Guild Wars 2

I think arguing the extremes here is silly. There’s a lot to like about pets, but they are also very unwieldy, and inconsistent compared to the performance other professions can get from their tool bar skills. There is at least a two second delay, and more typically, a four second, or even more, delay for most pet F2 skills. Given how fast combat is, that’s incredibly clumsy, and completely unnecessary. Even instant activate skills like a applying a spider’s venom to it’s next attack can have a significant delay. And given the mobility of combat, any pet skill that roots it during activation is impossible to use consistently in any form of PvP.

Also, the downed skill “Lick Wounds” has been bugged—pets often fail to revive you, especially on any, even mild, slope—since release with no sign it will be fixed ever. And even if it is, it takes incredibly long to be available to activate, and then you still have to wait for the pet to run to you—even activating the skill in PvP is a rarity, let alone rallying with it.

There’s wonderful variety in pets and a fantastic ability to cover weaknesses in your build, or dovetail with it’s strengths. Pets offer more flexibility, nominally, than other professions have, but because of poor mechanics, many pets are effectively useless.