RANGER PETS REWORK ! ! !

Here is my personal pet rework with explanations for each change :) (pets not listed are balanced in my opinion)

Default improvements

• All pets gain +30% movement speed.Explanation: The pet turns out to be too slow to follow the enemy and even the ranger is some circumstances. To solve this problem, I decided to increase their base movement speed.

• All pets have 33% chance of evading attacks when affected by vigor.Explanation: Vigor is the only boon that does not guarantee any beneficial effect to the pet. Considering that Vigor allows to dodge more often, I thought to guarantee our pet the possibility to evade attacks as long as they are affected by this boon.

• Felines, Canines, Devourers and Iboga health is increased from 15.418 to 19.196 in pvp/wvw.Explanation: The basic health of these pets is too low to resist the massive spam of AoE damage.

• All pets become dyeable (only 1 colour). Since most pets are really similar, only few body parts will be dyable to make them recognizable.Explanation: Blue bristleback? Gold pig? White tiger? Yes please.

Mechanic improvements

• F4 gets replaced by “Guard the targeted location”. Your pet will move to the targeted location and will attack the enemies that will enter the radius (standard radius is 400). Your pet will stop attack if the enemy goes out of the area and will go back to its previous location. If your pet is in passive mode, he will just stay on the targeted location until he receives a new command. Some pet families gain particular abilities while guarding a specific location.Explanation: The ranger needs to be able to position their pet in the most possible tactical way. With this new command, the ranger will have the possibility, for example, to position his pet outside a WvW blob fight to prevent him from dying. Another advantage is that the ranger will have the opportunity to put his pet to guard nodes in pvp, putting enemies in combat and slowing them down.

• “Swap Pets” become your F5.

-Bear-

• “Bite” skill gets replaced by “Takedown”. Takedown has 25s cooldown and knockdown your enemies for 2 seconds (max 3 targets). The skill animation is similar to the ranger greatsword “Maul” skill or the current Arctodus “rending maul”.Explanation: I thought bears needed at least 1 cc skill.

Brown Bear: “Shake it off” become an ammo skill with 2 charges that cleanse 3 conditions. Count recharge is 25 seconds. Activation time is reduced from ½ s to 0.35s.Explanation: At the moment 2 conditions removed are nothing compared to the massive aoe condi spam in this game. I’ve adapted this skill to the recent warrior’s shout "shake it off”, making this pet one of the best to defend ourselves and our allies against conditions.

Polar Bear: “Icy Roar” now freeze all the enemies around (like “Chilled to the bone” reaper skill), inflicting 1s stun and 4s chill.Explanation: I thought that a skill with a 1¼ s cast time and 45 seconds of cooldown needed a stronger effect.

Black Bear: “Enfeebling Roar” now removes 5 boons from striked enemies in addiction to its current effect, and the weakness duration is reduced from 10s to 5s. The cooldown of this skill is reduced from 40s to 35s.Explanation:I think an “enfeebling” ability should have some boonrip.

Murellow: “Poison Cloud” become a mobile poison field around the murellow that pulses 3 stacks of poison every second x 7s while the skill is active.Explanation: I decided to make this pet a mobile field poison because there is nothing better than having a tanky pet that defeats enemy lines by poisoning them while charging.

Arctodus: “Rending Maul” become an AoE attack that deals heavy damage. This attack leaves behind an ice field for 4s. The cooldown of this skill is increased from 15 to 20s.Explanation: I thought to make this pet a good choice for those who want a tanky pet able to do a lot of aoe damage.

-Drake-

• “Chomp” skill no longer grants health. Instead, this skill steal 2 boons from your foe. Up to 3 targets. Cooldown of this skill increased from 10 to 15s.Explanation: This pet family needs more useful utilities, especially in pvp/wvw.

• “Tail Swipe” skill range is increased from 280 to 300. This skill no longer inflict weakness. Instead, this skill knockback enemies.Explanation: Like bears, I thought drakes needed at least 1 cc skill. Tail Swipe animation is perfect for this.

River Drake: “Lightning Breath” now fires 1 lightning bolt that bounce up to 5 times and inflict 1s daze to struck enemies (max 1 enemy x bounce).Explanation: An engi-like Static Discharge ability? Yes please. I think the 24s cooldown can justify the 1s daze. This is the pet you want to run if you like the drakes family and you need cc’s.

Salamander Drake: “Fire Breathe” range is increased from 250 to 1000. This skill now breath a cone of fire that inflicts 5 stacks of burning for 4s and leaves a fire field into the ground, pulsing burning every second. The duration of the fire field is 4s.Explanation: This skill required more utilities and a field that could be used to make combos in battle.

Reef Drake: “Sonic Shriek” is replaced by the underwater skill “Sonic barrier”, which creates a sonic barrier that reflects projectiles for 5s, combo field ethereal. Reflected projectiles also inflicts confusion (3 stacks for 3s). Cooldown: 35s.Explanation: I decided to adapt the underwater skill of this pet to the terrestrial skill. This is the pet you want if you need to defend yourself and your allies from projectiles.

Marsh Drake: “Insect Swarm” is replaced by the underwater skill “Poison Cloud”, which creates a poisonous bubble. Enemies inside the poison field gets struck by insects that remove 1 boon and inflict poison every second. Cooldown: 30sExplanation: This skill requires more utilities and a field that could be used to make combos in battle.

Ice Drake: “Frost Breathe” range is increased from 250 to 1000. This skill now breath a cone of frost that inflicts chill for 4s and leaves an ice field into the ground, pulsing chill every second. The duration of the frost field is 4s.Explanation: This skill required more utilities and a field that could be used to make combos in battle.

-Bird-

• Birds gain a Fly buff which allows them to evade attacks while they are guarding a targeted location in passive mode.Explanation: Birds need more ways to stay alive since they have the lowest healthpool.

Hawk: “Lacerating Slash” inflicts 8 stacks of bleeding instead of 2. The base damage of this skill is increased from (x2) 731 (2.75)? to (x2) 1462 (5.5)? The cooldown of this skill is increased from 6s to 20s.Explanation:I decided to distinguish the respective f2 between hawk and eagle. Hawk archetype is Deadly so I decided to make the F2 more condition orientated. Moreover, the damage of all birds' F2 has been standardized.

Eagle: “Lacerating Slash” is replaced by “Hunting slash”. Hunting Slash cause your eagle to attack your enemy, revealing him for 6s and inflicting 10 stacks of vulnerability. The base damage of this skill is increased from (x2) 731 (2.75)? to (x2) 1462 (5.5)?. The cooldown of this skill is increased from 6s to 20s.Explanation: I decided to distinguish the respective f2 between hawk and eagle. Eagle archetype is Ferocious so I decided to make the F2 more power/utility orientated. Moreover, the damage of all birds' F2 has been standardized.

-Feline-

• ”Bite” skill now deals more damage. Does additional damage if the enemy is affected by vulnerability.Explanation: The autoattack “Slash” (which inflicts vulnerability) now prepares your enemy to be punished with this powerful skill.

• “Maul” skill is replaced by “Assault”. Assault is a 600 range leap finisher that slash your foe and make him bleed. Cooldown 16s.Explanation: I thought felines needed at least 1 mobility skill. Right now they are too static.

Jaguar: “Stalk” skill now grants stealth to nearby allies aswell. This skill grants Opening Strike to every ally affected.Explanation: Self-stealth is not useful. With this skill this pet becomes perfect for hunting-game playstyles.

Jungle Stalker: “Mighty Roar” become an ammo skill with 2 charges that grants 10 stacks of might for 10s to nearby allies. Count recharge is 25s. Activation time is reduced from 3s to ½ s.Explanation: With this skill this pet becomes perfect for empowering your allies. The current effect and cast times makes this skill old and weak.

Lynx: “Rending Pounce” now inflict 8 bleeding instead of 4.Explanation: I felt like 4 stacks of bleeding were not enough for a 30s cooldown skill with 1 ½ s activation time.

Snow Leopard: “Icy Pounce” now inflicts 2s stun and 4s chill to your foe. Cooldown of this skill increased from 30 to 35s.Explanation: Basically the single-target version of the Polar Bear skill. For the ones that want an agile pet with the ability of slowing down and stun specific targets.

Sand Lion: “Blinding Roar” is replaced by “Sand Skin”, which grants 3k barrier and 8s stability to nearby allies. Activation time is reduced from 1 ½ s to ½ s. Pet archetype is no longer Ferocious, but Stout.Explanation: Since this is meant to be a defensive pet, I thought that the best way to make it useful was to change the archetype and giving him the first F2 that grants defense against damage and cc’s.

Cheetah: “Savannah Strike” no longer grant swiftness. Instead, this skill grant 3s quickness and 3s superspeed to nearby allies. Cooldown of this skill reduced from 30s to 25s.Explanation: This skill requires more useful utilities/boons than simple swiftness.

-Devourer-

Lashtail Devourer: “Rending Barbs” is replaced with the acquatic skill “Lashtail Venom”, which causes the next two attacks stun the enemy for 1s. Cooldown: 60s.Explanation: I decided to adapt the underwater skill of this pet to the terrestrial skill. Long cooldown but very strong single-target effect.

Whiptail Devourer: “Poison barbs” is replaced by “Leech Venom”, which causes the next two attacks steal health and 1 boon from the enemy (so max 2 boons). Unblockable. Cooldown: 25s.Explanation: Modified skill to make the pet useful in specific situations.

Carrion Devourer: “Poisonous cloud” cooldown is reduced from 30s to 20s.Explanation: This pet requires more poison/utility uptime.

-Moa-

• Harmonic Cry area of effect is increased from 240 to 400. Now this attack triggers when the ranger health is below 60%. The cooldown of this skill is reduced from 40s to 35s.Explanation: Skill modified to be more useful to the ranger and its allies.

• Frenzied attack no longer inflicts Vulnerability. Instead, this skill grants 3s quickness to the pet.Explanation: Moas don’t get any benefit to inflict vulnerability. Quickness is more useful especially when sharing boons with the owner. It also fit a “frenzied attack”better.

Blue Moa: “Protecting Screech” become an ammo skill with 2 charges. Count recharge is 25s. Activation time is reduced from 1s to ½ s.Explanation: With these changes, this is the pet you want to always have damage reduction uptime.

Red Moa: “Furious Screech” become an ammo skill with 2 charges and grants 5 stacks of might and fury for 8s to nearby allies. Count recharge is 20s. Activation time is reduced from 1s to ½ s.Explanation: More fury procs to gain opening strikes.

White Moa: “Icy Screech” now grants frost aura to itself and nearby allies while inflicting 3s chill to nearby enemies. Leaves an ice field behind with 5s duration. Cooldown of this skill increased from 24s to 25s.Explanation: This skill required more utilities and a field that could be used to make combos in battle.

Pink Moa: “Dazing Screech” is now a blast finisher and pulses daze in the area. Duration: 3s. Daze duration x pulse: 1s. 1 blast finisher x pulse. Radius: 300. Cooldown increased from 30 to 35s.Explanation: Since moas lacks on damage, I thought that the best way to rework this skill was to add some utilities and a better aoe effect.

-Porcine-

• Porcines “Forage” activation time is reduced from 1s to ½ s while they are guarding a targeted location in passive mode.Explanation: A fastest f2 is a good way to justify our pig to stay in a certain place.

Boar: “Forage”: Rock item is no longer available.Explanation: Symplifies gamble, increased chance to get better utilities.

Pig: “Forage”: Egg item is no longer available.Explanation: Symplifies gamble, increased chance to get better utilities.

Siamoth: “Forage”: Tuft of Hair item is no longer available.Explanation: Symplifies gamble, increased chance to get better utilities.

Warthog: “Forage”: Scale item is no longer available.Explanation: Symplifies gamble, increased chance to get better utilities.

-Spider-

• Venoms (F2) are shared with allies in 300 radius.Explanation: I thought spiders needed better group utility skills through venoms.

-Canine-

• Canines reveals enemies in radius while guarding a targeted location.Explanation: A most dangerous pet is a good way to justify him to guard a certain place.

Wolf: “Terrifying howl” skill cooldown is reduced from 45 to 40s.Explanation: This skill needs a slightly reduced cooldown.

Hyena: “Howl of the pack” skill cooldown is reduced from 45s to 35s.Explanation: This skill needs a slightly reduced cooldown.

Alpine Wolf: “Chilling Howl” skill also leaves an ice field behind for 5s. Chill duration increased from 3s to 4s.Explanation: This skill requires more utilities and a field that could be used to make combos in battle.

Fern Hound: “Regenerate” skill now have a base healing of 3000 instead of 1000 and cleanse 1 condition in radius. Regeneration duration decreased from 10 to 5s.Explanation: This skill requires more burst healing, right not the heal is barely noticeable.

Can't say I read all your suggested changes, but what I read I quite liked. Just Anet would actually do something along the lines of this (Barrier kitty? yes please! 1 AOE blind with long cast time is useless!)

Some good ideas here. Vigor = chance to evade? Nice. Barrier on Lion? Sure! Cast times reduced in general? Absolutely.

I can see a lot of cries of "OP!" here tho. The speed boost+ vigor evade by themselves would make pets a good bit more dangerous; all the other changes would make some juicy combos.

The birds' passive is kinda eh. GW2 is pretty keen on icons for effects. Instead, maybe put an Evasion/Fly buff on Swoop? 3-4 seconds on a 8 sec cooldown?

I'm also not keen on the F4 guard location rework, if only for the spec side-effects. Ignoring that the passive/aggressive toggle isn't bound by default; setting F4 to Guard and F5 to pet swap would remove petswap from Druid and Soulbeast! That's huge!Now maybe that side-effect would be a benefit and allow the pets themselves to be buffed to deal more damage more reliably, as only core could wield two pets. But I'm still wary of such a huge change.

These are some really sexy suggestions. Some of these would probably be overtuned, but overall I love your ideas and think you still kept the original flavor the the skills intact. This would make me go back to playing with my beloved jaguar.

A huge QoL improvement that I would suggest is to allow all pets to move while casting any skill with a cast time. This is one of the reasons it is hard for pets to actually stick onto targets. I am not sure if there are exceptions and what these exceptions are, but really, there are so many outdated things about core Ranger pets, it is quite baffling.

A couple other suggestions that have floated around on the forums that would be nice:-Make one of the moas a supportive archetype pet. There are weirdos out there like myself that like the idea of playing a healing Soulbeast not for viability but for fun.-Have porcine's forage skills automatically replace the F2 when foraged. This would essentially cause the skill to function like Steal for Thief.

I doubt pets will ever be dyeable, but some could really use a makeover. Especially ones with already existing updated models, like hyena.

Some really good stuff here. Hope the devs might take a look.

@Chrury.4627 said:

I'm also not keen on the F4 guard location rework, if only for the spec side-effects. Ignoring that the passive/aggressive toggle isn't bound by default; setting F4 to Guard and F5 to pet swap would remove petswap from Druid and Soulbeast! That's huge!

Keep in mind that this is a core ranger rework, therefore everything that was created after (druid and soulbeast) would be adapted to this change. Beastmode and Celestial Avatar would probably become F6. Nice observation anyway :)

@Chrury.4627 said:

The birds' passive is kinda eh. GW2 is pretty keen on icons for effects. Instead, maybe put an Evasion/Fly buff on Swoop? 3-4 seconds on a 8 sec cooldown?

The Fly buff, yeh, I was going to write it but I forgot it!

UPDATE: Birds gain a Fly buff which allows them to evade attacks while they are guarding a targeted location in passive mode.

The easiest way to rework the commands would just be to replace the f1 and f3 entirely with the active/passive toggle (which now becomes f1 by default), freeing up f3 for whatever without impacting the pet skill or pet swap commands.

Also, while I'm at it: both plants need to become ranged attackers. Also give the wyverns the elemental attacks their wild versions have (the fireball and sweeping laser, respectively) in place of the tail swipe because it sucks.

@kappa.2036 said:

@Chrury.4627 said:

I'm also not keen on the F4 guard location rework, if only for the spec side-effects. Ignoring that the passive/aggressive toggle isn't bound by default; setting F4 to Guard and F5 to pet swap would remove petswap from Druid and Soulbeast! That's huge!

Hmm, does any class/spec use F6 at this point? F5 is already on the boundary of pushing it. Sure, you can add more options with more buttons but that's getting unwieldy.What about pets being default passive until ordered? If they didn't engage on your target by default, F1 could be turned into a swap skill of Attack/Return and F3 could be your guard/return. That would keep it neatly within F1-F5.

Some good stuff but the guard mechanic is rather meh.Better put it on "return to me", so you can f1 for fast attacking and f3 for positioning.F4 is petswap and should stay there otherwise you will get problems with druid and Sbeast.