(edited by Harnel.6810)
Alright, so, it’s no secret that pets are considered pretty bad. One demand a fair amount of the fanbase seems to have latched onto is the idea of getting rid of pets entirely so that you can focus on being an archer, but that’s not what this thread is for. This thread is also not for complaints about rangers in general – we get enough of that in other threads.
Instead, here we talk about what you believe would make pets viable and fun to use. To this end, I put up a poll: http://strawpoll.me/3691897
- The oft dreamed of lunge attack. The simple idea is that a pet, when attacking, moves a bit to follow their target. the main reason this is so in demand is because pets have to be stationary when attempting to hit something, so PvP players that are worried about an enemy ranger’s pets will simply stay moving, cutting the number of times a pet can actually hit down by half if the pet has a speed boost, by more if it doesn’t. It makes it somewhat difficult to play beast masters in any sort of PvP scenario
- Is kind of a way around the above – A pet damage increase means that your pets would operate the same way they always have, but doling out more damage per hit when they do actually hit. I’m not really in favor of this myself, but I can see how some would prefer it, so it’s included.
- Adding cleave to pets provably makes them stronger. At the moment, the Drake is the only pet that cleaves on attacks, and it’s so strong (despite only having on the low end of medium damage with a couple burst abilities) that it’s one of, if not the most, used pet type outside of pvp where wolves are king.
- A control effect added to pets is powerful – it’s why the wolf is pointed at as the greatest pvp pet in the game. A knockdown, a fear, and a cripple all have a home in the Wolf, and it has respectable damage to boot. The purpose of this particular option would be to add a control effect to every pet – taunt to drakes and bears, for instance, perhaps fear or knockdown to cats, and so on.
- A team buff from all pets. This is a sort of roundabout way of making pets more useful, as they make the team stronger already. A couple pets already do this – the fern hound’s regenerative howl, the jungle stalker’s might-giving roar, and the Red Moa’s fury screech – but certainly not enough to call them support options
- I’m not so conceited as to think I have every solution. If you have a viable alternative to the above suggestions, I think opening them to discussion is a great idea.
I’ll post the poll’s results in a few days of leaving this up, once votes taper off.
I know a good many of us would enjoy playing beast mastery rangers if the pets were an honestly viable source of power versus the position they’re in now – the best you can get out of a pet at the moment is using it as a tank in PvE or as a controller in PvP. and while I won’t say they’re useless, because that’s far from the truth, they’re simply not as useful as they should be, and it hurts the ranger as a whole due to the fact that we have to rely on our pets quite a bit; the only reason longbow is considered broken in pvp is because we have a vast array of mediocre tools at out disposal that somehow add up to something fairly good when we actually have a good weapon to use. The pet being one of those tools in literally every Ranger build means we need to pay attention to what the pet can do for us and see how it can be improved, as it’ll improve the class as a whole.
The purpose of posting this now is because it should be early enough in development for the Devs to include changes to pets by the time HoT rolls around, so it’s the perfect time to discuss.
(edited by Harnel.6810)
I want a sylvan phoenix sylvan bird of paradise, griffons please, raptors, stags, dragon whelps? Sea turtles, otters… man I really hope gliding allows flying pets to be shown with us.
All of this. Flying pet that doesn’t land please. And larger then a small bird…
Really, we have the technology for actual flight in the game, there’s no reason for the birds to be land bound like they are now.
But if druid is about buffing, you will “gain” dps trough the buffing of your pet. I hope druid will be about buffing allies and debuffing enemies as it would perfectly fit the pet mechanic.
Given the use of roots we’ve already seen in a trailer, i’m willing to bet it’ll be a mixture of bleeds, immobilize, and AoEs that buff allies, including our pets. not so much debuffing and buffing as it is control and buffinf, which is just as good, if not better depending on the situation.
Rangers are one of the easiest classes to master, and anybody who has played MMOs for a long time knows fairly well that having an extra body on the field tends to help you out.
This guy above me posted some solid stuff, but yeah, please, god, please please please can we have rock dogs. Like. Please. Give me a rock dog. They’re like awesome monstrous stone lions, and centaurs tame them, and ogres tame them, and please please can we have rock dogs.
Pllleeeaaaaasse.
you know, given they’re adding the Taunt condition with HoT, I could totally see Rock dogs as tank pets that get it
As I recall, someone datamined Balthazar from the game. Not an armor, but a mesh that’s meant to be used for an NPC or transformation. It might be possible to avatar transform into Balthazar as a Revenant.
A few days ago this started up. Essentially, I can’t access the trading post or the gem shop – instead, I get a blank gray screen. another player suggested that it might be an SSL issue, but I have no idea what that means.
I still want cloaks with emblems ala daoc
That’s pretty much exactly what we had for guild capes back in GW1.
Someone posted this awhile back. I thought it looked pretty cool as far as the “cape” option goes.
This is really cool. Having a few different styles to choose from (cape at the back, scarf, hanging to the side, etc.) means that people could show off their guild colors without hampering their style. Given style is an important consideration in this game, this’d do wonders for making the various capes available for different characters. It’d also give an additional sense of cohesion to actual guild groups, to go with Guild Halls
I sat through all of Naruto, so I figure I can deal with some cheesy story bits. Thanks for bringing that anime to my attention, as I’ve been looking for a new anime to try watching.
Funny enough, my own name is Erin. Nice coincidence.
It is possible that Kralkatorrik flew south in search of a piece of the bloodstone. It will be interesting to see what was down there.
More likely he’s looking for Augury Rock and Glint’s Nest. Glint’s Nest was her place of power, and would resonate quite strongly with the crystal dragon.
Augury Rock, on the other hand, is a place empowered very strongly by the Forgotten and the human gods, and that makes it an excellent spot for a dragon to sit on, much like how Arah was a good place for Zhaitan to sit on.
You’re amazing Drax. Thank you so much.
Alright, so, there’s a bug related to drakes that’s persisted since launch and it kind of irks me. I’m talking about the River/Rock drake thing.
See, as a human character, you can start the game with a river drake. Except, if you actually find what river drakes look like (you can find them all over northern kryta), your pet is a rock drake (which you can find in Plains of Ashford, among other locations). In spite of this, for whatever reason, your “river drake” has neither the appearance nor powers of other river drakes.
Why? This doesn’t make any sense. And to further obfuscate matters, the Mini River Drake Broodmother was released a while back. It looks like the rock drake broodmother.
WHAT IS GOING ON.
(Here’s an imgur album with details (image credit goes to the GW2 wiki)
http://imgur.com/a/xFRPQ )
(edited by Harnel.6810)
Do we have any real source of information about drakes? They’ve been around since GW1 as a miscellaneous type of monster (which originally couldn’t be tamed, but popular opinion changed that going into the second game) but there’s basically nothing about them except that they’re a type of animal and were very rarely used as mounts when they got to large size.
The reason that I’m poking about this is because I’ve been thoroughly enjoying roleplaying as a drake breeder on my ranger character, the sort that hatches eggs, trains the babies and sells them as interesting pets to nobles. I’d really love to have more information about drakes in general, but all we have at the moment is that there’s broodmothers, normal ones (we’re not even certain if the normal drakes can be female) and the babies, which look to me like ugly-cute.
As an aside, I’d absolutely love to have baby drakes as a mini pet option. Hatchling drakes always have a unique appearance, from what I’ve seen thus far.
It can be in three circumstances. The first is that if you’re invisible, it’s much easier to stomp people. The second is for the Remorsless Marksmanship Grandmaster Trait, which makes it so that every time you get a kill or go into stealth you get Opening Strike back. Third, if you’ve over-aggroed in pve it’s a good way to get them off you.
Asking if ONE skill outta 5 is “viable”?
Just reroll already if you cannot handle the few quirks any weapon has.
He’s not asking about the longbow, he’ asking about the skill. Don’t be a jerk.
I tend to use drakes all the time, and I can tell you right off that the two best ones are easily the marsh drake and the river drake. River has a bouncing attack that’s hilarious to hit other rangers with, while marsh has the river drake’s bouncing attack with a slower velocity, but higher damage thanks to the poison it inflicts. It’s great.
I’ll often use them for tanking bosses, since they can do it for you even in high level fractals. In pvp, everbody ignores them because “drakes don’t have good damage”. At least until they tail spin you for 5000 and inflict weakness.
(edited by Harnel.6810)
“tested it in pvp” means I ran through five matches in unranked mode, and last night I even beat an Anet employee (a well necro named Mordekaiser or something close to that) in 1 on 1 combat, as I’ve been running more matches with it since it’s so enjoyable.
At level 25 in PvE, so far it’s also everything I could hope for. I’ll reserve judgement on that side of things until I have my flesh golem and run a few dungeons.
I do a lot of roleplaying, so the addition of new faces and hairstyles, no matter when, will get me to spend money. So, while it might not be a tipping point, it feels like to me they’d want to condense their release.
I don’t see any reason their current release model should change.
Are you advocating we shouldn’t get new ones until HoT comes out just to artificially plump up the features list? Its a long way out and I’d rather have the options sooner rather than later myself…
As the head of Anet said “it’ll all be coming fast now”. Lots of people have projected that they’ll launch in mid-april (can’t remember the exact day) because that’s when GW1 launched ten years ago, if it doesn’t come earlier. I don’t think that’s a humongous wait for stuff like this, and I’d rather they release everything all at once.
That’s not to say I don’t want them now. I just realize that with a massive release on the horizon, they’re much more likely to pack all their interesting stuff into it.
So with the impending release of HoT, We’re looking at the addition of a bunch of new features. I’m relatively curious about character customization options in particular, such as hair styles, colors, and eye colors. Potentially new face styles as well, but I’ll admit in that I’m biased more towards hairstyles.
This seems like a good opportunity, since they could be slipped in with everything else, and I know the creative community we have could easily come up with various hairstyles for each race.
Well… Rangers aren’t elementalists.
We should get these powers from spirits of nature,… something native american way.
That’s more shaman than druid, though.
So, I tested MM out some in pvp, and it wrecks face. The only people who were able to actually beat me 2v1 were spamming AoEs. It also let me solo Svanir, the chieftain, and the lord that are set up for practice in the heart of the mists. And somehow this is a weak build? I get it’s not the zerker meta so many people love so much, but it deals respectable damage and my actual character becomes ludicrously hard to actually kill due to constant lifesteal granted by my minions healing me. I think Brown Fang Thump has posted the most accurate information thus far – they require a considerable amount of micromanaging, but if you can deal with that it’s a powerhouse of a build.
Anyways, thanks for all the responses, guys. I really do appreciate it.
I’m in the very slim minority that’s never had problems with pets, but I responded that they need to be improved. Pets are a part of how the character works, and Anet has continually stated that that’s the way things will always be. With the sheer number of people complaining, there are obviously some egregious usability concerns. My playstyle only works because I’m weird about how I fight (focused on control), and everything else I’ve tried has made my pet near useless. There’s also very, very few pets that are worth using. It’s could most certainly stand to be improved.
Your pet takes 50% less AoE damage and gains 3 seconds of Retaliation every 3 seconds while in combat.
I really like this idea as a Grandmaster beast mastery trait. The retaliation uptime might be a bit much, but what about gaining 6 seconds of retaliation on shouts? That way you could play a beast master with Search and Rescue and Sic ’Em and not feel totally subpar, both of which are really useful abilities when you can get them to work.
What if, instead of changing a little icon or putting some flash around a player, we go for something like a Health Bar of a targeted player glows silver when they’re immune to physical damage? That way it’d affect monsters in PvE as well, which would be nice for event situations and certain bosses.
Alright, so, I recently made a necromancer character because it, for me, was something that worked best with the Arcane Outfit. The thing that I’d rather like to know is how viable running minions is – in City of Heroes back when it was still live, I ran a Mastermind demon summoner. Even in this game, I wrote up (a couple years ago now) a rather long rundown of all the different pet types that rangers can get their hands on and how to utilize them.
As such, I’m curious how my preferred playstyle’s going to operate on my new character. And please avoid just telling me whether it’s good or bad. I want to know why
Many people would gladly change the “Thief” name to something quite cheesier I’m afraid.
So our specialisation will be ‘Elite Shadow ninja assassin’?
Well, the thief is a reworked assassin class from GW1. I’d say “Shadow”, “Assassin”, and “Sniper” all might make solid Specialization names.
This idea sounds like a specialization more than anything else. I personally foresee at least two other specs – a marksman without a pet, and a beast master that gets huge pets. This is definitely a solid idea if they decide to make a straight marksman, but as I don’t believe they’ll get rid of pets for base rangers, a specialization is what it’d have to be.
I don’t see how that’d be the case. We do have raptors ingame already and they’re nothing at all like moas save for the fact that they have feathers.
A lot of speculation has been put into the various things Rangers will or won’t get, but we just got what may well be the closest thing to confirmation of a new pet type we’re going to get. In the new trailer (Which I’ll link below) at 1:20, we get a look at a small horde of dinosaurs apparently being chased by t-rexes. If we get the scaly raptors from this video, chances are we’ll also likely be looking at the existing feathered raptors elsewhere in game.
Thoughts on them? I imagine they’ll probably be a strong DPS type of pet, like the cats are now.
My Personal Recommendation is that you always have a Melee weapon equipped, whatever you decide to do. That’s all. And don’t be afraid to use ranged weapons in near melee range to pick up allies’ boons.
I pretty much ditto this, with the exception that I recommend using a ranged weapon mainly and using a melee weapon when the situation calls for it. I personally run Longbow/Greatsword.
Gotej, in theory every class is a support focused class. Spirit ranger, shout warrior, well necro, and others. chances are, we’re looking at something entirely different from a simple and basic support. Furthermore, guardians have different armor art, abilities, and are going to be getting a specialization all their own. There’s no real chance of stepping on toes here.
I think you’re right! Lose some control over the pet, but gain better methods to support it and your allies. Sounds like a fair trade-off.
I’m still interpreting this whole “specialization” thing as an alternative and equal, but not universally superior, play style. I would be just fine with the druid doing slightly lower overall damage but providing more support/control options.
As far as I’m aware, Colin has stated that is the case. Not specifically the druid bit, but that specializations are customization options, rather than upgrades.
Well Kelthien, “a lot of team support mixed with conditions” would suggest that the druid buffs the everloving hell out of their pet and then makes it so the enemy can’t escape the pet.
I bet dollars to donuts its not a rifle…
Its a shotgun
engineer got a modded shotgun, and they seem to be trying to differentiate between different gun types for different classes.
- What is the first thing that comes to mind when you’re about to face a Mesmer?
“Is Grasping Roots off cooldown?” The vast majority of mesmers don’t have the ability to easily cleanse conditions, so an immobilize and bleed make it so they can’t readily escape. I find this also works on thieves, and against clone mesmers it’s even better because the roots strangle the life out of the clones, leaving them alone and vulnerable.
- How do you feel about your odds of winning?
Pretty good. not, being fair here, I can’t beat a skilled mesmer, but it;s such a hard class to play that I often find I’m not playing against a skilled mesmer. i give the actually good ones a wide berth, though
- Strategies and tactics?
AoEs. make sure they can’t escape and then blanket the area in as many sweeping strikes as you can. eliminates clones and phantasms so they can’t shatter, and they take considerable damage since they often rely on misdirection to protect themselves.
Additionally, find out who the mesmer is from among the clones, and then press F1 for your pet to follow it. Whenever the mesmer comes out of stealth, your pet will go right for them, meaning if you’re perceptive and follow the actions of your pet, you’ll never have to deal with being unaware of which clone is the right one again.
- Which type of Ranger build do you feel best fights Mesmer?
Survival hunters with a longbow, so the basic RTW power build.
- What Ranger skills (weapon or utility) are most important to have in this fight?
Grasping Roots, as said above, has won me more mesmer fights than I can count. the longbow blankets an area in rain of arrows, and then I close the distance with the large, sweeping strikes of the greatsword and proceed with that weapon, as it has two evades (one part of the auto-attack), a stun, a cripple, a block, and a burst skill. It’s great for if you’re close up.
- How do you feel about Mesmer in general?
I’m almost entirely neutral towards mesmers.
On the contrary – warriors have an assault rifle. Yes, it’s still a rifle, but the use is much, much different. When was the last time you saw a sniper do rapid-fire?
Chill mates, that was engi with rifle in video,
Thief will get smth with condi removal on his weap skill, and i can’t imagine it’d be something based on rifle.
unsubstantiated whether for or against. There’s a strong argument to be made that it was a thief, however, in that it was in the same shot as the hammer engi at one point and we know for a fact rangers aren’t getting rifles.
Let us have out speculation. It doesn’t do any harm to chat about our wants, and it lets the devs know the sorts of things we’d like to have.
Asura works because of the multitude of magically enhanced weapons. additionally, you could claim their pet is stronger than normal because they’re experiments.
Humans work because of their bond with Melandru allowing them to be better able to master the wild.
Charr have a long, long history of training devourers as warbeasts.
Norn have a connection with the spirits of the wild.
Sylvari are frikken plants. if that’s not connected to nature, I dunno what is..
In essence, they’re all good for rangers, just choose what works best for you.
With the exceptions;
- We want real medium armors, leather + metal – not silk pijamas.
Believe it or not, we’re actually getting that
Check it: http://imgur.com/qqevj6q
Because rifle is the least weeaboo, no offense. All these players wanting to be samurai, monks and ninjas just really bug me.
Really, no offense taken. I would like to have a samurai thing at some point, but I don’t believe it should be until we actually go to the asian inspired continent of the setting – Cantha. Elsewise, it’ll feel ludicrously out of place. I mean, that’s why they’re giving Rangers the Druid spec, right? because it makes sense in terms of the story.
(besides, if you want to be a ninja, just go dual daggers and you’re done.)
Tbh I’m not that excited about rifle thief either. Sorry…
Don’t apologize. Everybody is entitled to their stylistic preferences.
I rolled a Ranger as I tend to enjoy pet classes and ranged combat.
There is no “ranged” class in this game, the game is balanced around all the classes having both ranged and melee options. Rangers as an archetype aren’t supposed to be stuck with bows anyways. Even in the first game you had several viable weapon options as a ranger if you played around with secondary professions.
For what it’s worth, you’re not gonna feel like a thief with a pet.
This reminds me, I want my Ranger/Dervish back. Had an awesome hound of balthazar pet and a scythe that I used to murder groups of enemies. Even grinded for Dhuum’s Sycthe and a black widow for a while but didn’t actually ever get either of them before GW2 launched.
for the most part, Thieves have basically no ranged options. You have the pistol, but at 900 range and sub-par damage if you’re not stacking condition damage, it’s simply not worth it to take. The shortbow got nerfed pretty hard, and still only has 900 range. A long range power setup would be ideal for expanding build options and making the class more versatile.
Shadelang basically has it right. I’ve been playing my ranger character as a beastmaster since beta, so I’d absolutely love to have a buffer style character that amps the hell out of my pet. it’d be better if I could get big pets like I’ve been whining for since launch, but I figure that’s not as likely to happen :P
I’m hoping for CC and AoE based stuff in the form of grasping roots and similar things. As far as the pets go, I’m hoping they get upgraded at least a little bit.
I can imagine things like an area immobilize and bleed, an AoE regen and condi clear buff, and planting seeds in an enemy to watch it grow like a parasite, dealing damage over time.
maybe a Dragon type pet, this one is a long shot, but always wanted one.
Well, we did see what appears to be a wyvern in the trailer…
You know, this thread reminds me of the old longbow animations. It used to be that you’d actually reach up to pull out a new arrow from your (nonexistant) quiver before firing again, but then they sped it up so that it was a bit more competitive, and it cut out the actual drawing of the arrow. kinda interesting comparison there.
dual longbows pl0x that can fire dual pewpew rapid fires from stealth with extra roxx0rz dmg ahuehuehuehuehue
http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/01/27/episode-1087-exalted-feat/
Try out the warrior animations for the rifle before you say that they’d be firing from the hip. Yes, thief is meant to be a very mobile class, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be that here.
(edited by Harnel.6810)
I think it actually is a thief. An engi would not need nor have any use for throwing knives (unless they are good at throwing knives). Hopefully it is rifle and is based off of this. I love how he designed it.
He did want that didn’t he…
Apparently it was an obsession. Well, hopefully he does get his wish granted. It’ll be his little bit of legacy after all the crusading he’s done for this profession.
I’m an avid ranger player and have been since launch. If Thief got a rifle that followed that setup, I’d put down my ranger and level a thief immediately.