Guild Wars 2

Was trying to think of common situations in wvw which would get “broken” by allowing our pet to have the HP increase it got in PvE.

Can’t think of anything being too outrageous.
1) Zergs (still gonna die but now you can get an F2 off easier)
2) Camps and NPCs (well it makes sense to be the meat tank and would allow rangers a faster ability to roam and take key camps etc)
3) Roaming (I guess BM would be a bit hard but isn’t that the point of BM? Otherwise, a good buff but not overwhelming).

How much additional “uptime” do you think your pet would have in a fight?

I think this would be too OP for small roamers.

Ethics.4519:

I think this would be too OP for small roamers.

Powerful maybe, but not overpowered.

Not like everyone kills pet anyway, most people ignore it to down the master. I’ve never run a bm build though so it might be OP…

It’d be OP. Thinking a better alternative might be to have an invulnerability period of 0.2s or something like that after pet is hit so that it doesn’t die immediately in zergs (but still hit by every attack done in small fights).

it wouldnt be OP to buff pet hp . but thats the least of its problems in wvw .

It would absolutely be OP to buff the pets HP in WvW, in small skirmishes rangers pets suddenly become nearly unkillable, it wouldn’t be OP in the slightest in large scale zerg battles, but in anything other than that? It’d be ridiculously strong.

Has the dev team come clean yet on why they left out the change for www? where it’s actually needed? or is just another drop in the ocean of bad ideas?

MAKE THEM UNKILLABLE!!!! seriously . It is the only class specialty that has a major drawback and is a godkitten ball and chain at least 50% of the time

Durzlla.6295:

It would absolutely be OP to buff the pets HP in WvW, in small skirmishes rangers pets suddenly become nearly unkillable, it wouldn’t be OP in the slightest in large scale zerg battles, but in anything other than that? It’d be ridiculously strong.

Any small skirmish I have been in, the pets are ignored. Also, running any melee pet, getting 2-3 hits before you die, or you kill a target the is the norm.

Next you will say pets being able to hit moving targets is OP….

Durzlla.6295:

It would absolutely be OP to buff the pets HP in WvW, in small skirmishes rangers pets suddenly become nearly unkillable, it wouldn’t be OP in the slightest in large scale zerg battles, but in anything other than that? It’d be ridiculously strong.

Except wvw =/= spvp. WvW is about capping points and earing PPT to win the match. Small skirmishes for ego and bragging rights aren’t what the game mode is about and not what it should be balanced around.

That being said, I feel the best approach is one that decreases incoming damage by a % per enemy in a radius. For example -5% damage per foes in a 1000 radius up to 80%.
It keeps pets from tanking entire camps while still being viable enough in zerg clashes.

This would also need to be paired with many more pets cleaving on their auto attack to actually have an effect in a crowd. Drakes would be an obvious pick for their durability and aoe F2’s but they should be the only pet you can bring to hit more than one person at a time.

Substance E.4852:

Durzlla.6295:

It would absolutely be OP to buff the pets HP in WvW, in small skirmishes rangers pets suddenly become nearly unkillable, it wouldn’t be OP in the slightest in large scale zerg battles, but in anything other than that? It’d be ridiculously strong.

Except wvw =/= spvp. WvW is about capping points and earing PPT to win the match. Small skirmishes for ego and bragging rights aren’t what the game mode is about and not what it should be balanced around.

That being said, I feel the best approach is one that decreases incoming damage by a % per enemy in a radius. For example -5% damage per foes in a 1000 radius up to 80%.
It keeps pets from tanking entire camps while still being viable enough in zerg clashes.

This would also need to be paired with many more pets cleaving on their auto attack to actually have an effect in a crowd. Drakes would be an obvious pick for their durability and aoe F2’s but they should be the only pet you can bring to hit more than one person at a time.

I’m almost positive this will be how it ends up getting done, or something similar, it allows the pets to not be extremely OP in small scale stuff (which does play a huge role in WvW), but doesn’t keep them being useless in large scale stuff.

Yes thats probably the best way how to solve it. The more players (only players because otherwise camps are too easy) in a certain radius the less damage they take or the more HP they get. Thats up to Anet. Only damage reduction is bad because probably they forget to also weaken conditions which would still melt away our pets.

Arpheus.6918:

Yes thats probably the best way how to solve it. The more players (only players because otherwise camps are too easy) in a certain radius the less damage they take or the more HP they get. Thats up to Anet. Only damage reduction is bad because probably they forget to also weaken conditions which would still melt away our pets.

ah true, yeah just boost up their HP then per player in the radius, it’d make em pretty good against condi and phsyical that way so they wont just blow up in zergs.

They should give rangers multiple pairs of pets to hot swap. So pet up time is 100% with the penalty being you don’t get to use the pet you want if they’re dead, until the 60 seconds cool down is reset.

Arpheus.6918:

Yes thats probably the best way how to solve it. The more players (only players because otherwise camps are too easy) in a certain radius the less damage they take or the more HP they get. Thats up to Anet. Only damage reduction is bad because probably they forget to also weaken conditions which would still melt away our pets.

Honestly, I find that you rarely run into any people speced into condition builds in a zerg. Virtually everyone is either PVT, knights, or clerics and even if you do get some conditions, they get cleansed off pretty quickly from all the guardians around you.

Most people just don’t bother simply because so many run melandrus/hoelbrak runes with lemongrass soup. The last time conditions were any part of the zerg meta was back before they nerfed confusion damage when culling meant you were fighting floating nameplates and you mostly spammed #1 trying to hit people you couldn’t see. Spam confusion, watch the enemy auto attack themselves to death (800+ damage per tick on a condition built Mesmer), profit.

The amount of health they would need to buff the pets to equal a major % damage reduction would have to be nearly into the millions to offset 40-60 people cleaving and aoeing all at once when the pet can’t dodge or strafe at all.

@Substance E
Conditions are still there in zerg fights. In good zergs they get cleaned fast but there was one major change with the last patch:
If there are 5 players around the pet will NOT be affected by AoE Condition cleanses because players have priority above pets and in a zerg there are always 5 people around. Since noone is cleansing the conditions the pet will have lots of conditions ticking and no way to get rid of them except with pet swapping. Even healing spring probably won’t remove conditions from the pet since again 5 players have priority.

Its really sad that we don’t have reliable ways to remove conditions from our pets

I understand what you mean with the HP when lots of people kill the pet. The only way how I can get my pet to at least survive a while in zergs is when I keep it close to me + perma protection with guard + 600 heal per second. And only bears or drakes have a chance to survive zerg battles usually.
Pets would need a quite massive HP boost in zerg fights.

and any percent of life buss will be useless. the pets cant do anything useful in big fights

It’ll break camps and will not help at all in bigger fights and zergs. Pets are already good in small WvW fights as it is. Their only problem is dieing to all the AoE spam.

I love the idea of being able to keep sending another pet into combat but losing the ability to resummon and “dead pet” until you are out of combat.

How would increasing pet health really help the ranger in 1v1 roaming situations? You simply kill the ranger or move on.