Guild Wars 2

Warhorn is great. Just shave the CDs a bit.

bad change for all modes imo.

enemy locs should be observed. also shows inconsistency with vision, re: focus on gameplay, not UI elements. map & situational awareness is a part of the gameplay.

it could exist as a custom server toggle, anything beyond that seems off.

Spirit Ranger is just a ridiculous spec.

Arguably, to me anyways, one of the most OP about the spec has nothing to do with Spirits, but the interaction of +30% boon duration + Forge runes. This gives an even +50% prot duration. So +3s of Prot on each dodge roll ( 15 WS trait which just got buffed ), 15s of Prot upon reaching 50% health, & 6s of Prot proccing from Stone Spirit ( not 100% on this one, might just be 4s, but hardly matters ).

This frees up the spec to no longer require Healing Power like BM builds did & can instead focus on pure damage, so Rabid or Carrion.

Storm Spirit is just insane. I have definitely seen 6k+ hits. I agree that this should scale with Power so a glassy spec could have an option to put out this damage, but Wilderness specs shouldn’t get this kind of burst.

Nature’s Vengeance is a poorly designed trait. It translates active abilities into passive abilities & also disregards the cooldowns of said active abilities. There are times when I will see 2 Storm Spirit procs about 3 seconds apart from each other.

Autofollow Trait is also poor imo, since it removes the active component of proper positioning for Spirits. There is little risk to Spirits while Elite is up, since it is tanky enough that you can reposition it easily through evade / movement chains & the HoT will keep them up ( which is really strong on its own—480HPS for entire team with zero effort ).

I’m OK with Spirits offering powerful group support, but they need risk & counterplay that is more than just “HEY AOE TEH SPIRITS”, since the answer to so many things in PvP is “HEY AOE TEH X”. Also, the previously mentioned Evade / Movement chains synergize too well with Spirit survivability for how large the range is on them. If the Ranger had to actually place the Spirits in a static location, that would separate Ranger skill level in a big way. Then Spirits could remain powerful or see more interesting interactions through future tweaks instead of getting their functionality nerfed while still being overly simplistic to use, which is what the Dec 10th patch aims to do.

More things need to put the onus on the offensive player to perform them correctly, rather than placing all the onus on the defending player to counter these simple & often automatic damage sources.

any FPS game EVER has Pub servers that operate IDENTICALLY to hotjoin.

you can’t fight human nature. ppl want to play with their friends & ppl like to win.

the biggest problem is that there is no real sense of community like other FPS games.

in TF2, i had a huge list of custom pub servers where i knew i could find ppl that i enjoyed playing with/against, & these issues of team balance & win/loss disappear.

Custom Servers never succeeded b/c you can’t get gems from PvP, so pvp players cannot do something that is completely FREE & baseline in any other game.

the strongest sense of community in hotjoin is Server 001. sometimes you do get very good games in there when a bunch of good players are in. but often it suffers the same fate of being team stacked when it’s only half filled with regulars.

as a fan of conquest, i will say that this gametype is 100% more fun to watch.

phase 1: teamfight
phase 2: lord defense/mid split
phase 3: double lord threat

action is much more focused—easier to watch, easier to cast.

phases make the game feel more visceral, like you can make strong moves towards a decisive victory instead of ticking up 1 pt at a time to 500.

i also liked that each caster focused on primarily one player for each round, gives much better insight into that player’s role as opposed to conquest casting, where you are following NODES instead of PLAYERS.

Lord needs a buff for this, but Finals were great. i would watch this each week.

Yasha.5963:

faeral.7120:

MOBA/GvG Hybrid
- MOBA map setup ( 3 lanes + jungle ) without any leveling or shops.
- Towers are replaced by destructible player controlled siege.
- Last hitting/denying a creep gives 1 Might stack for X seconds.
- Last hitting/denying siege gives AoE Might stacks + Blast finisher.
- Svanir / Chieftan type mobs in Jungle for last hit team buffs.
- Individual buffs spawn at various points on timer, similar to bottling buffs in MOBA.
- Big Boss Spawn on a timer similar to triple buff on Temple ( could grant a stored free resurrect to last hitter, similar to MOBA ).
- Base with guards + Guild Lord ( win condition ) on each side.
( pmuch combining Niflhel, Khylo & Legacy w/o Conquest & some MOBA mechanics )

Nice idea; there have been quite a few good ideas like yours in this thread that make a MOBA-mode seem a realistic proposition, its been good to read them.

Did you see the idea on p2 or 3 about starting with just the one weapon skill/heal and then unlocking new skills through gold earned? That idea would enable the important aspects of farming/feeding in MOBAs as well.

tldr: more in-depth thoughts on previous point form notes on MOBA/GVG Hybrid.

I did see that, Yasha. It would certainly work if that is what the people want. ) Personally I really enjoy the fast pace of GW2, I feel it is kind of like starting a MOBA game 3/4 of the way through an even match when everyone is kitted & ready for teamfights.

I feel like one of the biggest strengths of GW2 PvP is equality of gear & spec options. To undermine that by making players level up in a match or farm for gear / skills would remove this equality. I would prefer to see MOBA-type game mechanics reward the player with tactical benefits as they would pertain to GW2’s established combat mechanics.

Buffs & combat effects are the “reward” for last-hitting in my proposal. These buffs should be fairly long lasting so there is a definite advantage to farming efficiently in preparation for pushes or teamfights.

“Might” is my first choice for buff reward because it will help all specs regardless of setup. So if a last-hit/deny gave a 30 second Might stack, that would give enough time to clear some creeps & take those buffs to influence another encounter. These could be very fast plays, especially if you allow the player controlled siege to trigger last-hit. So a player on the defensive could use siege to wipe creeps then use those buffs to push back up the lane.

Also, feeding would still play into this. Eg. 1v1 on a lane, a stronger player is able to last-hit his opponent’s wave & deny his own creeps. This could end with that player being 10 Might stacks up on his opponent.

Last-hit/deny on siege could be something like 10 Might stacks in PBAoE + Damaging Blast Finisher. So there is risk/reward & tactical options in closing the distance to last-hit. Eg. 1 side drops Smoke field down for last-hit, other team drops Frost field for deny. AoE stealth or Frost shields would result with the losing team taking damage & needing to regroup.

There could be “Elixir” spawns, similar to Invulnerability Flasks on Capricorn, but with varied effects like GTAoE Stunbreak, Condi Transfers or Buff Share ( give all current buffs to group )—buffs that players will want to contest in order to strengthen a future engagement. I would suggest that instead of the Elixir replacing the entire weapon bar, that it only replaces the autoattack ( on both weapon sets ) so the player can still make use of other abilities while waiting for the right time to use the “bottled buff”.

I would like to see the return of Death Penalty from GW1 in this mode as well. Since no points are rewarded for a kill ( Guild Lord or Conceding is the win condition ), a Penalty makes sense.

Svanir/Chieftans in the Jungle could give buffs similar to what they do now, stat buffs to Team, but also would remove 2 stacks of Death Penalty from the Team.

3v3 arenas – enough said by others already.

murderball – team only generates points from kills by holding the ball ( holder has aura, kills must take place within aura, life siphoned slowly while holding ). no mobility penalties for holding, same penalties as Spirit Watch for ports / invis.

MOBA/GvG Hybrid
- MOBA map setup ( 3 lanes + jungle ) without any leveling or shops.
- Towers are replaced by destructible player controlled siege.
- Last hitting/denying a creep gives 1 Might stack for X seconds.
- Last hitting/denying siege gives AoE Might stacks + Blast finisher.
- Svanir / Chieftan type mobs in Jungle for last hit team buffs.
- Individual buffs spawn at various points on timer, similar to bottling buffs in MOBA.
- Big Boss Spawn on a timer similar to triple buff on Temple ( could grant a stored free resurrect to last hitter, similar to MOBA ).
- Base with guards + Guild Lord ( win condition ) on each side.
( pmuch combining Niflhel, Khylo & Legacy w/o Conquest & some MOBA mechanics )

conquest update – change node capture to toggle ( 4-5 second channel ). more active play, less pressure to remain in the circle if you can interrupt cap from outside it ( indirectly nerfing AoE ). CC plays for node control can make for more exciting turnovers.

Spirits triggering on death is braindead safety. It passively utilizes the only active component of Spirit design.

…since Rangers need to passively react to active effects. #EmpathicBond

Change autofollow trait, change death trigger trait. Stationary Spirits require a lot more skill. Or perhaps Spirit Auras shouldn’t be available 100% of the time—maybe the Aura would proc once when a Spirit is cast then again when the Active is used. Something needs to increase depth of play.

best fix to spirit ranger is to just remove the trait that lets them follow.

all spirits become skillshots with far less clutter.

Don’t remove any. Bam, saved yourself some precious dev time.

Xsorus.2507:

Take Shortbow, Up until recently it was a bloody DPS loss to use anything other then auto attack in that line, They finally increased the damage of those abilities to be equal to Auto Attack. But still, we’re left with an Evade that we don’t wanna just spam, and a Stun that we don’t wanna just spam.

That leaves 2 attacks in that line that could potentially be used for higher damage, the Poison which is only used because its a poison and the Cripple/Bleed attack which is god awful cause it uses the pets condition damage…its really only there for a cripple, So we’re basically forced into spamming the 1 key.

SB should have AA dmg reduced, since the bleed proc should be the main draw & positional requirement would make head-on AA dmg very low. Then I would change SB4 to have the pet proc Blind on next attack & SB2 upped to 3s poison per arrow.

What about Sword? Again, We got a leap back and an evade….that both do pitiful damage while the Auto Attack is the best damage in the game.

Monarch’s Leap ( S2-2 ) does great damage. Much higher than Pounce ( S1-3 ). Also to be fair I think Sword auto has the most depth of play of any of our available autoattacks.

Dagger, Another pitiful evade low damage attack and a Bleed (that is actually good)

Defensive condi offhand, got no problem with Dagger. Evade, Poison, Bleed & Cripple.

Longbow, Most of these attacks either do less or the same damage as longbows auto attack, the only exception is Barrage…

Yea, I can never get down with LB when I work with it, mostly b/c I dislike channeling attacks & this weapon has 2 of them. Barrage is great though & Stealth increases depth of play. KB is always nice. On paper, I like LB. I would probably like it more if they shortened the channel on LB2, possibly keeping the dmg the same. The long channel trolls stealth nicely though.

torch is good

lolburning

Axe offhand blows (mainly for the number 5)

yep, adding Retal actually helped Ax5 a bit, but not enough. I would rather have Aegis, so I could use the skill conditionally to block. ( it would be nice to not be locked in 1 place, but I feel that ANet wants to avoid mirroring the Thief equivalent by letting us move )

Ax4 is in a great place atm though. Powerful dmg/effect with counterplay.

Axe Main Hand, again if you’re power based, you’re spamming the 1 key because 2 and 2 are both less damage (3 being used for the weakness and chill) and 2 being only good if you’re using a Condition Build.

Ax2 makes me angry, lol. Ax1, full power. Ax3 gives the 2 best power-spec conditions ( chill / weakness ). Ax2, bleeds? K thx.

The only weapon in the game for Rangers that isn’t high damage attacks and actually requires using other abilities is Greatsword…That is it.

GS is my favourite weapon atm. Great spread of dmg & effects across all abilities.

We start getting into silly crap like the our an actual ability lines, and they’re about the same as weapons.

They’re either Passive Bullcrap that we can’t use (Signets because for some reason Anet thinks we should have to invest 30 freakin points in a line to get the same benefit as everyone else with signets) Or its crap that requires specific builds with huge investments in a Trait line..and usually its Condition Based.

yea the signet thing is BS. Wilderness traitline is just a better PvP line than any other we have, which shuffles players logically into condi builds. every major build since release has revolved around Wilderness first. ppl talk the most about Empathic Bond, but it’s the traitline as a whole. 5 is crazy good, 15 is like a dodge extension, 25 is good considering ranger’s ability to regen & reset a fight. 10, 20, 30 all have rock solid choices ( & you have CHOICE, unlike other traitlines ).

Nugget.8031:

Ranger Wilderness Survival-

-Increases endurance regeneration by 50%.
-You and your pet gain 2 seconds of protection when you dodge roll.

rofl

quoting my post from end of p1, relevant to discussing Jon’s comments on why they won’t make this change in SotG:

faeral.7120:

now, Jon speaks of PvE Elementalists who do not swap attunements as a rebuttal to why this change would not be practical for lower skilled play. but what is happening by using this justification, is that the skill ceiling, or skill potential, is being restricted due to players who only operate at the skill floor.

to continue with the Ele example:

sure, a PvE Elementalist might just want to sit in Fire. but this doesn’t stop a PvP Elementalist from utilizing all his attunements to the best of his ability ( without impacting the enjoyment of the player who just stays in fire ).

A PvP Ranger does not have this luxury.

this change would also beneficially affect build diversity ( useless pets would all of a sudden have niche specs. eg. Moa in a support build ).

Most pets only really have 1 other ability that we want access to. These are things like stuns, roots, heals…crowd control & support abilities which require timing to gain the most out of. The pets can keep their short CD straight DPS abilities on AI.

eg. Dogs, we really just want the KD. Spider, we want the Root. Devourer, the KB. Moa, the Heal. Drake, the Blast. etc.

in lieu of that, combine F1 & F3 into a toggle on F1 & shift 1 ability per pet to F3.

F1: Attack/Return to Me
F2: Ability A
F3: Ability B
F4: Petswap

Even 1 more ability at our disposal would make a world of difference.

bump. been talking about this for a long time.

now, Jon speaks of PvE Elementalists who do not swap attunements as a rebuttal to why this change would not be practical for lower skilled play. but what is happening by using this justification, is that the skill ceiling, or skill potential, is being restricted due to players who only operate at the skill floor.

to continue with the Ele example:

sure, a PvE Elementalist might just want to sit in Fire. but this doesn’t stop a PvP Elementalist from utilizing all his attunements to the best of his ability ( without impacting the enjoyment of the player who just stays in fire ).

A PvP Ranger does not have this luxury.

this change would also beneficially affect build diversity ( useless pets would all of a sudden have niche specs. eg. Moa in a support build ).

the population is so stagnant that the meta has no hope of adapting without patch notes. there aren’t enough ppl playing.

in any population sample, you have a small % of innovators, a somewhat larger % of first adopters, then a huge % of followers once success has been vetted.

it doesn’t matter what ANet releases in patch notes; these changes are just artificial infusions to give the semblance of innovation. there are too few innovators in this game ( innovation requires 5 players dedicated to it, which compounds the issue ).

whether the possibility of innovation even exists within the game systems ANet has created simply cannot be answered. if there were top teams that were willing to dedicate a solid month ( at least ) to exploring a new team build, things might be different.

there is a culture created by ratings that results in teams unwilling to sacrifice that many games; they will lose 2 or 3 matches & deem something unplayable, returning quickly to the status quo without truly understanding something’s potential. then ANet sees that everybody plays the same thing & adjusts patch notes just to force ppl down a different path. perhaps there truly are no other options, which simply reflects poor design choices.

it is a vicious cycle that has no end in sight. or rather, it has only 1 inevitable conclusion.

downstate is both a situational form of crowd control & a facilitator for team plays. the double edged nature of downstate is what makes it an interesting & positive addition to gameplay because either team has the opportunity to capitalize on a downed player for either team. The downed player themselves have opportunities to affect the teamfight as well ( using #2 to interrupt a heal, engi pulling a low health target back into fight, warrior vengeance ressing another downed teammate ), although these uses are more infrequent they still add another layer to the fight.

ps. 1v2 / 1v3 are not uncommon in GW2, they are simply indicative of player skill variance & class match ups.

if we want to reduce the effectiveness of active defenses, then more high dps abilities must also be converted into skillshots with the AoE changes actually coming in. otherwise all we are arguing for is a reduction of TTK since damage is also ridiculously easy to deal in this game without the current access to defense.

sure, just be sure to also remove stealth, invulns & blocks as well so we can just dps race each other down in 2 seconds.

@MrBig,

regarding on-crit vs on-swap sigils, they have shared internal cooldowns since launch.

the energy sigil not proccing at all may be a new bug, idk. but the shared icds are indeed designed that way.

i would say, put cast bars into spectator mode. do not put them in live play.

my main argument for this would be the dodge mechanic. dodge has no cooldown, per se ( esp for builds with vigor ), & neutralizing key dps cooldowns would be far too easy.

i believe many animation cast times are balanced around the fact that you need to see them happening. many cast times would need to be adjusted with the addition of cast bars, i feel.

i would wait for the reduction of particle effects to see what impact that will have on visibility of animations & execution.

regarding PvP, ANet should be weighing tournament results in higher regard than forum postings.

only 1 out of the last 3 tourney winners ran a ranger & we saw BM rangers 1v1’d on multiple occasions during this most recent tourney.

complainants are not weighing the liabilities of reliance on AI pathing for damage with the benefits of damage from an additional source.

i think tourney organizers can just ban asura models, that would solve the problem.

-1 × 9000 for cast bars.

i see no problem with 2,500 range or 5,000 tbh, it is our class mechanic. being able to assist mid from home ( only assist; a pet is not a replacement for a player ) is not much different from mesmer portal, & you can pop a pet just like you’d pop a portal.

our pet is a big part of how we help contribute to the team. thieves have great team support utility. i think we can both have nice things.

pet autoattacks are the only thing that i feel is wrong with pet design because they do too much for too little effort. shift more focus to active control.

to be fair, i have seen my pets teleport, but only by following a mesmer through his own portal.

working as intended

edit: kuro is most likely referring to the petswap mechanic.

nice work. i have used this build extensively since week 1. it is quite versatile. this spec gets you the best / most consistent pet dps of any spec i have tried. fortifying bond is so nice to have.

1 thing to try playing around with is lyssa runes, since all buffs will be shared with pet & gives you a full condi wipe that helps without 30 in wilderness.

to clarify, the base autoattack would become a triggered ability. so in the moa example, if the moa’s target is affected by a daze, the ability would trigger. these don’t even have to be damage triggers, they could be boons or condis as well.

@cloud, all numbers can be tweaked. triggered effects could hit harder than autoattacks currently do & give them an internal CD; or ranger damage can be buffed to compensate. numbers are simple once the design is set.

i think these pets would be equally dangerous to present since the player has access to 2 actives instead of 1 ( eg. for Wolf you would control both Fear & Knockdown ), & pet actives can be designed around securing their own ability trigger ( Moa’s active is Daze cone for example, which would trigger its own damage proc ).

anyways, it’s np. i know ANet’s update habits & the likelihood of this being incorporated is slim. just posting alternatives to the present AI situation.

tl;dr: pet autoattacks are too stronk.

1. change autoattack into conditional dmg proc by family ( moa: dmg on target daze; dog: dmg on target stun/kd, etc ).

2. make Attack/Return to Me a toggle on F3.

3. remove 1 passive ability entirely from each family & move the other ability to an active on F1.

hi, some may know me, idk. ign is cutsu. have played BM since day 1, some thoughts on pets.

posting this in sPvP since that is all i do, & this entire piece is written from this perspective considering the attention this has garnered recently. i’m not going to defend pets atm, they are braindead easy to abuse.

i don’t believe that 5,000 pet range is the issue, nor is pet DPS. this is the pet class, pets should be versatile & dangerous.

the quality of existing in two places at once is the class mechanic for ranger. the 5,000 number can be disputed, but i believe that removing this quality will hurt the diversity of options available to teams, just like removing portal would.

the issue is that with a single button press, your class automatically performs at 50%+ efficiency. this leads to the current playstyle of ranger evading while pets take care of all the work or remote pets endlessly harrassing with no effort.

since this entire game is based around area permission, positioning & movement are arguably the most important aspects of gameplay. your pet handles anywhere from 50% to 100% of all movement / positioning ( depending on how intensely the ranger uses Attack / Return to Me ). i don’t think there is much to change about this, but it leads to the next point.

the player should not be rewarded for actions they do not undertake. so if the pet puts in all the effort to chase a player down & gain proper positioning, the ranger should not be rewarded with automatic damage. the ranger did nothing but press 1 button, often without LOS when team is providing targets. these are strategic plays, but they are not skillful.

pet autoattacks are too strong. my thinking is, we already have autoattacks on our weapons. we do not need an autoattack on the pet. instead, i suggest the autoattack be repurposed into a conditional damage proc.

set a proc detection range, trigger & proc effect by animal family.

eg.

Dog Family: 130 Range; Target Stun/KD; ST Damage
Devourer Family: 900 Range; Target Crippled; Apply Bleed
Moa Family: 130 Range; Target Dazed; ST Damage

this change alone would do 2 things:

1) a remote pet would require assistance from a teammate in order to secure any damage without its own active abilities.
2) a ranger in a 1v1 would not secure any damage through pet while chaining evades without using pet active abilities, they must actively CC their target.

next, make “Attack” & “Return to Me” a toggle on F3.

then for each pet family, remove 1 passive ability entirely & move the other passive ability to an active ability on F1.

eg. Moa -> Remove “Frenzied Attack”, Move “Harmonic Cry” to F1.

so each Family would have a shared Active with each Species getting its own.

the result is a pet with 2 actives & a damage proc that requires teamwork with zero passive abilities, removing a large portion of the automation that currently plagues the ranger class while working within the existing UI framework.

BM has been strong since day 1 release. the most powerful upgrade this build received was months ago when pet AI was updated to initiate attacks at closer than max attack range.

the buff to SoWild mildly increases teamfight potential, since your jag can assist on focus w/ stab + stealth with the Regen close to active again by the time the Ranger is engaged directly.

of note, zero Rangers made it to Finals in MotM.

sure. swap dps pets for double moa ( cone daze ). this ranger would be far tankier than the current variety with better teamfight support.

would pets scale off our critical damage bonus? if so, the glass rangers would put out more damage than thieves could have pre-mug nerf. 1500 range longbow with 20 stacks of vuln on opener with pets that hit a lot harder than jag & raven currently do.

you can’t make a power spec atm that has effective pets since power relies on crit & crit dmg to succeed, which leaves no points for BM, let alone Wilderness Survival ( 5 points at least is pmuch mandatory ). but if our pets scaled along with this investment, the burst would be, well, totally radical. please do give.

condi-wise, rabid amu w/ BM VII would be the most viable option ( prob with reef / marsh drake ).

a change like this would require an entire balance pass of all pet abilities in relation to their potential impact based on character spec. i think ANet chose the current path b/c it is far easier to balance the pets individually if they only rely on their own stats for performance.

i’m ok with it staying reflect, we already have block stance on GS. but we have to be able to move. even the situations where the skill is effective leave you like a sitting duck, very high risk, low reward.

i like the retal idea too though.

Mufa.1326:

not that these ranks mean anything anyway.

garethh.3518:

A one use, but completely OP in it, spec that relies on a janky AI for near all its dmg is conceptually hogwash.

A person should get fired for insisting on something like that at a dev meeting.

pet AI is not janky. pets do however have consistent idiosyncrasies which their controllers commonly do not account for when controlling them, which leads to needless frustration.

i would love to see pets scale with our stats. i can already envision builds to accomodate every underused pet.

Pet Affinity could change to:

Base 10% Scaling with Ranger stats + 1% per point of Pet Affinity. ( % not balanced, only figurative )

i don’t want to play a bunker, but i do want to play a beastmaster. i play the hand i’m dealt, & i’ve been dealt a tree that gives me +300 healing & a monster on a very long leash.

they could shake up the spec a lot by changing SoWild’s passive to something other than healing. it’s so kitten strong & i hate having a utility on my bar that i barely ever use, b/c the passive healing is just too good.

at least SoHunt & SoRenewal have valid incentive for using the active ( although Hunt doesn’t help the current situation—13k Blinding Slash in tPvP ftw, gg Mug nerf ).

Atherakhia.4086:

Since conditions are based solely on one stat it’s easy for them to ignore everything including power and crit chance in favor of toughness, vitality, and healing power.

this is a huge problem with the stats in general, 100% agree.

another simple change could be to increase the petswap timer ( i hate myself for even suggesting it b/c i love it so ) to give a greater window of opportunity to put the pet down.

i gave other suggestions in other threads as well: lower leash range by 1,000 & have pet leash back to player if it doesn’t hit a target within X seconds outside of 1,200 range. revert stealth AI change.

NA or EU?

15 char

AlexRD.7914:

Kwll.1468:

There are some very good players, [people that probably blame themselves first 99 times out of 100 when they lose, giving valid input on some of the things wrong with rangers pets in this thread its ludicrous to dismiss them. Pet range is too much and the water rezzing is a joke and has been a joke. It was ignorable until they added a tournament map with water. The game is better when people can put aside there personal interests when something is clearly imbalanced for competitve play.

It’s not ludicrous to dismiss players when they flat out lie just to make a point. Check it, it’s not possible to get a target from mine to keep. NO one sends a pet just to solo a treb, it’s not effective nor doable due to leash range.

I agree with you, that water rez bug is a joke and HAS to be fixed, but really it doesn’t happen very often.

dude, my pet solos treb like its his job—because it is. you are right in that you cannot target treb or a keep target from home point. but as long as your team sets a target, you absolutely can. then the pet can assist. this is an expected part of the ranger’s role as home point D. if the opposite team doesn’t want their treb taken down, they can come fight me at home node. the range will force the pet back immediately unless i allow a decap.

heated arguments ranted about mesmer portal for months. i’m sure pet leash range will get tweaks just like portal was adjusted.

Romek.4201:

it should not be possible to make dmg on keep while being afk on mine – simple

i have a big problem with this argument in general, because a pet accomplishes the same role as a mesmer portal, except it is weaker in its impact. greater defense, less offense, less utility.

that being said, they are braindead to manage atm so i do see changes needed.

potential changes:

- let the pet’s target drop combat if the pet doesn’t hit him for X seconds outside of 1,200 range ( in addition to other combat flags ), & combat break would send pet back to ranger. revert AI change so stealth also sends pet back.

- reduce pet leash range to 3,000 ( long enough to harass runners, short enough to force ranger off node if they want to support team fight )

the pet mechanic is designed to keep a player on the move. in essence, it is a damage proc that your team receives on the assist target for applying CC. ( chill a target, get rewarded with a pet hit ) but the ranger needs to take more responsibility for the pet’s performance than at present.

birds benefit more from consistent use of passive mode than any other pet family due to 300 range on melee attacks. put bird in passive mode after every attack animation & use your ranger’s body to position pet for attacks ( which will land instantly if you trigger within 300 range ). this takes their pathing AI out of the equation & essentially makes it one of your attacks extended from your body. not for those who shy away from pet micro.

you can also shave frames of animation off the pet attacks by cancelling the end of the animation with Return to Me after the damage has procced. must be careful with timing, if you cancel too soon, the pet will delay in its pathing—but the timing is reliable.

birds don’t have the highest dps, but they do have the highest burst both for F2 & autoattacks. land your burst, then swap ( or vice versa ).

movement sigs shouldn’t affect speed of animations while carrying.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Exactly what AI change are you talking about here?

i am speaking of pets automatically regaining their targets after a target drop, so they are effectively set-&-forget for ranged harass. this made the leash range a ridiculous situation, as a pet can perma-track a thief or mesmer with no effort at all, shadow refuge can’t shake them off teammates, etc. prior to this change you would need a teammate to set a target for you if they are out of your LOS to put your pet back on them.

i think they can hit the leash range by 1000, so we can’t actually have presence on 2 nodes at the same time while still being able to harass a runner.

also, the raven f2 does not telegraph at all. the big swooping animation is “Swoop” which can also hit hard, but the f2 is more like a quick lunging peck.

BM is a relatively selfish bunker, because they kind of have their own group synergy happening without any other teammates. as a result their team support is very low ( water field & sig of renewal are the biggest contributors outside of single target dmg ). they benefit the team the most when applying pressure away from the teamfight. the best counter to BM is to bring the teamfight to them ( so long as the team isn’t brainlessly funnelling dps into evades—stagger your attacks so one acts as evade bait while the other lands at the end of the evade—ideally cc ).

i will admit that the AI change they made should have been for PvE only, it is way too easy to just sic a pet on a target & target breaks won’t force the player to make another active decision. this one change has dumbed down the spec more than any other since the pet will maintain its target regardless of player’s line of sight.

every change that is made to strengthen pet AI is dumbing down the class as a whole. pets need to be ACTIVE components of the class. the player needs to take full responsibility for the performance of the pet. ( i feel the same way about phantasms )

it isn’t leash range or damage that is the problem, it’s that the player does not need to make an active decision.

( it’s an altogether different problem regarding ppl getting pve’d down by remote pets—i’m sorry but this should never be happening to you if you counterplay )

abstinence is the best policy—but if you do want to tap that, practice safe combat. you are thinking more about what to do once you’re preggers instead of avoiding the whole messy business in the first place.

( learn anims → profit )

i blame amesan.

“The will to live is stronger than anything.” – Rurouni Kenshin

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3u4h7u/

i want the devs to come to this SotG with 2 things:

a) the same level of preparation that the player side brings to the discussion.

b) a list of things that you CAN talk about, that can infuse the community with some positive energy.

a good example was the discussion surrounding spectator mode last month—even when they couldn’t give dates, they talked about specific features already completed or actively being worked on wrt spectator & what we could expect. we don’t need dates, just UPdates.

just watched mursie’s match.

team was inexperienced vs this spec. maethar already gave great suggestions.

if he does get the orb, don’t chase this spec, intercept it. your players on the upper level should be either neuting his target point or timing CC on the end of a leap anim. ( Swoop & Monarch’s Leap are not evades )

melee has higher burst. ranged has higher pressure.

this game instills shark-like mentalities—if you stop moving, you die. doesn’t matter if you are bunker or glass. by that nature, melee has a higher skill cap than ranged but you are rewarded with higher burst for shorter uptime on target.

for me, it is simply class-based combat.

most classes in FPS games are not nearly diversified enough in roles & customization options, but i played TF2 for 3 years since it did have very diversified classes.

i liked the design of HoN ( & by extension, LoL / DotA2 ) but click-to-move just doesn’t do it for me.

most twitch multiplayer is also focused 99% on gunplay. viable close quarters combat is an important piece of the puzzle for me.