Guild Wars 2

-In WvW, standing on a wall spamming your superior ac down on the zerg below you, only to have the ac disappear (health = 0) just as you press the 3 key… and you happen to have your Greatsword equipped!

Yes, you do fly serenely out into the middle of the zerg, and the zerg pauses to laugh at you!…..

wolfyrik.2017:

Eosaujii.5713:

Specific Game Mode

WvW

Proposal Overview

Pets are part of the Ranger’s heart and soul. The idiom, ‘whats mine is yours, whats yours is mine’ could be the fundamental game mechanic for a Ranger and her Pet.

In this regard, no distinction should be made in the traits between Ranger or Pet – all traits/signets, etc., should effect both the Ranger and the Pet equally. The Ranger and Pet should have full synergy.

Goal of Proposal

Balance the Ranger with her natural role as a Champion of Nature let her be as one with the wild animals she calls friend. The Pets will impart their strengths upon the Ranger and in turn, she imparts all of hers upon them.

This synergistic relationship will make the Ranger greater than the sum of its parts.

Proposal Functionality

Remove the traits from the Ranger’s lineup that are only for the Pet, and rework them so that what effects the Ranger now also effects the Pet.

Bring a new level of synergy between the Ranger and Pet by allowing the pooling of health, the sharing of all boons, and the ability of each animal to impart a mode of defense and/or offense to the Ranger – this relationship exists in harmony, and is in effect all of the time.

Some examples of this:

Bear defense: imparts a bonus to health pool (scalable depending on level)
Bear offense: imparts a terrifying instant roar (stance) causing weakness and fear

Spider defense: imparts a sticky residue, causing an attacker to be immobilized momentarily
Spider offense: increases the potency of all the Ranger’s poisons, along with durations

Hawk defense: imparts a special sight to the Ranger, allowing her to block some missiles
Hawk offense: increases the range of all missiles, with a bonus to crit on the initial shot

Each animal in turn, would offer to the Ranger something unique. These functions could replace the current pet-bar, and be accessible as a normal class function.

Associated Risks

There are no risks associated with this, as it will simply balance the game play of the Ranger, forever removing the handicap of having a class with reliance on an AI driven game mechanic.

By allowing the Pet itself to become part of what the Ranger is, the Ranger no longer has to rely on the game server for the other half of her abilities.

This sounds like the sort of direction that pets should have taken in the first place, with only one, unfortunately rather large, issue; we’d be sharing our character health with the same awful AI pet that cannot dodge attacks, doesn’t evade AoE and can’t jump obstacles. In other words a shared healthpool with pets with the current combat mechanics, would result in an insta-dead ranger in many scenarios.
Drop the shared health pool idea and you’ve got the base of what pets, arguably, should already be.
If defensive mode ment merging the pet with the ranger, it would be perfect.

Anet would have to scrap the current system for Ranger pets for this idea to work.

In other words, they’d have to put the world mobs back on the shelf, and recode some Ranger specific pets. Once the new pets have been created, then Anet could easily manage pet traits/skills/levels, along with just about anything that could be modified in that regard – without effecting ‘world balance’.

Everyone has an idea what the Ranger is, or should be, but the fact remains that our GW2 Rangers are bound to a pet.

An idea for sharing a pooled health with your pet is part of that spiritual bond between the Ranger and the pet, but doesn’t mean that if your pet is squashed by a ZERG that you die, just that a ratio of your health has been lost (temporarily).

As an example (clearly just a suggestion at this point), if your stats/gear gave you 21,000 health, and under the new system you have spec’d a tank/warder bear with a health of 42,000hp, Anet could arrange traits in the pet’s control panel that allow you access to say 66% of the Bear’s total pool of health, and the Bear will get 33% of your Ranger’s health pool. The shared total health now becomes:

Ranger: 21,000hp + 27,720hp = 48,720hp [Note: Bear imparts .66*42000]
Bear: 42,000hp + 6930 = 48,930hp [Note: Ranger imparts .33*21000]

Now this pooled health can be part of the NEW Rangers control panel (replaces old pet bar) in which the Ranger can hit a panic button on the bar to trigger the shared health mode, which would be on a countdown of say 10 secs, with a CD of 15 seconds (all traited).

Of course, diminishing returns take effect, for if during a fight neither the Bear or the Ranger were able to get fully healed up, then the next triggering of shared health would be at a reduced amount…

As you can see, this become part of what makes the Ranger, and her pet a team.

Sharing, or pure synergy is what this is all about

Specific Game Mode

WvW – Part 2

Proposal Overview

Pets are part of the Ranger’s heart and soul.

As everyone knows, the current Pets for the Ranger are World Entities (Mobs) leashed by the Ranger, and as such share the exact same game AI as the world mobs. Messing with a Ranger’s Pet’s AI, messes with the world mobs – that change is never gonna happen, we understand that.

The idea here is to remove those poor world creatures from the Ranger’s care, and give her (to start with) three or four completely unique ‘Ranger Animal Spirits’. The new Pets will have Ranger specific AI, and as suggested in my Part 1, share a perfect synergy with the Ranger so that they act as one.

This rework will allow the game Devs a chance to polish their original game concept without actually ruining the PVE aspect of the game.

Goal of Proposal

Balance the Ranger with her natural role as a Champion of Nature let her be as one with the ‘unique’ wild animals she calls friend.

Create a new array of animals (or animal spirits) which are unique to the game world, and adhere to a full synergistic relationship with the Ranger.

The new Pets will have unique builds, with their own personal traits sheet and custom skins/armors. These traits can be quested for, or enhanced through special power spirits (perhaps a Gem store item?) the Ranger finds in the World.

The new animals will have roles which they can play. Some examples of trait builds might include (there are virtually limitless possibilities):

Defensive Warder: a proximity condition removal, healer Pet build

Offensive Interceptor: charge to stun/interrupt, then immobilize Pet build

Defensive Dodger: lunge & dodge then zig & zag, then block Pet build (percentage of success of damage avoidance based on stats/traits and gear (Pet gear)

Offensive Interloper: either through stealth, or speed, a surprise attack which steals all boons from the opponent and shares them with the Ranger

Those are just some of the ideas, but through the combination of Pet traits and Pet gear/spirits, the Ranger can create a unique array of defensive and offensive capabilities which she imparts upon her Pet through the full synergy of her traits (as mentioned in Part1), and the selections made for the Pet specific traits/gear.

Proposal Functionality

Remove the current Pets from the Ranger’s line-up.

Initially, create three or four brand new, unique Pet, or animal spirits that can be obtained by the Ranger. Remember, the animal is a blank sheet until the Ranger trains the Pet traits, adds the power spirits, as well as dresses the Pet up in armor/trinkets.

Each new animal has a base ‘racial’ functionality for both offensive and defensive action (this was mentioned in Part 1 – essentially Ranger and Pet become as one, and a new character bar will allow the Ranger access to either offensive, and/or defensive synergistic powers imparted by the Pet).

Create a new trait line for the Ranger’s Pet (role specific traits only), so that she may train her Pet to become the ideal companion, a Pet specialize for a specific role, or one that is a hybrid of many roles.

Create a new character sheet for the Ranger’s Pet/spirit, allowing the Ranger to customize her companion’s appearance (color, fur style [yes, that’s a thing!], armor, etc.) as well as build up and modify the Pet’s stats and gear through questing (or Gem Store).

The astute reader will note, in Part 1 of this proposal, I suggest that the traits in the Ranger’s character tree be shared completely between Ranger and Pet – this is important because the trait line suggested in Part 2 is a specialize trait line for the Pet only. Therefore it is important to note, Part 2 suggests a new control system for the Pets through a role specific trait/build mechanism, not additional traits for the Ranger herself.

Associated Risks

There are no risks associated with this, as it will simply balance the game play of the Ranger, forever removing the handicap of having a class with reliance on an AI driven game mechanic.

By allowing the Pet to be a unique entity, no longer tied to the world mob(s) AI system, the Ranger will be given the freedom to modify how the Pet responds under various circumstances through the use of the new Pet trait/build mechanism.

Further, a profitable opportunity will arise by this addition as well, for all Ranger’s love to have their Pets look unique and beautiful. This in turn will give rise for the need of ‘Pet Grooming Kits’, ‘Pet Armors’, ‘Pet Power Boosts’, etc..

Specific Game Mode

WvW

Proposal Overview

Pets are part of the Ranger’s heart and soul. The idiom, ‘whats mine is yours, whats yours is mine’ could be the fundamental game mechanic for a Ranger and her Pet.

In this regard, no distinction should be made in the traits between Ranger or Pet – all traits/signets, etc., should effect both the Ranger and the Pet equally. The Ranger and Pet should have full synergy.

Goal of Proposal

Balance the Ranger with her natural role as a Champion of Nature let her be as one with the wild animals she calls friend. The Pets will impart their strengths upon the Ranger and in turn, she imparts all of hers upon them.

This synergistic relationship will make the Ranger greater than the sum of its parts.

Proposal Functionality

Remove the traits from the Ranger’s lineup that are only for the Pet, and rework them so that what effects the Ranger now also effects the Pet.

Bring a new level of synergy between the Ranger and Pet by allowing the pooling of health, the sharing of all boons, and the ability of each animal to impart a mode of defense and/or offense to the Ranger – this relationship exists in harmony, and is in effect all of the time.

Some examples of this:

Bear defense: imparts a bonus to health pool (scalable depending on level)
Bear offense: imparts a terrifying instant roar (stance) causing weakness and fear

Spider defense: imparts a sticky residue, causing an attacker to be immobilized momentarily
Spider offense: increases the potency of all the Ranger’s poisons, along with durations

Hawk defense: imparts a special sight to the Ranger, allowing her to block some missiles
Hawk offense: increases the range of all missiles, with a bonus to crit on the initial shot

Each animal in turn, would offer to the Ranger something unique. These functions could replace the current pet-bar, and be accessible as a normal class function.

Associated Risks

There are no risks associated with this, as it will simply balance the game play of the Ranger, forever removing the handicap of having a class with reliance on an AI driven game mechanic.

By allowing the Pet itself to become part of what the Ranger is, the Ranger no longer has to rely on the game server for the other half of her abilities.

L O L

Yeah.. see.. this is why posting here is about as useless as the replies…

To the replies – you’re missing the point of the post.

To the Moderator, please just delete this original post, as it is and always will be a waste of time to post here. Thanks.

Aurora