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It only seemed all over the place because they likely forgot pieces. That is of course they prefer very narrow stories and categorizes everything else with multiple plot lines as incohesive. I’d hate to hear their review on Lord of the Rings as I’m sure that was a mess of a story for them with even more plot lines than LS3.
I get that you like the story but the argument is less about that and more about the fact that it’s poorly written and executed. Multiple plot lines are good when they are done well and the proper literary rules of foreshadowing, climaxes, and the like are followed. LS3 doesn’t follow those rules and, to be blunt, the main NPCs in GW2 are pretty meh and can’t really carry it either. A so-so story can be saved by having good characters but if you have neither decent story nor interesting characters, your reception is going to lukewarm.
I thought LS3 was okay and but better than LS2. Except that I’m not arguing about that but that it wasn’t poorly written and executed which was my point. Where exactly in LS3 does it not make sense to you? Are you including the current events?
Have you read the summary for the season?
I think you aren’t understanding where I and other people are coming from. If you have to read the summary or replay the story to understand where the heck it’s going or have it make sense, it’s badly written and/or poorly executed.
I feel we are going to have to agree to disagree here. As I said before, mileage may vary because different players have different tastes.
It only seemed all over the place because they likely forgot pieces. That is of course they prefer very narrow stories and categorizes everything else with multiple plot lines as incohesive. I’d hate to hear their review on Lord of the Rings as I’m sure that was a mess of a story for them with even more plot lines than LS3.
I get that you like the story but the argument is less about that and more about the fact that it’s poorly written and executed. Multiple plot lines are good when they are done well and the proper literary rules of foreshadowing, climaxes, and the like are followed. LS3 doesn’t follow those rules and, to be blunt, the main NPCs in GW2 are pretty meh and can’t really carry it either. A so-so story can be saved by having good characters but if you have neither decent story nor interesting characters, your reception is going to lukewarm.
Of course, personal preference comes into play and the mileage may vary for different players.
More Rangers asked for a perma stow on Pets then a poorly designed healer with a majority of filler utilities and traits.
Yes…and? Getting what you want is nice. Getting what you want because the powers that be have decided not to fix what was broken at the core is not a good thing. I truly can’t drum up a bit of excitement for the new E-Spec. Good for the people who wanted it and didn’t want to re-roll to another class but disappointing nonetheless for someone who likes the pets and want them to be improved.
I don’t understand how any one can be disappointment about that. This is exactly what everybody been asking for years, a way to play without a pet. The animations looks amazing, especially the stances, It also seems like they took the old main hand sword AA movement ability and gave it to main hand dagger ability but made it more controlled.
On top of that, new pets.
I only hope core ranger skills/traits and glyphs will get some love.
1) The people who picked ranger specifically because it is a pet class do not constitute “everybody” and have no real reason to be excited outside of getting new (soon-to-be nerfed) pets.
2) Your last sentence is likely to happen right around “never”. Not when they are likely to try and funnel as many rangers into the new spec as possible to create their idea of “balance”. It’s cheaper for them that way since they don’t have to actually fix anything.
If I have to play a story again just to comprehend it, that means that it wasn’t told in a coherent manner. The story just kept changing focus. When a story constantly changes focus, (Laz > Balth > Dragons > Laz) it’s hard to remember those things keeping it together. I think it’s asking a bit much to expect players to remember key details while making sense of what’s going on.
No it doesn’t. It just means you forgot some things between releases and because it was released over a year’s time.
Eh, I’m with him. The Living World 3 story is pretty asinine and told poorly at that. Telling someone to play through a section again because it was all over the place the first time does not make it not all over the place the second go around.
Reminds me of when Ranger finally had its shortbow reworked. Not because we were asking for it for 4 years, but because of a newly released legendary shortbow. =|
Yup. Good times. Anet does some nice things but I’m not expecting them to fix the parts of this class I actually care about once Soulbeast is there to “solve” their problems with pets. I fully expect them to introduce new pets that will get nerfed into the ground for Rangers/Druids while retaining most of their use for their shiny new Elite spec. This will be how they balance our profession, by making the pet a non-factor.
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But will it make the pets better? Will the cast/aftercast times be affected? Will the pet be more reliable? More versatile to use?
Or will it just get shoved to the sidelines, as you don’t have to use it anyways?
Since this solution would cost more time and money and they haven’t been inclined to fix these problems thus far (with the exception of better hitboxes for our pets which only came this year) I vote for them opting to shove these to the sidelines. To bring up his example of people complaining about pigs with Soulbeast and this somehow magically translating to getting it fixed for people who still want the pet. They will most likely fix it out of the gate for Soulbeast only and leave pigs to rot for base ranger as they have for the past five years.
Smokescale form is going to be pretty epic, as is Jaguar, Siamoth, Murellow, Electric Wyvern, etc. A lot of the pets that never get used may make for interesting additions.
I agree the preview was somewhat lacking, I was loving the rest of the preview and it was almost like when they got to Ranger eSpec, it was “oh yeah, Ranger has one too” and that was about it. Hardly showed anything compared to the rest. Anyway, it has potential, here’s hoping eh?
The unused pets still won’t be getting a boost as you will only be using them to absorb their abilities. Unless they fix them to be good outside of being a buff/skill bot animal soul that resides inside of your character, they will still be useless as pets.
I may be biased but it felt like they spent a good amount of time describing all the other especs, and just flew through ranger in seconds. I wanted to be excited but I didn’t get a chance.
I thought some of the other professions looked cooler and more in line with how I play ranger. The ele one looked neat.
Agreed. Ranger was rushed and meh all around unless you are someone who really wanted a petless ranger. That whole, ‘you might be merged with your pet but your pet is totally still always with you’ shtick in the preview made me cringe.
Idk why everyone’s acting like the elite spec fusing with pets will make them not fix pets when it’ll literally only be ONE SPEC that avoids using the pet, it’s not like ranger and Druid are going to be able to shelf their pet and pretend it’s not there just because soul beast can (and even then we don’t know how long or frequently)
Experience. You know, like how they fixed vanilla pets by not fixing them and adding new, more powerful ones instead. Even though pets hit more reliably now, HoT pets are still tops in most scenarios, pigs are still not worth using because of their clunky special, and they will likely continue the trend of bandaid-ing the problems by throwing in more new pets instead of fixes.
Also, did they finally fix drakes and the fact that they only auto-attack which they broke back in the beginning of the year? This last question is a legitimate one as I stepped away from the game these past months after attempting to slog through the horrifically bad Living Story.
Not really excited for it at all. It feels like this is their way of avoiding fixing the problems with Ranger pets by taking them out of the equation completely. This wouldn’t be a problem IF I didn’t know that they probably won’t fix the issues with base ranger and pets. I don’t enjoy melee at all and I like having my pet next to me so I don’t see the point of grinding out an Elite specialization that doesn’t appeal to me.
Combined with having to go out and fight undead armies (yet again) and the continuation of a story that I find pretty nonsensical, it looks like I’m giving this expansion a hard pass.
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The thought of new pets excites me but I’m tempering my excitement until I know what our new elite will do. If I have to grind out Hero points for an Elite that might dump my pet so that Anet won’t have to work on fixing things for core Ranger and their pets (especially pre-HoT ones), I’m not entirely sure I’ll bother with the next expansion as it would be a waste of my time. Of course, we won’t know anything until Anet lets the cat out of the bag so I’ll just say that having access to new pet abilities is never a bad thing.
TLDR – I’m always down for more pets. There is no such thing as too much for me and hunting them down to tame is half the fun.
Greatsword Hilt Bash Range is still broken aswell (half of intended range).
You should make a new thread in the bug forum so this also gets called to attention and other people know to post on it. Maybe it’ll get fixed sooner since it’s a weapon skill versus a single pet family. =(
All drake pets were broken in the balancing patch back in February and they are still broken after this patch. The only skill they will use is “Bite” and the activated F2 skill. None of them use “Chomp” or “Tail Swipe” anymore. This is very frustrating as they are a staple pet for Rangers and one of the few pets out side of Heart of thorns that are consistently used.
Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.
No word on if it’s petless. Might wind up being an aspect sort of thing to overcome the fact that Rangers melt in melee. If it does wind up being petless, it will be interesting to see how they attempt to modify the rest of the Ranger trait lines without ruining the class (don’t have much faith in them accomplishing that, though).
Regarding the leaks yesterday..
Spoiler alertActually, it was said in the massive leak thread that the new ranger will be petless, pets will be turned into stances or auras if you will. Based on what type of pet, you get a matching aura.
Is that so? The comments I heard about that sounded like speculation but if it does come to fruition then I’ll probably give the expansion a miss then. I look forward to new things being added to my class but I’m not inclined to grind out an Elite tree that will require me to lose my pet to use it.
I’d only care if they put extra effort into fixing the problems we have with the pets now so people who want pets and people who want to be petless because of the flaws our pets have can both be happy. If it winds up being uneven I’ll just save my money and play something else then.
Players that want to play a pet-less Ranger are going to be very happy with this one.
No word on if it’s petless. Might wind up being an aspect sort of thing to overcome the fact that Rangers melt in melee. If it does wind up being petless, it will be interesting to see how they attempt to modify the rest of the Ranger trait lines without ruining the class (don’t have much faith in them accomplishing that, though).
Sounds cool in theory but will have to see how it is implemented. Having a mainhand dagger is something I have subzero interest in, especially if it puts me in melee so I’m only interested in the new e-spec as far as how it may or may not complement the core specializations. If I can’t use it to augment ranged gameplay w/ a pet in a fun way, I’m going to be disappointed.
Pets need a rework, they just have a mind of their own.
The Beastmastery trait line should be dedicated to pets, all pet traits here, none anywhere else.
I agree that pets need improvement and more control over being stowed but what is it with people trying to confine all traits pertaining to our central class mechanic to one specialization? Do you realize that there are approximately 17 traits outside of Beastmastery that influence our pets. It would be like a Mesmer complaining that other specializations besides the Illusion line can influence their clones.
I can’t speak to the GW1 Ranger because I never played it but in this incarnation of Guild Wars, it is very much a pet class and I don’t see trying to confine everything pet-related to the Beastmastery line as anything but a train wreck waiting to happen.
Not that I don’t agree that Engineers have been a little neglected but is Canach a warrior? Seems to me he was pretty engineer-ish with the bombs, reflective shield, and whatnot when you fought his blighted version in HoT main story. Just saying.
I played the game for a good chunk of the day yesterday without problem after installing the first patch however, after the second small patch was distributed in the evening (I am on Eastern time) my computer has been blue-screening. I am able to play the game for about a half hour or so and then my computer just blue screens.
I did not install any new Windows updates yesterday and this is not occurring with any other program but Guild Wars 2 and only after the patch last night.
I know this changes the topic but maybe someone can answer:Is there a site i can use to look up all the locations of pets?
Here you go: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_pet_locations
I’d probably level a ranger and save the boost for a class that’s a little more frustrating to get going.
The thing about ranger is you’ll probably want to explore the world to find your pets anyway, so you may as well level up while doing it rather than doing it all while you’re already at 80 (is how I’d see it).
There’s a lot of truth to this. I got a ton of map completion done on my ranger by going out to collect my pets. It’s a very travel-friendly class.
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Mesmers have a similar problem for some of their abilities. We can rip boons from enemies but…where are the enemies that are buffing themselves outside of new content? Mind you it’s not as important for us as it is for necros but it does make the ability set feel a little incomplete.
It’s magic! (shrug)
So part of the reason that I want damage moved away from phantasms is because phantasms need to be able to retarget while in combat at the very least, and ideally they need to be able to persist even when you go out of combat. However, due to the large power damage some of them can put out, this can lead to a considerable advantage for the mesmer in the opening of a fight.
Seriously, if you got out 3 iZerkers or 3 iDuelists and retargeted to a new opponent, and all 3 attacked at the same time it would deal huge damage, too much damage for my liking. One of the best ways to balance that is to just reduce their base damage and give at least part of it back to the mesmer’s skills.
I do think that their high damage is one of the reasons that we aren’t allowed to have them persist at the moment. So lowering their damage is an integral step to allowing us to have persisting phantasms, or at the very least phantasms that retarget when their target is dead.
I can see where it would have a benefit for PvP. Perhaps I should have explained that I was thinking more in terms of PvE.
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I’m not the biggest fan of lowering the DPS of clones and moving more to the Mesmer as the clones are such an integral part of the class mechanics and identity. It’s about as meh to me as when people suggest a petless Ranger as the solution to our DPS woes.
If clones did have to have their DPS lowered, I’d rather they pair it with the ability to generate a fourth clone and have shatter remove the other three but leave you with one. Alternatively, or possibly in addition to that, I think clones should persist for a few seconds after a target dies while you retarget a new enemy for them to attack. I don’t want an army of clones following us at all times but I do agree that I don’t like that we have to spend time building up clones again once an enemy is dead.
Hmm, I main a Ranger with a side of Engineer and Mesmer. The latter two I’m fine with but I’m running into a problem when I try to run power builds on Ranger. I’ve just started in on fractals and while condition damage is nice, I’d very much like to play as power as I prefer ranged abilities (longbow, staff) and they are so-so on condition outside of bleeds which were just nerfed with the February update. I’m already condition on my other two classes and it’s getting a bit much.
I’m not sure if Anet expects our lack of power to be made up for in fractals by our pets but right now, the gap between power and condition is really huge and our pets crumple super fast the moment a boss so much as glances at them unless we keep them on passive, which is yet another DPS loss. Plus, older pets from pre-HoT still need some TLC and Anet still hasn’t fixed the fact that our drakes now only auto attack and no longer use their tail swipe or chomp attacks.
I don’t mind that traps are no longer throwable per se but if they going to try and lock condition damage builds on Rangers to a more melee-centric play style then I’d like ranged power to become a more viable alternative for higher-end content so we have a bit more choice.
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I think these sound amazing. I still kind of prefer bleeding for spike trap (thematic personal preference) but I’ll take torment since we don’t really apply it through other means and we have a lot of bleed sources already. Plus, dust trap sounds promising and not overly
I’m always down for improving our synergy with pets and I think signets are a decent way to do it. I think Signet of Companionship is a nice suggestion to help survivability as pets tend to lose HP pretty quickly once focused.
Still wish we could trait it so that all shouts have a taunt built into them but I’m not sure pets are quite tanky enough to make that doable.
My ranger is level 11.
a) At what level will I be able to tame ..currently I have bear but would love to tame a leopard
b) I heard it is possible to have two pets at the same time. Is this true ?
a) You can tame pets now. You just have to go find the juvenilles of the pet you want. The leopard is called a jungle stalker and here’s a list of all the tameable pets and where to find them: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_pet_locations
b) You can’t have two pets out at the same time. You can have two pets slotted though and you quick swap between the two as needed.
I can second this. My drakes only auto attack which is a pretty big deal as drakes are a mainstay pet family due to their toughness, condition damage, and the ability to do AOE attacks.
This is a blemish on what was otherwise a pretty decent patch for Rangers.
Agreed. Thank you so much for the improvements! My kitty was tearing things up the other night. =)
This sounds more like something an elementalist would get.
Thank you all for the well thought out and detailed replies. Though I guess my main gripe isn’t that I don’t understand the plot, it’s more that I don’t think it’s explained to the player too well through the game, so things are constantly happening with no real reason behind it. You’re told to do things and simply follow along like a mindless drone, trusting the other characters because you have no other option.
I am getting a bit confused by some of these replies though, there seems to be mixed messages with some people saying I have to play as a different type of character to get the full story, while others say I don’t need to play as anyone else.
Some people have mentioned that important plot points are told in “dungeon” missions. I didn’t know anything like that existed, how do I find those kids of missions in the game?Aparantly I have to play things in order to understand the plot, though I thought I was since all I’ve been doing is following the little map pointer which tells me where to go. I guess it’s possible that I’ve been doing things out of order but I’m not sure how if it’s automated on the map.
The seasons which people have been bringing up seems to be in a gem store but I haven’t found one of those yet in game. I’ve only found ones which accept coins/karma points, unless it’s a web store on the GW2 website somewhere which I’m missing.
Someone said that since I’ve completed the main story I already know who Trahearne is, but I don’t have the slightest clue, so that’s one of many things which I will be looking up later as I sort through the above links.
One last thing. Some people referenced something called LA, what does that mean?
Honestly, I was away from the game for a few years and came back for Heart of Thorns so I missed a bunch as well. All you need to know about Trahearn is that he’s a Sylvari and many of them come into the world with a specific destiny known as a Wylde Hunt. His Hunt was to cleanse Orr and you succeed in doing that in the Original story by becoming a commander and helping him to become the leader of an inter-racial and inter-Order alliance called The Pact.
There are only two things you really need to do to get the basics and all caught up without buying Living World Season 2.
1) Go to the beach in Lion’s Arch over by the White Crane Terrace and speak to the lady next to the tent to get a short video and recap of events.
2) https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Living_World – It lays out everything that happens in each part of the Living World and is what I used to get caught up on what I missed in Season 2.
These two things are what put the story together and I had no questions when I started on HoT even though I had been away for a while. Whenever I want to know anything about a specific character, I just look it up in the wiki Guild Wars 2 has a very well-done and in-depth wiki and you can even access it easily from in-game by typing /wiki.
Hope this helps.
Excited to try these changes out. I’m liking that they did something for pets. Not overly upset about Sharpened Edges trait being nerfed as I tend to use Earth sigils and we have a fair number of things that cause bleeding at all times but will see how it plays out.
Ill try and throw my 2 cents in and not say things that have already been said; I would like the ranger to incorporate a bit more stealth and some sort of unique damage mitigate gimmick.
As it stands for stealth they have LB 3, Druid trait in shadow, and combo with sword 2/ GS 3/ staff 3 + smokescale f2 (might be 2 more other ones).
For evades they have standard 2 charges, and sword 2, 3 + dagger 4 and I am happy with that but we look at Mesmers who can slip away dead fast and gain distance, then murder ball you with clones that are just as powerful as our pets – ok.
Daredevils have an extra dodge and blinds and stealths with bursty burst (but once you catch them on a stun they drop and have to run to reset so we can use that time for us as well). I can go on and on but it just seems like Ranger doesn’t get a lot of love and I say this as someone who plays everything BUT ranger.
Players can draw out the pets while running away, jump back on the ranger while the pet is catching up and thats damage lost from the ranger (and spirits are lame now). Now saying to give the ranger more melee dmg is just being lazy and introduces the potential for imbalance so I would argue that instead use the same theory with squishy profs like mes and thief to give them avoids and stealth we could do the same for ranger. After all, lorewise they stalk, hide, camouflage.
More stealth sounds good and I’m with you on spirits being pretty bleh now. It’s not that they don’t have their uses but them not moving with you and their activation having such a so-so range (even traited) before they die makes them too situational.
Part of me would also like it if we could trait shouts to have a pet taunt built into all of them instead of just “Guard” to allow us more control over bouncing aggro between us and the pet. Might be a bit too strong in some cases though. =/
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You’re joking, right? E-specs are not optional, they are mandatory.
Just saying this is wrong in itself. E-specs as long as there are many of them are de facto optional and not mandatory. Simply because you can only select one e-spec at a time. Druid may be mandatory if you are glued to the meta but in fact core ranger spec are also in a good place atm (at least when it come to condi dps).
again, why they’ve made changes to things like “Call of the Wild”
Nope, Call of the wild being making the pet unblockable is not a testimony of anet wanting to make the pet’s dps worthwhile. An unblockable pet is a pet that continue to buff it’s master and continue to proc what he is supposed to proc (traits effects). To make it simple it’s the very bad way anet found to say : “Now shut up! We’ve done something about pets not being able to hit their target, we won’t do anything else because we feel that it would make the ranger imbalanced”.
I’ll say it again, I don’t disagree with all of your ideas, merely the one that makes pets non-DPS, moble utility slots.
Again, a pet doing dps or not doesn’t change the fact that you play a summoner, play along with your pet or whatever. It’s just a different approach of how to interact along with a pet, a different way to play the same class. From my point of view, you should be more wary of :
1st E-spec : add an F5 skill tat seal the pet into your weapon. The pet is somehow stowed but is still affected by the boons and different buff you share. It’s auto attack/damage happen on an on hit extra effect with your weapon. You have access to F2 which affect you instead of your pet and F4 may be traited in order to directly summon a sealed pet. When you are downed or killed the seal broke.
since the sealing effect remove your pet and effectively get rid of it.
Than an e-spec that merely remove the dps of your summoned pet.
1) The point I was making about “Call of the Wild” had almost nothing to do with the amount of damage and everything to do with Anet increasing how much we manage the pet and by extension doubling down on the fact that we are a pet class. It’s only a small fix to mitigate the issues brought up in this thread and is not enough. Again, I agree with you that pets need to be improved. I just do not agree with you that pets should be cosmetic buff bots like you are proposing.
2) What you propose and what the person you are quoting is proposing sound like nothing more than two sides of the same coin. He wants the pet to disappear but give you all of the buffs as if he were still around. You want the pet to be completely useless as anything more than an occasional button press and contribute no DPS, just hang out until you need it. You are still trying to take the pet out of the equation but making them more or less a larger version of a companion mini and calling it a day as if that is supposed to be satisfactory or engaging fantasy and gameplay.
I am going to keep repeating it until you get it, that’s not why people play pet classes.
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The only real change I would like to see is the option to select your pets F2 ability. Take for instance the fire wyvern. Maybe you can select the fireball instead of the torched ground aoe. Or better yet the ability to chose between two seperate attacks for their F2 ability that share the same cooldown. It would allot for more versatility without drastically changing the character. My first character was a ranger and I still play it quite often.
This would be really useful too. Although the fire wyverns animation is cool, it takes soooooo long and drops agro off of your pet so it’s a pain to take advantage of the field combo.
Pets redesign
- Put all pets at similar power level. They suppose to have powerful abilities to compensate delay for its execution.
- Depending on the pet type lower their toughtness (agro) and compensate their survivability other way. Pulling agro from you is often helpful but it also can be contraproductive depending on your build.
- Add small aoe to auto-attack of melee pets and increase attack speed of range pets to compensate this advantage.
- It would be nice to have effect for pet swap because right now actual pet just suddenly disappear and new one suddenly appear.
- crazy one – I would love to see more interactions between character and pets. For example be able ride on pets or be able to use skills which combine character and pet attacks to single combo attack.
These are all nice suggestions. I especially agree that if they are determined to leave the attack delay on, then pets could stand to be buffed a bit.
You last suggestion sounds pretty nice especially for people who like to melee. I’d also like to add that I wish pets had access to more combo fields.
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Yeah title says everything. Bump it if you want better improved pets, i dont suggest anything because there are hundreds of suggestion threads and a lot of good ideas.
Agreed. I like having pets but they do need some TLC.
These ideas actually aren’t too bad, I especially like the one for spirits. The only one I’m uncertain about is summoning extra pets as that tends to magnify any existing pet/control problems such as using the Hyena’s special move and having the extra hyena running off to attack stuff without my say-so.
You are not open minded enough to even accept this as an optionnal E-spec
You’re joking, right? E-specs are not optional, they are mandatory. And every new E-spec will be overpowered just as an additional leveredge to make you buy new expansion.
As I understood from your earlier discussion, you want a petless E-spec. If that thing hits live servers it will push everything else from meta, as it was with Druid E-spec. You don’t want to play it? Sorry, no slot for you in fractal/raid group. There is no option here.
Oh, and one more thing. The most important one. I love my pets. Even if they act stupid and I lack control over them. Please don’t mess with my pets. Ranger always was (and will be) a pet class. Its icon is a pet paw, not a bow or Legolas face. Without a pet it will become just a medium armor warrior/dragon hunter clone. If you want it please go and play warrior or dragon hunter.
So, please, leave poor pets alone. All they need is:
1) ability to bite targets while moving;
2) extended control options;
3) better survivability – either sharing evasion frames with our dodge rolls or immunity to boss AoE skills.
@Dadnir
Ider puts it very passionately but I do feel along the same lines and I’m not inclined to apologize for it since I picked Ranger specifically because it fits that stated playstyle. So of course I’m biased, anyone who picks a profession in any mmo is expressing a bias because personal preference is a thing. =)
I’ll say it again, I don’t disagree with all of your ideas, merely the one that makes pets non-DPS, moble utility slots. Also, nerfing a mechanic does not mean that Anet wants pets to be useless, what they’ve been doing is more forcing players to manage their pet to get the most out of them. A person can set and forget their pet and it will do alright-ish DPS but to do best with them, a person must manage and work with their pet (again, why they’ve made changes to things like “Call of the Wild”).
To put it succinctly, the missing piece here is that the management needs improvement on multiple fronts to make this goal more viable.
It’s not so much that I want the pet gone. It’s just the horrible implementation/AI that I want fixed.
For example, the F2 ability on the electric wyvern: Even on a stationary target, it lunges forward and like 80% of the time it overshoots and misses. The AoE circle doesn’t make contact with the enemy.
And the bristleback in PvP. It takes a legit 4-5 seconds for its F2 ability to start firing. And when it does, it’s extremely telegraphed and easy to dodge. There goes basically all my damage as a bunker druid.
Fix the kitten AI. Make the F2 ability instant and accurate. Make them switch targets as soon as you do.
And I am 100% behind you in this. I think this, more than anything else – fixing the attack speed and accuracy – would eleviate the majority of complaints that people have about the Ranger. Paired with a bit more control over pet stowing and positioning and it would definitely be a huge step up.
Honestly there is no loss in changing the pet into an ornament that support you.
This statement right here, shows that you do not in any way, shape, or form understand why a significant portion of the population chose a pet class to play. There actually is a psychology to it which is why, even though it is a pain for companies to code and balance, they continue to create pet classes. The complaints people have about pets are not unique to this game. Go to most any other mmo and you will see the same thing and the same minority that insists on making the pets a non-factor because they feel they shouldn’t have to reroll to go petless.
You also do not seem to understand why Anet created pets like the bristleback and smokescale, changed “Call of the Wild” to make pets unblockable, and even did a little thing like making it so that pets finally remember their name (something people have been requesting for almost as long as people have asked for Ranger to go sans pet). And there is also a high chance that even more pets are going to be introduced come next expansion. What sense would it make to then introduce an E-spec that reverses on all of that with a pet that does no damage and is just a buff bot?
What you keep proposing would literally be the exact opposite of where Anet is clearly taking the class and as much as you keep saying that it would help a ton of you, you understand that you are the holdouts. The people who want your specific type of game play and don’t feel like waiting for it have already rerolled to other classes like dragonhunter, thief, or warrior after determining that this isn’t the class for them. Anet literally has no reason to create the E-spec you are proposing outside of appeasing people who regret choosing a pet class and don’t want to level another class.
Pets should be improved but making a special version that is essentially useless for direct DPS outside of the occasional button press for utility – making them more akin to spirits but with the ability to follow a target – is not the way to go about it and is guaranteed to kitten a lot of people off. Honestly, if Anet increased their attack speed, buffed older pets to be more inline with Hot pets, gave us just a bit more control over positioning and when we do or do not have them out, I think it would improve the gameplay of the class (not that I view it as unplayable now, mind you) without massively overhauling it and changing the core reasons why people often pick pet classes in the first place.
E-specs should supplement a class (Like the way Druid supplements Nature Magic), not make an existing core mechanic a non-factor or (I hate to say it) completely change the flavor of a class.
Well… I happened to answer everything but I lost my wall of text so I’ll sum it up.
1 : none of the thing that I suggest here change in the sligthest the core ranger. Basically, I use E-spec to work around the current system and open new door to the ranger which would satisfy what you think are the minority of the players.
2 : I’m affraid you are one of a kind. People usually do not chose the ranger because it’s a pet class. Most people use it because the profession name make them fantasize about an archer character which is hy we got our share of a certain well known elf name from the lord of the ring novel.
3 : with your mindset, every redesign thread is bound to make you frown. a redesign call for profound change not to keep safe thing that do not work properly.
4 : Pets are lacking in many way and not only in pvp and wvw. In order to fix the fact they are lacking, Anet will have to either seriously work on the pet (skill balance, glaring issues… etc.) or create E-spec that bend the pet system like what I suggest. Druid was the perfect example of anet turning a blind eye on thing that don’t work and that’s why people still complaint about pets even 4 year after game release.
NB.: Keep in mind that E-spec are supposed to not be mandatory, which mean that if their design can relieve a bit of the stress of what you think is the “minority” of the player, it’s basicaly a good thing for everybody since it can only shut up complains while keeping intact the content that your “majority” like.
To address each of your points.
1) I don’t dislike all of your suggestions, mostly the one where pets do no damage and are just used for utility as I feel it makes for incredibly boring gameplay and makes little sense why those abilities wouldn’t simply be baked into the ranger.
2) You are giving people far too much credit. Regular folks pick their class by going to a game website and reading the class descriptions. Maybe they’ll read a forum post or two or watch a YouTube video of the gameplay. Not everyone is a nerd like us who will post and meditate on ways to improve the class. While you are absolutely correct that some people want to play their fantasy archer Legolas type of class. Anyone who just picks up this game and reads this page, https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/, is not going to immediately conclude that it’s an archer class. They will conclude that it is pet class with the option to use bows and arrows and they will always be the majority.
3) Re-design threads that improve existing core mechanics are good. Like I said, I do not dislike all of your suggestions but too many of the other ones in this thread keep aiming for a pet-less ranger. There needs to balance for the fantastically small portion of the player base that wants to be Legolas all by his lonesome and who also bother to post on this board and for the people out in the game who did nothing more than read the class description and decided they wanted to be an archer/melee fighter with a pet.
4) I can’t say the Druid didn’t fill a gameplay niche that Rangers weren’t able to fulfill before. Again, I agree that pets can be improved and I hope that they do that next expansion but I also fully expect that any requests that require a massive redesign of the existing trait lines to accommodate a pet-less Ranger E-Spec are going to be ignored again because it doesn’t fit Anet’s goal with the class.
(edited by Irijia.6073)
I’m affraid you propose no redisign of the ranger in this thread but you indeed sort out some E-spec possibilities.
In order to “redesign” the ranger, one would simply have to replace the pet system by another mechanism. Which mean replace a lot of trait and a whole traitline (beast mastery). This would allow beast mastery to become an E-spec and maybe they could then work on a pet system that would work.
2nd E-spec : Well, you suggested something close. It’s an E-spec that gain a bunch of exclusive pets which would be immune to most damage at the cost of doing almost no damage by themself. The ideal F2 for those pets would be an F2 that support the ranger with raw stat and have an active skill more or less interesting like most of the common signet. My fantasy also lead me to imagine some utility skills that transform those pets into spell effect allowing the ranger to somehow control their positionning while doing damage/support.
I’ve seen you describe something along these lines where you make it so that the ranger pet is basically useless as dps and just used as utility and, I have to ask you, on what planet does this sound like fun game play or class fantasy? What person goes out of their way to tame all of their fierce pets and then says, “My tiger totally wouldn’t jack someone up if given the chance. They just like to tickle my enemies a bit and roar occasionally to buff me”?
While I agree that pets could use some help, most of the re-designs proposed in this thread seem to be from a PvP perspective. There is more than one game mode and this idea sounds fantastically lame for most normal people who just want to be able to fight in tandem with their pet in PvE (the reason most people pick Ranger given it’s the primary mechanic that separates them from any other class).
Too many of the ideas in this thread are attempting to overcomplicate (unintentionally, I think) what is a an extremely straightforward profession for the benefit of only a portion of the playerbase. It would be nice to see a few suggestions that would improve what we already have versus gutting and rebuilding our trait lines while attempting to turn us into another class completely.
Change is good when it’s done well and does a good job of connecting the old with the new. Changes made to appease a small subset will almost always fall flat and cause division. What changes could be made that won’t ruin the core game play of the Ranger?
I recently broke away from the meta to learn my way around staff and greatsword, and I’m having a ton of fun wisping and swooping across maps with those, and sprinting the rest of the time with Natural Stride. Freeing yourself to experiment with your build instead of adhering to the meta is really rewarding, IMO.
The other thing that can really perk up open world: switch pets all the time. Try all the pets. The hybrid Destroyers in Ember Bay are weak to chill, so take some of your white pets from the norn areas and use their F2s to put the hurt on. Every mob has knockdown or a freakin’ breakbar like a boss? Sounds like a job for Flappy and Zappy, my adorable pair of clumsy wyverns, both of whom spam double knockdown on summon. Did you know that tamed smokescales retain that rapid pinball skill that makes the wild ones so stressful to fight? Or that the treasures dug up by pigs are actually useful? Or that elegant little birds are the burstiest DPSers of them all and may even outshine cats for mowing down trash, and also sing while they fight? Explore your pet collection. Learn your pets. Love your pets. We’re the pet class; own it.
:Sniff: That was beautiful and so true, work with your pets. For all that they aren’t perfect, they can still be amazing. Learning new strategies to work with your different pets and their differing abilities keeps things fresh.
Snip
What do you want out of Ranger? Do you want a marksman? Do you like melee? Do you want a pet that is a pocket tank? What weapons do you like to use? What type of content do you want to do?
Not that I am phenomenal by any stretch of the imagination, but I like condition damage and doing open world questing/events and some dungeons so I’ve partially completed a non-ascended Viper’s set (working on the rest slowly) with Superior Runes of the Krait to help with my bleeds. Currently, I use shortbow with Axe/Torch on the swap although I often use the Longbow instead of SB because it’s good for controlling a target despite not being optimal for condition damage outside of bleeds. You can semi-get around the weakness of the longbow as a condition damage dealer by combo-ing it off of your pet skills such as the Murellow or Carrion Devourer’s poison cloud. I also tend to use Beastly Warden (Beastmastery line, final column, trait 1) to taunt enemies around my pet and gather them in close so I can AOE with longbow 5.
Since I love pets and want them to be strong Beastmastery is always traited into and I alternate between 2 and 3 on the first column, 3 in the second, and 1 and 2 in the third depending on if I am in a group. Skirmishing almost never leaves my setup as it does an amazing job of helping with bleeds and I run 1, 3, and 1 there.
The third specialization is the one I swap out most regularly. Wilderness Survival helps with poison from you and your pet and Marksman is good if you want better direct DPS. “We Heal as One” is one of the best heals we have with the boon copying it does and “Rampage as One” is good as well.
My utility slots change depending on the fight (if doing world bosses, sharpening stone, and one or two condition removal/stun break skills). Outside of bosses, I’ve taken to setting traps in open world PVE (our traps really, really hurt, have relatively short cooldowns and provide a form of AOE), sic-ing my pet on a mob, taunting them with F2 then calling the pet back to me and letting it lead them into my trap before having the pet attack again and DPSing myself. It gets the job done and gives me that warm fuzzy Hannibal Smith “I love it when a plan comes together” feeling.
The beauty of Guild Wars is that, unless you are super competitive, there are a great many varieties to approaching a situation and there is no one right way to play. There are sites like Metabattle which are very useful resources but they aren’t the only way to play either and you’ll go broke trying to follow every “best” build and be disappointed if your goal is to simply enjoy yourself.
Anyways, sorry for the long post and I hope I was at least semi-helpful. =)
1) I’d like Anet to bring older pets up to par with the new pets introduced in HoT and I agree that we should have more control over where we place the pet and perhaps a toggle in the settings for people who want to stow the pet until they are ready to bring it out so that all the “make petless ranger a thing” threads can die. I don’t agree with buffing the ranger without a pet as no class should be able to dump a core mechanic without consequence. It’s better for said mechanic to be improved instead of trying to shoehorn in a gameplay style that will call for a massive overwork of existing trait lines.
2) The other thing is to give pigs a better F2 skill as it’s the only pet that I simply won’t use.
3) More pets because I don’t believe there is such a thing as too many. =P The stable would probably have to be reworked though to keep it from being too crowded.
Nicer, actually, since you don’t have to traipse back to the stablemaster in GW2, unlike wow, which still has that one of the last relics of “visit town to level/skill/gear” that MMOs are holding onto.
Oh God, I don’t miss that at all. I’ll take the scorecard style of fill in the pet blanks and take them wherever you want in GW2. Way better than visiting the stable master or having to run with the same two or three pets at all times because you don’t have the time to visit a flight master to get to a town where you can actually switch your pets.
I’ve come to GW2 from WoW, imagine my surprise to find we’re only allowed 4 hunter pets in GW2. In WoW we could have 50, I used to rotate mine to suit the job in hand. To allow us 4 takes away one of the pleasures of a beastmaster type hunter, that of looking for and taming wild beasts. In WoW, it could any level up to Boss pets, in GW2 it’s juvenile only.
GW2 hunters are very lame compared to the WoW beastmaster, time to look for a decent game I think. Shame really as the graphics are a nice quality, and the Asura are fun to play.
How the heck did you manage to conclude that you can only have four pets? The system is almost the same as WoW where you collect all the pets and use whichever one you want for various situations. Only difference is that the pets haven’t been completely homogenized (those boss pets you collect are just skins with no bonus stats), you don’t really have dismiss/summon times unless your pets die, and 2/3 of all pet families didn’t have their abilities removed like in WoW. Also there’s no begging Anet for extra stable slots like we used to have to do in WoW. I never got why they kept adding new pet families but fought against adding more stable slots.
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