Guild Wars 2

whats the issues Rangers have with pets?

what has been the cause of most the hate over pets?

I would like to be able to stow my pet without having him pop out if I get a little bit of falling damage. I like to stash them when i’m doing a jumping puzzle so they don’t interfere with my view, but if i fall, out they pop. I understand they’ll come out when i’m being attacked, but they can’t help me with my sprained ankle.

Also I wish the names would stick when I swap them out. Just becuase.

Knighthonor.4061:

whats the issues Rangers have with pets?

what has been the cause of most the hate over pets?

All content in this game is designed around avoiding damage but pets don’t have any avoidance abilities. They have to soak damage. We have suggested giving pets Aegis or brief immunity everytime the Ranger dodges or uses a skill with evade.

Pets don’t scale with gear at all. This means every time ANet decides to mess with the gear treadmill (hello ascended gear!), Rangers benefit the least from all new gearing options. We must sit back and wait around for ANet to buff pet stats manually which will likely never happen.

Pet F2 abilities don’t work consistently. From not firing when we cast them because the pet can’t use the ability till it can fit it in between attacks to the F2 abilities simply having horrendously long cast times, they simply don’t work consistently.

The pet makes up a sizable part of the class’s damage so the aspect of damage the player is in direct control of (from the Ranger itself) is reduced in both raw damage and through the skill coefficients. No one has nailed down exactly how much of the damage we’re handicapped by, but it’s somewhere in the 25-40% range. Players feel the pet should account for no more than 5-15% of the class’s damage and would like our skills and coefficients brought up to normal levels.

I haven’t ran the numbers but 40% of damage seems awfully high. Maybe in a regen bunker condi build. But rabid or berserker there’s just no way it’s 40%. Probably more like 10% or 15% tops.

Pets scaling with gear becomes a problem with ascended in wvw though, depending on your build.

Chopps.5047:

I haven’t ran the numbers but 40% of damage seems awfully high. Maybe in a regen bunker condi build. But rabid or berserker there’s just no way it’s 40%. Probably more like 10% or 15% tops.

Pets scaling with gear becomes a problem with ascended in wvw though, depending on your build.

I ran simple DPS numbers from a Thief’s dagger (their highest DPS weapon) and the Ranger’s sword (our highest DPS weapon) and found the Dagger at 2469 and the Ranger at 1663. So that would be about 33%. I haven’t timed the pet attacks yet as I got lazy so can’t do a DPS comparison as the wiki doesn’t have any values and I didn’t find them yet.

This is before traits and food and such. It’s also just auto attack. Rangers don’t seem to really benefit that much from using their abilities. Especially with the bows (which are the only weapons I really care about) so I haven’t done anything else to see if maybe the horn #4 is worth using etc.

I dunno if it’s just me… but I really don’t see why rangers must be penalized for having a dead pet. Why can I not just press F4 and get her back 20/16 seconds later? Why must I wait a whole 60/48 seconds for my core profession mechanic to kick in?

DiamondMeteor.8345:

I dunno if it’s just me… but I really don’t see why rangers must be penalized for having a dead pet. Why can I not just press F4 and get her back 20/16 seconds later? Why must I wait a whole 60/48 seconds for my core profession mechanic to kick in?

I’d just settle for being able to res our pets again. I still don’t understand Anet’s ridiculous logic in taking that away from us.

DiamondMeteor.8345:

I dunno if it’s just me… but I really don’t see why rangers must be penalized for having a dead pet. Why can I not just press F4 and get her back 20/16 seconds later? Why must I wait a whole 60/48 seconds for my core profession mechanic to kick in?

Substance E.4852:

DiamondMeteor.8345:

I dunno if it’s just me… but I really don’t see why rangers must be penalized for having a dead pet. Why can I not just press F4 and get her back 20/16 seconds later? Why must I wait a whole 60/48 seconds for my core profession mechanic to kick in?

I’d just settle for being able to res our pets again. I still don’t understand Anet’s ridiculous logic in taking that away from us.

Either of these two changes/revisions would also make me happier.

They’re stupid. Like super dumb, and they die in WvW.

Like other brothers ranger said :

- F2 doesn’t trigger and when it does it takes so long than the target is away or our friends are too
- they just take damage and die fast except you take bear
- they have a so looooonnng recast except you spe beastmaster at 15 pts with 20 sec bonus
- the traits like “master bond” is so upper bugged than even when you enter water the pet loose the buff and you have to restart it again, same as you swith pet, buff disappear

etc…

give us siege devoulvers in wvw. i cant image anything else usefull pet in wvw

They probably don’t micro them at all.

I think the real core issue, we are reliant on them. Everything is tied to them pretty much. All our damage/healing/utility presumptions are based around the idea we have a pet with us that is alive, on target and contributing.

If it was just a bonus, an add on, instead of a integrated component, I think like 90% of the complaints would fade away or be shrugged off.

Writetyper.1985:

They probably don’t micro them at all.

Even a properly micro’d pet has many issues. Slow skill activations, suicidal tendencies of standing in AoE fields, and inability to avoid AoE and wave-style attacks being among the larger ones.

If one has not seen these issues than either they don’t play a ranger, they’re lying, or they’re blind.

Chopps.5047:

I haven’t ran the numbers but 40% of damage seems awfully high. Maybe in a regen bunker condi build. But rabid or berserker there’s just no way it’s 40%. Probably more like 10% or 15% tops.

Your setup is irrelevant because your ratios are still balanced around having the pet. If the pet wasn’t a factor you would be even stronger running those setups you mention, the margin easily being by more than 15%.

Atherakhia.4086:

Chopps.5047:

I haven’t ran the numbers but 40% of damage seems awfully high. Maybe in a regen bunker condi build. But rabid or berserker there’s just no way it’s 40%. Probably more like 10% or 15% tops.

Pets scaling with gear becomes a problem with ascended in wvw though, depending on your build.

I ran simple DPS numbers from a Thief’s dagger (their highest DPS weapon) and the Ranger’s sword (our highest DPS weapon) and found the Dagger at 2469 and the Ranger at 1663. So that would be about 33%. I haven’t timed the pet attacks yet as I got lazy so can’t do a DPS comparison as the wiki doesn’t have any values and I didn’t find them yet.

This is before traits and food and such. It’s also just auto attack. Rangers don’t seem to really benefit that much from using their abilities. Especially with the bows (which are the only weapons I really care about) so I haven’t done anything else to see if maybe the horn #4 is worth using etc.

Simple test? Explain. There is no such thing. The result depends on the assumptions. You didn’t take any traits did you?

Leuca.5732:

Chopps.5047:

I haven’t ran the numbers but 40% of damage seems awfully high. Maybe in a regen bunker condi build. But rabid or berserker there’s just no way it’s 40%. Probably more like 10% or 15% tops.

Your setup is irrelevant because your ratios are still balanced around having the pet. If the pet wasn’t a factor you would be even stronger running those setups you mention, the margin easily being by more than 15%.

My pets are only used for buffs/debuffs at this point. I do not use them for damage, even though they do damage. Honestly.

Writetyper.1985:

They probably don’t micro them at all.

Mico manage a pet with Attack, Stop Attacking, Special Ability, commands? LOL, how much micro managing can you do with that. Pet mechanic is poo, don’t try to justify it.

Chopps.5047:

Atherakhia.4086:

Chopps.5047:

I haven’t ran the numbers but 40% of damage seems awfully high. Maybe in a regen bunker condi build. But rabid or berserker there’s just no way it’s 40%. Probably more like 10% or 15% tops.

Pets scaling with gear becomes a problem with ascended in wvw though, depending on your build.

I ran simple DPS numbers from a Thief’s dagger (their highest DPS weapon) and the Ranger’s sword (our highest DPS weapon) and found the Dagger at 2469 and the Ranger at 1663. So that would be about 33%. I haven’t timed the pet attacks yet as I got lazy so can’t do a DPS comparison as the wiki doesn’t have any values and I didn’t find them yet.

This is before traits and food and such. It’s also just auto attack. Rangers don’t seem to really benefit that much from using their abilities. Especially with the bows (which are the only weapons I really care about) so I haven’t done anything else to see if maybe the horn #4 is worth using etc.

Simple test? Explain. There is no such thing. The result depends on the assumptions. You didn’t take any traits did you?

It is around 30% Chopps. Simply comparing the weapons base damage on wiki, will give you the same rough estimate. However, the pet doesn’t only deal around 30% of the damage the Ranger deals, but actually deals +50% of the damage the Ranger deals. So as long as both the Ranger and the pet is hitting a target, the damage can actually be +10% higher then other professions. And that’s not even counting pet skills like Lightning Breath..

And that leads me to answer the OP question; the biggest issue with the pet is path finding. If the pet could hit a target more often, the Ranger would feel a lot more powerful, and the fact that the pet dies easily would be more justified.

Pets are unreliable.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the pet wasn’t made to be more than a class mechanic:
- 19 traits affect only the class mechanic (26 traits affect the class mechanic in total)
- all 4 shouts affect only the class mechanic
- all 4 signet actives affect only the class mechanic
- Ranger skills scale very badly with power because the Ranger has a class mechanic

Of course, this wouldn’t be a problem if the class mechanic wasn’t unreliable:
- the class mechanic can be killed for up to 60 seconds
- the class mechanic can’t always find a path to its target
- the class mechanic can’t always hit its targets
- the class mechanic takes time to move between targets
- the class mechanic doesn’t always use the F2 skill when told to several times, nor is it instant

So, The Ranger’s class mechanic is both the biggest and the most unreliable.

On top of that, ArenaNet seems to assume that it’s always 100% the player’s fault if a pet dies. Notice how the pet goes on a 3 times longer cooldown if it’s dead (60 seconds instead of 20).

My main concern about the pet mechanic is the AoE avoidance problem. More fights are including unique AoE effects that cannot be micromanaged to mitigate damage to pet (i.e. “waves” and other effects that require precise positioning). While pet micro issues are mitigated by using sword or greatsword, this limits build diversity by tying pet efficacy to a subset of available weapons. In summation, we are not given the opportunity to manage pet mitigation of AoE damage and on-target status with the same sovereignty that is given to other classes and their mechanics. That’s just frustrating.

Because of the funky way Tab Target works in GW2 our Pets run off and attack targets no where near the target(s) you are attacking. I’ve fought two targets, tried to tab target between them and had my pet run off and pull a third target to me.

Rather annoying. Sometimes I find the pet on something I don’t think I ever targeted, which has something to do with leaving a pet on aggressive. >shrugs<

Looking over the lists above, I think most of the areas have been covered.

The real issues are:
Ranger gives everything to the pet(Traits, booms, heals) and the pet doesn’t give anything meaningful back.

Pet’s die too often to AoE’s, and we have no tools to save them. If we are melee its even worse.

My main issue with pets is the problem with hitting moving targets. Both melee pets and ranged pets miss their moving targets pretty often. If you move right/left really fast all the time the slow missiles from the ranged pets will miss all the time. Or you simply run in a large circle and the pet will always run and then stand still to shoot, run and stand still to shoot and so on. And it takes long to finally be close enough to attack again.
This is especially an issue in WvW. In PvE mobs dont move much, in sPvP you fight in a circle but in WvW especially while roaming pets have a really hard time reaching ranged targets.
There is a reason why every melee class has gap closers. If they did not they could be kited forever. Thats what happens to our pets.
In my opinion give them +30% movement speed which means 63% with swiftness or make them attack while moving.
If anyone uses a gap closer it will take 5-10 seconds for the pet to catch up or sometimes even forever. So it will deliver like 5-10% of its damage in some cases when someone is kiting the pet.
Now take a look at phantasms: They deal more damage, their ranged attack speed is insane and absolutely impossible to simply kite. If you want to avoid phantasms damage you have to block/evade or use another defensive utility.
Our pets should also be reliable.

The other thing is what people mentioned here: F2 takes too long and is unreliable. For example dog’s leap. Once they leap the target is already too far away and they leap into thin air. That is just sad.

Chopps.5047:

My pets are only used for buffs/debuffs at this point. I do not use them for damage, even though they do damage. Honestly.

That’s not really addressing what I was talking about. If your base/ratios were not balanced around the pet, you would be doing more damage than you are now, regardless of what you use your pets for.

Well, my biggest gripe with the pet is that it’s the class mechanic. Whereas other professions have access to their f keys at all times (assuming that you build up your adrenaline or any other charge mechanics to use them), our f keys are not accessible at all times (pet dead, pet won’t attack due to pathfinding, f2 has all the issues described above, plus you need to micromanage your f skills) thus gimping the ranger profession.
Please note that these are real issues in my opinion, other professions don’t have to deal with AI while using their f skills and can use them on demand basis while having a target while the ranger has to:
1. Send the pet to the target, 2. Make sure that the pet has reached the target in order not to waste the f2 use, 3. You have to be aware where you f skill (pet) is at all times in order to properly use your class mechanic.
As a comparison:
1. Ranger sends his pet to a target and while the pet engages the ranger uses f2. Well, f2 just got wasted because the target just moved and the pet is standing on the targets’ previous position casting the animation for the f2 skill. In addition, the pet rushes around like a maniac trying to get in range of the target in order to dps it.
2. Mesmer got his phantasms/clones out, uses a shatter skill, the clones rush to wherever the target is and THEN shatter.
3. Necromancer hits f1, done.
4. Elementalist uses an element, done.
5. Guardian has his class mechanic up at all times and on demand.
And many more. Oh, did I mention that our class mechanic can die? Oo

Don’t forget that many of our trait lines and utilities involve the pet. With a dead pet these become entirely useless or less powerful than other classes.

Rangers have trap and spirits and some other utilities that are static. This is of limited use in any mobile content. So with a dead pet in mobile content nearly all the ranger utilities are useless.

Lack of survivability for pets with certain bosses. Unless it’s a devourer or spider, it’s going to die with certain effects in play. Hopefully, the Oct 15th update will help change this.

I love my pets dearly and to be honest there have been a number of times in PvE and WvW where my pets have genuinely saved me and my comrades, most frequent of course being my Wolf ‘Chopstixs’ saving people from being stomped or helping crowd control, but and it’s a HUGE but, frankly they just don’t work… For example, i would love to use a snow leopard, i like the idea of having a cat dps that also offers some cc in the form of a chill but, whenever i hit F2 instead of leaping to my foe and rending them a new kitten hole with their icy claws they just kind of… rear up and well i can only describe it as “wave” at them. the F2s simple don’t activate when you want them to, and what’s worse is that it’s not even a continual amount of error, sometime it might wait a few seconds before it does it, sometimes it might go out for a coffee break first, so you can’t even account for the delay and pre cast accordingly.
My greatest personal strife with pets though is that they can not hit moving targets, this is such a huge issue, this is doubly frustrating because in my opinion it also drives the choice of pet, i would love to use a dog and a bird or a cat, but i feel that the extra dps is wasted because they won’t hit the target i’m attacking, so i just stick to two dogs because i know i can at least call of them for some crowd control if i need it.
to be honest, no matter what changes they make while the pets attacks are so unlikely to hit and F2s so unreliable, it won’t fix anything.
Having said all that i don’t want people reading this thinking it’s not worth making a ranger it’s still a lot of fun to play, and you can, with practice perform well, it’s just it’s kind of massively unfair that our mechanic is crippled as such, hell could you imagine if burst skills or thieves steals couldn’t hit moving targets?

Having come to the ranger as my last class to learn and played one for the last 3 weeks in spvp, I’d absolutely say that it is the sheer unreliablility of the F2 skill that has me screaming at my monitor. An immensely powerful ability that for all intents and purposes fires randomly. About as compelling in gameplay as nightmare runes.

Jae.9682:

I’d absolutely say that it is the sheer unreliablility of the F2 skill that has me screaming at my monitor. An immensely powerful ability that for all intents and purposes fires randomly. About as compelling in gameplay as nightmare runes.

It’s actually borderline amusing how bad F2s are sometimes.

I was doing Tequatl and was trying to res someone while i’m poisoned so I cast brown bear’s F2. Instead of instant casting as it stood beside me, it actually ran towards the finger that I had targeted before it fired the skill. End result with me still poisoned and the bear got a tidal wave in the face, lol.

If nothing comes out of the Oct 15 patch, I hope they’ve at least made F2 buffs disregard range for the pet owner. The F2 buffs are virtually unusable especially if you’re using range weapons.

If you haven’t realized your pet will run into range of the enemy target before casting its F2 which is actually a decent mechanic. To get it to cast near you just detarget and cast.

I don’t see why they don’t just allow pet AOE based skills to be AOE targeted. Not only would this raise the Ranger skill ceiling a little, it would allow us to maximize our pets AOE effect or possibly even time the pets f2’s in certain situations.

(For example, assume an enemy is just behind a ledge or wall. We would be able to tell our wolf to howl near that ledge/wall that he would normally try to go around as it is now where there must be a target or require the ranger to be near.)

Eurantien.4632:

If you haven’t realized your pet will run into range of the enemy target before casting its F2 which is actually a decent mechanic.

It would be a good mechanic if every f2 was an attack.

They aren’t.

Frankly I want to know how the canine cripple on f2 trait in the beastmaster line works for moss dogs and their regen-howl on f2…

And I REALLY want my moss dog while its SET TO PASSIVE to stop running into combat after I tell it to howl…

Pets are pretty close to useless with the way they design things in GW2 and this will probably never change do to Anet having no one working on the game that seems to comprehend even simple logic.

• Pet f2’s lack responsiveness (for example if you have the pet set to passive and you are moving the command won’t function at all, since they seem to have following the player coded as their highest priority…)

• Pets often idle too far away from the player (while either called back or set to passive) that they will just stand in AOE fields and die. There is nothing the player can really do about this other than run halfway across Tyria and backto have the pet follow them far enough away to not stand in an AOE

• Pets are often counterproductive to dungeon mechanics They will often run across mine fields and set off everything you don’t want set off as well as are not able to avoid shock waves (where the player jumps), stand on platforms, etc. In the case where targets are used to relay damage/effects to other nearby allies, there is nothing a player can do to stop their pet from relaying damage and effects to their allies, etc.

• Pets don’t scale with player gear

• Traits are too often split between the pet OR the player Every other class has their traits cover 100% of their class; both the player and their mechanic.

• Pet pathing For some reason, whenever you call your pet back from a target to avoid an AOE or whatever, your pet goes out and tries to find every other AOE nearby before trying to return to you… often limping back and in need of help.

The list goes on and on.

Atherakhia.4086:

Knighthonor.4061:

whats the issues Rangers have with pets?

what has been the cause of most the hate over pets?

All content in this game is designed around avoiding damage but pets don’t have any avoidance abilities. They have to soak damage. We have suggested giving pets Aegis or brief immunity everytime the Ranger dodges or uses a skill with evade.

Pets don’t scale with gear at all. This means every time ANet decides to mess with the gear treadmill (hello ascended gear!), Rangers benefit the least from all new gearing options. We must sit back and wait around for ANet to buff pet stats manually which will likely never happen.

Pet F2 abilities don’t work consistently. From not firing when we cast them because the pet can’t use the ability till it can fit it in between attacks to the F2 abilities simply having horrendously long cast times, they simply don’t work consistently.

The pet makes up a sizable part of the class’s damage so the aspect of damage the player is in direct control of (from the Ranger itself) is reduced in both raw damage and through the skill coefficients. No one has nailed down exactly how much of the damage we’re handicapped by, but it’s somewhere in the 25-40% range. Players feel the pet should account for no more than 5-15% of the class’s damage and would like our skills and coefficients brought up to normal levels.

Upvoted for truth. Hell, why not just put most of the pet things into the BM tree, make alterations to power/precision trees so the ranger is the one rewarded, and then allow for rangers to toggle on/off the pets during combat. If no pet is fighting, refund the damage penalty faced by adding a damage multiplier as an irremovable buff. If pet is out, the buff dissipates and the damage is reduced.

So it still lets people micro their pets for extra utility to accommodate for such a playstyle, and lets other players more focused on the archery side to deal the damage they should.

It’s such a simple fix and I end up screaming at my monitor every time I play my archer because it has yet to be implemented.

FuriousFarquad.1695:

Also I wish the names would stick when I swap them out. Just because.

This is a valid complaint I have, but ANet doesn’t think it’s important-and so do many other players, sadly.

At least don’t stick “juvenile” to them, it’s really silly. The default nicknames for unnamed pets on GW1, for instance, were better (Hearty, Aggressive, Dire, Playful) and at least would be more fitting since I doubt a level 80 Reef Drake that has accompanied you for hundreds of hours can in any way or fashion be deemed a Juvenile at that point.

Star Ace.5207:

FuriousFarquad.1695:

Also I wish the names would stick when I swap them out. Just because.

This is a valid complaint I have, but ANet doesn’t think it’s important-and so do many other players, sadly.

At least don’t stick “juvenile” to them, it’s really silly. The default nicknames for unnamed pets on GW1, for instance, were better (Hearty, Aggressive, Dire, Playful) and at least would be more fitting since I doubt a level 80 Reef Drake that has accompanied you for hundreds of hours can in any way or fashion be deemed a Juvenile at that point.

They claim it’s a problem with having to hold the name data for so many pets in the server, or some such thing.

i like how some people actually defend something that is just bad. Are they just trolling or are they just bad at seeing stuffs that are bad. Im confused.

lmaogg.7325:

i like how some people actually defend something that is just bad. Are they just trolling or are they just bad at seeing stuffs that are bad. Im confused.

I think some are just so used to defending from accusations that the class is complete and utter kitten, which it is not, that they just have trouble separating the valid complaints from the invalid ones.