The ranger class mechanic is pitiful, they are so unreliable and yet they are suppose to hold ~30% of the rangers damage. There need to be some improvements to all pets to make them more reliable so here are some suggestions for the next quarterly patch.
-All auto attacks of melee pets get a range increase to 190 up from 130. Remove the 30% increased movement speed from pet’s prowess trait and make it baseline. In its place pets prowess now grants the pet 2 sec of super speed if the pets target moves more than 600 units away from the pet (20 sec icd).
thees changes will make melee pets infinitely more reliable in the damage dealing departement vs moving targets.
-All pets get a 50% damage and 33% condition damage reduction if the player who is dealing the damage is not targeting the pet, and pet recharge in case of pet death goes up from 60 to 80 sec. In pve pets (and other ai) have a 90% reduction so this mechanic already existes in the game, just reduce it for wvw and pvp. This change would make it so that pets no longer die randomly to aoe and need to be targeted to be killed but if they die they are on cooldown longer.
-Drake command skills, the breath attacks, should get a change that allows them to rotate in place while channeling the f2 skill, this way the f2 does not miss/get canceled if the target moves slightly to the side or behind the drake (this was the exact same issue bristilback had so you can even use the same code for drakes). In case of the fire, reef, and ice drakes increase the rage and cone size of their breath attacks in order to make them hit, and increase the projectile speed for the marsh and river drake. Reduce the aftercast of bite chomp and tail swipe to allow the drakes to keep in melee range after attacking (right now they take about 0.5 sec of standing still due to aftercasts after preforming their skills, in which time the target creates distance and the drakes have to waste time running after them. this is a issue with allot of pets).
-Birds quickening screech has a horrendous cast and after cast animation that takes too long and lets the target run a considerable distance from the pet. Change it so that it is a instant activation skill with no animation (like sharpen spines or the spider venoms are). Reduce the aftercast on the slash auto attack.
-Canine pets are fine (but you need to reduce the aftercast on auto attacks, pattern much?), it is the individual command skills that need tuning. Alpine wolf f2 is underwhelming and so is the hyena (the entire pet not just the f2).
-Moa pets need aftercast reductions on all their skills and their Frenzied Attack takes too long to cast and never hits anything that moves, change it to a fast singe hit attack that applies the damage and vulnerability of the current 3 hit attack. Harmonic Cry has a small aoe circle and a long cast time (and because the you cannot control when the pet uses it) it often heals nothing (apart from the pet itself). Increase the aoe to 400 up from 240 and make it show a white circle to the ranger (and his allies) when the moa is casting it (similarly how things like blood is power or venom share show a circle to allies).
-Porcine pets need to get a change to their f2 skills so that when they channel it the item goes to the ranger directly instead of the ground. This would make using the items allot faster (since you do not need to run over to where your pet is and pick them up) and your enemies cannot pick them up instead! (allied players would loose the ability to pick them up but the pets would become more viable). Also they need aftercast reductions.
-Spider pets just need an increased projectile velocity (and make the projectiles arc less) for their auto attacks (spit) and poison gas skill.
-Wyverns are a total joke and need a complete overhaul. Everything they do is too slow and has a gigantic aftercast.
-Bears are actually not bad in terms of their skills but what completely ruins them is the aftercast of their skills (in particular the slash auto attack). They attack something and by the time the animation and the aftercast is done the target is half the map away from them.
-Feline pets are good, but like the canine pets some command skills need tuning to be useful. Mighty Roar needs a cast reduction (3 sec is insane, lower it to 0.5 sec considering that this skill is only a buff) and Icy Pounce is strictly worse than rending pounce.
Did i mention that most every pet needs a aftercast reduction on their auto attack skills to make them more consistent at keeping up and dealing damage to moving targets? I might have left that out.