But some players want their pets to do more dps and others don’t want to rely on their pets for dps at all. So how do we handle that? By allowing people to have the choice!
Ranger Design Adjustment
I absolutely love the ranger in GW2, having melee and ranged capabilities along with a pet allows a fun class that rises above any Ranger based class from any other game I have ever played. That being said I think the Ranger needs an adjustment to make it way more awesome. When I think pet classes I think of three main styles of play.
Play Styles
Balanced
- Ranger and Pet do the same amount of damage
- Both provide utility and protection
Ranger Damage
- Ranger does most of the damage
- You use the pet for protection and utility
Pet Damage
- Pet does most of the damage
- Ranger protects the pet and provides utility to the pet
This would allow the class mechanic to stay in place while providing different play styles within the class. Currently pets do a certain amount of dps almost regardless of traits. GW2 is great at allowing players to play how they want. Rangers need a little bit more of that autonomy. Players who want to do all the damage themselves and use their pet for its added utility could spec into a marksmanship style spec. If you absolutely love pets and want to be a Beastmaster when specializing in pets your pet would do most of your damage and you would provide utility to support your pet. Also players that want to play a balanced play style where you and your pet together do the same amount of damage as each other would still be able to balance the specializations and perform more balanced.
Traits
Glass Cannon
- This spec could be full ranger and full pet damage
- Both you and your pet would be “glass”
- Both would do a lot of damage, both would be easy to kill
Beastmaster
- This is where the pet would do most of the damage (roughly 80-90%)
- Ranger would build tank or utility to support pet.
Marksman
- The Ranger would do most the damage (same as above 80-90%)
- Pet would provide utility to the ranger(think Protect me)
The styles of play above seem to be the idea when I look at rangers trait trees and the class as a whole. It just doesn’t seem to have enough variability. I want to address ways to give it that variety (One way is the adjustment to 80-90% of damage). With these different styles opposing players would need to identify the priority of what to kill first (pet or ranger).
Pet Stats
Pets durability are based on the Ranger’s Vitatlity and Toughness
- Allows a Pet to be durable depending on the Ranger
- Pets still have their own stat spreads so that you can still have a tanky pet with a glass ranger (i.e. Bear, Boar, Moa)
Pet damage is based on specialization of the pet
- Pets damage is separate from ranger damage.
Condition damage and Healing power from the Ranger
- This allows us to finally have pets that do good condition damage and healing. yay!
Allows the different Traits to have the effect desired without becoming overpowered (a super tanky pet that does tons of damage).
Conclusion
Ranger has the foundation to make it amazing just allow a larger division between Ranger and pet. I have spent a lot of time since launch trying to figure out how to help the ranger reach its potential. I believe this will allow the ranger to reach that potential in its class mechanic.
