.
Distortion on summon is only for phantasms, not clones, and it competes for reflection on focus which means it will never be taken in PvE because reflects are more important for your group.

wow, i sure feel bad for getting something wrong about mesmer in the ranger forum!

if you mean clones say clones, ‘illusions’ means both. in any case, its amazing how traits have tradeoffs, funny how that works.

You know this is the first time a dev has actually responded to any class asking about Minion/pet/illusion survivability in PVE? You know phantasms dieing is even more crippling to Mesmer then Pets dieing, since literally everything a Mesmer does is tied to have illusions up? If they added a trait in Nature magic that give Pets 1 sec of distortion after being swapped in would you declare Rangers problems over?

I am 100% sure that absolutely NOTHING will be done for either Ranger pets [which we will use and care about SOOOOOOOOOOOO much when Druids come out] or Mesmer phantasms.

SemiProBBQ.8946:

if you’re argument is alot of attacks are aoe so that’s too many attacks my pet takes less damage from i disagree, any class can kill my pet in a handful of attacks a better idea would be for my dead pet to not go on a 60s cd on swap and instead keep it at 20s, there’s no reason to have our class mechanic knocked out for a minute

It’s not a matter of balance but of sheer mechanics. There is no code that differentiates “AoE” damage from “Single target” damage. They can’t make an AoE damage reduction ability because there is no AoE damage. There is only damage.

Ehecatl.9172:

SemiProBBQ.8946:

if you’re argument is alot of attacks are aoe so that’s too many attacks my pet takes less damage from i disagree, any class can kill my pet in a handful of attacks a better idea would be for my dead pet to not go on a 60s cd on swap and instead keep it at 20s, there’s no reason to have our class mechanic knocked out for a minute

It’s not a matter of balance but of sheer mechanics. There is no code that differentiates “AoE” damage from “Single target” damage. They can’t make an AoE damage reduction ability because there is no AoE damage. There is only damage.

I’m extraordinarily skeptical this isn’t doable. Maybe the engine doesn’t track AoE damage, but it absolutely tracks individual skills and has conditional damage increases based on the target’s state – For instance, traits can deal +X% damage if Condition-Y is on the target. Or Ancient seeds, where if you hit people under particular CC statuses, you immobilize.

Well, here’s a state to track: Is_Minion. Then, on skills deemed acceptable, Is_Minion: -90%, or -80%, -10% damage, whatever! I don’t pretend to know what the right number is. I don’t know the full list of skills that would need this by any means, but it certainly would include at least some boss specials.

But don’t tell someone who regularly plays a modern MMO where not only do pets have pet protection, but that protection doesn’t apply to cleaves (Which, in the other MMO, only hit pets when either a tank or the pet owner drastically kitten up), most room-wide or otherwise unavoidable damage, or similar. This is absolutely doable – you don’t have to mark AoE damage as special, just the moves that cause it. It should be doable within currently existing technology, going solely off of traits we know exist (And probably without an annoying buff icon to mark minions to boot).

Would melee cleaves keep their full damage? I have no idea whether they would, or should – in the MMO I’m thinking of, they do, but you have to screw up greatly for a cleave to hit your pet (Or occasionally, be volunteering them to take damage for someone else). Maybe in Guild Wars 2, cleaves default to -30% minion damage, PBAoE defaults to -50%, and Targetted AoE defaults to -80%. I don’t know. But this should absolutely be doable. Time consuming, if they have to individually go through every single peon’s skill list, but doable. And really, they would ‘only’ need to do it for player skills, dungeons, world events/bosses, wuvwuv mobs, and raids (I’m pretty sure). Still probably time consuming, but by no means a technology issue.

Rutee.1058:

Ehecatl.9172:

SemiProBBQ.8946:

if you’re argument is alot of attacks are aoe so that’s too many attacks my pet takes less damage from i disagree, any class can kill my pet in a handful of attacks a better idea would be for my dead pet to not go on a 60s cd on swap and instead keep it at 20s, there’s no reason to have our class mechanic knocked out for a minute

It’s not a matter of balance but of sheer mechanics. There is no code that differentiates “AoE” damage from “Single target” damage. They can’t make an AoE damage reduction ability because there is no AoE damage. There is only damage.

I’m extraordinarily skeptical this isn’t doable. Maybe the engine doesn’t track AoE damage, but it absolutely tracks individual skills and has condition-based damage increases – For instance, traits can deal +X% damage if Condition-Y is on the target

Well, here’s a state to track: Is_Minion. Then, on skills deemed acceptable, Is_Minion: -90%, or -80%, or -10%. I don’t pretend to know what the right number is. I don’t know the full list of skills that would need this by any means, but it certainly would include at least some boss specials.

But don’t tell someone who regularly plays a modern MMO where not only do pets have pet protection, but that protection doesn’t apply to cleaves (Which, in the other MMO, only hit pets when either a tank or the pet owner drastically kitten up), most room-wide or otherwise unavoidable damage, or similar. This is absolutely doable – you don’t have to mark AoE damage as special, just the moves that cause it. It should be doable within currently existing technology, going solely off of traits we know exist (And probably without an annoying buff icon to mark minions to boot).

I don’t like you to think i ave any animosity against you, i don’t.

What Ireno said it makes a lot of sense at developing level. The engine can be designed to use always a AoE effect when dealing damage. Why?

It’s cost efficient and also can avid some future bugs.
Otherwise design a weapon to hit more than one target would need to do the calculations separately based in distance and position, and we already see how buggy is the engine when it has to calculate paths.

The engine may not be designed to calculate the collision of every polygon, or parts of an object. When you attack it creates a fan like AoE and up to X targets there are hit. So they don’t need to design a different mechanic for each weapon.

Now for Irenio: As my understanding It uses AoE aras for any attack. Is it possible to know how big is that area?
Personally i don’t like the idea of automatic damage reduction, i’d like it better if the pets could become smarter and regain some environmental awareness so it can be applied to the other skills, and when in AoE use some kind of evade mechanism.

If the engine allow to detect/know how big is the area you can use this checks:

• Area has a radius bigger than X, for example 300 units could detect is in an AoE so can try to avoid going inside.

• The problem with the AoE is mostly the sustained damage. Most probably that AoE entities have an Internal ID. Could you retrieve that value? Do you destroy the AoE object when the attack ends?
  If the pet detect is taking sustained damage from the same ID it could trigger AoE? It could soak one tick but at least would try to leave at some point.
  This could be useful also when the red circles advise the incoming AoE if they share the same ID the pet could detect that’s an AoE area at the second check.

anduriell.6280:

I don’t like you to think i ave any animosity against you, i don’t.

What Ireno said it makes a lot of sense at developing level. The engine can be designed to use always a AoE effect when dealing damage. Why?

You genuinely need to speak more clearly. I’m pretty sure you’re ESL, so I’m sorry, but while I have several guesses on what you’re trying to say, I’m not sure which it is.

Otherwise design a weapon to hit more than one target would need to do the calculations separately based in distance and position, and we already see how buggy is the engine when it has to calculate paths.

Look, what I’m talking about is something the engine ALREADY does (I’m pretty sure).

Take Elementalist – let’s say you have earth spec, and the Serrated Stones talent. You deal +5% damage to targets with a bleed. You bleed your primary target with an AA, and then use an AoE – only your primary target takes +5% damage, right? Is_Minion should work out the same way – it’s a conditional damage modifier, based on the target’s state. To be fair, I don’t know that World Bosses or similar can do attacks like this, but the technology already exists within the game, and in a way we KNOW exists.

There is no need to track AoE damage. They already keep track of whether something is targeted by damage for the Playing Favorites mistlock instability and since AoE damage is largely untargeted. There is the perfect mechanic to give pets.

They can still be easily countered by focus in PvP or killed easily in PvE if they pull aggro, but would take 50% less damage from all the red circles.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

There is no need to track AoE damage. They already keep track of whether something is targeted by damage for the Playing Favorites mistlock instability and since AoE damage is largely untargeted. There is the perfect mechanic to give pets.

They can still be easily countered by focus in PvP or killed easily in PvE if they pull aggro, but would take 50% less damage from all the red circles.

i didn’t know they had this already. But in melee weapons that affects 3 targets you only have one tagged. The pet would take 50% damage, wouldn’t be it? (Example from Irenio)
You would need to target the pet specifically which could lead to OP cries.

Tracking area size and longevity of an area could be an answer. but only if they can retrieve the object id.

arkealia.2713:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

There’s a mistlock instability that reduce damages on untargeted foes. This could be a start and the technology exists.

I fully support this suggestion, as in the past I’ve been suggesting the same, just not using Fractals example.

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

you managed it with fractals… targets take reduced damage when not targeted.

Why can’t this be applied to pets?

vespers.1759:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

The underlying system of combat is built around area attacks. This is why the majority of base weapon attacks strike multiple targets in the affected area, unlike other games which strike one target – the one you have selected. Our system makes things like positioning and facing far more important and engaging; this also means that the concept of ‘AoE’ is not as easy to distinguish and thus handle in different ways.

That said, we are currently looking at systemic ways to help with player pet and minion survivability.

you managed it with fractals… targets take reduced damage when not targeted.

Why can’t this be applied to pets?

Because pets would take reduced damage when not targeted. Melee weapons that hit 3 targets, you only have one targeted for example.

The would make a lot of op cry and our pets would get 50% HP reduction. We would stand in even worst place after that.

anduriell.6280:

Because pets would take reduced damage when not targeted. Melee weapons that hit 3 targets, you only have one targeted for example.

The would make a lot of op cry and our pets would get 50% HP reduction. We would stand in even worst place after that.

The simple solution to that, is to just press tab and target the pet. It offers counterplay. There is really no other solution, they absolutely need to have a damage reduction from all the ground targeted spam that happens, yet they also need to be able to be killed by someone that actually wants it dead, not someone who just wants it to die without doing anything, like currently.