Pets in WvW- Why won't they increase their survivability?

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

I'm not sure if this is better posted here or on the other sub, so I might move/repost if it's better discussed under WvW.

As per the title, I'm wondering if there's been any reason given as to why pet survivability seems to be something Anet wants to keep low. The early December patch which was supposed to focus on/rework pets avoided it for the most part (or actually lowered it for some), even though it's one of the constant issues ranger players have been bringing up since the dawn of the game. I have a feeling that part of the answer is "it's not that easy to solve" but I don't think there was a time when Anet actually tried to give pets better survivability, have they? I don't really consider reworks on boons applied to pets as a part of this, since they don't mean much for the pet in terms of effectiveness/survivability... but maybe that's part of the problem. Anet thinks that since we can boon share regen and protection on pets, that they should live longer? Perhaps if we're talking about 1v1s that's more probable, though I've had scenarios where harbingers have killed them within seconds, so the issue honestly doesn't just come up in zerg fights anymore. 

Part of the reason I'm posting this here, is to see if any of my fellow rangers have any tips on keeping your pets alive? I take advantage of traits like Fortifying Bond to share my defensive boons which, as mentioned, doesn't do much for me in scenarios where pets typically get nuked. I have been a ranger since the beginning of the game, and this is something I have never gotten the hang of (discounting PVE of course) though I'm seeing other players say there's pet management tricks that can actually keep them alive even in dire situations like a 30-man blob fight (that doesn't involve being a soulbeast or simply not using your pet).

[Beddo.1907]

This topic is not new, trust me.
I think the reason is either:
A. Too much time required for a working fix.
B. Pets are still a subject for a rework, so nothing will be done till then.
C. They don't know yet, how to fix it without making another issue.
D. All of the above.

Overall, pets need a lot of QoL fixes and reworks and so far, we got a 1st step just a balance patch ago.
As for how to deal with pets now, keep the pet on passive so you have more control and learn to swap just before down.
In zerg your pet evaporates as soon as it's in burn range without allies, so all you can do is try to keep it out of it and in a 1v1 swapping should be enough, since throwing out too much stuff to kill a pet just get's you killed (unless it's a cele build class, but that's not a pet issue at this point).

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

Generally speaking, Tanky pets tend to survive ... sometimes in Zerg but that vary. Other cases like untamed with its projectile hate it can survive for a little bit till it pops.

Generally, used to run a mutlitude of pets but now I kinda utilize Turtle due to its huge tanky stats being strong while able to do chip damage. Other pets seems to just die to a 1v1 burst, the other problem is there isn't a real way to deal with condi for your pets unless you are god like with positioning for your pets to benifit from shared stance or healing spring.

Half of me wish that signet of renewel could of had a passive of periodically removing conditons off every third interval, but then you have to address the elephant in the room.... soulbeast gaining the pets functionality.

[Dadnir.5038]

Why don't they make the pet "tankier" in WvW?

• Player's pride: PvP driven players tend to loath AI and have a hard time accepting being taken down by builds/classes that rely heavily on AI.
• Server stability: To many pets tend to make the servers laggy so passively discouraging players from taking pet builds/classes is a soft and easy solution to the issue.

I think that's the 2 main reasons.

[Sandzibar.5134]

10 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Overall, pets need a lot of QoL fixes and reworks and so far, we got a 1st step just a balance patch ago.

I admire your optimism but I cant help but feel that it will be a loooonngggg time before pets are touched again.

Unless there is a dev quote out there somewhere that indicates otherwise? and a 2nd step is on the cards?

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

11 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

This topic is not new, trust me.

Yup, I definitely understand that part. As mentioned, I've seen a lot of posts regarding player dissatisfaction over how squishy our pets are, while not finding much info from Anet's end. But I've also taken many breaks from the game, so I was wondering if they've said anything about it that I might have missed over the years.

11 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

As for how to deal with pets now, keep the pet on passive so you have more control and learn to swap just before down.

In zerg your pet evaporates as soon as it's in burn range without allies, so all you can do is try to keep it out of it and in a 1v1 swapping should be enough, since throwing out too much stuff to kill a pet just get's you killed (unless it's a cele build class, but that's not a pet issue at this point).

I'll have to keep practicing with the swapping, as I think I'm swapping them a bit too late. Thanks for the tips.

 

2 hours ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Half of me wish that signet of renewel could of had a passive of periodically removing conditons off every third interval, but then you have to address the elephant in the room.... soulbeast gaining the pets functionality.

I definitely think Soulbeast makes reworking the pets a bit harder. They really should have addressed this issue with pets when people started complaining about it, which was definitely before Soulbeast came to fruition (especially since it was their answer for player unhappiness with the AI in the first place). But I guess that's neither here or there at this point.
I'll run around with the turtle a bit more. I did for a small amount of time and then really liked the land shark, so have been playing with that. As fun as it is to see that shark launch people, I'd prefer a pet that's alive XD My swap is a Jacaranda and I like it too much for now.

 

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Why don't they make the pet "tankier" in WvW?

• Player's pride: PvP driven players tend to loath AI and have a hard time accepting being taken down by builds/classes that rely heavily on AI.
• Server stability: To many pets tend to make the servers laggy so passively discouraging players from taking pet builds/classes is a soft and easy solution to the issue.

I think that's the 2 main reasons.

If the pet actually worked more than half the time, I can understand that first sentiment. But the pet AI is broken in so many ways, I feel like asking for it to not blow up as soon as a heavy dps player sneezes at it isn't much of an ask lol

[Dadnir.5038]

2 minutes ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

If the pet actually worked more than half the time, I can understand that first sentiment. But the pet AI is broken in so many ways, I feel like asking for it to not blow up as soon as a heavy dps player sneezes at it isn't much of an ask lol

It work , it's just a matter of habit. In many way the pet is in a better state than it was in 2012/2013 even if it had some loss as well.

[Zyreva.1078]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Why don't they make the pet "tankier" in WvW?

• Player's pride: PvP driven players tend to loath AI and have a hard time accepting being taken down by builds/classes that rely heavily on AI.
• Server stability: To many pets tend to make the servers laggy so passively discouraging players from taking pet builds/classes is a soft and easy solution to the issue.

I think that's the 2 main reasons.

This might explain why they don't make the more tanky pets even tankier, but it does not explain why they insist on having such big disparities for pet survivability, which renders half of them unplayable, even for roaming. Just giving every pet a minimum health of 25k in WvW would have increased the number of viable pet choices way more than any of the changes from the last patch, that was supposed to do exactly that (yet did the opposite), while not making pets generally tankier than already existing ones.

30 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

It work , it's just a matter of habit. In many way the pet is in a better state than it was in 2012/2013 even if it had some loss as well.

I didn't play 2012/13, but when i started in 2014, pets were way more responsive and functional than now (and in many cases also stronger relative to players) and they even improved them further the following years. However pets did not keep up with the overall powercreep of the game, especially in WvW,  and since EOD they also introduced multiple bugs that massively impede their functionality in all game modes. And anet's glorious "pet improvement patch" made pets even worse overall.  I have never experienced ranger pets in a such a bad state as now (in WvW at least) and i have been a "ranger main" for almost 10 years now - and i always loved pet centric builds, that focused on synergy and combos between pet and ranger, instead of treating them like a passive bonus.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Dadnir.5038]

30 minutes ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

I didn't play 2012/13, but when i started in 2014, pets were way more responsive and functional than now (and in many cases also stronger relative to players) and they even improved them further the following years. However pets did not keep up with the overall powercreep of the game, especially in WvW,  and since EOD they also introduced multiple bugs that massively impede their functionality in all game modes. And anet's glorious "pet improvement patch" made pets even worse overall.

Still better than the pathing issues of 2012/2013. Also pets had a lower health pool in the early game (but they were hitting harder). The true loss is the original shouts when they weren't nerfed yet. I'm not saying that the shouts in their current state don't work but the original "guard!" was the best thing ranger ever had in WvW.

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

3 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

It work , it's just a matter of habit. In many way the pet is in a better state than it was in 2012/2013 even if it had some loss as well.

Habit?  Most of the bugs surrounding the pets are a crap shoot. Sometimes the skills will activate, sometimes they won't. Sometimes they'll actually target the correct entity, sometimes they won't. Sometimes the buffs they're supposed to give are actually given, sometimes they won't. I could go on. Like... how are you supposed to form a habit around situations that are completely inconsistent when forming a habit relies on consistency?

We want Anet to continue working on the pets and make them better. I do not support the idea that pets are fine, and that we as a playerbase just need to work around the issues. We've been doing our best to work around this class' flaws in regards to the pets, and Anet needs to pull their weight on the subject.

[Dadnir.5038]

5 minutes ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

Sometimes the skills will activate, sometimes they won't. Sometimes they'll actually target the correct entity, sometimes they won't. Sometimes the buffs they're supposed to give are actually given, sometimes they won't. I could go on. Like... how are you supposed to form a habit around situations that are completely inconsistent when forming a habit relies on consistency?

But that's exactly this. Once you're used to properly control your pet through "habits", all those "bugs" that you've listed disappear. I know, your issue because I've been through it, forming good habits isn't easy but it's not impossible, you just need a bit of self-control.

NB: Proper "habits" is to keep a cool head, position yourself properly, avoid smashing all F key like your life is on the line (especially F1)... etc.

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

6 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

But that's exactly this. Once you're used to properly control your pet through "habits", all those "bugs" that you've listed disappear. I know, your issue because I've been through it, forming good habits isn't easy but it's not impossible, you just need a bit of self-control.

NB: Proper "habits" is to keep a cool head, position yourself properly, avoid smashing all F key like your life is on the line (especially F1)... etc.

For what it's worth, I already have those habits. Which are honestly a bit common sense, in my opinion, especially if you're doing anything competitive.

Proper positioning and keeping a cool head literally won't solve pet's skills not activating or being delayed. The pet skill queue was introduced by Anet, which in turn landed us with a problem, and it's not due to players not positioning themselves well or spamming keys. In fact, people have recently been spamming the F keys AS A RESULT of the problem that Anet gave us, not the other way around.
None of the examples I provided will disappear from better habits, which isn't anywhere close to an exhaustive list of the bugs and issues we have with the pet AI. Please don't give Anet an out, as your statements are giving the impression that everything is fine with this subject when, again, it is very far from fine.

[Zyreva.1078]

5 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Still better than the pathing issues of 2012/2013.

How is that even relevant? They have introduced new issues that should be fixed. Period.

5 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I'm not saying that the shouts in their current state don't work but the original "guard!" was the best thing ranger ever had in WvW.

It was primarily used to apply perma swiftness and regen and fell out of the meta even before it got changed, because those boons became more accessible through other means.

Old "guard" would be completely irrelevant in the current state of the game.

@meerfunkuhtron.9725

Pressing F3 (or whatever key you have assigned instead) before every command to cancel whatever the pet is doing at the moment increases the likelyhood of the command actually getting executed in a somewhat timely manner, but it doesn't solve all of the issues and still leaves us with less responsive pets.

There is no excuse for keeping pets in the state they are right now, but because most players just put everything on autocast and rarely try to micro manage, there isnt enough of an outcry and therefore anet doesn't care.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Soilder.3607]

So, combat in WvW is not static and the number of players engaged in a battle can change quickly. In terms of the balance of pet survivability, pets are designed for small scale combat, 1v1 and 5v5 and the likes. It's rather easy to keeps your pets alive in a 1v1 provided you are efficient at pet swapping. 5v5's can be difficult, particularly if enemies are using condition damage. When you approach large scale numbers (20v20 and above) pets can die very quickly and often instantly, especially if you aren't using the Nature Magic traitiline to share defensive boons with your pet (think about Stability and how important it is in zergs).

 

The honest answer is that there really isn't a balanced way to increase pet survivability in WvW. Let's say pets die too quickly in zergs, so Arenanet implements an 80% damage reduction to pets. Well, what about 1v1s now? What about 5v5s? The pet will never die in those situations, and it becomes imbalanced. The entire pet mechanic (and AI based mechanics for players at large) was never a good thing in a game with fast paced, dynamic combat. Hell, look at PvE; Arenanet basically made pets unkillable that way builds which relied on them could be reliable no matter the encounter.

 

The only thing I could possibly think of to help pets survive in WvW is if Arenanet implemented a sort of scaling damage reduction feature. Something like once there are at least 10 enemies within a 600 radius of the pet, the pet gains 50% damage reduction and gains an additional 5% damage reduction for each additional enemy after the 10th to a maximum of 90% damage reduction. That way small scale is left unaffected and large scale gains pet survivability . 

 

 

[ArchonWing.9480]

I gotta admit; this is why I play soulbeast and try to just merge as much as possible. A lot of pet management specs (like mech recently) just seem to be so much of a pain, and I just remember spamming withdraw orders so much

Balancing combat is extremely hard in WvW because making the pet tankier may cause problems in small scale,.

The only thing I could think of is give pets a lower priority when it comes to being hit by AOEs which would only affect it in large scales. So if there are 5 players and your pet, it would get hit less.

Using minions and the like to absorb damage in large scale fights was a particularly annoying thing that happened in WvW and almost broke the servers so that's not a great mechanic anyways. Unfortunately I bet any large scale change would probably cause the spaghetti code to blow up too.

There is the other possibility that people may somehow abuse it if summons were not easily cleaved out but in general their state in large scale combat is a mess regardless.

 

[Zyreva.1078]

26 minutes ago, Soilder.3607 said:

It's rather easy to keeps your pets alive in a 1v1 provided you are efficient at pet swapping. 5v5's can be difficult, particularly if enemies are using condition damage.

Like half of the pets can't be kept alive reliably even in 1vs1. In 5vs5 every pet will explode if caught in a proper spike.

26 minutes ago, Soilder.3607 said:

The pet will never die in those situations, and it becomes imbalanced.

Let's not pretend you have to be able to kill pets in oder to deal with rangers ...

Edited December 29, 2023 by Zyreva.1078

[Mell.4873]

What the heck was the last patch, any pet with a heal got a massive healing power increase. 

Some of the bear family got a direct buff like the polar bear. It seems like they are making some effort without them being a literal plus one in a 1v1.

[Mell.4873]

11 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Like half of the pets can't be kept alive reliably even in 1vs1. In 5vs5 every pet will explode if caught in a proper spike.

Let's not pretend you have to be able to kill pets in oder to deal with rangers ...

I often leave my turtle on aggressive and it does fine staying alive in 1v1 or even 5v5.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

42 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I often leave my turtle on aggressive and it does fine staying alive in 1v1 or even 5v5.

same here really, Most of my ranger builds have turtle just doing w/e it wants. If you're ever lucky with opening strike setup, you may even get that random 6k from heavyshot by itself. I had a will bender go *WHAT* when it got hit by it.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

if people open there eye more, Turtle/polar bear/ are kinda a dominating pet choice for those who are keeping up.  Especially the polar bear if you know how to use untamed to its maximum potential.

Jungle spider? or Forest Spider? I cant rememebr which one has the immob but thats fun to use on untame. Apply poison can be delivered through the pet's unleash ability so if your smart you can lead with it and follow up with a big hit like sword 2 and 3 or which ever is better. 

I even started to use electric Wyvern and on untamed again is pretty brutal with its CC.

Again, I mostly just roam around full melee ranger spec, pet usability functions differently for range variant of a weapon

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

13 hours ago, Soilder.3607 said:

So, combat in WvW is not static and the number of players engaged in a battle can change quickly. In terms of the balance of pet survivability, pets are designed for small scale combat, 1v1 and 5v5 and the likes. It's rather easy to keeps your pets alive in a 1v1 provided you are efficient at pet swapping. 5v5's can be difficult, particularly if enemies are using condition damage. When you approach large scale numbers (20v20 and above) pets can die very quickly and often instantly, especially if you aren't using the Nature Magic traitiline to share defensive boons with your pet (think about Stability and how important it is in zergs).

The honest answer is that there really isn't a balanced way to increase pet survivability in WvW. Let's say pets die too quickly in zergs, so Arenanet implements an 80% damage reduction to pets. Well, what about 1v1s now? What about 5v5s? The pet will never die in those situations, and it becomes imbalanced. The entire pet mechanic (and AI based mechanics for players at large) was never a good thing in a game with fast paced, dynamic combat. Hell, look at PvE; Arenanet basically made pets unkillable that way builds which relied on them could be reliable no matter the encounter.

The only thing I could possibly think of to help pets survive in WvW is if Arenanet implemented a sort of scaling damage reduction feature. Something like once there are at least 10 enemies within a 600 radius of the pet, the pet gains 50% damage reduction and gains an additional 5% damage reduction for each additional enemy after the 10th to a maximum of 90% damage reduction. That way small scale is left unaffected and large scale gains pet survivability .

Very good points, and it's why I think it's good to have these discussions. I know, as I'm sure most of the folks here do, that as much as we'd like balancing stuff to be simple - it just isn't most of the time.

A scaling damage reduction is where I've landed as well. It wouldn't be fair to have a flat damage reduction that would make the pet unkillable in small scale fights, just so they could be usable in larger ones. So making it scale based on enemies makes the most sense to me. This reduction could have the same behavior that some buffs and conditions do, wherein they get removed under specific scenarios (in this case, the Soulbeast merge). Same way that things like Sic 'Em gets removed when applied before merging, this buff should be automatically removed when merged.

Edited December 30, 2023 by meerfunkuhtron.9725

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

49 minutes ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

if people open there eye more, Turtle/polar bear/ are kinda a dominating pet choice for those who are keeping up.  Especially the polar bear if you know how to use untamed to its maximum potential.

Jungle spider? or Forest Spider? I cant rememebr which one has the immob but thats fun to use on untame. Apply poison can be delivered through the pet's unleash ability so if your smart you can lead with it and follow up with a big hit like sword 2 and 3 or which ever is better. 

I even started to use electric Wyvern and on untamed again is pretty brutal with its CC.

Again, I mostly just roam around full melee ranger spec, pet usability functions differently for range variant of a weapon

I liked playing with the devourer a lot, with their ability to dig underground to escape. I also used to run with spiders that did the immobilize (until I met the Jacaranda).
I was using the electric wyvern as well, but then I started having issues with the skill delay. Which I've found to be more egregious for certain pets/skills than others. My jacaranda for example may get a small delay but more often than not, its skills fire off fine. As soon as I'd switch to the wyvern, the skill queue issue feels more prominent.
Speaking of...

17 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Pressing F3 (or whatever key you have assigned instead) before every command to cancel whatever the pet is doing at the moment increases the likelyhood of the command actually getting executed in a somewhat timely manner, but it doesn't solve all of the issues and still leaves us with less responsive pets.

I saw a similar advice from another thread and have been trying it out with the shark (which at the moment has the biggest issue with skill lag for me, aside from the wyvern). I haven't seen much of a difference yet, but I might just need to continue playing around with it. Maybe there's a sweet spot in terms of timing in between certain skills that I'm just not attuned to.

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

What the heck was the last patch, any pet with a heal got a massive healing power increase. 

Some of the bear family got a direct buff like the polar bear. It seems like they are making some effort without them being a literal plus one in a 1v1.

Those changes have been needed for almost a decade, so I'm definitely happy to see them. Better late than never!
Your last statement however makes it seem like we're asking for pets to be so OP that the pet might as well be another player. That is not the case here, at all. Asking for extra survivability for the pet, an integral part of a ranger's gameplay minus SB, is not a ridiculous ask. I just want to be able to actually have that aspect of my build available both in small scale and zerg fights, the same way all the other classes get to keep core aspects of their class with them at any given situation as well.

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

I often leave my turtle on aggressive and it does fine staying alive in 1v1 or even 5v5.

I honestly love the turtle. Both for how it looks (I mean, the thing has a cannon on its back!) and more importantly, its higher survivability. But can we have the same functionality for other pets so we're not pigeonholed into ONLY using a small percentage of them? We have a menagerie, and I truly love playing around with different pets and their utilities, but since most of them blow up so easily, I'm discouraged from using them at all.
The biggest concern for the pet's survivability that I've seen are: zerg fights and condition damage. Yes, my pets can generally survive small scale fights, but they've been deleted by harbingers and similar classes that can dish out high condi bursts in aoe's. And of course, there's the zergs.

We're not asking for god-like buffs on these little guys. As mentioned in another comment, something like scaling damage reduction would help quite a lot. I don't think I've ever really wanted my pet to hit harder. Just a higher chance of survival than your average random ambient creature.

Edited December 30, 2023 by meerfunkuhtron.9725

[Mell.4873]

14 minutes ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

 The biggest concern for the pet's survivability that I've seen are: zerg fights and condition damage. Yes, my pets can generally survive small scale fights, but they've been deleted by harbingers and similar classes that can dish out high condi bursts in aoe's. And of course, there's the zergs.

Even if you increase there survivability what do you expect the pet to do, Heal....? 

[Zyreva.1078]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

I often leave my turtle on aggressive and it does fine staying alive in 1v1 or even 5v5.

Good job, you found one of the few pets, that are reasonably tanky and also are more likely to stay out of harms way due to their ranged nature.

1 hour ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Turtle/polar bear/ are kinda a dominating pet choice for those who are keeping up.  Especially the polar bear if you know how to use untamed to its maximum potential.

Turtle requires marks modifiers and untamed to deal decent dmg and marks builds are outclassed by boon spam cele builds and turtle lacks dmg in those. Bear deals no dmg and a single long cd, long cast time, short duration (short range once it's fixed) aoe stun isn't going to make up for that in a meta where everyone can spam short cd stun breaks and stability.

1 hour ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Jungle spider? or Forest Spider? I cant rememebr which one has the immob but thats fun to use on untame. Apply poison can be delivered through the pet's unleash ability so if your smart you can lead with it and follow up with a big hit like sword 2 and 3 or which ever is better.

Tried those on druid and both feel lackluster. Spider lacks dmg and the nerfed immob duration reduces their lockdown potential considerably, so meh (immob runs out before you can land the second one due to slow attack speed). Wyvern is ok, but again, doesn't feel nearly as impactful as jacaranda for example. I ended up using gazelle, still has decent single target dmg and cc. No aoe tho, which sucks when considering that fights are rarely 1vs1. Lack of downstate cleave already lost me some fights that i could have won before they killed jacaranda.

[Mell.4873]

8 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

Good job, you found one of the few pets, that are reasonably tanky and also are more likely to stay out of harms way due to their ranged nature.

Turtle requires marks modifiers and untamed to deal decent dmg and marks builds are outclassed by boon spam cele builds and turtle lacks dmg in those. Bear deals no dmg and a single long cd, long cast time, short duration (short range once it's fixed) aoe stun isn't going to make up for that in a meta where everyone can spam short cd stun breaks and stability.

Tried those on druid and both feel lackluster. Spider lacks dmg and the nerfed immob duration reduces their lockdown potential considerably, so meh (immob runs out before you can land the second one due to slow attack speed). Wyvern is ok, but again, doesn't feel nearly as impactful as jacaranda for example. I ended up using gazelle, still has decent single target dmg and cc. No aoe tho, which sucks when considering that fights are rarely 1vs1. Lack of downstate cleave already lost me some fights that i could have won before they killed jacaranda.

Pets are more utility, I would not expect them to be able to actually hurt my enemy. Pets like the Smokescale got nerfed becouse there are a plus one untill their cooldowns go.

As much as they can Arena avoid the pet creating a 2v1, which makes sense. If people expect enough damage to 2v1 we will have to trade some player damage for it.

I don't know if you remember but after they nerfed the pets damage and health they starting buffing alot of the Ranger core weapons over the following years to where we are today.