Guild Wars 2

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i want a minigun.

they already got rifles and pistols and harpoon guns.

i want a minigun for my warrior.

HEAVY WEAPONS GUY INCOMING!

Even with modern materials, those are far from man-portable.

Dante.1763:

Justdeifyme.9387:

I like the Warrior rifle… 15k Bursts with the adrenalin skill is pretty cool.

But in my opinion they should give the Ranger a rifle. Why the hell does a Ranger, a Hunter of the Wild, have no clue how to use a rifle? Give him that, with 1500 Range with the Traits in a perfect scenario my Norn can be a Sniper.

the ranger as defined as being one with nature…the ranger would basically get rid of that i think, although i do agree they should have some sort of longer ranged weapon. how are guns in this game but not crossbows?

Guns didn’t really coexist with crossbows very well. They have the same strengths and weaknesses, so guns were used instead of crossbows whenever they were available.

Alright, let me put my opinions on the table:

Crossbow – no, because crossbows have the same attributes as firearms (which, in real life, replaced them)

Two-handed axes – maybe, although I think other polearms would go better with their technology level. Actually, I think polearms should be a new type of weapon, of which some skins are based on real-life Dane axes.

Please note: double-bit axes are for chopping wood, not fighting. To my knowledge (and I’ve looked into it), no fighting axe ever had a head with 2 symmetrical blades, despite how often this is depicted in movies and fantasy games.

Polearms – A good idea. Polearms were some of the most common and effective infantry melee weapons on the battlefield for a very long time. While pikes and spears would be less effective on the Guild Wars fields than they were in real life, things like halberds, bills, pollaxes, partisans, naginata (for those who like Japanese weapons), and many more would certainly be welcome.

Scythe – not typically used in real life battles (and the ones that were had their blades at a different angle), but they will always be connected to Guild Wars in the minds of GW1 players (especially those who witnessed someone getting Dhuumed). In my opinion, these need to make a comeback as a melee weapon (and we also need a medium armor spellcaster to fill the role of the dervish, but that’s another topic).

Whip – I’ve never been a fan of whips in RPGs. Whips are showy and inflict a lot of pain, but they don’t go through armor and they don’t hit vital organs.

The problem I see is that they made dodging vital to survival…and ranger pets don’t have access to it. If you’re not going to make our pets capable of surviving certain content, don’t force us to use them in areas where they’re purely a liability.

Ben.3526:

I feel if you accept that the pet makes up a chunk of your DPS and that there is more to running a dungeon then your DPS then you will find the ranger is a great class. I hit for around 5k per auto attack and I share +15% crit chance with allies as well as frost spirit’s 10% dmg bonus and have the ability to stack vuln. I feel like I can contribute to a party and have had very little trouble doing PVE on my own. I can’t speak for WvW or PVP as I have played very limited amounts.

The problem that I see is that other professions deal at least as much damage, while also having better party buffs and more fields/finishers. 150 precision and 3.5% DPS boost isn’t exactly amazing, especially on a class that has these other faults.

You mean like a guardian, only contradictory to the lore? No, thanks.

stale.9785:

This – 1000000x this. Give them Preparations as their unique mechanic, also stances, signets and traps , Longbow, Shortbow, Dagger mainhand, Dagger offhand, (dual dagger ftw!) and Sword for main and offhand.

Thanks. I was hoping for it to be light armored (as in my edit), since we don’t have a light armored class with a bow. I was thinking of a weapon master class which, in place of the warrior’s strength and heavy armor, relies on agility, skill and extensive study. They’d be, essentially, the ultimate martial duelists: instead of the mesmer’s illusions or the thief’s powders and stealth, they would rely on their skill with weapons and knowledge of martial techniques.

Mistro.3059:

Personally I’d like to see a heavy armored Dervish counterpart, along with new a new polearm weapon category, so they can wield scythes, halberds, lances, etc. (in addition to existing classes that they would work with). They could have avatar stances to activate for specific buffs/conditions for a limited time as the class mechanic. I believe the name “Revenant” would be appropriate, I have a document that goes into detail on design, but I haven’t had the drive to finish it and post it, plus there is the issue with the Charr not believing in any gods now, but I suppose that could change.

The change would be dervishes no longer relying on divine magic for their spells. After all, guardians are the successors of monks and paragons, both of which are linked to religion; despite this, their magic is arcane and thus available to charr.

PwnsFroggles.7561:

I feel like all of the archetypes are filled for now, I couldn’t think of a good profession to make.

An archer class which doesn’t rely on kittenty, bugged AI companions? I do want to see a ‘weapon expert’ archetype light-armored profession with longbow and some melee weapons. A medium armored spellcaster has already been suggested, although I would think a new class would be better than giving rangers staves and scepters (after all, you can’t really give them tridents as well).

For a dervish-like class, I was thinking a medium armor spellcaster/melee class which has the option to remove boons from itself for other beneficial effects.

Azure.8670:

Every classes forum sits and cries about their class except the Guardians. Their crying is at a minimum. Ranger can solo PVE better than most of the classes except guard and warrior. In WVW we work well in groups due to our healing/condition removal and sustained support DPS. We are good are roaming because we’re hard to kill and vary in our methods. in PVP we are one of the top classes, only outdone possibly by a great thief and good necros. We are one of the few classes that isnt completely screwed by conditions, so fighting engis and necros isnt a pain in the kitten. We are never going to be top tier in damage, unless you can master using birds/cats and timing your Mauls and sword 1 combos, but we dont even need to go into that. Basically we dont have an I WIN button like some other classes do, but we’re in a much better spot than mesmers and eles are currently. Also, if you look at the boards and pvp matches, we are one of the few classes that arent crying about PVPing the new Warrior meta. we have enough evades AND possible tankiness (depends on build) to fight them right back. I main Mesmer/Thief and ill tell you Cond/Tank warriors and Stunlock Warriors are a complete nightmare for them. (beatable with thief, but forced to use daggers as warriors regen more hp than a s/d thief build can muster).

PVP may be a problem, given the inability of pets to hit moving targets, but it isn’t the main one (much less the only one). General solo PVE play is the least problematic, because it’s easy for everyone and doesn’t offer any rewards that one class can get more easily than another. The problem is the newer, more challenging PVE content, particularly dungeons and fractals. Poor positioning or failing to dodge at the right time will get you killed, as the bosses and traps hit much harder than other players in PVP. The problem is that pets have abysmal positioning and no dodge. Therefore, rangers are forced to play with a ~30% damage penalty in those areas.

Castaliea.3156:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Castaliea.3156:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I have my own idea: new types of pets that can’t deal or receive damage, and instead do the sort of thing that you’re suggesting. These could be things like frogs, lizards, mice, rats, weasels, snakes, etc.

I actually really like this idea. Pets that acted more like Warrior banners that followed you around and had an active ability of some sort….

You.. I like you.

Thank you. I have to admit, though, that some of my motive is quite selfish…I really want a pet weasel!

Let’s be honest…who doesn’t?

IT COULD EVEN RIDE ON YOUR SHOULDER…

./end thread we solved the problem.

Keep the thread going…the problem is solved, now we need the solution to find its way into the game.

Malpractice.7850:

Wrong.
Ive never been removed from a PUG group, ever. I do fractals in pugs.
Ive finished the new “challenging content”
Im a frequent, and followed, commander in WvW, as a ranger. Sometimes i go melee trap (hilariously fun), others pure melee PVT (which i nearly never die), and sometimes a ranged zerker. I even go roaming, which i dominate in.

Not optimal? We actually are, but most people are hung up on OMG ITS A BEAR GTFO

We have: Aoe condition clearing,
5 combo fields (Ice is very important)
PERMANENT AoE regen and swiftness.
4 different ways to apply cripple (that i can think of on the top of my head, in 2 seconds, im sure there is more) (important since it isnt stopped by stability)
Nearly permanent AoE Fury/might, whichever you prefer.
Permanent Protection
All the benefits of Spirits

Good, not the best, DPS (aoe/condition/burst, take your pick)
Amazing amounts of control w/traps and evades

I have a blast on my ranger. I have a 80 guard, and 3 other characters level ~40-50. I cant even have fun on them xD

People on the forums are all grim and OH GOD WHY ME WHYD I PICK THE RANGER?
But really, a majority of the people who play Gw2 (and even in society in general) only speak up if its something they dont like. So, 90% of rangers arent on the forums complaining— Rather, theyre in the game playing and figuring out ways around a few “weak points”.

The ONLY thing youre not good at is Guild vs Guild. Well, youre good, but not optimal there.

Id say stick with ranger. Its amazingly fun, strong, with a ton of variety.

Edit: Im even thinking of leveling another ranger for different looks

AoE condition clearing: guardians do it much better
Combo fields: don’t include underwater ones, which aren’t accessible in most of the game and which replace some of the terrestrial ones. Also, trap fields aren’t quite as versatile, and non-F2 pet skills are a gamble to rely on. Our poison fields are inferior to a thief’s, for example, and we don’t get nearly the uptime or finisher variety that other classes do.
Warhorn has some nice options, but the main hand weapons we get aren’t terribly impressive in my opinion (especially the root on MH sword auto).
Spirits are inferior to banners. They can be killed, must be traited in order to move, and have a chance to give their boost rather than just giving it all of the time.
Ranger DPS is nice, at least until your pet stumbles into an AoE and dies instantly. ~30-40% of your damage (and much of your utility) is attached to an AI NPC which can’t dodge or block, doesn’t position itself intelligently, and most of whose skills you cannot control.
I like the evades (although I’ve never been a trap aficionado), but I have to tell you: in this game, every profession can have strong evades, and rangers aren’t at the top in that department by any means. Rangers aren’t even the only ones with traps now.

I, too have a second ranger for aesthetic reasons. However, I have to add that I’m not enormously fond of playing most of the professions in this game. I like them, especially from a creative and aesthetic standpoint, but they don’t fit my playstyle terribly well. I’m still hoping for something that feels like a successor to my favorite GW1 characters, my ranger and my dervish. I haven’t found anything that truly feels right yet.

Quarktastic.1027:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Chopps.5047:

Relax, why so mad? Cof 1 is just a DPS test. Of course it’s easy (unless you can’t frogger!) Ranger is useful everywhere—dungeons, fractals, jubilee. The point is that rangers main gripe, the lack of group buffs, has gone away now ghat vigorous spirits and spiritual knowledge were combined into a single adept trait, making spirits incredibly useful. Along with the spotter buff to 150 aoe precision, ranger is basically a good choice. Don’t take my word, just play spirits yourself.

The problem, of course, is that your strawman is showing. Spirits are not so useful in the areas OP is referring to. AoE buffs needed there are those that cannot be destroyed: spotter (which you mentioned), guardian shouts, warrior banners, etc. Spirits and moas, neither of which can avoid the types of AoE’s being discussed, are far less useful. Besides, in other areas rangers are still weak: lack of variety in fields, and lack of variety in finishers. Okay, so we have a melee-range blast finisher on a 35-second cooldown now. Hooray! Except, who would use that when single handed ranger weapons are so bad, and thieves get a ranged blast finish with no cooldown? Also, rangers get what, 2 fields total? One of them is on an otherwise poor offhand, and the other requires you to sacrifice a lot of self healing potential and mobility. Compare this to what the thief has easy access to: smoke, poison, and dark, along with multiple types of finishers including spammable blast finish.

The reason rangers have so few blast finishers, is because we have the best variety of combo fields in the game. We have:

• Two fire fields
• A frost field
• A water field
• Several poison fields
• An ethereal field (two if we’re counting underwater skills)

The only fields we don’t have access to are light, dark, and smoke fields (except for one underwater smoke field).

I already mentioned bonfire and healing spring, and their disadvantages compared to fields that other professions have access too. Someone else mentioned the problems with those granted by traps and pet skills which you can’t control. I think I’ll just follow up by pointing out that choking gas gives a poison field of 4s duration on no cooldown, while the pet F2 poison fields give a mere 2s on at least 30 seconds of cooldown. I have no idea where you’re getting the idea that we have 2 ethereal fields. I know of 1, and it’s underwater only.

Now compare this to the readily spammable smoke and poison fields that the thief has, or the light fields that the guardian has…all if which are on weapon skills and have little or no cooldown, and all of which are accompanied by at least as much variety in finishers.

I think the biggest reason pets had no such problems in GW1 was that combat was so much more static. Even if pets missed targets moving away from them, it wasn’t such a problem because the target had to stop in order to attack or use a skill.

Leo G.4501:

I like ‘amongst’. It has a ye olde flavor to it :-P

I only really use it if I’m writing a story though, and if it flows with the sentence. If I’m talking or writing dialog…well, no one ever says ‘amongst’ anymore.

Technically, that would be a ‘þhe olde’ flavor, lol.

I don’t mind the use of ‘amongst’, but then again one of my favorite bands used it in the title of one of their albums (Amongst the Catacombs of the Nephren-Ka).

Castaliea.3156:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I just want my GW1 ranger back (though even that had serious flaws and limitations), but at this point that seems unlikely to happen.

Um… compared to the GW2 Ranger my GW Ranger was a god… pun intended.
(GWAMM)

But there is a point to be had. I’m all for pets, I always ran a pet in GW. But it was my choice. I choose to run that pet because I liked him. But when I really had to I could put him away and be serious. There was no choice in this game. We are forced Beastmasters 100% of the time and as many threads have pointed out; There is content that is just not suited for such an AI.

Honestly though, I’m mostly upset about the fact that they took the fun out of pets by forcing them on you.

I used pets a fair amount in PVE too. I think the biggest change is the combat system: GW2 pets are designed for GW1 combat. They lack dodge and blocking, and don’t care about positioning in the slightest.

What I meant when I said GW1 rangers had their flaws is that bow rangers had only 1 serious option in PVP: condition spread + interrupts. 75% of the skill bar was the same every game, every game mode, for just about every bow ranger, in all of PVP. In PVE, archers had 2 serious options: turret, which took a huge hit with the Asuran scan change; and splinter barrage. Of course, I typically used a ritualist hero (or a player) for the weapon spell, giving me more options for attributes and skills.

Thieves don’t have longbows or greatswords, so thief is unlikely to become my main. That being said, I’m not particularly impressed by rangers or warriors either, so I’m really not sure where to go from here. Maybe they could give the longbow to guardians…

Your sarcasm is appreciated, but the fact remains that they should have made pets either optional (best choice) or at least somewhat reliable before releasing the game in the first place. I certainly don’t think the temporary content is nearly as important as a fundamentally flawed, constantly malfunctioning core profession mechanic.

Given how exaggerated the maces and hammers are in this game, I think we should be glad the blade wasn’t 3 inches wide lol.

Leo G.4501:

AntiGw.9367:

That’s one long rapier.

My thoughts exactly.

They need to cut a foot and 1/2 off that thing, at least…

It isn’t nearly as bad as you claim. Most people don’t realize that rapiers had extremely long blades, some of them even reaching (or exceeding) 50 inches. It got so bad that a law was made in England limiting them to ‘only’ ~40 inches. While that rapier is certainly too big for her, it looks to be within the size range of actual weapons. Also, it’s worth pointing out that most of the other weapons in this game have grossly exaggerated sizes in many of their skins.

Fancia.3746:

FranzM.1298:

Hi there, I know that there has been lots of Ranger hate but i have an idea about a way to satisfy people who don’t use or don’t want to use their pets.

When your pet is in Avoid Combat your F2 will change to a supportive skill for the ranger to use based on what the pet is then when it returns to Aggressive mode it will switch back to the regular F2.

This way the anti pet rangers will still be using their pets but not really.

Also can someone explain to me exactly why rangers have hate because i know pets are not the only reason.

Rangers dont hate their pets… Obviously people wouldnt be playing a pet class if they didnt like their pet… What we hate is the pet MECHANICS that are sloppy and just simply the worst of any MMO game to date… Even Aion have better pet mechanics… The main problem is for quite a number of situations, the pet becomes a major liability, rather than a benefit… THAT, is what we hate…

I don’t think that that’s entirely true. Many people probably dislike pets but have nowhere else to go. There isn’t an archer themed class at the moment, but the closest thing we get is the ranger. Thieves seem more like circus performers than serious archers given their shortbow skills: bouncing arrows, attaching bags of poison or gunpowder to the arrows, that sort of thing. Warriors at least get the longbow, but they get exploding arrows and heavy armor…still not the type of thing archery fans prefer. Then we get the ranger. I, unlike some people, don’t mind pets as a concept, but I’m skeptical that they can be made to fit GW2’s combat mechanics without enormous advances in AI and a complete overhaul. I just want my GW1 ranger back (though even that had serious flaws and limitations), but at this point that seems unlikely to happen.

Castaliea.3156:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I have my own idea: new types of pets that can’t deal or receive damage, and instead do the sort of thing that you’re suggesting. These could be things like frogs, lizards, mice, rats, weasels, snakes, etc.

I actually really like this idea. Pets that acted more like Warrior banners that followed you around and had an active ability of some sort….

You.. I like you.

Thank you. I have to admit, though, that some of my motive is quite selfish…I really want a pet weasel!

Chopps.5047:

Relax, why so mad? Cof 1 is just a DPS test. Of course it’s easy (unless you can’t frogger!) Ranger is useful everywhere—dungeons, fractals, jubilee. The point is that rangers main gripe, the lack of group buffs, has gone away now ghat vigorous spirits and spiritual knowledge were combined into a single adept trait, making spirits incredibly useful. Along with the spotter buff to 150 aoe precision, ranger is basically a good choice. Don’t take my word, just play spirits yourself.

The problem, of course, is that your strawman is showing. Spirits are not so useful in the areas OP is referring to. AoE buffs needed there are those that cannot be destroyed: spotter (which you mentioned), guardian shouts, warrior banners, etc. Spirits and moas, neither of which can avoid the types of AoE’s being discussed, are far less useful. Besides, in other areas rangers are still weak: lack of variety in fields, and lack of variety in finishers. Okay, so we have a melee-range blast finisher on a 35-second cooldown now. Hooray! Except, who would use that when single handed ranger weapons are so bad, and thieves get a ranged blast finish with no cooldown? Also, rangers get what, 2 fields total? One of them is on an otherwise poor offhand, and the other requires you to sacrifice a lot of self healing potential and mobility. Compare this to what the thief has easy access to: smoke, poison, and dark, along with multiple types of finishers including spammable blast finish.

Cuchullain.3104:

I don’t know why they refuse to give us the ability to stow pets in combat. It is not a solution overall, but it at least let’s us keep them alive during times when they are otherwise a liability. Apparently, giving us this feature would amount to admitting that the pet mechanic in this game is borked, and we mustn’t have that.

Anyone with half a brain can see that the pet system is awful. The entire combat system is based around movement, positioning, and dodging or blocking major attacks. Pets cannot hit moving targets, can’t position themselves properly, and have no dodging or blocking. If they still refuse to admit that this is a major problem, all it does is make them look dishonest in the eyes of everyone.

I have my own idea: new types of pets that can’t deal or receive damage, and instead do the sort of thing that you’re suggesting. These could be things like frogs, lizards, mice, rats, weasels, snakes, etc.

Klawlyt.6507:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Adine.2184:

I only need one reason to vote Kiel. The only good Charr is a dead Charr .

The olny good human is dead human. Time to make a raid to Kryta and exterminate anything that moves on 2 feets. No, gods won’t help u as we will turn them into fastfood to our lovely devourers

I remember a time when charr had gods? Whatever happened to those guys? Oh yeah, the humans conquered and destroyed them. Now be a good kitty and go play with your yarn.

Go back to your monastery to grovel before your gods. Maybe you can ask them why they abandoned you? If they give an honest answer (which I doubt they will), it would probably be because the dragons will murder them if they show their faces.

Adine.2184:

I only need one reason to vote Kiel. The only good Charr is a dead Charr .

Stop living in the past, meat.

thefantasticg.3984:

How are they dinos? Isn’t the earth only 6,000 years old????

We’ve found a living tree over 5,000 years old, and dendrochronology using overlapping rings goes back at least 11,000 years. Modern humans have been around for 100,000 to 200,000 years, with the debate being over which fossils we’ve found are or are not kitten sapiens, rather than a separate member of the kitten genus. The earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old. The universe is some 14 billion years old. Using the Andromeda galaxy as a reference, you could probably prove a lower limit of 2.5 million years for the universe’s age using nothing but high school level physics and geometry.

thefantasticg.3984:

How are they dinos? Isn’t the earth only 6,000 years old????

I really, really hope that you’re joking.

Harnel.6810:

yeah, i know. Deinonychus and Velociraptors used their feathers to stablize themselves as they were doing jump attacks at prey. Very cool. I just said they were ‘basically’ dinosaurs because they don’t fit the exact body structure.

Although, admittedly, I’m no biology major, so I’m just doing this from observation.

They’re in the clade dinosauria, so as far as phylogenetic classification goes they’re dinosaurs.

Raptors actually are dinosaurs (well, technically, so are all birds). Velociraptor, as well as many others, had feathers. I hope I didn’t just ruin Jurassic Park for any of you.

I was really surprised that they didn’t include wolverines. They are, after all, already mentioned. As for honey badgers, they strike me as Elonian within the context of Tyria. I’m hoping to see them in an expansion.

I’m being a humorless kitten, I know.

I’m in college, majoring in biology. And I want mustelids.

In regards to hyenas being in the dog category: I wonder if they’ll come out with red pandas in an expansion, and classify them as cats?

Durzlla.6295:

Ryan.8367:

Wow, you are very delusional… You said minion masters , sorry, is that supposed to mean something other than necromancers? And you said warriors had one build (maybe have) as if they might have ONE viable build now. Just quit spreading misinformation and then trying to backtrack and make excuses when you get completely called out for it. You and Chopps are hardly PvPers anyway so this isn’t a surprise that you don’t know other class’s builds and their makeups. I’m done with you.

And also, I know quite a bit of eles who run zerker d/d and do good with it, because they’re good at their class and know other classes and know when to time kitten accordingly with the utility they have, so yea. Keep NOT knowing other classes and continue to spout off bullkitten like you always do in every thread.

Uh, I am a PvPer, Chopps isn’t, I am. And yes, at the time of the build I wasn’t sure if warriors still had that one viable build, but then afterwards recalled them having others (such as the CC hammer build, axe builds, the condi build etc). I had thought that I had edited my post to take out the “(maybe have)” part, so that’s totally my bad.

And I’ve yet to see a zerker d/d ele in PvP that can do anything other than die in the course of 5 seconds, so sorry I don’t know the ONE ele who can pull it off.

PS: when I said minion masters I should have said pet reliant builds, I always think of any build using more than like 2 pets at a time as a minion master.

D/D eles don’t go zerker. They stack boons for both defense and damage. Even with a defensive build, 20 stacks of might means plenty of damage. Plus, they get tons of healing and some nice defensive skills.

And again with the mm crap. The bottom line is this: rangers are the only players in the game who are forced to rely on NPC allies all of the time, and balanced around having NPC allies all of the time. Since many parts of the game are extremely harsh on NPC allies, this means that rangers are at a severe disadvantage in these areas, while the other professions are not.

Wing Leigh.3795:

Well, I for one want a Doylak so much.

To add to my point, almost everything I mentioned has been tamed.

Rockdogs, Griffons, and Raptors by Ogres.
Doylaks in GW1 were ridden by Dwarves and are tamed to transfer materials now.
Every hatchling Wurm is neutral unless provoked. And if they are anything like Devourers then if you raise them at birth they will be alright with you.
Grubs stay neutral in most Sylvari areas.
Thundershrimp are ALWAYS neutral and I remember seeing a very tiny one with a particular Quaggan.

And let’s face it. Everyone wants a Charr pet. Haha.

Charr pet? You want a pet that’s not only stronger and faster than you, but smarter as well? I don’t see how that’s supposed to work…

Durzlla.6295:

Uh, my pet doesn’t die in 2 Hits, he normally sits there and tanks the kittening bosses for my group, so I don’t know what you’re doing wrong, Learn to Micro?

And go to the ele forums for like 5 seconds and ask for the build types, it’s essentially 30 water 30 arcane and then you get the “luxury” to put your last 10 pts in another tree, although you can now move the water trait points into air and run a fresh air build, but other than that there’s no real variation.

And a Minion Master has the same issue as a BM ranger (you can build to only use your pet as a meat shield, and nothing more than that) and turret engis, and spirit weapon guardians and ele glyphs etc, yet we have the LEAST problems because we can actually CONTROL our pet, and it seems like you just don’t know how to do that, so again, LEARN TO MICRO.

It obviously depends on the boss. Some my pets can tank, some take off ~60% of a bear’s health each hit (with 15 BM). Also, microing doesn’t do kitten when your pet waits for its 2-3 second channel to finish before running back to you, and it never helps if you’re using melee. Try again.

My brother plays elementalist as his second favorite class. He doesn’t use 30 points in arcane (I think it’s 10 or 20), nor does he use 30 points in water (10 there as I recall). He still has reasonably strong survivability and his scepter, due to the recent buffs, has insane burst. That’s multiple effective trait lines across multiple weapon sets. That is not ‘just one option’, as you claim.

Minion master necromancers do have some of the same problems as rangers, with 2 major differences: first, minions are more expendable; every single minion skill recharges at least as quickly as swapping out a defeated pet. Second, and this is the big one, necromancers are not forced to be minion masters. If a necromancer is going somewhere that is kitten AI companions, he doesn’t need to bring them. It’s the same situation with guardian spirit weapons and engineer turrets: you are not forced to use them when they’re more hindrance than help. Try to ignore your pet as a ranger, and you lose ~25% of your damage and cc, even without speccing into BM. See the difference?

The problem with microing is that it isn’t a very versatile solution. While the pet is running back and forth between you and the boss, trying (and not always succeeding) to avoid the AoE, it isn’t contributing to your damage. You’re losing 25% or more of your DPS whether you micro your pet or let it die. Plus, if the boss targets you with AoE, you can dodge it. Your pet can’t. If the room you’re in has, for example, instakill walls of lasers everywhere, there isn’t a kitten thing you can do to keep your pet alive, even with perfect microing skills. If you decide to use melee, there is no way to micro your pet out of the AoE’s that the boss is dropping. Your mindless ‘just micro’ line is repetitive, tiresome, and shortsighted.

Atherakhia.4086:

Pets are an afterthought really. Even as a player, we don’t have any real attachment to them. We send them off to their death, moments before their head is ripped off we push a button to swap to the next unnamed pet and repeat. Well I’m overstating it a little, I really do treat my pets more as fire and forget missiles or a random DOT more than I treat it as an integral part of the class.

But yea, before they bother with trying to make bad pets better, they really need to resolve a lot of the mechanical problems that still plague pets in general.

Things like…
Pets still not being able to hit moving targets reliably.
Pets needing their skills to be instant cast so they can hit things reliably.
Pets not properly scaling with gear (this is the main cry for nerfs on this class for example).
Pet skill RNG is completely uncalled for in a PvP centric game.

I think the biggest problem with pets in a PVE setting is survivability. The entire basis of the combat system, from the ground up, is avoiding the attacks that are sent at you. We have dodging, we have blocking, evades built into weapon and utility skills, distortion…and, because of this, major enemies can pretty much one-hit-kill anything in front of them that doesn’t avoid the hit. Into this combat system they introduce a profession that relies heavily on an AI NPC that utterly lacks each and every one of these vital abilities. It has no choice but to face tank every attack directed towards it. Just what the hell was Arena Net thinking? These pets are perfect…for Guild Wars 1. They address the biggest problems pets had in the game: taking up half or more of your skill bar, lack of variety in mechanics (bears being identical to birds, for example), preventing you from taking good healing skills (unless you brought Heal as One). They just happen to address none of the requirements for a character in Guild Wars 2: tons of blocking and dodging or being completely expendable.

Durzlla.6295:

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

Prysin.8542:

oh shut it people. the “DPS” loss is just laughable. And the “LB nerf” is even more laughable.

We got a buff in the right direction. Blast finisher, Stealth, the ability to ON YOUR OWN, have 18 stacks of vulnerability on a target at any given moment. The fact that your pet does 2% less “DPS” compared to before is laughable, considering that the potential DPS on the longbow is now 12% more.

Oh and one last thing… remember that blast finisher? You now got, even in zerker gear, 10 times the group utility you had before. With a sword and a warhorn, you get 2 times the healing you had before. And if you bother to build properly, you can provide a team, or your pet, with more might then you EVER could before.

Might = more DPS.

in the end. you lost NOTHING. you just gained TWICE as much. and you still whine.

Seriously, you should all be ashamed.

Except what you just said means we only have one viable build for damage. That isn’t really versatile now is it?

You mean like minion masters only have one way to deal damage through their minions? Or how eles only have like one build option for damage period? Or how warriors only had (maybe have) one viable damage build?

And we have PLENTY of build variety, we have condi builds, we have pet builds (both tanky and DPS) we’ve for power builds, support builds etc. quit your kittening and stop following cookie cutters, there’s more builds that work than the ones people share.

I don’t know elementalist too well, but I kitten well know that they have more than just one effective build. I’m not sure about staff, but both scepter and MH dagger are both viable, and there are more options now for trait distribution. As for minion masters having just one way to deal damage, what the hell does that prove? ‘Minion master’ isn’t a profession, it’s a way to play a profession. That’s like saying that longbow rangers only have one way to deal damage. You can go greatsword for something entirely different. The problem is still with the pet system killing our effectiveness in many areas of the game. Necromancers aren’t forced to play a minion master build when it isn’t ideal, but rangers are forced to play a pet build even when it’s utterly useless. All of our builds are balanced around the assumption that we’ll always have a pet to round out our damage and utility. When the pet goes down in two hits and we have no way to prevent the damage, that assumption is just stupid.

Either way, it needs to be fixed. Soon. Dodging and blocking are the most important forms of damage mitigation in the game, and our pets (roughly a third of our damage and cc) don’t have access to them.

I definitely agree. Making one (and only one) profession reliant on an NPC that can’t block or dodge was a bad idea on their part. They need to fix it. But honestly, I think it should be innate rather than traited. Why should we give up other traits in order to get something we should have had in the first place?

You didn’t understand my first point. I was saying that, out of all the pet choices we have, most of them are horrible for anything other than casual PVE. They give us some 40 pets, and yet 90% of the time I’m forced to use a bear, because anything else dies too quickly. Pets just feel so impersonal and expendable.

I’m not trying to ruin anything for anyone. I was happy with their work in Guild Wars 1, but it seems like they no longer listen to the player base to any significant extent, nor are they forthcoming with information about how they plan to fix these problems. Putting pets into the game without better AI and evasion mechanics was a horrible move, as was failing to put in a resurrection option other than pet swapping or leaving combat. On top of that, they did away with the marksman profession/archetype completely, thus leaving a huge portion of their ranger community out in the cold. How am I supposed to react to this?

Basically, the fundamental problems I see at the foundation of the pet mechanic are the following:

1. No variety. Even the most staunch advocate of pets in their current state will tell you that you need to take the right pet for the right situation. Basically, this means that anyone who likes, for example, snow leopards is pretty much out of luck in many areas.

2. Lack of dodge mechanic. The entire combat system revolves around dodging and blocking as the primary means of damage mitigation, with movement and positioning also extremely important. Pets act like my GW1 dervish in Fort Aspenwood: charge into a pile of enemies and proceed to chain nasty skill combinations together until standing in a pile of corpses, find a new group of enemies, then repeat. Whenever I use melee in GW2, however, I find it necessary to move constantly and dodge regularly in order to reduce the amount of damage I take. At the very least, they need to make a PVE/PVP split in which pets are nearly invincible in PVE, so that the boss skills which humans have to dodge don’t affect rangers far more than any other profession.

As for playing GW1, it was pretty much deserted after GW2 came out. Besides, I like the combat mechanics in GW2…I just can’t find a class that fits me well.

I other words, if you like the GW1 ranger but dislike the GW2 pets, they don’t give a kitten about you.

As far as swords go, I really don’t understand the obsession with the katana. They should put it in the game as a greatsword, but I’ll still prefer the versatility of a double-edged straight blade.

Anyways, as far as awesome Japanese weapons go, I’m putting my vote on the yumi. Too many of the bow skins in this game look completely stupid in my opinion; we need better bows.

roachsrealm.9284:

I’ve been playing a dervish in GW2 for a long time. See: Guardian; traited 20/15/0/30/5. Spec into healing on your armor and boon duration for runes. Symbols, burning, buffs, and conditions all around you. It really does feel like Dervish playstyle.

I just miss the scythe really..

It doesn’t really fit my GW1 dervish play style; I was too obsessed with onslaught (at least, until they nerfed it to hell). The guardian is just so slow. The fusion of conditions and hexes means that being able to deal well with both (as my dervish could) isn’t a way to gain an advantage anymore. I might be able to find a way to link most of my healing to my attacks, but I get the feeling that it wouldn’t be as effective.

As for all of you nay-sayers: yes, I know that it couldn’t be linked to religion anymore. It isn’t as if the guardian (successor to both monks and paragons) has such ties now. I think the dervish successor would make an excellent medium-armored spellcasting class, something that GW2 is utterly lacking a the moment. We have a heavy spellcasting class (guardian), we have a light armor class which uses martial skills to some extent (mesmer), we still need a medium magic-user with melee and staff/scepter/focus, and possibly a light class with more martial proficiency and weapons such as longbow and rifle.

My favorite option would be a new class of pets, which act more like D&D familiars than (current) GW2 pets. Having one of these active would grant passive effects and active skills which are entire supportive in nature. These pets would be unable to take damage or be defeated, and would be unable to deal damage as well. That way, you could use a fighting pet when you wanted the aggro management and other such benefits, and you could take a non-combat pet in situations where relying on an AI-controlled companion puts you at a disadvantage. It would keep alive the ‘always have a pet by your side’ class aesthetic, and it would give the flexibility of making pets optional at the same time.

Edit: what I mean is that having one of these new pets out would give a damage boost equivalent to the damage a fighting pet would deal, affected by the beast mastery trait. They would also have skills on the F1-F4 keys which would give other benefits, such as adding cc to your attacks, that pets often have. Passive effects could include further increased damage, innate regeneration or a boost to toughness, increased endurance generation, etc. Plus, they could give us pets that we wouldn’t otherwise get, such as raccoons, squirrels, weasels, hummingbirds, rabbits and such.

Bambula.3649:

Durzlla.6295:

Ugh no, if I wanted to be an engineer I’d be an engineer, I chose ranger for having my pets.

Granted, I wouldn’t be opposed to us summoning the pet (does the F2 immediately) and then helps us fight for X seconds before leaving, that would be totally fine in my book.

^this is
on the day when pet removed from the ranger is stop playing

I don’t want them to remove it completely. I want them to give us the option to play without it, like we had in GW1. There is no GW2 equivalent to about 90% of the bow builds in GW1.

I know this is GW2. My point was that many people who played GW1 are feeling betrayed by Anet because their favored play style was thoughtfully and deliberately removed from GW2, for no readily apparent reason. Many people like the archer archetype but dislike pets (and many people who like pets in other games dislike them in this one due to their numerous flaws). These people are left with no place to go, because Anet took that option out of the game completely. And, on top of that, the closest thing we get to the GW1 ranger still requires enormous micromanagement to get even close the the effectiveness that other professions have automatically.

I vaguely remember them saying that all playstyles from GW1 would be available in GW2. I call bullkitten.

Tribio.8531:

Araris.7839:

I understand you’re obviously limited in some way. Allow me to elaborate so you can understand. This game utilizes the dodge/evade mechanic in all combat scenarios. Because our pet can not utilize this mechanic, they often become fodder for high damage abilitys, often killing them in a single hit.

Better?

Better explained (although I’m still missing a specific fractals mention here, oh well), but no reason to be so conceited like you are.. :P

Yeah, pets can’t dodge, true that.. But you do know that we are the only class that has an extra controllable entity, right? We can call our pet back (right before that boss will one-shot) or quickly switch to another.. So with some decent micro managing you can get your pet out of a lot of dire situations.. But once again: When you’re messing with such high DPS enemies, it might be better to have a supportive pet next to you heeled?

Next thing you know some mesmer will start whining that his clones don’t dodge either and get killed while running towards their target before shattering..
;-)

Ok, so you lose a third of your damage in exchange for a ‘support’ pet, which might get off 2 useful skills every 40 seconds. Does that have the same effectiveness as a pet would were it able to use all of its skills and damage? No? Then you’re objectively worse off than another class in that same scenario, and the imbalance needs to be addressed. Besides, as soon as the boss targets you with a one-shot AoE skill, your pet dies.

As for mesmers, clones don’t have a third of their damage and cc, and are expendable anyways. Boss winds up? Shatter the clones. Cast new ones after the attack, because the cooldown is under 30 seconds, and you can get several such skills on your bar at a time.