Guild Wars 2

Setun.4368:

Think the whole reason for the tiered #1 damage is to encourage weapon swapping when enemies are close by. While not a fan of bows, I do think that it’s a cool idea…shame that tier system isn’t across the rest of the longbow skills (would make longbow #2 super deadly at max range)

I’d honestly prefer it to do more damage up close if not standardised. The RoF and it’s mobility are hardly ideal for it after all.
I think that Rapid Fire gets some unfair bashing. A small damage boost so it’s clearly better than auto attack may be nice, however consider how many shots you fire during the ability. You do that through a field and you can drop some poison/fire/chill durations that are simply vicious.
The skills make sense for it thematically overall imo; it’s clearly a ‘hang back and shoot things’ weapon, with barrage there to punish people who blob up (the mass cripple makes sure they will hang around a bit longer in a friendly caster’s AoE spell)

Shortbow’s clearly a skirmishing weapon-the mobility is good, it has a stun, cripple and swiftness boost. Skill 3 can even be shot while they’re behind you, actively encouraging you to make sure the distance is kept. You keep your distance and let the bleeding (and pet, ideally) do the work. Skill #2 is a pretty good one for people bunched up, since the poison does a fair bit of damage in a short space of time. More importantly it’s multi-projectile so again, mass combos in a field. I’ve stripped conditions from a clumped up group of allies and hit enemy beyond, helping damage them.

The most important theme however I feel is these are both weapons you use with the pet. Comparing them directly is going to make them look inferior because the ranger’s designed to work with the pet.

Dojo.1867:

With 30 MM Signet of the Beastmaster I use them all the time. Even Signet of the Hunt can make a well placed Maul hit like a truck

I think I’ve clocked over 20k on some fire drake’s F2 attacks when I’ve used it. I prefer to keep it passive usually, since coupled with natural healing they can take an eyewatering beating.

Lyssa, Melandru and Dwayna’s temples are all uncontested on Piken Square (EU)

ButtercupSaiyan.9457:

So I rolled up this Charr ranger alt with a Drake companion, and I have no idea how to play a Ranger, my main is an engineer. Could I get some discussion going?

Don’t ignore the pet, don’t use it as a guided fire-and-forget missile. You will need to take care of it to get the most out of it, and this means if you don’t want to have ranged pets (or Moa birds at your heel) all the time, you’re probably going to have to put points into beastmastery.
That’s the biggest mistake other rangers seem to make.

Bryzy.2719:

You have clearly never played ranger. The ranger cannot control its pet when downed other than instructing it to heal the player, which really is little use at all in wvw or pvp. The ranger pet will continue to attack the enemy player, however.

Actually, the F1-F4 keys do work when you’re downed. So you can pick out a weakened target, get your pet to beeline for it and activate their special attack. If they’re about to die you can swap them out too.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

So if you can’t successfully counter the case that Rangers are sub optimal and second class in Dungeons, you switch to attacking the messenger, really classy.

So where is this video Jon thought about that was going to be so simple to do that would convince everyone that Rangers Dungeon/pet woes are just a case of bad perception?

Taking so long to produce, guess it’s not so easy.

Or he has a full time job. :p

I am not attacking you, please stop trying to deflect my argument you still aren’t addressing or even acknowledging: the ranger isn’t going to work like a ranger in another mmorpg, because the entire game is trying to avoid making Yet Another mmorpg. That includes the classes. Where is the dedicated healer? Anet doesn’t want one. Why is the warrior great with ranged weapons as well as melee? Because Anet doesn’t want them to play like other warriors in mmorpgs. Why does the Elementalist get to heal? Because Anet doesn’t want them to just sit there and belch out spells. So the pet being something more than a token object, being made a larger, more integral part of the ranger (especially since other classes are not just able to used ranged combat, but are expected to generally be at least as competent) to define it is consistent with the entire approach to the game.
Furthermore, I play this game because it isn’t like WoW, as I have stated. If I like gameplay mechanics I go for games that have them, which is why I played GW1 and now play GW2: because I didn’t enjoy how other mmorpgs played.

I like how the Ranger is Guildwars 2 plays. I enjoy the pet is a big thing. I enjoy that I can use melee and ranged weapons as a ranger. I think it would be good if ranger got some improvements (hello Longbow) but by making the pet some token eyecandy isn’t the way. THen it becomes Warrior Lite and if people want to play something like a warrior, they’ll play a warrior.
If I wanted to play a ranger with a ‘token pet’ then I’d be off doing WoW or one of it’s clones that Guildwars II is obviously doing it’s best to avoid copying in gameplay. So complaining the ranger on it’s own can’t match the dps of classes specifically designed to be the best in raw damage, the ranger ‘needs’ to have the one thing that really defines it reduced to nothing but a vague token gesture isn’t very helpful and quite frankly annoying. The ranger should be better in other ways. For example, because the ranger’s effectively ‘split’ into two entities, actually stopping all DPS from a ranger can be hard whears other classes are a binery “doing damage or downed”. They can split their damage between two targets (or if you’re in melee or with a axes) different groups. Different pets can perform different roles without the ranger even needing to respec.
A warrior pointed out in another thread that comparing like for like can be misleading with spirits and that should be the way for ranger vs warrior. Rangers should be like that with warriors; in terms of raw DPS the warrior should win, because it’s the class specifically designed from the ground up to maul things horribly with weapons. However, a ranger should be better than a warrior in other ways, because the fundamental problem with wanting the ranger to match the warrior’s DPS, specifically matching it without the pet is this: the pet either becomes horribly overpowered if it says ‘as is’ (since you have a warrior’s capability and the pet) or the pet is (as I have already said) reduced to a vague token thing, undermining the ranger’s identity.
The pet is not perfect, the ranger is not perfect, but throwing out the bathwater with the baby isn’t how to do it which is what some people seem to want.

Nobodyspecial.1027:

All I care about is if there good in pvp and fun to level up. Been around MMO’s for awhile and so I have some idea on rangr type classes

Which is why I said what I did; this incarnation of the ranger is not the ranged weapon god. That’s the warrior. This ranger is just at home in melee as it is at ranged combat.

This ranger’s pet is not eyecandy. It does a big part of the class’ damage and you will have to take care of it.

You’re still missing the point; optimising the ranger to play to the best of it’s abilities is one thing, which you say you want to do and enjoy.

Complaining them like for like, finding they can’t match other classes that are built from the ground up to do the most damage in a fight, getting upset, and demanding that you copy-paste gameplay features from another mmorpg the game is deliberately designed to avoid aping to fix problems which aren’t even there if you can micromanage your pet and don’t treat it like a fire-and-forget missile is another thing entirely

Aaah, now I understand: you’re a “stop having fun guys” person, the one with the spreadsheets out who flies off the handle when someone is doing less than 100% potential damage potential.
I wouldn’t care about the PvP things you suggested actually; those are mostly convenience things and the ranks are something for people to work for in pvp to show. GW1 had those with the pvp skins remember?
What I do get annoyed with is someone shouting loudly about how a class I enjoy playing sucks because it doesn’t play like a similarly themed class from a game I dislike, and how it would be much better if it copies the game I dislike. Conveniently ignoring that other classes, and the very game itself, is designed to play different from that other one.

They’re good in PvE actually.
If you’re expecting a ‘sit back and pew pew with my weapon and see lots of big numbers’ class you should investigate warriors with a bow or rifle. If you want a pet for eyecandy, any other class with a minipet would suit you better.

A ranger’s pet is for life, not just when it suits you. So ask yourself: “Do I like having a pet by my side all the time?”

If you don’t then you’re better off moving along.

I think the pet’s health being near the Ranger’s would help. I know I moved the pet health next to my own in Guildwars 1 so I could see both at the same time.

What justification? I’m stating facts. WoW is off doing something while GW2 does something else, which is clearly seen by all the dynamic events, class mechanics, visuals, ect ect ect.
My pets worked fine in GW1 in the endgame, as they do in GW2. I can happily have them along in dungeons too. God forbid you play the class the way it was designed and stop trying to make the class play like other games. You bet I’m going to throw the apples-and-orranges argument at you, because it’s entirely true. The reason I play GW2 (and played GW1) is exactly because it doesn’t play like WoW. If you want to play something like WoW’s Hunter, why are you not playing WoW? We’ve all seen how well copying WoW and WoW’s features worked for The Old Republic after all.

Zenith.7301:

Loki.4871:

Where did I say they could do better than a human controlled guardian, a class designed to be the ‘tank’? You went into the ranger class with ANET saying the pet was going to be a big issue. By extension, that meant the pet would be limited by the AI, since you’d be controlling the ranger and issuing general commands to it. If you weren’t willing to accept that, why did you play ranger? For ranged damage? Because if you did, why are you not playing the warrior, the class designed to be the best with hitting stuff with weapons on their own?
The ranger may not match dps of the damage designed classes (fancy that) but the Ranger compensates by being at least as durable if you trait properly. It compensates by being able to split their damage between two targets in opposite directions, nothing any other class can do.

I chose to play a ranger because I expected them to do AI right. You know, like world of warcraft does when it let pets scale fully from the owner’s stats and have 70% aoe damage reduction and built in speed boosts to stay on a target instead of lagging behind and self rooting when attacking.

But alas, I was asking to much from the same group that made elementalists in gw1 wait over a year and a half before they started implementing changes that made them less garbage in the Hard Mode content.

This isn’t WoW and more importantly, GW1 works has different game and class mechanics than WoW. I don’t see WoW without a dedicated healer, and if my memory serves, isn’t the warrior in WoW unable to use ranged weapons properly? So why should you expect a game that deliberately set out to do things different have a class that plays exactly like other classes, when the others such as warrior don’t.
You say you expect them to do AI right but then list things which are not connected to the AI at all!

As for gw1: elementalists were always overrated, a mesmer or necromancer (even before their buffs) were worse if you knew what you were doing. Hard mode just made it even more clear. Still, it could worse.. be you could be a paragon.

stale.9785:

You forgot the biggest issue – being dependent upon the pet for a large chunk of your DPS. The pet should be optional, not required.

So the ranger’s class mechanic should be like other classes? I can agree with this. After all, the thief doesn’t have to use the initative system, let alone the stealth system, warriors don’t have to use their burst skill to dramatically improve their performance, elementalists don’t have to change elemental…

…ohwait.

Where did I say they could do better than a human controlled guardian, a class designed to be the ‘tank’? You went into the ranger class with ANET saying the pet was going to be a big issue. By extension, that meant the pet would be limited by the AI, since you’d be controlling the ranger and issuing general commands to it. If you weren’t willing to accept that, why did you play ranger? For ranged damage? Because if you did, why are you not playing the warrior, the class designed to be the best with hitting stuff with weapons on their own?
The ranger may not match dps of the damage designed classes (fancy that) but the Ranger compensates by being at least as durable if you trait properly. It compensates by being able to split their damage between two targets in opposite directions, nothing any other class can do.

I run 30 beastmastery, with Natural Healing for the grandmaster trait and Signet of the Wild for a utility. I also bring the minor trait ‘Compassion training’ for the healing boost the pet gets. That out of the way:

General things to remember:
-Remember to switch the pets when they get low. Cannot stress that enough.
-With signet of the wild and natural healing the pet will be able to outregen almost all damage in a 1v1 with something outside of boss characters.
-I personally prefer a ranged pet and a melee pet. Sooner or later you’ll run into something that hits too hard in melee or there’s a big cartoon-dustcloud-you-can’t-see-into style scrum so it’s good to have a ranged pet for those moments. It can also give you a moment to mentally regroup. You swap to the ranged pet and since worrying about the pet is no longer such an issue (if it’s one at all) you can focus on something else.
-Consider 15 Wilderness Survival if you can. Protection for you and the pet when you dodge roll goes miles, and can really take the edge off a hit you can dodge but the pet can’t.
-Don’t be afraid to pick the right pet for the right moment. If you know you’re fighting lots of stuff the drake is worth considering for example. If you know you’re fighting only a few though, consider the birds; they do high single target damage. If you kow you’re going into somewhere with conditions, consider the Brown Bear for it’s roar, and so on.

However, that last point being said…

…For general surface wandering, it doesn’t really matter that much in most cases, you can take anything. The only points it might get tricky for squishier pets like the birds is if things start to gang up on it. I like bringing a drake because with a melee weapon you can hack through most pve groups in moments but, as I said already, it honestly doesn’t matter that much in most situations. Bears may be tough as nails, but at 30 beastmastery with natural healing and signet of the wild, even the ‘squishy’ pets can take a beating from most things.

In dungeons, it depends how good you are with the micro essentially. If in doubt, get ranged pets exclusively but I’ll tell you now, I use drakes, dogs and even birds and it’s usually fine unless I do something silly like fail to swap it or call it back in time.

jcbroe.4329:

Bob.8456:

I love 1 handed sword, with either dagger or warhorn depending on the situation (whether or not I need to buff myself/others), and shortbow.

I just disable the autoattack on the sword and it’s just fine. I know a lot of people complain about having to do this to get around the dodge issues, but it’s never been much of a problem for me since I play a lot of Street Fighter so I am comfortable with accurately timed button presses. The trick is to not spam the key more than you need so you can always pull off a dodge when you must and not get stuck in the startup for the next attack. It does no good to disable auto attack if you are spamming the key.

Finally, as for the Aragorn business it is really quite simple. When designing Dungeons and Dragons (of course the granddaddy of all RPGs) the Ranger class was admittedly a direct rip off of Aragorn in LotR. They literally based the archetype and abilities off of Aragorn, and called it a Ranger just because that’s what he was. Since it can be argued that every RPG since is derivative of DnD, all Ranger classes are derived in some way from Aragorn. The notion of an all ranged Ranger class is in fact non-traditional and not the other way around. Aragorn is the prototype.

A close second that is always mentioned is the legendary Ranger who is also not known for using bows(but is known for his pet): Drizzt Do’Urden.

Guild Wars 2 is a derivative of Guild Wars 1 in which rangers primary weapons were bows, and the use of another weapon required a secondary profession to be picked up and specced into.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Can anybody really be mad at guild wars 1 ranger veterans who used a bow for almost a decade as a primary weapon to expect the same level of efficiency with a bow as the class with the same name?

Not to mention that there is lore connecting the games, and the professions are based of the lore from the first game and the 250 years in between. Meaning that rangers, for 250 years, forgot how to use the bow well, forgot how to work with their pet as efficiently, forgot how to summon their strong spirits, and forgot how to actively remedy conditions from themselves. On top of that, they gained no real proficiency at anything.

So now things are screwed up from an expectation AND a lore perspective. So as much as people want to get on here and tell people they are wrong for wanting a ranger to be ranged base, those people have every reason and right to be disappointed with how the class has turned out versus where the lore shows it came from.

One problem with this argument; you speak for all GW1 rangers I played GW1, and I utterly disagree with you.
I love the GW2 ranger because of the pet; in guildwars 1 I enjoyed my pet to the point all 8 skills were pet skills, and brought 16 beast mastery. I never relied on the bow because it was boring and dreadfully inefficient for anything beyond interrupting which I never saw the point of in most cases when you can just have your pet maul them to death for you.
The pet was, especially after the pve update, was so broken as to be a joke. 21 second deep wound and +53 damage attack every 5 seconds for 3 energy anyone? With another pet attack that gave a total of 13 energy if the target had conditions? All on something that never got dp, and could be unblockable for 26 seconds in every 30.

I can count the number of other beastmaster rangers I saw in GW1 on one hand. Five. I saw five over the years, and I can’t count how many were splinter+barrage rangers who wasted a skill slot (two before the pve update) bringing a pet that did absolutely nothing beyond dying from the first two hits because they hadn’t put any points in beastmaster, shutting down their skills for 10 seconds. The best that could be said is provided a corpse for the necromancer to summon minions (to those of you who didn’t play gw1; necromancers needed a corpse to produce a minion) but they’d often bring one even if there wasn’t. So it was eyecandy that died two seconds into a fight, shutting the ranger down for ten. Is that the

So I hope you can find it in yourself to forgive me if I’m not exactly crying that the ranger in GW2 isn’t very much like the ranger in guildwars 1. If you want to use the bow, fine I am not saying you shouldn’t. What I’m getting annoyed with is your apparent insistence they are supposed to use it entirely (why melee weapons then?) and the insistence that because of this, they should be the best with ranged weapons (when the warrior is clearly supposed to be the “grab weapon, kill stuff with it” class) and the pet should be this nebulous eyecandy thing (when it’s been made very clear it’s not)

I find F3 works for me; so we’re at a stalemate on that point.

However, I suspect the next bit in your post is where our approaches clash; you want to be all pew pew pew, I prefer to steadily grind them down because almost all of the boss characters have been chugging the health extending potions, so that extra damage isn’t really going to work out for much in the long run compared to either you or the pet staying up. I strongly recommend you try 15 wilderness survival, because with protection on roll and vigour on a heal you become a total pain to bring down in pve, not just the pet.

The thing is I’m using a longsword+dagger and axe+axe combo, so my pets are always in melee. Do you have the trait that grants protection on rolls? It’s very useful for the pet, as is natural healing (of course) along with signet of the wild. I also swap pets like a maniac to avoid them dying when I can.

However, in regards to the boss I suspect you’re missing the most fundemental point; you can stand right in the middle, heck with the windup time you can actually go out, f3 the pet into the safe-zone and go back in if you’re both in melee with time to spare.

However, you can just as easily run out of the circle, away from the shockwave, with your pet following you.

If you’re interested in lore consistency, Elona would be african/middle eastern appearence, Ascalon would be Arian Blonde, Cantha is asia (not just china and japan) and Kryta is europe (so brunettes and the like) in general.

Chrispytoast.3698:

I want to know the Human’s thoughts about if you hate the Charr or not, would you want your race to go to war against the Charr in an event or do you like the peace that is currently going on?

Personally I just divide things into “Stuff trying to kill me” and “Stuff not trying to kill me”. In they’re on the former I tend to be very stroppy with them, but if they’re the latter I don’t mind them.

Frosch.7809:

How long the Charr had been living in Ascalon before humanity came, if it was longer or shorter than humanity does not matter one bit, as Ascalon was not theirs any more. The humans of Ascalon at the times of Prophecies had been living there for 1000 years, if that is not enough to give them every right to live there then 250 years are by far not enough to make Ascalon Charr land again. Reality is different…i live in Europe and if its nations were still laying claims to old borders from a 1000 years ago then some nations would cease to exist.

One word: Isreal.

What’s your build? Last run I had a raven out and it never died.

We’ll try it another way then: Rangers are usually pigeon-holed into the sitting-at-the-back-firing-the-bow in mmorpg convention. Consider how ANET has gleefully murdered ther aspects of mmorpgs:
-Warriors being melee only
-Healer class
-Elementalists being only damage

So, shock of shocks, the Ranger isn’t like Every Other Ranger in a mmorpg, and they are no longer the ranged class. They can certainly do it, but the pet is being dragged from up from a tacked on feature, now played up big time since the warrior’s identity is set up for weapon based damage and it gives the ranger class an identity.
For goodness’s sake, the Thief is never burgling houses or stealing gold or items but you never see the thief forum complaining about it they just roll with it and that class’ name has even less room for misunderstanding.

Ryan.8367:

Although, I will say that Gw2 did exclusively want this class to be the best at range and have the most utility at range and the class mechanics clearly show that. Broken or not.

Proof please? I really wish they’d kept the original class description, which was “A jack of all trades, and a master of them all” because it would avoid stupid threads like these.

Trying to get it a bit on topic; pets are pretty kitten insane with beastmaster traits maxed. I think my pet was getting about 400 health a tick in the molten foundry dungeon. Beyond the ‘oneshot’ attacks which are telegraphed you’re laughing; and the oneshots are pretty easy to see coming.
If you’re not sure they’re coming then just get a ranged pet so you don’t have to worry about them getting killed in a scrum.

Without beastmastery, still take the signet of the wild and stick with ranged pets. Devourers are the toughest, have a knockback and a ‘digback and get away’ and are tougher than spiders, so they’re ideal.
You might take a moa bird but have it set to passive, because it will just die if you let it get in.

I remember an NPC in Divinity’s Reach mentioning he was a good official, but retired due to personal reasons. I get the feeling there might have been more to him but it got cut back because you’re the hero. (until Trehearne)

Remember the birds (not the moas, but the owls and so on) hit a target twice. If you really want to make a single target feel some pain, they’re the way to go.

Mongo.2490:

1) Why do rangers have the most invasive profession mechanic?

I’d argue the thief has the most invasive. You have to work with the initiative system, followed by the engineer and elementalist: you don’t have to use those kits and shift elements but you’re even more limited than a ranger ignoring the pet if you don’t.

Writetyper.1985:

On the contrary, Legolas may or may not be classed as a Ranger, but NOT because he is proficient with archery.

Legolas was ‘just’ a soldier, which in GW would be a Warrior.

I appreciate this is probably swings-and-roundabouts, but I’m curious what you guys use. I tend to use hide in shadows for the stealth (allowing me to get a ‘free’ stealth attack) and for the condition removal. I’m toying with signet of malice however, since I find if I don’t draw aggro (which I seem to avoid doing in most dungeons) I can effectively heal myself unmolested in moments.

So once again; what do you use and why?

RyuDragnier.9476:

Nothing really besides pet damage and survivability. You can easily get through the game without a single point in it.

Essentially this. Don’t go sending melee pets, especially squishy ones like birds, into a melee fight without expecting them to get walloped.

Durzlla.6295:

So I was thinking, why doesn’t ANET just make pets essentially Mimic their masters stats? This would allow people to go super glass canon like they seem to want so much and would allow everyone to sort of build their pets as they will.

Or just use the pets that are for the relevant role. Drakes cleave, so they’re good for mauling groups. Bears are tanky, birds are glass cannon, ect.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Hammer is amazing in PvE if you trait for larger and longer symbols. Whats better than giving your whole melee team 33% damage reduction while beating on the target?

Another guardian with the same specs using a mace and shield. Protection and regeneration for everyone!

stale.9785:

Writetyper.1985:

Can’t live without it bro. Best weapon the ranger has.

Mentalhead.5721:

I know that ranger is designed to use ranged weapons

I want to figure out where this mentality is coming from and quash it.

It comes from Anet themselves. They touted the ranger as the master of ranged combat. This isn’t something that the community dreamed up themselves, it’s something Anet claimed, then changed.

“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

The fact that we’re not “unparalleled archers” and in fact play second fiddle to thieves and warriors despite what it says on the website and when creating a character, I understand why people are bent that we do kitteny damage from range.

The ranger’s techniques are more technical (the warrior’s are ‘dumb force’ as are the thieves) and their weapons have better ranges (warriors need to trait to match a longbow’s base range for the ranger) which again suggests better raw talent. You’re also conveniently forgetting the warrior being described as a master of all weapons.

Mongo.2490:

Well, this topic got away from me. My gripe is the concept of a ranger doesn’t have to be pet-centric.. but it’s ANet’s call how they implement it and they’re not gonna change that. So.. whatever.

You can hardly say it was sneaked up. They constantly made out how the pet was a Very Big Thing with the ranger, and that it’s the F-keys alone should have tipped you off.

Killsmith.8169:

I’m not sure if you were being sarcastic or not in that reply, Durz.

If our damage is split and we have two health bars to manage, why shouldn’t 30 points in marksmanship add 300 power to the ranger and the pet? That way when I trait my ranger for the damage/survivability I want, my pet is similarly built.

Because you have different pet types for the different builds? If you want a tanky pet, bears. You want damage? Birds and owls. Ranged? Devourvers. Ranged condition/support? Spiders.

And so on.

TBH I’d rather it reduce cooldown on your pet swaps or something. It’s counter intuitive for late game where you swap pets all the time

It’s a pain, but with practice you get the ‘rhythm’ of the autoattack, allowing you to move between the leaps (and dodge). Also consider that is has two evades. Once again, with practice you can dodge with ease most attacks, especially in pve. Also while it roots you in place it also pretty much roots your target in place with perma-cripple.

If you’ve got the dagger for the offhand, you’ve got a snare and another evade as well.

Oh look, it’s this thread again.

I’ll skip to the usual answers that are never really countered by the people who want guns on the rangers:

1. Rangers use bows for the fluff, the thematics; they’re a woodsman, a person of nature. In much the same way the Engineer only uses guns (outside kits) in part to symbolise evolution in tech, the ranger’s ‘stayed back’ as it were.
2. On a less fluffy and more crunchy note, it would be pretty redundant. The Longbow is there for distant targets, shortbow for medium/short range, and the axe for short range/crowd control.
3. It’s ranger because they ‘range’ around, not because they do ranged combat.

Just finished a molten factory run and suffice to say while the two thieves died quickly, the engineer eventually got brought down, it was only myself and the elementalist that lasted the entire fight. The only reason I lasted was because of my protection with every roll, vigour on using a heal skill, boosted stamina regen, and the ability for the pet to keep hammering away while tweedle dumb-and-dumber were busy trying to maul me. And failing horribly. I only got downed once, and the pet got me back up (I’d have been dead if it wasn’t for the pet res)

Every pet’s got their gimmick. The Drake hits several foes at once, compared to something like the birds which hit a single target twice.

On it’s own the drake may not be that impressive for walloping several targets, certainly not to a warrior. However, a drake and the ranger walloping things in melee makes short works of most things in PvE, which is why I usually have one out.

Galtrix.7369:

I’ve been waiting for the Ranger to get a class buff up since Guild Wars 1. The class as a whole is enjoyable. I mean, who wouldn’t enjoy running around shooting people in the face with a bow? Oh, that’s right. The people that realize their arrow only angered the enemy while doing no damage whatsoever.

Thing is, I played with 16 in beastmaster and that was hilarious. You had effectively ulimited energy, hit hard, fast, often and still got to shoot people in the face with a bow. Go try it, seriously. It’s great.

Geshque.1326:

No, he was like i know it mates, but i cant do anything…

It’s called feedback; he said without feedback he couldn’t really do anything (If you’re told there is a problem but not even what the specific details of the problem are, how can you try to fix it?)

So give him the specific feedback. What enemies do X pets work on and Y don’t. Why don’t they work. Which bits are always making a pet useless, and why, and so on. I posted explaining because monsters in dungeons (though AC isn’t being so bad about it now) seem to chug health potions so much, the glass-cannon pets are severely reduced in use, since the main thing (kill them quickly, at risk of getting killed) has been lost.

Minos.5168:

rt,

1. Pets in GW1 didn’t need infusion. They (like heroes) were, by default, "infused.

Bit of trivia; they weren’t at first, and for a fair while after release were not either. Wasn’t fun, but it got sorted. IIRC originally getting infusion when you did, and then just always being resistant.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I personally play Ranger as my main, so I’m fairly aware of how to manage the pet, and do my testing as a ranger primarily. What mechanic do you feel is expressly punishing to a ranger pet?
I’m more than aware of how squishy pets can be in dungeons, but if you could list out all the issues you are speaking of, I can try and address them.

I personally find the biggest problem is pretty much pets often don’t balance out in dungeons.

What I mean by this is:
In the open world you’re running along with any pet, and they all work (barring group events with one-hit-knockout attacks and the like) very well. The squishy ones are squishy, but hit hard and kill the enemy quickly. The tough ones do less damage but can take the hits so they can keep doing their damage.

Fastforward to the dungeons and this breaks down; many of the bosses hit very hard with some/all of their attacks and far more importantly they all seem to have chugged industrial amounts of the health potions.
So you use squishy pets for a bit more damage… but because there’s so much more health on enemies in dungeons the extra damage is undermine. They get taken out so much easier/faster that unless you watch them like a hawk they can often get taken out before you can do anything about it. Tougher pets (Drakes, pigs, ect) give you a bit more leeway.
Ergo, tougher pets are more useful and seen far more often.

For what it’s worth, Ascalon’s Dungeon is proving to be overall far more accommodating of the more fragile pets in it’s new incarnation. There’s some problems (a ‘good’ one is the Spider Queen’s AoE poison attack; if it targeted you, you often can’t roll out and then swap pets in time to save your pet if it’s also in a poisoned area.)
But as I said, it’s proving to be largely more forgiving for pets, while still interesting and fun. I’m especially enjoying how Toll-kun works and the new end bosses fight.

Indoles.1467:

River drake F2 deals the highest damage by a considerable margin. If used in conjunction with quickness, you can significantly increase your chances of hitting with it.

If you activate signet of the wild it’s damage is also increased. I’ve clocked over 20k damage with a fire drake doing it, though losing the regen is a hell of a penalty.

The “problem” is rangers are traditionally the hit-things-at-range-with-a-bow class, the ranged-combat-and-best-at-it class. Guildwars 2 has gone in a different direction; the Warrior is designed to be the best with weapons in a straightup headbutting contest, ranged as well as melee. There’s no healing class is another one.
The Guildwars 2 Ranger is designed to be a single-tough-pet class (unlike the Necromancer’s cannon-fodder-easy-come-easy-go minions).

Some people can’t/won’t accept that.

This isn’t an ‘ANET is utterly awesome and cannot go wrong and the pet and ranger are utterly awesome’ post. There are problems: the obstruction bug, the AI for the pet can be ropey, and then there’s awful traits: 1 second might for the pet every critical hit on a trait? The specialist pet traits are hardly brilliant either to name just a few problems… but “my bows aren’t matching the class that’s specifically designed to be the best with weapons” is really not the problem. Hell, it’s not a problem. The problem is when the ranger can’t match with the pet as well.

Aridia.3042:

I hold these opinions because they’re supported by facts.

I’m still waiting to see them.

I called it obnoxious because I used a pet in pvp and pve. It was good in both, and well balanced in pvp: you could focus entirely on the pet, however that would make you vulnerable unless you took the elite Heal As One.
Then Anet decided to buff the pet stupidly in pve and… yeah. Obnoxiously powerful, not that many other people ever seemed to notice. A ‘side effect’ of these buffs was the pet became viable even if you didn’t max the trait line. It also had Scavenger’s Strike, which was one of the few energy management skills for rangers.

I expect you’ve probably read them by now, but in case you didn’t, I suggest you go check the patch sticky Sic ‘Em is being engineered to be the burst mechanic, and the design philosophy makes it clear that the ranger is supposed to do good damage with the pet. If the damage is mainly on the ranger, the pet being little more than eyecandy, the wording would be different. Besides, as I believe I stated before, the ’ranger with most of the damage, the pet doing largely token stuff’ was how the ranger worked in the betas, where it was very brutally ‘nerfed’ in the sense the damage was partially transferred to the pet.

Aridia.3042:

Loki.4871:

That’s your opinion. Mine is that until the pet issues are fixed there’s little point crying over them, especially when it’s a class specifically designed to work with and rely on the pet.

That’s a pipe dream. It’ll never be fixed.

I’ve yet to see a balanced bot implemented in a pvp game. Make them hit on the run consistently and it’s over powered because you’ve doubled the damage source but the target only has the same amount of mitigation. Make them dumb like they are now, and your DPS goes down.

It’s futile to try and find this “balance”. When you’re talking about a PVP game, it should be you playing the toon, not letting the bot do half of your work. Damage ratio has to and always should be put towards the player and not the bot.

I don’t know why Anet is trying to reinvent the wheel. LOL, no one will take this game seriously when you have to watch a person getting pwned by a bot.

And no, please don’t try to argue hitting attack and withdraw involves skill.

All your personal opinion again. The pet was always useful in GW1, even before buffs, and became quite obnoxious when used properly. The necromancer often relied on summons to do their job and (in theory-hello again dodgy AI!) they can do so in GW2. The “it takes no skill because it’s a drone” argument smacks of elitism. Considering how many people regularly complain their pets die in the first five seconds of a fight, let alone in a dungeon, while I can go almost an entire dungeon without a pet being downed unless I’ve made a mistake/not paid attention, I would argue there is some skill involved.
Do mesmers take no skill because they keep using ‘drone’ phantasms and illusions? Or ranged weapons on melee armed characters, because they can’t fight back? Those arguments make as little sense as “the pet takes no skill”.

That’s your opinion. Mine is that until the pet issues are fixed there’s little point crying over them, especially when it’s a class specifically designed to work with and rely on the pet.

Atherakhia.4086:

I fail to see how reducing pet damage by 50%, increasing ranger damage by 25%, and giving the class the utility and burst it needs to actually get brought along to the above amounts to a complete redesigning of the class.

You keep talking about moving the damage onto the ranger and removing it from the pet, but you can’t seem to actually read what I’m saying: damage was moved from the ranger onto the pet because during the beta the ranger being able to belt out so much damage on it’s own murdered balance. You’re saying “Let’s return to the beta,” the one that made the ranger get quite drastically changed to what it is now.