I have always been a huge fan of the ranger and currently it is my main. I have done nearly everything the game has to offer and have even gone on to accept difficult challenges, for example two-manning Arah explorable. Upon this I have found some very major flaws with the Ranger class, all of which pertain to pets.
The first flaw is the fact the pet is ALWAYS out whilst you’re in combat. I understand the pet is a Rangers signature and that is a huge part of the Ranger play style, however there are sometimes I really do not want my pet out in combat. For example; while I am in Arah or some other dungeon where my group is in a tight spot and we have to pull mobs one by one in a room and stay confined in a corner my pet can be up to say 15 yards away from me. So even though myself and my group included are safe and won’t agro any extra mobs into the fight my pet will still. I would also like to note I leave my pet on passive at all times; if I want my pet to attack a target I will manually tell it to attack.
This brings me to my next point. Pets are great in open world PvE, they can hold their own just fine and, depending on what pet you use, can be very viable tanks. The problem occurs though when you enter boss fights or dungeons. Like I mentioned earlier I leave my pet on Passive all the time because I use my pet to activate QZ when I swap pets as well as using the Jungle Stalkers “F2 might skill” and the Red Moa’s “F2 Fury Skill”. I use my pets as supports to help keep me booned but the damage increase I get from this just isn’t very much at all.
The problem is pets just die instantly in dungeons, I’ve even tried using tank pets like the bear. But they just don’t have the proper AI to survive. I’m not looking to have pets become stronger by any means. My Jungle Stalker hits like a truck! That cat can crit for 2-3k which is huge, and it’s supposed to be that way. But I can’t have my jungle stalker do any sort of damage in a dungeon because it doesn’t attempt to dodge attacks. It will die instantly against any Silver or higher mob. I believe pets should have built in dodge mechanics and priority mechanics. For example they shouldn’t attack right in front of the enemy that will just kill them in one hit when they go to attack the warrior that’s right next to it. They should seek to attack the enemy from the side or back, where it is out of the way enemy attacks. They should also recognize when they are in AoE fields and have a dodge ability setup similar to players.
Pets are an extension of the ranger, and furthermore from that they are an extension of a Rangers DPS. My ranger in full berserkers gear feels overwhelmingly underpowered. The reason being is because the class was designed to include the DPS of a pet. But I can’t even utilize that 25% potential DPS from my pet because it is stowed away during boss fights because it will die instantly.
TLDR: Improve Pet AI to dodge out of attacks (with a cooldown mechanic similar to players) and keep my pet withdrawn even during combat if I choose because I don’t want to agro more mobs into a fight due to my pets stupidity.