Guild Wars 2

hey guys, so I normally like to read all the posts in the professions tabs so I can stay up to pace with new game styles and so I came to your thread and read a lot of the posts and please forgive my ignorance but why do so many not seem to like your pets and why do some of you feel that you’re not viable?

iv never played ranger before so would you mind illuminating me to what you guys are all about, I’d like to hear things from your perspective.

so I end up making a new ranger to better understand for myself, so any tips for a noob Ranger

Lots of info/new builds here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/New-Builds-List-40-builds-All-modes

Glad you are experiencing it for yourself. No tips. Just play what you usually do. Eventually, you will see why Rangers do not like the pets and do not feel (as) viable (as others).

I usually (not all the time) keep my pets close in pvp. I prefer to combo them Wolf leap, f2 cast for howl should be finished to hit them w/fear, and immediately swap to owl to go in for the chillkill as an example.

Now to lay that up with your pet anything farther than melee range becomes sketchy or not possible. Pathing, dodge, delay, distance, sprint, teleport, stealth, splash/aoe dmg, gap closers, stationary/cast time pet f2, and moving targets all factor too much in a pet being effective at a distance.

My favorite pets to use pve&pvp
PvP Owl or Raven hit hard, chill/blind, and work well w/taunt.
PvP Wolf fear to avoid stomps, and help prevent capping.
PvE Jaguar and/or Jungle stalker (might), and stealth dmg increase
PvE Drake combo finisher blast

Always room for improvement, but keeping those pets close to you can be quite beneficial.

Mesmer is probably the perfect place to start to experience Ranger pets, just imagine it is a phantasm that has 4 skills, one of which you need to control, one more you can kind of control. It is slow to do what you tell it, you cannot shatter it and it does poor damage when it hits people, but it cannot hit people very much. Haha.

The problems are simple.

Pets die too often and there’s literally no way of stopping that from happening.
When they don’t die – they do not deal any damage to moving targets at all.
And their abilities are clunky. Viable, of course, but clunky.

WvW players dislike how impossible it is to keep your companion alive in the clusterduck.
PvP players dislike how unreliable and glued to the hip they are.
PvE players dislike everything that isn’t a warrior, Guarian or elementalist.
I dislike that when I tell my pet to return to me, it parks itself infront of me to one side, a random distance away. Instead of, y’know, stacked with me where there isn’t a lava font.

Builds that summon and rely on AI controlled allies – Turret Engi, Minion Master Necro, Old Spirit Ranger, etc. – get a lot of hate because they aren’t terribly skill intensive to play, you didn’t lose the player you lost to PvE while in PvP. Arenanet have made multiple balance patches to nerf AI allies for this reason. This overall causes a lot of issues to the profession that cannot fight without an assisting AI and without that assisting AI is left wanting for interesting mechanics. Even if many of those issues are simply psychological.

It’s something you’ll hear a lot but it’s very true. Better pet controls and more reliable behaviour are the two things needed to make animal companions better. Imagine if your Phantasmal duelist replaced its attack every so often with a long animation that grants swiftness to allies, that’s our bird. There are so many little problems with the Ranger and they add up, the professions philosophy and design isn’t terrible, just… Off mark.