I’ve played on and off since the beta, primaraly play a ranger and will most likely continue to do so(despite how much anet hates us) and am currently looking for a new smallish guild to call my home. I’ve never been a fan of mega guilds and some of my fondest gaming memories are with a small 10 man hardcore raiding guild when I played WoW.
I’m primarily looking for a guild to take on the upcoming raid content with. I would also be looking to casually do dungeons, fractals and guild missions. Ideally the guild would be based on Yak’s Bend for some WvW action but that’s not a deal breaker.
Even something simple that I’ve wanted and asked for since the release, a fourth F# skill that is a “go here” command. Instead of having to rely on the pets bad pathing when you tell it to come back. Sometimes there is a deadly aoe on your pet and between you and the pet and your only options are either to swap out the pet to instantly bring your second to you or tell it to return and have it walk straight through the aoe and die when there was a perfectly fine clear spot two steps behind it.
Also can we please fix it so pet names stick when you swap in a new one from the ‘kennel’ please, it makes pets feel really impersonal when they should be your best friends as a ranger.
I’ve always loved classes in games with a micro-manageable AI partner. The goal of a successful pet class is to have the pet become an extension of your character. I played a hunter in WoW for quite a few years and used my pet in combat to take care of specific tasks in fights like another player. The members of my guild treated Pickles the plague wolf like another member guild. There’s 3 main things that is implemented would make ranger pets into an asset that rewards skilled play.
1) Remove the lag time between giving a command to execute an f2 ability and the pet actually starting to use it. As it stands I need to hammer my keybind for it about 6 times before my pet stops and starts to use the ability.
2) Add a “go here” command. When I want to move my pet out of the way of a pbaoe the only option I have at the moment is to tell it to come back to me. Which usually results in dragging it through even more aoe creating a dead pet.
3) Give pets a dodge command. If my pets in a situation where it will be hit by a life ending hit let me command it to avoid the attack.
Unless the pathing itself is tightened up this change may end up being total butts. As it stands the pet takes a really jagged drawn out path instead of a smooth tight path, you can see it pretty clearly if you run around with your pet next to you. Take a turn and they keep moving forward then snap back on path instead of taking it gradually with you. If they keep this pathing then chances are when they try to move behind a target it’ll take them at least a second to re-position every time. That might not sound like a lot but if the target is turning to face different people a lot (like a lot of dungeon and fractal bosses do) in a worst case scenario the pet will re-position itself after every attack and basically cut its damage done by a large chunk.
Don’t get me wrong I’m excited to see the pets ai getting some improvement but with the “buffs” the ranger has been getting since launch I’ve learned to be pessimistic about everything.
Also in the interview they were asked about giving more direct control over the pets and answered with “We don’t want to overwhelm new players.” That’s such a kitten excuse, if they don’t want to overwhelm new players introduce the ability to use more pet skills over the course of a few levels like they do with every god kitten other thing in the game. I feel like its not even worth using birds because they take the first five seconds of combat dancing around to cast an unnecessary swiftness.
I’d much rather have more direct control over my pet. Access to the other abilities (I don’t need a bird casting swiftness , that takes forever to cast, in combat every chance it gets) and the ability to tell them to move to a ground targeted spot. Not like guard with its 1 second cast time and a cooldown, just a simple move here so your not in a death circle. Some people will say just call the pet back to you to reposition it, but the problem arises when the bulk of the circle is between you and the pet and having them move 2 steps in the opposite direction would save them.
If were supposed to be “the pet class” then let us actually use the pets. Give people the option to turn on auto cast for abilities if they don’t want to micro and rely on the ai (which is pretty much as smart as a rock) but give those of us that want the pet to be useful the ability to make it useful by being better.
