Pet Boofs

[Taril.8619]

So, outside of a small handful of actually useful pets (Mostly Expansion ones...) a lot of pets are pure Trashy McTrasherson.

As such, here's my attempt at boofing pets:

Birbs

I think this family is fine as is. Perhaps make the birbs actual Quickening Screech have a 12s CD to match the Merged version of the skill to provide better Swiftness uptime.

Canine

Crippling Leap (Merged) power coeficient increased by 40%Brutal Charge (Merged) range increased to 800Chilling Howl cast time reduced to 0.75sRegenerate cast time reduced to 0.75sHowl of the Pack cast time reduced to 0.75sIntimidating Howl cast time reduced to 0.75sTerrifying Howl cast time reduced to 0.75s

Merged canines should now be able to compete with the likes of Smokescales, with Crippling Leap having comparable damage to Smoke Assault (Minus the Might stacks and Evasion) and having more utility from increased range on the knockdown in comparison.Pets howl skills, now activate within your lifetime so might actually do something.

Devourer

Tail Lash replaced by Pound Ground (Fires Knock Down projectiles)Devourer Retreat replaced by Tunnel (Knockdown upon resurfacing)Twin Darts chance to poison increased to 25%

Overall, Devourer skills should now feel more useful. They can themselves provide CC from range, which is where they auto attack from and their Retreat skill now has some CC potential for possible skilled play while Merged. Meanwhile, their auto attacks now more consistently provide Poison. These new skills are taken from existing Devourer enemies.

Drake

Bite (Merged) power coeficient and healing increased by 50% but CD increased to 15sTail Swipe (Merged) damage coeficient increased by 50%Frost Breath cast time reduced to 1sInsect Swarm cast time reduced to 1sSonic Shriek cast time reduced to 1sLightning Breath cast time reduced to 1sFire Breath cast time reduced to 1s

Merged skills should now have enough impact to warrant their use over just auto attacking with a GS, especially if you can cleave targets. Breath attacks should now have an impact before the enemy dies of old age.

Feline

Bite (Merged) power coeficient increased by 150% (50% in WvW/PvP)Stalk now grants access to Rake skill (Auto attack replacement) which deals 1.5x Slash damage and applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability for 5 seconds.Mighty Roar cast time reduced to 0.75sRending Pounce cast time reduced to 0.75sBlinding Roar cast time reduced to 0.75sIcy Pounce cast time reduced to 0.75sFurious Pounce cast time reduced to 0.75s

Bite now actually will do the "Severe" damage it states it does (Rather than doing less than half of what Maul does... But on twice the cooldown and only vs one target and without the AoO proc). Meanwhile pet actives are now more useful with Stalk actually doing something and other skills having usable cast times (Especially Mighty Roar, LMAO at a 3 whole seconds of cast time for a mere 5 might stacks)

Iboga

Bite replaced by Spine Shot dealing similar damage but being ranged.

Overall Iboga is a decent pet. It's only downside is it randomly having a melee auto attack when it's too squishy to really go into melee range and would really work better as a ranged pet.

Porcine

I don't really know what to do with these... Really, their skills are all fine... Except the F2 for the actual pet, Forage sucks. Like, real bad. The fact that you have to run over to the pet and pick up the item and have it replace your skills and then it's a pretty anemic effect most of the time (One of the trash items you can find lying around in various OW areas). It's even worse that literally ALL the pigs have Forage as their F2 (Each providing different trash items) so it's much harder to create alternatives as it would need to be 4 new individual skills especially since pigs aren't a very diverse family since there are no Veteran, Elite or Champion pigs to take skills from they're all just trash mobs with pretty much the same 3 skills...

Spoders

Venom durations decreased to 20sWeakening Venom cooldown reduced to 20sDeadly Venom cooldown reduced to 20sParalyzing Venom cooldown reduced to 30s

Simply an improvement of the uptime on their venoms, allowing for that spike of power more frequently.

Ursine

Bite (Merged) power coeficient increased by 50% healing is now a flat 834 (2x the current baseline value with no healing power)Rending Maul cast time reduced to 0.75sEnfeebling Roar cast time reduced to 0.75s and cooldown reduced to 20sPoison Cloud cast time reduced to 0.75s and cooldown reduced to 25sIcy Roar cast time reduced to 0.75s and cooldown reduced to 30s

Bite is now more on par with other merged skills, especially the newly buffed Drake Bite, while removing the healing scaling so it can't be abused by Bunker builds that have high healing power. Pet F2's are now on par with other pets skills (Namely, the Canines and their Howls)

Now I think that's about it for the pets that are underperforming. Bristleback, Rock Gazelle, Jacaranda, Moa and Wyverns are all in a pretty decent spot (Albeit Moa is lacking on support builds that can really utilize them and their extra healing... Since it's not as if Druid is short on heals)

[Abyssisis.3971]

The biggest mouths on the forum only want pet nerfs, so good luck with getting them buffed/fixed.

[Wolfey.3407]

I agree that ranger pets need a buff in some areas. Some of the pets aren't taken nor have ever really been touched for legit use...Sadly, I feel the mentality with the balancing team is still along the lines that "Ranger big scary, me nurf, bam bam bam community praise me happy"

[kiwituatara.6053]

Birds are getting nerfed next balance patch if you've looked at Anet's twitch stream since people are complaining about "5k" autoattacks from birds. The devs have totally forgotten that different pets play different roles. Birds and felines are supposed to do damage anyways with the downside of having low health and armor.

EDIT: Didn't see that they implemented the change this patch already.

We really need a buff to pet HP and armor across the board if they're all going to hit like wet noodles. Pretty much need a complete change to all pets to give more utility if they're not meant to do any damage.

[Teratus.2859]

Boof da Perts!!! AnetBOOF DA PERTS!!! XD

hahaha I dunno why that made me laugh so much but I had to post it. xD