Guild Wars 2

Yeah, I already know that this is going to be a crazy question to ask, but I’m asking it anyway…

IF rangers could choose to go into combat without their pet and gain all bonuses of skills or traits that would normally affect them AND their pet.

for example: Troll Unguent would grant about 1500 health per second for 10 seconds on the same 25 second cool down. Heal As One would grant the ranger about 12k health… etc. With maxed out healing gear/traits in Pve, you’d get 2k hp per second from T.U. and around 16k for Heal As One.
Signets would basically be the same only you wouldn’t need the signet of the beastmaster trait to gain both effects… Already this is insanely OP

If the healing were to be reduced somewhere between 25%-33% and there was an option available so u could fight w/out your pet, how would it fare? or should I just shut up because I have terrible ideas…

I think it would be just because of how drastically some of the traits impact pets’ statistics. Seeing as pets don’t scale, these modifiers are incredibly high just to allow for them to become further factors in assisting the ranger.

Allowing for the option to stow a pet, however, is a great idea, and if not reworked, it would be interesting to perhaps see these modifiers applied with a penalty, though.

I’d simply much rather see the ranger trait line redone such that Beast Mastery becomes a lot more pet-based/microing and really pays off for doing so, while I’d like to see the power/precision lines perhaps altered towards non-pet or archery-based play.

I would love it, obviously the healing would need to be toned down etc but overall love the idea, longbow 3 swiftness, harpoongun fury, we have lots of nice buffs like this from our weaponskills on our crap pets wich all other classes would normally always buff themselves with we would still need a base dmg buff though.

Yes we would be overpowered. If they remove the pet the most you could hope for is a 25% increase in damage across the board and we could choose one pet ability to put on our F1 key to use every 30 seconds.

I’d still much rather have a working pet I think. I realize a year is entirely too long to wait for your core class mechanic to work… but removing the pet isn’t a real option.

Working Pet > No Pet.

You have other classes that can bow people down if bow is what you like.

Many (like me) chooses the ranger exclusively for the pet, and if anytime in the near future ANet make Ranger’s meta without a pet, it will be us who will be crying in the forums.

plastic spiders was a good test devs, now add our pets some dodging AI.

Mesket.5728:

Working Pet > No Pet.

From your perspective, yes. From others’ no.

Mesket.5728:

You have other classes that can bow people down if bow is what you like.

No, we don’t. I have a feeling you haven’t tried these other classes. It’s not even close.

Mesket.5728:

Many (like me) chooses the ranger exclusively for the pet, and if anytime in the near future ANet make Ranger’s meta without a pet, it will be us who will be crying in the forums.

plastic spiders was a good test devs, now add our pets some dodging AI.

Nobody’s asking for a pet-less meta. People are asking for options. If a style of play is better than another due to numbers, then that’s ANet’s issue to fix. Fact of the matter is that people are upset because there’s no archer style of play in this entire game, which accounts for a huge amount of people.

Pet users would be crying because of power-related issues. Non-pet -wanters are not upset because skirmish/pet ranger is stronger than bow/solo ranger, but because bow/solo (archer) ranger play styles are not accommodated for, nor are builds which focus on archery viable in pretty much anything except trash mob 1v1’s, which all classes can easily do lol.

DeceiverX.8361:

Mesket.5728:

Working Pet > No Pet.

From your perspective, yes. From others’ no.

Mesket.5728:

You have other classes that can bow people down if bow is what you like.

No, we don’t. I have a feeling you haven’t tried these other classes. It’s not even close.

Mesket.5728:

Many (like me) chooses the ranger exclusively for the pet, and if anytime in the near future ANet make Ranger’s meta without a pet, it will be us who will be crying in the forums.

plastic spiders was a good test devs, now add our pets some dodging AI.

Nobody’s asking for a pet-less meta. People are asking for options. If a style of play is better than another due to numbers, then that’s ANet’s issue to fix. Fact of the matter is that people are upset because there’s no archer style of play in this entire game, which accounts for a huge amount of people.

Pet users would be crying because of power-related issues. Non-pet -wanters are not upset because skirmish/pet ranger is stronger than bow/solo ranger, but because bow/solo (archer) ranger play styles are not accommodated for, nor are builds which focus on archery viable in pretty much anything except trash mob 1v1’s, which all classes can easily do lol.

I have a warrior as main and used bow so much that wasted 250 t6 on the backpiece just fot the quiver look. You can play a soldier(not stats, conceptually)-archer and have fun.

I deleted my thief (no more room for alts) to create a ranger just for the pet, whenever I saw a ranger with the pet i felt something was missing with my shortbow thief…

I have so much fun with my ranger that it’s slowly turning into my main, all I need is 2 more zerk ascended jewelry and I’m done.

Pet > everything while on my ranger. It’s awesome to get so many to choose depending on what you want at the moment. They provide extra skills that even if you don’t notice, they are there and very useful.

no class is perfect, but removing the pet is in my opinion the worst approach for it is what defines the class.

Exactly, all of that is your personal opinion. Your basis for arguing is that just because you’re enjoying yourself, other people should be as well even if they are not and explicitly know why.

I absolutely despise the pet mechanic, and I did have a warrior main as well. Warrior bow is underwhelming to say the very least – not to mention that it doesn’t even make sense conceptually.

So I must keep iterating: Why is every pet user against the concept of allowing a ranger to not use a pet while SO MANY PEOPLE keep asking for such a change? It doesn’t change anything for those who like pets. All it does is allow options for those who don’t want them.

DeceiverX.8361:

Exactly, all of that is your personal opinion. Your basis for arguing is that just because you’re enjoying yourself, other people should be as well even if they are not and explicitly know why.

I absolutely despise the pet mechanic, and I did have a warrior main as well. Warrior bow is underwhelming to say the very least – not to mention that it doesn’t even make sense conceptually.

So I must keep iterating: Why is every pet user against the concept of allowing a ranger to not use a pet while SO MANY PEOPLE keep asking for such a change? It doesn’t change anything for those who like pets. All it does is allow options for those who don’t want them.

I’m not against it. In fact I’m mostly in favor of it because I’m tired of waiting for ANet to fix a problem that has been holding this class back for a year now. My issue is HOW to remove the pet and not make this class worse than it currently is.

Simply increasing my damage by 25% isn’t going to be enough.
Giving me access to a F1 skill to choose a pet mechanic like AE Fear on a 30 second cooldown wouldn’t be enough.

Let me run through a scenario I use often on my Ranger….

I attack the target with any random weapon. Doesn’t even matter which. I send my hound it. First attack it leaps on the target. While the target is still down it howls and roots the target. As soon as they’re rooted I swap to my wolf and it immediately leaps on the target knocking them down again. As soon as it leaps I AE fear the target. That’s a HUGE chunk of time where I can shoot the target with relative ease or melee with only limited oppurtunity for the enemy to respond. And I can do this every 30 seconds.

How do you add this functionality into the Ranger class without making it overpowered? We’re not Warriors afterall! We shouldn’t be allowed to do this, only they can! God forbid I actually did real damage while doing this :/

I’d much rather they just fix pets or scale down their damage so low that they increase our damage and ANet can go back to not caring if F2 works as intended. If I can pull off the above, who cares… the ability is there and fate wouldn’t allow it.

DeceiverX.8361:

Exactly, all of that is your personal opinion. Your basis for arguing is that just because you’re enjoying yourself, other people should be as well even if they are not and explicitly know why.

I absolutely despise the pet mechanic, and I did have a warrior main as well. Warrior bow is underwhelming to say the very least – not to mention that it doesn’t even make sense conceptually.

So I must keep iterating: Why is every pet user against the concept of allowing a ranger to not use a pet while SO MANY PEOPLE keep asking for such a change? It doesn’t change anything for those who like pets. All it does is allow options for those who don’t want them.

What are the forums for if it is not for giving out personal opinions? If you don’t like reading personal opinions I think you are on the wrong side of the internet.

Bow warriors make as much sense as a petless ranger. It’s all a matter of opinion… the game designer opinion. Since Rangers have pets and Warriors have bows, we already know his opinion so just deal with it.

Besides, if you absolutely despite the pet and made a ranger nonetheless… Is like hating magic and rolling an elementalist.

(No, the “I want to be an archer, a scout without an animal following me!” does not apply for this game. Rangers in GW has pets since forever. I’m sorry you don’t like it. I’d love to ride gryphons but this is not the game for it so I want demand it here).

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m not against it. In fact I’m mostly in favor of it because I’m tired of waiting for ANet to fix a problem that has been holding this class back for a year now. My issue is HOW to remove the pet and not make this class worse than it currently is.

Simply increasing my damage by 25% isn’t going to be enough.
Giving me access to a F1 skill to choose a pet mechanic like AE Fear on a 30 second cooldown wouldn’t be enough.

Let me run through a scenario I use often on my Ranger….

I attack the target with any random weapon. Doesn’t even matter which. I send my hound it. First attack it leaps on the target. While the target is still down it howls and roots the target. As soon as they’re rooted I swap to my wolf and it immediately leaps on the target knocking them down again. As soon as it leaps I AE fear the target. That’s a HUGE chunk of time where I can shoot the target with relative ease or melee with only limited oppurtunity for the enemy to respond. And I can do this every 30 seconds.

How do you add this functionality into the Ranger class without making it overpowered? We’re not Warriors afterall! We shouldn’t be allowed to do this, only they can! God forbid I actually did real damage while doing this :/

I’d much rather they just fix pets or scale down their damage so low that they increase our damage and ANet can go back to not caring if F2 works as intended. If I can pull off the above, who cares… the ability is there and fate wouldn’t allow it.

That’s exactly it, though. The pet provides an immense amount of utility. That’s what it’s there for and what the ranger class was designed around when using the pet.

Increasing damage by 25% won’t accomplish anything, as currently, pets deal 40% of ranger/pet combined damage. So for every 100 damage dealt, the ranger itself only does 60.

Therefore a 25% increase in damage would net only an increase by 15, resulting in a total of 25% overall reduction still.

To reach the equivalent level of damage throughput, ANet would need to buff the values by 67%. That said, for the sake of assuming a pet dies, the damage increase would need to be reduced slightly, so a figure around the 40% area (making it thus 84) would be a tad bit more balanced.

Which is thus the tradeoff of the pet: It can do things and lock down targets, but it if it dies, you’re SOL.

Which is the purpose of re-defining the archer and trying to accommodate for multiple build paths while buffing the longbow. It loses out on some utility, and perhaps some performance on an idealogical level, but becomes a more stable and adaptable means of playing.

Of course, this also means that when playing a ranger without a pet, the ranger needs to learn how to properly kite and avoid damage or poor circumstances.

Mesket.5728:

What are the forums for if it is not for giving out personal opinions? If you don’t like reading personal opinions I think you are on the wrong side of the internet.

Besides, if you absolutely despite the pet and made a ranger nonetheless… I seriously recommend you change your medication.

I’m not arguing with people’s right to have an opinion (I have one as well regarding this subject). I have an objection to those who try and simply ignore or argue the validity of other peoples’ opinions by their own.

Great if some people like ranger as it is. Not asking for that to be taken away. Preventing others from progressing because they differ in their opinions is simply not constructive to anyone, though.

DeceiverX.8361:

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m not against it. In fact I’m mostly in favor of it because I’m tired of waiting for ANet to fix a problem that has been holding this class back for a year now. My issue is HOW to remove the pet and not make this class worse than it currently is.

Simply increasing my damage by 25% isn’t going to be enough.
Giving me access to a F1 skill to choose a pet mechanic like AE Fear on a 30 second cooldown wouldn’t be enough.

Let me run through a scenario I use often on my Ranger….

I attack the target with any random weapon. Doesn’t even matter which. I send my hound it. First attack it leaps on the target. While the target is still down it howls and roots the target. As soon as they’re rooted I swap to my wolf and it immediately leaps on the target knocking them down again. As soon as it leaps I AE fear the target. That’s a HUGE chunk of time where I can shoot the target with relative ease or melee with only limited oppurtunity for the enemy to respond. And I can do this every 30 seconds.

How do you add this functionality into the Ranger class without making it overpowered? We’re not Warriors afterall! We shouldn’t be allowed to do this, only they can! God forbid I actually did real damage while doing this :/

I’d much rather they just fix pets or scale down their damage so low that they increase our damage and ANet can go back to not caring if F2 works as intended. If I can pull off the above, who cares… the ability is there and fate wouldn’t allow it.

That’s exactly it, though. The pet provides an immense amount of utility. That’s what it’s there for and what the ranger class was designed around when using the pet.

Increasing damage by 25% won’t accomplish anything, as currently, pets deal 40% of ranger/pet combined damage. So for every 100 damage dealt, the ranger itself only does 60.

Therefore a 25% increase in damage would net only an increase by 15, resulting in a total of 25% overall reduction still.

To reach the equivalent level of damage throughput, ANet would need to buff the values by 67%. That said, for the sake of assuming a pet dies, the damage increase would need to be reduced slightly, so a figure around the 40% area (making it thus 84) would be a tad bit more balanced.

Which is thus the tradeoff of the pet: It can do things and lock down targets, but it if it dies, you’re SOL.

Which is the purpose of re-defining the archer and trying to accommodate for multiple build paths while buffing the longbow. It loses out on some utility, and perhaps some performance on an idealogical level, but becomes a more stable and adaptable means of playing.

Of course, this also means that when playing a ranger without a pet, the ranger needs to learn how to properly kite and avoid damage or poor circumstances.

Mesket.5728:

What are the forums for if it is not for giving out personal opinions? If you don’t like reading personal opinions I think you are on the wrong side of the internet.

Besides, if you absolutely despite the pet and made a ranger nonetheless… I seriously recommend you change your medication.

I’m not arguing with people’s right to have an opinion (I have one as well regarding this subject). I have an objection to those who try and simply ignore or argue the validity of other peoples’ opinions by their own.

Great if people like ranger as it is. Not asking for that to be taken away. Preventing others from progressing because they differ in their opinions is simply not constructive to anyone, though.

Using the pet is part of your character. How can I tell you this… If your character is 100%, you are probably around 75% and your pet is the other 25%. You want to be 100% on your own? why? while others struggle to keep their attention on their char and their pet at the same time you want to be as good as them with half the effort? Is not simple to control the pet, swap them, use their F2 properly, choose them properly… not all can be a pokemon master (?).

If you don’t want to use, don’t… choose a bird and put in on passive. Voila! you’re quasi a petless ranger.

Asking for the pet bonus to be granted to your character is like a warrior asking to hit his targets without having to move at them… no man, its the way your class is played. if you don’t want to handle a pet, deal with the consequences of reduced damage and utility.

The numbers have been stated by ANet that the difference is 60/40 – NOT 75/25.

To state that pet manipulation takes more skill or effort than not using one is simply absurd. When my pet is alive, the game is easymode imho. It does everything for me and requires very little manipulation aside from some rhythmic pressings of the first few function keys based on situation. This is NOT what defines skilled play, nor does it even come close to taking a lot of skill.

I actually did put up birds and make them passive. And you know what? I still was able to get through the content. Why? Because I’ve been playing ranged characters as my mains in games for more than a decade. I’ve picked up on how to play properly, and I am not dependent on a pet to do the work for me.

But the issue still resides in that I take 67% more time to perform the same actions as other players/classes.

So what you’re saying is:
Trading more than half of my traits, almost all of my skills, faster healing while downed, aggro soak, CC effects, and extra utility…

…for equal but more consistent damage is not a fair trade?

Try playing without a pet and then go ahead and tell me that it’s fair lol.

Go play a game with real micromanagement and tell me it takes just as much skill to manipulate a pet.

Go and solo champions/veterans/story quests/massive encounters at-or-under level without a pet and tell me you neither wasted time nor had more trouble.

Go and tell me your 30/30/x/x/x ranger does just as much damage as a 30/30/x/x/x warrior, guardian, or thief.

Your mentality is currently “Too bad, deal with it or GTFO.” Why is this? ANet promised a game where all builds and classes should be equally viable. Thieves don’t build around stealing. Warriors don’t build around adrenaline. Shatter mesmer is only a thing because it hurts so much.

So ANet either needs to go back on its word, or do something about the state of the lack of an archer in this game.

From the class itself, I quote:

Rangers are flexible and durable—proficient with the bow, yet surgical with the sword. They rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature to slay their targets. Their loyal pets, which rangers tame and train, distract enemies while the rangers strike safely from a distance.

Seeing as that bow builds aren’t viable, and pets do way more than distract (or they rely on spirits as per the current PvP meta), I’d argue that this class is inherently flawed in both design and it’s quite far from its initial design.

You’re not changing my mind, nor the many, many others regardless of what you say, until an archer – as a whole style of play – becomes a possible build.

Next we will have elementalists who doesn’t like elements and want to play pure arcane magic. Necros not fond with dead magic and Warriors that want to learn magic.

More news at eleven.

Ps. Rangers are archers, like thief are archers and warriors are archers. Choose yours.

Ps. (don’t think I don’t understand your petition,… but honestly; this is not the game for it. ANet showed many times that they are not doing as many changes as we would expect and something as radical as changing the class mechanic will hardly ever occur).

In short my opinion on pets, every game I play I pick the ranger/hunter petclass and I like pets I like to name them and have my favourite as a long lasting companion, in guildwars 2 I can’t even name my pet permanantly (wich is the least problem but irritating nonetheless) and I am constantly reminded of how poorly it works and how so much of my offensive, defensive and crowd control is linked to this thing that occasionally seems to die from a slight breeze, I never before played a game where I grew to hate my companion I have now resorted to giving them insulting names that reflect each pets most common failure, the only ones I truly like still is devourers in water where they function perfectly no pet we have works so well without ever failing to do it’s job like a devourer in the water.

Actually, in this game, there is no such thing as pure range class or close combat class. There is no pure healer and no pure tank. But every class can do everything in a way or another and that’s how this game has been designed.

What’s suggested is something overpowered. There is tons of utility skill that actually only buff pets. If stowing the pet make us able to be affected by them we would outdamage by far every other class even without the 25% more damage. Not to mention our heal skill boosted.

In fact deceiverX, you can do the same amount of damage as a warrior GS and without pet by using a proper rotation with long bow and utilitys. It’s not all about big number, it’s more about a lot of damage source (hint : traps).

Condition wise, we’ve got tons of good builds and conditions never suffer from damage reduction, they are only restricted by condition cap. But, 1v1 or 1vX it’s rarely an issue.

I’ve seen in this forum build with wich you can almost one shot ele, guard or thieve without using pets.

PS.: Waouh Manekk feel like you’ve got problem with pet management. And yeah I agree devourers are really reliable underwater. I’d like them to have the same attack speed on land.

Traps were a large part of the bunker meta a while ago. I believe they still are a very viable build option.

But that’s the point people are trying to address: There IS no pure ranged option in GW2. Yet there are so many pure melee/spellcaster ones as are so common among other classes. Even if not running two weapon sets of the same type, the primary one is usually how people build their character (they like the playstyle), and the secondary is often used as a supplement. Bow/archer builds just don’t exist, and people genuinely want them to.

sPvP bunker/spirits doesn’t really qualify as being an archer, either. While it doesn’t qualify as a pet user, its so-called overpoweredness perhaps is a problem of its own.

Dadnir.5038:

PS.: Waouh Manekk feel like you’ve got problem with pet management. And yeah I agree devourers are really reliable underwater. I’d like them to have the same attack speed on land.

No don’t have any pet managment issues at all, but we all know sometimes they just go poof even standing next to you out the window goes cleanse, dmg, cc etc… not to mention certain skills only work if the pet is close enough to you like using signet of renewal active it’s not always an option to petswap just to make the thing work it should just work imo.

CMstorm.8679:

Yeah, I already know that this is going to be a crazy question to ask, but I’m asking it anyway…

IF rangers could choose to go into combat without their pet and gain all bonuses of skills or traits that would normally affect them AND their pet.

for example: Troll Unguent would grant about 1500 health per second for 10 seconds on the same 25 second cool down. Heal As One would grant the ranger about 12k health… etc. With maxed out healing gear/traits in Pve, you’d get 2k hp per second from T.U. and around 16k for Heal As One.
Signets would basically be the same only you wouldn’t need the signet of the beastmaster trait to gain both effects… Already this is insanely OP

If the healing were to be reduced somewhere between 25%-33% and there was an option available so u could fight w/out your pet, how would it fare? or should I just shut up because I have terrible ideas…

The option to leave your pet out should be there. but no bonuses should be granted or reduced because of it.

ranger + pet stats =warrior

If pet F2 skills reliably worked that alone would be a huge leap for making the pet more useful. I’d love to use my pet’s skills more but wether they will activate when you press F2 is still a gamble over a year on.

Anet needs to make fixing the pet a priority. Fix F2, fix pathing so it can catch moving targets (especially those moving in tight circles) and give it some kind of dodge (AI or player controlled). If they manage to pull that off then I think we will truly get to play the class that the devs envisaged.

CMstorm.8679:

Yeah, I already know that this is going to be a crazy question to ask, but I’m asking it anyway…

IF rangers could choose to go into combat without their pet and gain all bonuses of skills or traits that would normally affect them AND their pet.

for example: Troll Unguent would grant about 1500 health per second for 10 seconds on the same 25 second cool down. Heal As One would grant the ranger about 12k health… etc. With maxed out healing gear/traits in Pve, you’d get 2k hp per second from T.U. and around 16k for Heal As One.
Signets would basically be the same only you wouldn’t need the signet of the beastmaster trait to gain both effects… Already this is insanely OP

If the healing were to be reduced somewhere between 25%-33% and there was an option available so u could fight w/out your pet, how would it fare? or should I just shut up because I have terrible ideas…

all you did here was just describe a Warrior

no, just move Signet of the Beastmaster trait to Master Tier. not op, but would likely help rangers to play power setups instead of condition.
wrong here? /care

DeceiverX.8361:

So I must keep iterating: Why is every pet user against the concept of allowing a ranger to not use a pet while SO MANY PEOPLE keep asking for such a change? It doesn’t change anything for those who like pets. All it does is allow options for those who don’t want them.

Though I hate the pet AI mechanic, I must say, a ranger without a pet is just a bad thief.

Atherakhia.4086:

Let me run through a scenario I use often on my Ranger….

I attack the target with any random weapon. Doesn’t even matter which. I send my hound it. First attack it leaps on the target. While the target is still down it howls and roots the target. As soon as they’re rooted I swap to my wolf and it immediately leaps on the target knocking them down again. As soon as it leaps I AE fear the target. That’s a HUGE chunk of time where I can shoot the target with relative ease or melee with only limited oppurtunity for the enemy to respond. And I can do this every 30 seconds.

How do you add this functionality into the Ranger class without making it overpowered? We’re not Warriors afterall! We shouldn’t be allowed to do this, only they can! God forbid I actually did real damage while doing this :/

I’d much rather they just fix pets or scale down their damage so low that they increase our damage and ANet can go back to not caring if F2 works as intended. If I can pull off the above, who cares… the ability is there and fate wouldn’t allow it.

This is why I love rangers. Warriors, though they have much more DPS capability, can not do two things at once. While your pet is having your target immob/interupted/targetted, you have the luxury still being able to attack/dodge (a lot of dodge I might add)/and basically free to use your own skills free of other class mechanics.

Yeah the pet AI isn’t the best, but it does work well on 1v1 situations and that is the true test of a class vs class in terms of capability. The scenario you just painted actually makes an argument for why the pet can be useful. Not only do you have your pets CC abilities, you have your own as well. In Essence, you have an additional 4 utility skills when a pet is equipped.

DeceiverX.8361:

So what you’re saying is:
Trading more than half of my traits, almost all of my skills, faster healing while downed, aggro soak, CC effects, and extra utility…

…for equal but more consistent damage is not a fair trade?

Try playing without a pet and then go ahead and tell me that it’s fair lol.

Go play a game with real micromanagement and tell me it takes just as much skill to manipulate a pet.

Go and solo champions/veterans/story quests/massive encounters at-or-under level without a pet and tell me you neither wasted time nor had more trouble.

Go and tell me your 30/30/x/x/x ranger does just as much damage as a 30/30/x/x/x warrior, guardian, or thief.

That is a fair trade if that is what you’re wanting but that option is already available in a thief or warrior. There is no sense in making another medium armor class of bow users that will function similarly if not entirely the same as a thief with different bow skills.

This was the problem with GW1, though I loved GW1, there was no diversity in play. There was no distinction between different classes because every class had access to a set of skills from 1 other class. In the end, A bowless ranger became similar to a thief, A petless ranger became a tankless warrior, ETC. In the end, it didn’t matter what class you played because you could be anything, which made PvP very repetitive and took the competition out of it. Every person ran the same builds and every person played the same way. At least in GW2, it’s every class as a dominant meta build and not every player.

If Anet allows rangers to be played without pets, then vice versa, they could allow any profession using a bow to be able to use a pet if they wanted. Can you imagine an invisible thief backstabbing you while you waste your dodge on his pet? or a warrior hitting you with hundred blades while he stuns you and his pet can actively keep you rooted? Even with 60% of their attack power, a berserker thief that can normally backstab a medium armored ranger for 10K will still hit for 6K consistently. Do you honestly think that a pet becomes a hindrance in that situation? Sure you can lay traps, but his pet can just help him clear the conditions and tank you for at least 3 seconds at the same time and since he can still go invisible, you can’t target him to finish him off, but his pet can keep you busy while he regenerates.

It’s not an unfair trade off for what you want, but again, the option you want comes in two packages, a warrior and a thief,

There is no better option in thief/warrior, though. That is, assuming you’re referring to playing with a bow. LB warrior plays nothing like an archer. I think it feels more like a caster tbh. It’s slow, clunky, and really fails to encapsulate the image and style of the archer. SB thief isn’t a viable build. It’s a great utility weapon that allows for some nice kiting with #3 due to cripple/leap back, and poison field is great, however the whole kit is too AOE-based. It works wonders for tagging people in WvW/zerg, however after many attempts of trying to make it work as a mainhand weapon, especially with its range distance nerfs, it simply just doesn’t.

I’d argue that the ambiguity and blurred lines between classes is what makes games better, and factually, is something ANet tried to accomplish with this game regarding the stat and trait bonuses being so different based on build patterns. There’s currently something for everyone out there… except archer players.

I disagree there, too. I believe the pet mechanic is a good one when it’s desired. I find it facilitates play quite a bit in open-world PvE, and it certainly allows for extra utility. The ranger should know before getting into combat whether or not he’ll need his pet – why would he enter a fight with a pet under the expectation that his beloved pet will die, especially if he’s attached to it and has been with it for as long as he can remember? It simply isn’t logical, and that class mechanic is what defines the ranger from the other classes. The lines would be blurred, perhaps, seeing as the ranger may roam solo, however this doesn’t make it even close to the same as another class. It’d be like stating that the ranger should then use initiative while using a shortbow because the thief does.

I’d really love it if Anet had created two different classes: Beastmaster, and Ranger.

The beastmaster would be a pet-specialist with greatsword, staff, axes, while the ranger would focus specifically on ranged attacks with maybe dagger/swords only as melee weapons

Again, or simply just allow thief or ele to get the archer/longbow ’hunter" or “sniper” style of play.

Thief gets long-distance single-target damage which they do not have as a build path. It’d allow for a mobile and more sneaky ranger. This would even be fine with applied reductions to closer targets, for thieves have viable melee alternatives as well.

Ele with a bow resolves the issues of build diversity for each attunement could change up the effects on certain skills and imbuing arrows/the bow itself, making it both graphically impressive and fitting into the attunement style while allowing players to make decisions based upon flaming/shatter/piercing/bleeding arrows mid-combat, or focus on one element to maximize efficiency. No need for new classes.