Guild Wars 2

what goes the ranger gain with a pet?
- DPS. And certainly more since last patch
- A mini tank that take some of the damage aimed for the ranger
- Abilities that give better defense like temporary invulnerability ( protect me…) or condition removals
- Pet abilities ( buffs,cc, healing, combos or additional skill damage)
Looks awesome! Yes but devs, righlty so, do not want ranger to be stronger than other classes…So what we actually get is ranger+Pet= other Class . Pet does not bring something that other classes can not get.

What does ranger lose if is pet is dead? All of the above. In other word, pet is ranger weakness.
- Do you want to remove conditions? sorry pet dead (ty aoe condition damage).
- do you want to get a temp invuln? sorry pet dead
- do you want your pet to heal you when down? sorry…pet dead

It is up to each ranger to keep its pet alive , swap them efficiently .Ranger should choose appropriate pet for context. And of course Ranger need to manage its pet, call him back trigger special ability,etc. But this complexity is not rewarded. All in all the best you can manage is to do as well as a class without pet.

IMO ranger should be slightly stronger with his pet near him and slightly weaker without it , but i doubt this sweet spot can be achieved. At least what we may get , someday, is something that make pet special, and let Ranger bring something to a group that other classes can not.

As I said in another thread:

I’m not a ranger, and my only experience with rangers is ganking them in WvW, but I’m gonna say it anyway.
You guys need an ability to stow pets and get stat bonuses while your pet is stowed.

imz.8593:

what goes the ranger gain with a pet?
- DPS. And certainly more since last patch

enough DPS to even down some players if played/specced right.

- A mini tank that take some of the damage aimed for the ranger

“mini”? I have had my Pets tank certain dungeon bosses through almost the entire fight. They dont take away some dmg from the ranger, but from his whole group.

imz.8593:

Pet does not bring something that other classes can not get.

probably not, but what other class can do ALL OF THAT without needing to completely spec on it, completely not gear reliant and while beeing able to still spec/gear yourself however you want.

by the way, NO class has anything that no other class could do, except aegis buffs or certain combo fields.

@rocklin
1) DPS I did not say otherwise
2) Mini. IT does not tank in PvP the way it does in PVE. unless you are fighting a clueless player
3)Other classes DO have trademark ability. e.g Mesmer portal.

Obviously you do not play that much pvp, but i am glad you are doing well in PVE.

stowing pets and gaining from it…now that opens up a whole can of new ideas and i wish it had been thought of earlier.

you stow a pet and your skills are altered based on the type of pet you stowed, kinda like you become infused with the pet’s spirit. stowing a bear buffs up your melee abilities, gives you some defense as well. stowing a jaguar gives you more hit-and-run type abilities. stuff like that.

Josejalapeno.7014:

stowing pets and gaining from it…now that opens up a whole can of new ideas and i wish it had been thought of earlier.

you stow a pet and your skills are altered based on the type of pet you stowed, kinda like you become infused with the pet’s spirit. stowing a bear buffs up your melee abilities, gives you some defense as well. stowing a jaguar gives you more hit-and-run type abilities. stuff like that.

Make this a thing. Love this idea.

If you want to stow away your pet you are playing the wrong class.
Very simple. This IS a pet class. There are plenty of classes that are not.
You don’t see warriors whining that they want a pet? If they did they would roll a ranger..
Simple.

Abaregi.1659:

If you want to stow away your pet you are playing the wrong class.
Very simple. This IS a pet class. There are plenty of classes that are not.
You don’t see warriors whining that they want a pet? If they did they would roll a ranger..
Simple.

shh ranger players dont like to hear that, they like the idea and theme of the ranger. Its ok if they dont want to play with pets, or would prefer rifles over bows and want stealth and assasination moves or think spike traps should instead work like explosive mines. I dont see why they should be wrong with this class.

Its a bit Anets fault really for their class description of the Ranger who misled many players. (It says they can take down enemys from Distance, now everyone thinks at Snipers in FPS-Games)

Hmm I guess not everyone researches before choosing class.
Still it is not a valid excuse in my book.
(I thought warriors shoot fireballs!)

stowing pets and gaining from it…now that opens up a whole can of new ideas and i wish it had been thought of earlier.
you stow a pet and your skills are altered based on the type of pet you stowed, kinda like you become infused with the pet’s spirit. stowing a bear buffs up your melee abilities, gives you some defense as well. stowing a jaguar gives you more hit-and-run type abilities. stuff like that.

This is the best idea I’ve seen, that compromises the no pet option while keeping the spirit of the mechanic alive. I would love to see this happen.

For those that say pets are the thing that makes a ranger a ranger…pets make a ranger a beastmaster which is only one of their trait lines. Not every ranger has a pet…some are scouts, snipers, masters of nature spirits, experts at setting traps, and solitary hunters. The fact that I didn’t have to have a pet in guildwars and could focus on marksmanship instead made the ranger my favorite class to play….I haven’t even bothered to play one since beta because I don’t like playing a beastmaster, and that’s what is offered in the current incarnation of the “ranger.”

Harrisjd.1975:

stowing pets and gaining from it…now that opens up a whole can of new ideas and i wish it had been thought of earlier.
you stow a pet and your skills are altered based on the type of pet you stowed, kinda like you become infused with the pet’s spirit. stowing a bear buffs up your melee abilities, gives you some defense as well. stowing a jaguar gives you more hit-and-run type abilities. stuff like that.

This is the best idea I’ve seen, that compromises the no pet option while keeping the spirit of the mechanic alive. I would love to see this happen.

For those that say pets are the thing that makes a ranger a ranger…pets make a ranger a beastmaster which is only one of their trait lines. Not every ranger has a pet…some are scouts, snipers, masters of nature spirits, experts at setting traps, and solitary hunters. The fact that I didn’t have to have a pet in guildwars and could focus on marksmanship instead made the ranger my favorite class to play….I haven’t even bothered to play one since beta because I don’t like playing a beastmaster, and that’s what is offered in the current incarnation of the “ranger.”

Interesting, pet abilities on stow, access to there skills- that would be sweet…….so so tasty….

If you don’t like pets, get out of the ranger community :-)

I love my pets. It would be pointless to be a ranger without the pet.
The ranger profession is a pet class and it should work that way! However Anet has not fulfilled that mission successfully….. yet! But I’m sure they will get there eventually.

Best way to keep your pet up is to get into the habit of using Troll Ungent. Works nicely in sPvP, works somewhat well in dungeons. (better than anything else)

In dungeons, if they grab aggro, it may be a pretty good idea to call them back after using a cripple, causing them to kite the target, and giving yourself a safe opportunity to let the damage fly.

Turning into a text wall now but…

The ranger isn’t a “pet class” or at least shouldn’t be. Pets should function as a Profession Skill, (their skills are already in the right slots!) providing the ranger with a bonus to whatever play style he is using. When they are used as his primary source of damage, he is often punished by seeing them die quickly.

Ranger is a pet class. And i not see that change in the future. And I did not ask to remove pet. But if thiq is what you want to talk about, be my guest…

imz.8593:

2) Mini. IT does not tank in PvP the way it does in PVE. unless you are fighting a clueless player

I’ll take the time to put down a wolf.

the latest patch really helped pets out, still sad that rangers are balanced around having the pet active the whole time. In PvP they’re still a liability, but at least they’ll hit things if you slow/cripple/chill them. Did S&R get fixed completely? havent had many chances to use it lately (going for map completion)

Would love to see them start tweaking the damage ratio, either bring the pet damage up (or a scaling stats of +10-20% of what the masters stat is) or lower the damage they do but increase rangers. In a perfect world, we’d have a slider from 5% pet to 95% pet, depending on if we want to support our pet, or have our pet support us, and both are valid play styles. As it sits right now, we can only shift the balance by 300 attributes and 3 utility skill, most traits end up helping the pet because the others arent worth taking in the situation.

First thing they need to do is normalize pets. This means make all pets do the same basic damage without exception. Once this is done they can fine tune the class to determine just how much of a percentage the ranger’s damage should come from the pet. I’d hope for 10%, but I’d settle for as high as 20% base. But the 50-60% right now? Absolutely not.

Another thing that needs to be fixed is the pet controls, AE effects on pets, and how they interact with the world. For starters, they should take significantly less damage from AE attacks in both PvE and PvP. If a player or mob wants to take down a pet, it should have to devote considerable effort to do it (and by considerable effort I simply mean target it). Pet controls also need to be tweaked. For starters, there shouldn’t need to be a return button. If I tell my pet to attack something and it’s either not attacking something or is attacking a different target it will attack what I have selected. If I tell it to attack a target that I have selected, it will return to me. And when pets return, they should move quickly to retreat to you. Lastly, the F2 abilities need to be instant cast and fire off immediately. I don’t care if the pets need to stay rooted while the animation finishes, but the effects that are triggered should be instant.

Once they’ve determined the amount of damage they want pets to account for and the class’ damage is increased to better compete with other pure dps, no support, limited escape classes, they can then flesh out the pet concept.

If I had my way, I’d make it so the pet is nothing more than a low damage DOT that accounts for about 10% of the class’ damage. I would then divide the pets into categores: dps, utility, defense.

DPS Pets: These pets are your cats, birds, etc. They still do the basic damage every other pet does, but they have stronger F2 abilities that revolve around doing very high burst damage.

Defense: These pets are your bears, drakes, and so forth. These pets do the same damage as every other pet out there, but their F2 abilities are designed to provide defensive bonuses to the ranger. Things like tackle, where the pet will effectively sit on a target and hold them in place for XX seconds or until the pet is brought down to 25% hp.

Utility: These are the remaining pets like dogs. Their F2 abilities provide large area affect moves. Things putting a marker on the ground and any enemies in it are vulnerable and any allies in it attack 10% faster and so forth.