ArenaNet talk:Skill feedback/Ranger/Animal Companions/Beast Mastery

Honestly, pets are fine in PvE as long as you're intelligent. I'd go so far to say that they're quite strong- I had a level 5 phoenix tank Ice Caves of Sorrow recently, quite useful considering it took at most, from a single hit, about 5 damage with the setup I was using. In PvP, these are also how they should be- I hate to say this, but go find some of the info on World of Warcraft beast hunters- do you really want pets to be autonomous death machines? They're strategic distractions, as it should be. --Kalas Silvern 09:51, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Why are you comparing this game to World of Warcraft?? They are two separate games and are designed by two different companies. That's nice you used your worthless level five pet phoenix and dedicating seven out of your eight skill slots to buff your animal companion which made your character worthless. Also why would you use a pet as a distraction, there damage is worthless and on player with a reasonable amount of intelligence is not going to waste their time killing it unless they want to instantly blackout your skills. If they were designed to be just a distraction, then why would they add animal companion attack skills that does plus damage on their attacks?William Wallace 10:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with William that it is not fun having to invest so many skills to make the pet do anything, and I like the Wacraft beast hunter pets---they can customize their pet and have it be dangerous. Right now, if I took 7-8 beastmaster skills in Guild Wars, the pet can do a few tricks...but all I can do is auto attack, and the pet attacks so slowly that he still can't compete with a player.  I still use it though because my moa is cool, but doing a pet shout doesn't have the control or power of a normal attack skill. - Elder Angelus 21:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, WoW does a much better job at this. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:72.71.231.88 (talk).
 * Charm Animal is one of the best skills in the game. You get another level 20 warrior on your team at the cost of one skill slot.  ~Shard  [[Image:User Shard Sig Icon.png]] 21:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Shard so youre saying if you take 2 pet rangers you got like 4 positions into 1 ? :p (yess i'm being a !!! yes i know what you mean and i know youre right at it) Lilondra 15:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Playing world of warcraft, they do pets better. Just not in a style I think would be compatible with GW's attribute system.  Best fix for pets is to fix ai- make them not take a second to register their target, let the ranger move around, etc.  Also, condense some of the skills, or make them give diminishing returns at high att. levels, so you can invest in something else too. Overall, I'd say they're fine for pve if you're intelligent, but they could use a little (LITTLE) help in pvp. --Kalas Silvern 06:04, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I find beast mastery rangers are quite well off if you only dedicate 4 or 5 slots to BM skills (ie. 4 pet only and Rampage as One or something). Then the last few slots are good for some damage or condition applying attacks. I used that kind of build to run some guildies through PvE and it worked out well, however in PvP it's still got a couple of kinks, but then again, so do most builds. Techie2200 16:18, 26 August 2008

Pets are only good for one thing: Tanking. You bring a full bar of 8 skills to create a tank when you have no warriors (or good warriors) available. Pets suck at DPS unless you bring 8 skills, and even then they barely have as much DPS as you would have if you just made a normal build yourself. The only reason pets see the light of day in PvE apart from tanking is for Barrage Pet rangers to bodyblock enemies. In PvP the are onyl ever used by wammos and to fuel IWAY (which sucks and is only used by n00bs)Crimmastermind 20:56, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Umm...try pvp someday. I think you'll change your mind about pets when you get molested by 6 level 20 warriors being safeguarded by the other 5 people on their 11-man team.  ~Shard  [[Image:User Shard Sig Icon.png]] 04:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Pets are only OP when they are stacked (like hex stacking). By themselves, one pet isn't that powerful.Crimmastermind 04:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * But when stacked with Rampage as One Hammer Warrior and One Sword Warrior Both With Unremovable Sprint and Burst of Aggression, they're very overpowered. If RaO didn't exist, and expertise didn't make rangers the most efficient melee class, pets would be fine.  ~Shard  [[Image:User Shard Sig Icon.png]] 04:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry Shard, but you're the only one in this conversation who thinks that pets are okay, and probably the only person on the planet to call them overpowered. Calling them an extra 20th level warrior or a free tank is also rediculous. Thier DPS, their armour, their utility, even their general usefulness is nowhere near a warriors. You might as well call them a free caster - you wouldn't be more wrong. Bringing a pet would be a good way to ensure a party wipe in any elite area, if anyone would let you onto their team for an elite area with a pet - which they wont. 217.234.220.127 14:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * PvE != PvP. Beastmasters, particularly thumpers, are powerful in PvP because PvP is focused on single target damage. Beastmasters are weak in PvE because PvE is focused on multi-target damage. -- Gordon Ecker 01:46, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Pets are not good in PvE. All they can do is tank, and that is pretty much a waste of a character (warrior can tank better and do more damage). Pets in PvP come in two forms, Gimmick and Non-Gimmick. Non Gimmicks are the sort of thing that is a Warrior who decides to bring along a pet with tille to no attribute points in Beastmastery. Needless to say, they fail. Gimmicks include stuff like the now "fixed" exploit of Guild Lords+Hexes+Pets+Cyclone Axe=Dead in 1 sec. Pets are in fact nowhere near as good as a human warrior due to fail targeting; fail ability to use interrupts, KDs or other utility (srsly, 2 second attack means that you have no real on-call KDs or interrupts); and overall the fact that take nearly all of a Ranger's attributes to use effectively. However, in gimmick builds invovling pets, you can liken them to gimmick builds invovling mass minions (except worse in every way). You use your minions/pets to clog up radar and space, making targetting and moving annoying and making foes unable to switch targets due to being hemmed in by mass minions/pets. Wow, Pets are better than Zergway because of higher damage, but fail overall because of inability to "bomb" like minions and not enough to really swarm foes.125.236.141.155 07:25, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, pets = liability in PvE. Their autoattack rate is comparable to a hornbow, damage is much less than a sword warrior with equal attribute rank, and DPS is worse. Eats up skill slots, and they have absolutely no synergy with a bow.

Karate Jesus's Issue
Heeeeh? What do you guys think? Karate  Jesus  14:24, 12 July 2009  (UTC)
 * Anybody? Karate   Jesus  18:56, 12 July 2009  (UTC)
 * I like the AoE idea :> –  Emmett  19:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * They probably wouldn't do the AoE idea (not that they even look here), but it would be cool if Ferocious Strike gave you and your pet some low level of AoE. Karate   Jesus  19:17, 12 July 2009  (UTC)
 * I agree with both points - specific pet "families" or types can have inherent bonuses unique to that type, and that pets need AoE damage badly. Even if it's restricted to a few pet types (since birds or rats doing aoe damage is pretty silly), a bear or tiger being able to maul multiple targets would go a long way to helping pet damage match ranger damage.
 * Given the one-faceted nature of PvE right now, I think giving pets big damage and AoE damage are the best options. Even buffing the recharge on some things like bestial mauling wouldn't actually help, even though it would be a "buff." One of my ideas was giving Enraged Lunge (PvE) a flat damage bonus, and not one attached to the number of useless skills on your bar. Once that starts doing 100 every 5 seconds as a stand-alone skill, other non-elites can be tweaked to complement pet damage or survivability. Also, with your idea to use Ferocious as the elite AoE attack, there could be a non-elite version for use on Enraged bars. Depending on the situation, a ranger could take either for pet damage - a bunch of weak monsters would warrant the elite AoE damage skill, a bunch of bosses would warrant the single target damage skill. - Auron 19:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oops, forgot to mention my other idea - merge charm and comfort animal into the same (non-elite) skill. They wouldn't ever overlap, really - if the pet is alive, the skill heals it. If the pet is dead, the skill resurrects it. If the pet doesn't exist, the skill charms a new one. There's really no reason to have them as two skills for PvE. - Auron 19:48, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually, I like the idea of there being inherent effects that pets have and some of them having AoE ("you hit up to 2 adjacent targets to your target" something like that), but that would make everyone want the pets that do the AoE. Eh, anything to spice up BM/make it useful in PvE would be nice. Oh, and they should definitely combine charm and comfort animal. Karate   Jesus  18:37, 13 July 2009  (UTC)