How would you design a pet based elite spec?

[Morvran.8265]

And would you like one?

The 2 elites we've got so far have all been moving away from pets, the core ranger mechanic. I for one would love to see a pet-centric one for Cantha.

Thought about having 2 pets active at the same time, could be interesting. Maybe have an empowered "main" pet and a secondary pet, and we could swap between which one is the main and therefore buffed one. That way pet swap traits remain functional.

Hope we start getting EoD teases soon, anticipation is killing me.. I just want to know what are we getting.

[Sansar.1302]

No not a pet spec, the pet alredy hurts the ranger so hard.I want a spec that dont have pets at all

[Raarsi.6798]

I'd think temporary pets would likely be the way to go, working less like actual pets and more like mesmer clones.

Overall, whatever system it is has to be engaging and ensures that it's not a "pets do all the work" thing.

[Dadnir.5038]

Granted how ranger "need" to have a "permanent" pet with him due to skill/trait/downstate, I'd leave out the temporary pet.

Personally, I'd design it to be pretty close to what the scourge is:

• The common pet list is replaced by 4-5 e-spec specific pets.
• Those pet have a baseline 100% damage reduction to both power and condition damage (making them pretty much imun to damage but vulnerable to controle effect and conditions)
• Pet AA is a 5 target aoe (3 in WvW) with a 180 radius and very low damage scaling (something like 0.002).
• Skill 2 of the pet would just apply 5s weakness on 5 target on a 180 radius. CD 15-20s.
• Skill 3 of the pet would cleanse 2 conditions on 5 allies on a 180 radius. CD 25-30s.
• F2 would be a "bond" empowering the ranger that can be broken, trading the last empowering effect for a skill (pretty much like a signet). Let's say that the active effect would be more or less standardized as a 4-5s AoE with benefit of a field (fire, Ice, smoke, light and dark)
• Utility skills of the e-spec would be Manipulation, creating effects with the pet at the base, something in line with commands. (For example: teleport your pet to targeted location creating a burst of energy that heal allies. Or, Make your familiar emit a gentle glow stimulating plant around it to immobilize and bleed foes in the area... etc. The important point being that the pet is at the center of the spell effect, whether this effect is a boon for the allies or something harmful for your foes.)
• You could have a GM trait that allow this e-spec to share a lesser effect of the empowering effect of the "bond" to 5 allies near the familiar.
• You could have a GM trait that increase the empowering effect of the "bond" by 25-50% but increase CD.
• You could have a last GM trait that encourage using F2 actively By reducing the bond empowering effect but improving greatly the active effect.

All in all, the pet would be at the center of almost everything you do...

[Arheundel.6451]

I don't get this "pet centered" mania, it brings nothing to the table other than being a novelty for RPGers and in my opinion not worth a price tag, we need an useful elite for players in game modes, something fun, viable and interesting to play for everybody...not just PvErs

[Leonidrex.5649]

@"Arheundel.6451" said:I don't get this "pet centered" mania, it brings nothing to the table other than being a novelty for RPGers and in my opinion not worth a price tag, we need an useful elite for players in game modes, something fun, viable and interesting to play for everybody...not just PvErs

they want an e-spec that will look cool. with 2 pets while they afk in mistlock on their 1000 gem chair lol.I

[AreeSoothsayer.1068]

@Sansar.1302 said:No not a pet spec, the pet alredy hurts the ranger so hard.I want a spec that dont have pets at all

Then go Beast soul

[Sansar.1302]

@AreeSoothsayer.1068 said:

@Sansar.1302 said:No not a pet spec, the pet alredy hurts the ranger so hard.I want a spec that dont have pets at all

Then go Beast soul

Soul beast is is stil a pet spec only slightly less pet focused.

[Kodama.6453]

@Sansar.1302 said:

@AreeSoothsayer.1068 said:

@Sansar.1302 said:No not a pet spec, the pet alredy hurts the ranger so hard.I want a spec that dont have pets at all

Then go Beast soul

Soul beast is is stil a pet spec only slightly less pet focused.

You will legit never see a spec that doesn't have a pet at all.The entire trait system is built around that class mechanic.

[Teratus.2859]

@"Sansar.1302" said:No not a pet spec, the pet alredy hurts the ranger so hard.I want a spec that dont have pets at all

Soulbeast is as close as you'll get on that.

As for the pet spec.. well the only way I can see that "working" and I use that term loosely is if we completely swap the roles.Make the Ranger more of a "Pokemon Trainer" kind of thing and we the player control the pets instead and have a whole bunch of pet skills replace our weapon skills based on the species or something.

As much as I love the Ranger and general Pet mechanics it is a no brainer that these things are hardly "revolutionary" in any MMO.Companion AI is always going to be pretty dumb compared to a human player.. that should go without saying so any new spec that basically focuses more on the pet would need some kind of player control or it would suffer from the same issues that pets already do now.

Having the player control the pet and have the Ranger cheer them on from the side lines is one way a full pet spec could work.. but honestly this is not an idea I would actively support myself either.. it sounds pretty bad lol

[Yasai.3549]

Next espec probably gonna be twin pets at once lol.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

I like the idea of a pet-centric spec, but it does scare me a bit because the last thing we need is another minion mancer-esque spec in the game to exist, or a spec largely dependent upon poorly implemented AI. If they do decide to give Ranger a beastmaster spec, I would like to see at least the utilities done in the vein of spirit weapons, but with animal visuals. So basically removing the AI from the equation while still looking cool and thematic. Though to be honest though I still wish core Spirits would be given the Spirit Weapon treatment so they would be given some more relevance in PvP/WvW.

[Frostfang.5109]

A one pet at a time - e-spec (no swap avaliable). Make that one pet adolescent (somewhat stronger than juvenile) and make the player be ablexto control 2 skills instead of 1. Also, make the utility skills either be extra pet skills or ways to boost/control the pet.Make the pet something to rely on and to count in when planning a build.

[Teratus.2859]

@Frostfang.5109 said:A one pet at a time - e-spec (no swap avaliable). Make that one pet adolescent (somewhat stronger than juvenile) and make the player be ablexto control 2 skills instead of 1. Also, make the utility skills either be extra pet skills or ways to boost/control the pet.Make the pet something to rely on and to count in when planning a build.

There has to be some kind of swapish mechanic there though otherwise there would be no way to revive a pet or protect it mid combat leaving the Ranger significantly disadvantaged.The last thing we need to is to go back to being able to rez pets lolRemember that? when there were just mass dead markers all over the map cause of pets, or when you'd be trying to res a player and would revive someone's pet instead xDGod that was a pain haha

There would have to be pet swapping or something akin to the Soulbeast's fusing mechanic so that pets don't end up becoming a major handicap for the Ranger.

[InsaneQR.7412]

No i wouldn't like one.

Druid added something on top of pets.

Soulbeast enhanced the mechanic by giving us the option to merge.

Now i want something that replaced it entirely.

But what i want most is a fix to all core pets and a pet overhaul and wardrobe system.

[Frostfang.5109]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Frostfang.5109 said:A one pet at a time - e-spec (no swap avaliable). Make that one pet adolescent (somewhat stronger than juvenile) and make the player be ablexto control 2 skills instead of 1. Also, make the utility skills either be extra pet skills or ways to boost/control the pet.Make the pet something to rely on and to count in when planning a build.

There has to be some kind of swapish mechanic there though otherwise there would be no way to revive a pet or protect it mid combat leaving the Ranger significantly disadvantaged.The last thing we need to is to go back to being able to rez pets lolRemember that? when there were just mass dead markers all over the map cause of pets, or when you'd be trying to res a player and would revive someone's pet instead xDGod that was a pain haha

There would have to be pet swapping or something akin to the Soulbeast's fusing mechanic so that pets don't end up becoming a major handicap for the Ranger.

Make a skill change into a heal/bandage skill once the pet rea hes 0 HP and return to u. Could be as fast as SB's fungerar process.

[Teratus.2859]

@Frostfang.5109 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Frostfang.5109 said:A one pet at a time - e-spec (no swap avaliable). Make that one pet adolescent (somewhat stronger than juvenile) and make the player be ablexto control 2 skills instead of 1. Also, make the utility skills either be extra pet skills or ways to boost/control the pet.Make the pet something to rely on and to count in when planning a build.

There has to be some kind of swapish mechanic there though otherwise there would be no way to revive a pet or protect it mid combat leaving the Ranger significantly disadvantaged.The last thing we need to is to go back to being able to rez pets lolRemember that? when there were just mass dead markers all over the map cause of pets, or when you'd be trying to res a player and would revive someone's pet instead xDGod that was a pain haha

There would have to be pet swapping or something akin to the Soulbeast's fusing mechanic so that pets don't end up becoming a major handicap for the Ranger.

Make a skill change into a heal/bandage skill once the pet rea hes 0 HP and return to u. Could be as fast as SB's fungerar process.

That could work maybe but it sounds messy to me.. and I really don't want to be in a situation where my pet is in a state of dead res dead res dead all the time because a scaled up monster hits too hard.They would have to make it so a pet res gives full health like a swap does.. maybe a decent CD on the res for balance so it's not just annoying in competitive.

Yeah could work but I dunno, I don't think i'd care for it myself, i'd rather see more of a druid like trade off and keep the swap.Maybe this time it could be a defensive nerf to pet stats rather than an offensive one like Druid has.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

You really have to look at it in the context of 'why would I play this'. With some of these suggestions I'd rather they not give us a new e-spec and buff pets again, but then the forums would cry they died to 'bad AI' and we'd be in the same spot.

A spec literally cannot nerf pets anymore without them being useless; they are walking CC machines only at this point. So any nerf to offensive or defensive stats should be a no-go, we've had a ton of those over the games life.

I'd rather 'less is more' approach. Make a sustain spec and fix spirits to work with it. Leave it dual pet like core/druid, and have some utilities or traits that make pets harder to kill in group settings.

[Soilder.3607]

I think having the pet as the class Mechanic for Rangers was a mistake. I think our class mechanic should've been Preparations because of how iconic preparations were to the Ranger in the original Guild Wars.

Since pets are here to stay, I think only core Ranger should have access to pets. Soulbeast and Druid should be redesigned to lose access to their pets in exchange for their new mechanics. Soulbeast has more or less reached that point while Druid would require some work.

[Raffrey.5271]

I'm a fan of pet dependent mechanic, but I'm not gonna debate on why it shouldn't be applied.

I'd lower the ranger's base vitality by 300 (seriously) and power halved (yeah with berserker you can still deal some crazy amount of damage, and some more other stats if needed) and a multiplier of -20% of outgoing power damage and condition damage (ranger only), and boost the pet's base stats by around 20% (without beastmastery). Grant the ranger an F5 skill that varies depend on type of pet (much like soulbeast's F3). Pet's AA hits 3~5 foes, make it quicker if needed. Lengthen pet swap cooldown by ~60s.All above on the very first minor traits of that elite specialization.Utility skills would be about doing some AoE around the pet. One of them breaks stun, swap places with your pet, and then daze around your pet.New weapon would be a focus with supporty skills.

... something like that.

Also, I'd design some EOD OW enemies to target the ranger instead, if they are to target some pet, even make some of them heavily obsessed.

lol i've made so much edit on this comment

[Psycoprophet.8107]

in a Asian theme like EOD id have the ranger attire be a kimono with 1 animal print on front and another on back. Ranger can call upon one animal spirit at a time to aid in battle and when summoning the spirit cones out of the kimono and when stowed returns to the kimono, when spirit leaves kimono so does the print on the kimono so it seems the spirit jumped right out of the kimono, same for animal print on back of kimono if ranger chose to summon said spirit animal. Ranger can be pet less if both spirits are stowed onto kimono. Whether spirits buff/debuff or actually attack opponents is either or. Weapon is off hand sword with few stylized attacks that have animal spirit animations within as the mh sword does. Be like a 2h katana wielding ronin take on ranger, be far far different flavor than other specs and bring something new for sure.

[mistsim.2748]

So this is how I feel about the ranger:

Core is a jack of all trades, currently overshadowed by Soulbeast mostly because Nature Magic and spirits are a trashfire. If NM was buffed across the board, then core ranger could be interesting. Core can potentially build for strong pets (what you're looking for).

Soulbeast actually has strong pets, because you're always picking BM. It's valuable to use the pet because merging gives various bonuses. So SB meets your criteria as well (strong pet-based spec).

Druid needs to be reworked and buffed across the board, and it simply shouldn't have access to pets.

The next ranger spec must be a shapeshifter, and it's not even a debate. I will also settle for some kind of spirit master/shaman that maximizes the NM tree.

[Arheundel.6451]

@mistsim.2748 said:So this is how I feel about the ranger:

Core is a jack of all trades, currently overshadowed by Soulbeast mostly because Nature Magic and spirits are a trashfire. If NM was buffed across the board, then core ranger could be interesting. Core can potentially build for strong pets (what you're looking for).

Soulbeast actually has strong pets, because you're always picking BM. It's valuable to use the pet because merging gives various bonuses. So SB meets your criteria as well (strong pet-based spec).

Druid needs to be reworked and buffed across the board, and it simply shouldn't have access to pets.

The next ranger spec must be a shapeshifter, and it's not even a debate. I will also settle for some kind of spirit master/shaman that maximizes the NM tree.

Core ranger is not overshadowed by Soulbeast, going BM with soulbeast is not really a choice for optimal balance between sustain and damage. I don't fully disagree with you about NM but at the same time...I wouldn't know what to buff, looking at the traits individually every single NM trait is good :

A ) 1-1/2-2 for Power build/duellistB ) 2-3-2 for more Supportish builds with healing power investmentC ) 3-3-3 Full support build

I like core ranger, my favourite duellist build is MM-WS-BM is one of the strongest builds in the game from PvE to WvW passing through PvP where Soulbeast is more susceptible to nerfs and that's why it relatively sucks in PvP compared to WvW

Druid.....I'd only remove AS or greatly reduce it, one trait that can make Druid strong and useful for everybody in all game modes: Nature Blessing - decrease pet offensive stats by 90% and increase them by 90% and become immune to dmg, will later make a thread about this suggestion, this trait would allow for a strong support druid incapable of tanking with DPS pets like in the past and this time usable in WvW.

Hmmm...I could settle for a Shapeshifter elite with hammer yes, it could become a little of everything but not excel at anything sort of gamestyle....we'll see what the future holds

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"Morvran.8265" said:And would you like one?

The 2 elites we've got so far have all been moving away from pets, the core ranger mechanic. I for one would love to see a pet-centric one for Cantha.

Thought about having 2 pets active at the same time, could be interesting. Maybe have an empowered "main" pet and a secondary pet, and we could swap between which one is the main and therefore buffed one. That way pet swap traits remain functional.

Hope we start getting EoD teases soon, anticipation is killing me.. I just want to know what are we getting.

I just want a luxon turtle with a cannon on its back, any way I can get it.

[Vancho.8750]

So in core you have pet it does stuff, in Hot Arenanet threw a curve ball and the main mechanic does not have anything to do with the pets (would have been cool if the pet was connected to the mechanic and ran around healing stuff instead of being separate thing), then with PoF came "The Pet AI is too dumb so ill shove it somewhere and do it myself elite ", so the pet becomes you or it dissolves up your arse or something it is not exactly grand design but it is good and simple and does the job.So what would be cool for EOD? What is left with all the pet stuff ?YOU BECOME THE PET. Bam, transformation speck like necro since Arenanet likes to combine specks, so it will be shroud mechanics but in ranger way. If we are realistic though, it will be another core +, mechanically bland and lame speck like SB that doesn't change the gameplay on ranger that much.