Customizable Ranger Pets

Rangers, especially the Soulbeast, have an otherworldly tie with their pets. What I don’t see is that being played out in the game. The Ranger was my go-to in Guild Wars (2) for quite a long time, before other classes began to shine more and better.

What sets the Ranger apart from the “vanilla” warrior is the pet. Other than an additional mini-tank to help with small mobs or a couple neat looking pets that make the Ranger look better, the companion function has not changed much since Day One.

I would like to have quests that unlock pets that could be trained further toward Masterwork, Rare, Exotic, and Ascended looking pets. Look at the way the Legendary Staff Nevermore is created; nurturing a raven from egg to full grown and showing it how to fly in different environments. It's a logical process ... one that a Ranger would take to charm and further train their animal companions to gain the skills for combat.

Have a “Pet Point” system (similar to Hero Points) to earn points toward variable abilities; melee, mid-range, long range and even AoE attacks given the specific type and rarity of pet. It would have to be voluntary, the new available skills couldn't be a step up, but rather lateral in power and only increase the options people have when playing their ranger. If my ranger wants his fire wyvern to target an individual enemy versus the current AoE attack, I would like that option.

I like quests to acquire skills, abilities, or new pets. Just my opinion but this may beat the generic material grind or Trading Post/Gem store sale I read that so many people dislike.

tl;dr I like the principle behind the idea, but i doubt it's practical.

That's a lot of coding to offer something for one of the nine professions, but not the others. Especially since rangers are the only class that get new "weapons" from the expansion maps. Every other prof has to use an elite spec to gain access to other tools, but the ranger can simply tame a new pet in the new zones.

I think it's more plausible to consider the idea of new skins for "pets" and comparable mechanics. For example, branded minions (necro), elonian hobo sacks (engie), zodiac conjured weapons (ele) and so on. That could be done via collection/questing or gem shop (or both). Still, even there, rangers uniquely have something close to that, since some pets are super similar to others in the family, especially some of the Hall of Monuments ones.

I would guess, though, that if the costs weren't enormous, that ANet would have already implemented this in some fashion. Conceptually, it doesn't seem that tricky. But in practice, that's a ton of artwork and animations, all of which need to be maintained as the relevant skills change and evolve over time.

Adding a wardrobesystem /let the archetypes and skills be ibterchabgable in between pet families and just rework petskills in general.Achievements would make it a bit convoluted so i stand on the more mechanical side here.