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

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

9 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

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

Dude, I don't know how you are play your ranger I won't assume, but I can take on good 60%-75% of  cele boon builds with my druid... as a strike build with turtle/wyvern or Turtle and Bear and I'm able to land those abilities quite fine. I'm not going to say learn how to pet management but know how your kit synergies with your pet. I usually run make a null sigil or absorb sigil occasionally due to the amount of daze I throw out and people tent to back of in fights alot, its generally enough for me to deal with it properly.  Having a good balance of Conditions also help make people blow their utilities and abilities especially immobs, I generally play builds to exploit improper use of them as it always leads to an opening for me to unload my damage.

Thou not every build & class generally has a good ability to Swift army knife the other cast, there are just going to be some that naturally out preform yours.

[Zyreva.1078]

3 hours ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Dude, I don't know how you are play your ranger I won't assume, but I can take on good 60%-75% of  cele boon builds with my druid...

If i were aiming for a 60% 1vs1 win rate i could play pretty much anything, considering the average WvW players ...

I guess we have different standards as to what a good build is capable of doing.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

8 hours ago, Zyreva.1078 said:

If i were aiming for a 60% 1vs1 win rate i could play pretty much anything, considering the average WvW players ...

I guess we have different standards as to what a good build is capable of doing.

*shrugs*  I guess so, but back on pets I did forget one pet interaction thats pretty awesome. Shark with Beastmastery taunt is interesting, its one of the very few pets that has 1200 range on its F2, I was planning on limit testing its capabilities through fights as the taunt goes off after it gets into position which usually can catch people off guard easily, which 100% lands the knock up if people dont stun break out of taunt. The only down fall about the pets is the fact it loves to spin in place, which reduces dps when people just speed/tp/blink/dart or dash out of its Aoe and the only way to break it out of its spin is to call it back to you ... or play untamed and don't ever use the ability unless you know for sure you can get all its dmg out. Fun interaction don't know if I could fully recommend it.

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

On 12/30/2023 at 2:24 AM, Mell.4873 said:

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

What

Why? To me, just a higher survivability would be good enough. I don't really understand this.

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

15 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

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. 

I agree with your utility statement, but I'm curious. Do you feel the same about the Mechanist, especially since mechs survive things better than ranger pets do and can also dish out much heftier damage? Why do those things exist if Anet doesn't want a situation wherein you have to worry about 2 things in the field instead of just the player? Or how about mesmers? You have to watch where the illusions and phantasms are and evade them so you won't get nuked by their shatters and other conditions they apply, while also dealing with the player themselves. They don't stay in fights long, but you have to worry about them constantly since the mesmer will poop them out like a broken candy machine. Should we get rid of that mechanic too since players should ONLY worry about one thing in the field?

You keep repeating the same point but I'm sorry, it's not valid. Because we're NOT asking for an OP version of the pets. We just want them to be active and available for a reasonable duration of our fights, be it small scale or large scale. That's it. Stop acting like we're asking for anything else on this thread.

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

2 hours ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

*shrugs*  I guess so, but back on pets I did forget one pet interaction thats pretty awesome. Shark with Beastmastery taunt is interesting, its one of the very few pets that has 1200 range on its F2, I was planning on limit testing its capabilities through fights as the taunt goes off after it gets into position which usually can catch people off guard easily, which 100% lands the knock up if people dont stun break out of taunt. The only down fall about the pets is the fact it loves to spin in place, which reduces dps when people just speed/tp/blink/dart or dash out of its Aoe and the only way to break it out of its spin is to call it back to you ... or play untamed and don't ever use the ability unless you know for sure you can get all its dmg out. Fun interaction don't know if I could fully recommend it.

I've always liked taunt, and whenever I come across that when fiddling with my build, there's this urge of wanting to utilize it somehow. So I'll try this, 'cause I've been working with the shark lately.

14 hours ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Dude, I don't know how you are play your ranger I won't assume, but I can take on good 60%-75% of  cele boon builds with my druid... as a strike build with turtle/wyvern or Turtle and Bear and I'm able to land those abilities quite fine. I'm not going to say learn how to pet management but know how your kit synergies with your pet. I usually run make a null sigil or absorb sigil occasionally due to the amount of daze I throw out and people tent to back of in fights alot, its generally enough for me to deal with it properly.  Having a good balance of Conditions also help make people blow their utilities and abilities especially immobs, I generally play builds to exploit improper use of them as it always leads to an opening for me to unload my damage.

I know this is in response to someone else but, my issue with using Bears and honestly anything that's melee based, is how slippery most other classes are. I am glad that at least now, quickness is beneficial for our pets and I'll have to test that new change on my melee pets that I haven't used in awhile.

And I understand what you're saying with knowing your kit and making sure it synergizes with the pet. Part of what's been brought up in this thread is the bugginess of the AI, however, and how things that they're supposed to be able to do aren't happening. Not sure if this has been fixed but a good example is the bug wherein boons that a beast skill is supposed to apply, is applied inconsistently. Then there's the skill lag issue. And others that have been stated before. I main the ranger class because of the pets. I love the interaction with them and actually theorycrafting builds with them. But with them dying so easily while having so many bugs is the reason why I brought up this topic.

I appreciate the ideas you've brought up though. More ways to play around with the pet is always welcome 😄

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

I agree with your utility statement, but I'm curious. Do you feel the same about the Mechanist, especially since mechs survive things better than ranger pets do and can also dish out much heftier damage? Why do those things exist if Anet doesn't want a situation wherein you have to worry about 2 things in the field instead of just the player? Or how about mesmers? You have to watch where the illusions and phantasms are and evade them so you won't get nuked by their shatters and other conditions they apply, while also dealing with the player themselves. They don't stay in fights long, but you have to worry about them constantly since the mesmer will poop them out like a broken candy machine. Should we get rid of that mechanic too since players should ONLY worry about one thing in the field?

You keep repeating the same point but I'm sorry, it's not valid. Because we're NOT asking for an OP version of the pets. We just want them to be active and available for a reasonable duration of our fights, be it small scale or large scale. That's it. Stop acting like we're asking for anything else on this thread.

Hmm we shall see. I really don't see much point, at the highest level the pets a vehicle to do damage rather than like the Mechanist a source of damage maybe there is room for another high damage and high survivability smokescale like pet to exist. 

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

2 hours ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

I've always liked taunt, and whenever I come across that when fiddling with my build, there's this urge of wanting to utilize it somehow. So I'll try this, 'cause I've been working with the shark lately.

There's alot of pets that make great use of taunt, its just shark 1200 really appealed to me the most, unfortunately I generally dont run beastmastery unless im utilizing Soulbeast and even then, its really hard to argue to use taunt vs quickness on pet swap or more ferocity.  Atleast again for my builds I run. 

2 hours ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

I appreciate the ideas you've brought up though. More ways to play around with the pet is always welcome 😄

Yeah, I've been sitting and teaching a plethora of rangers both newbies and vets the tricks you can pull off, what spec & weapon synergies with what pet.  I generally always recommend starting Longbow or shortbow route if they're completely new.... the weapons is very straight forward. However, I hope one day people who play or even main rangers would open up their eye to full melee build as it does surprising amount of damage that people under-estimate. I've been teaching few rangers about some relic combos with opening strike, Midnight king relic is essentially like another version of Two-handed training expect it gives the added bonus of 3 might, downfall of this relic is that it has an internal cd of 1 and doesn't give you % dmg boost from your Greatsword like two-handed Training.

I make a video one day about it, as its feel much more rewarding compared to range counter parts.

 

[Dadnir.5038]

On 12/29/2023 at 5:53 PM, Zyreva.1078 said:

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

Proof enough that you don't know what the old "guard!" used to be.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

3 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Proof enough that you don't know what the old "guard!" used to be.

Imagine if it was the old guard, how'd that interaction would work with SB merge I wonder. Would you get the stealth, On demand Stealth for a ranger would of been Hilariously fun.

[Dadnir.5038]

3 hours ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Imagine if it was the old guard, how'd that interaction would work with SB merge I wonder. Would you get the stealth, On demand Stealth for a ranger would of been Hilariously fun.

Would have been great indeed.

That said, what was truly great with the original "guard!" was that you could place your pet in any area within the range of the skill regardless of pathing issue (it was supremely useful and would still be useful to date). I still miss the ability to set up ambushes with my pet but I mostly miss the ability to send my pet on top of the wall of the various keeps and towers in WvW to wreck havock... Heck I miss the ability to send any of my pets to the harpy plateform at the beginning of the uncategorized fractal!

[Zyreva.1078]

21 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Proof enough that you don't know what the old "guard!" used to be.

Yes, i totally don't know what the skill used to do and i also totally never meme'd people with it ...

18 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Would have been great indeed.

That said, what was truly great with the original "guard!" was that you could place your pet in any area within the range of the skill regardless of pathing issue (it was supremely useful and would still be useful to date).

That got fixed not long after release, so it's hardly part of the intended functionality of said skill. And i still strongly doubt it would be worth a slot in any competitive meta build, even if that wasn't changed. Keep in mind, everyone was a noob at the beginning, and many things that might have worked back then, would quickly become useless once players figure out how to deal with it. I mean, players died to 100blades back then, didn't they?

I certainly wouldn't want to waste a valuable utility slot just to send my pet onto walls and i doubt, any somewhat serious PvP player would want to send their pets in places it can get stuck until the skill is ready again (30s cd originally , mind you). It's not like pets do a whole lot on their own, especially nowadays. Whatever old guard could be used for, it was niche and more of a meme skill than anything else. Certainly nothing defining or relevant for the ranger class across the vast majority of this game's (and original skill's) lifetime and certainly nothing that would have any relevancy today (outside of some noob trolling maybe).

Edited January 1 by Zyreva.1078

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

On 12/31/2023 at 6:46 AM, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

Yeah, I've been sitting and teaching a plethora of rangers both newbies and vets the tricks you can pull off, what spec & weapon synergies with what pet.  I generally always recommend starting Longbow or shortbow route if they're completely new.... the weapons is very straight forward. However, I hope one day people who play or even main rangers would open up their eye to full melee build as it does surprising amount of damage that people under-estimate. I've been teaching few rangers about some relic combos with opening strike, Midnight king relic is essentially like another version of Two-handed training expect it gives the added bonus of 3 might, downfall of this relic is that it has an internal cd of 1 and doesn't give you % dmg boost from your Greatsword like two-handed Training.

I make a video one day about it, as its feel much more rewarding compared to range counter parts.

I used to love the GS + sword/warhorn on my ranger, so much so that the GS was my first legendary. But after they changed the animation for the sword, I couldn't get into it again. The original animations were so clunky for me at first, but then I learned to get used to the thing and ended up really liking it. I switched to axe/warhorn after the changes. Then the staff unlocked for us, and I've been having a blast with it alongside the aforementioned pair. The problem is... all the projectile hate lol I just cry inside when I fight a catalyst and I can't make a dent. Let alone when we're facing a boonball 🫠

I never got into the dagger. It looks really fun with Untamed, so I might have to suck it up at some point and try to get used to its animations/attacks. I definitely feel that ranger is very strong with its melee weapons. I guess I just didn't like that the dagger is really similar with thief attacks? Idk why that bothers me but it does. Even though it's known that Anet recycles various animations all the time. Anyway, I'm just on a tangent now. I feel like I can talk about ranger things all day.

[Oahkahmewolf.6210]

9 hours ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

I used to love the GS + sword/warhorn on my ranger, so much so that the GS was my first legendary. But after they changed the animation for the sword, I couldn't get into it again. The original animations were so clunky for me at first, but then I learned to get used to the thing and ended up really liking it. I switched to axe/warhorn after the changes. Then the staff unlocked for us, and I've been having a blast with it alongside the aforementioned pair. The problem is... all the projectile hate lol I just cry inside when I fight a catalyst and I can't make a dent. Let alone when we're facing a boonball 🫠

I never got into the dagger. It looks really fun with Untamed, so I might have to suck it up at some point and try to get used to its animations/attacks. I definitely feel that ranger is very strong with its melee weapons. I guess I just didn't like that the dagger is really similar with thief attacks? Idk why that bothers me but it does. Even though it's known that Anet recycles various animations all the time. Anyway, I'm just on a tangent now. I feel like I can talk about ranger things all day.

So I was mathing out recently on Turtle pet in Spvp and you can applie this to Wvw as well. So turns out, Opening Strike Turtle with heavy shot and all the dmg modifers +sic em +nature magic % dmg per boon trait and finally having max vuln stacks on the enemy can yield you roughly 11k-12k damage.  You can probably push it further if you didn't take an elite spec and took some other trait or normal spec that buffs the stats out for your turtle but to behonest you're banking on Rng for all that to align. Also i want to specify that this is done on target that have 0 toughness or base toughness so damage can vary.

The chances of having all that align is pretty rare, so at most with heavy shot you can see yourself having it hit with 4k to 6k consistently. Been rolling it in Spvp for my druid and its funny when someone gets downed by it.

 

People sleep on turtles damage.

Also here's a damage log on Turtles Heavy shot Turtle Log - Max might- sic em and Opening strike.

Edited January 5 by Oahkahmewolf.6210

[Zenos Osgorma.2936]

i've always thought that Pets should have their own personal Mastery tree , Time with a Pet soft Traits it in their own personal mastery tree, (kinda like how the WvW/pvp rewards works needing X amount of Pet EXP to max it out.

Rewards based upon the Pet type , soft rewards like reduced cool down or a Moa AoE now affect 10 people rather than 5.

or a Bear mastered , increases its Maximum HP or toughness by x or the Bear gets a little faster its mastered how to run downhill lol, starting at 5% and then maxing out at a 15% movement buff (could reduce speed on Pet's Prowess for this you don't want a bear running around at 45% base at all times or the Regen Adds Fear on F2 for all bears that have mastered their Personal trait line maxing out its EXP.

Or a Bird pet type that when maxed out Grants Aoe Boon of its 3rd skill becomes Swiftness pulses 3x, so you get 3x 8 seconds of swiftness to allies

or a New specific pet that is Designed to copy its master boons or share boons Moving the Fortifying Bond into the pet's own personal Trait line so you can choose to share boons or not.

Soul beasts have no Benefit of boon sharing outside of Taking beastmastery as your pet is merged if you want to run around in near full-time soul beast mode this could make it possible you can choose a Pet trait that isn't Fortifying Bond and opt for taking on the aspect of the bear for its 15% movement speed when the Pet has Mastered its personal traits. 

(soul beast is Typically just the combat version of Celestial avatar.)

PvE/ WvW wise, this would mean Each pet would need to be "mastered" to get the full benefits.

I'd see this as giving the Trait lines some Flexibility in the Ranger Traits considering now they have to Fit in Mace and Hammer (if they don't make room it is just adding more Text/ not much change in the trait affecting the new weapons, Two-handed training would work for Hammer but Not mace unless they change Strider's Strength to include mace.

it'll be a pet improvement still acting as Utility, content improvement, and Trait line Improvement.

 

keeping at bay the Traits that increase power but use soft traits that improve the Utility, mobility, Survival (HP or Toughness or Vitality no damage improvements directly other example could be Fern Hound max exp F2 Regenerate now also applies Protection for x seconds Soul beast would love this increased protection time) , in the Pets mastery Trait line you could add the Pets boon applications increase by 25% considering there's nothing for Pets to improve their boon Utility, protection from 2-3seconds to 5seconds.) 

 

Or even the Pet personal Trait to Remove boons on Crit , like giving a pet a Sigil or add f2 Boon Removal to the Pink Moa! ( i bet people will gladly give up the Moa f2 damage for a AoE boon Removal.)

 

Train your pet of choice to suit your needs as a complement to your trait lines rather than just a Latched-on Utility.

 

and tbh outside of beast mastery and soul beast mode, pets are Still lackluster.

 

Edited January 6 by Zenos Osgorma.2936

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

17 hours ago, Oahkahmewolf.6210 said:

So I was mathing out recently on Turtle pet in Spvp and you can applie this to Wvw as well. So turns out, Opening Strike Turtle with heavy shot and all the dmg modifers +sic em +nature magic % dmg per boon trait and finally having max vuln stacks on the enemy can yield you roughly 11k-12k damage.  You can probably push it further if you didn't take an elite spec and took some other trait or normal spec that buffs the stats out for your turtle but to behonest you're banking on Rng for all that to align. Also i want to specify that this is done on target that have 0 toughness or base toughness so damage can vary.

The chances of having all that align is pretty rare, so at most with heavy shot you can see yourself having it hit with 4k to 6k consistently. Been rolling it in Spvp for my druid and its funny when someone gets downed by it.

People sleep on turtles damage.

Also here's a damage log on Turtles Heavy shot Turtle Log - Max might- sic em and Opening strike.

That's wonderful. I've been running around with turtle lately for the higher health like you folks mentioned, and paired with its bubble plus the slam, it has been pretty nice. I don't use the slam skill much since it takes forever/seems to get stuck on queue the most, but the bubble has been very consistent so it feels nice for defensive moments. Having it dish out a 5k hit that people don't typically expect is a nice plus. I have just been doing my best to time it when the opponent is not paying attention to it, since it's slow and needs a bit of element of surprise IME.

4 hours ago, Zenos Osgorma.2936 said:

or a Bear mastered , increases its Maximum HP or toughness by x or the Bear gets a little faster its mastered how to run downhill lol, starting at 5% and then maxing out at a 15% movement buff (could reduce speed on Pet's Prowess for this you don't want a bear running around at 45% base at all times or the Regen Adds Fear on F2 for all bears that have mastered their Personal trait line maxing out its EXP.

I am imagining this happening and I love what I'm seeing in my head. A rolling bear that causes a push/knockdown if you're in the way. I would honestly love skills like that.

This idea of a pet traitline makes me think of what they've added for the Soulbeast, in terms of what interactions we get per type of pet. So it doesn't seem out of reach. I definitely agree that this class would have benefited with this kind of system, so that a stronger focus on pets is established right at the onset. Gives them more weight even before we take them out into the battlefield.
This also adds into the RP side of things for rangers. I've always liked how we go out in the world and tame the pets we have (albeit sometimes killing their parents in the process, but let's not talk about that...), so something like this just adds to that kind of flavor.

At this point in the game, I'm not sure if they'd be open to adding something like this for us though I have a feeling your idea isn't really for that purpose, but rather a "they should have done this" idea, which I agree with. If something like this is in the cards though, then they'll definitely have to polish the pets to make sure boons and actions they're supposed to do work consistently. And scalable defenses would still be needed for scenarios wherein pets are typically nuked into orbit in a few quick seconds. We don't have to go ham, just make the pets useful and balanced according to the changes the game has gone through with each expansion. If players are dealing much beefier damage, for example, then our pets should be upgraded to withstand the damage better as well, etc.

[anduriell.6280]

Every year same issues no solutions given by the devs.  Look we discussed this already to the extenuation in the old forums: 

* make the pet to have a lower target priority than other players  for AoEs, exactly the same as for boons and friendly AoE effects. It would be great if this didn’t applied for the pet’s ranger thou. 

* Make the pet to replicate the defensive boons by baseline from the ranger like the minor trait from nature magic. 

* increase the HP from 25% to 50% over all the pets.

* reduce the leash range while on passive to 250 units tops. The lack of control over passive pets is disgusting at this point. Not only because they keep going  to the middle of random AOEs but also they are usually too far away for the use of defensive skills. 

* when the ranger uses an skill/trait to cleanse a condition pet is also cleansed by the same amount. 

yeah pets will still pop out of existence if they get focused by a heavy dps but they should not disappear if the ranger keep up with the Zerg. 

aside from a full rework of pet skills and maybe giving core the F1-F3 from untamed. I don’t really get why that is not a thing already.