To all rangers complaining about dead pets.

Did you notice it's health bar? Did you heal it when it was getting damaged?

I think much like myself most people had no idea where the pet information was and never took care of the thing, thinking it would just heal itself or something. One thing I couldn't get used to was using my heal cd to heal my pet. I only healed when MY health was low. I never even thought about healing my pet. 

Eventually I used pet swapping and that made it a little easier, but wasn't a complete fix.

Considering you have two of them at any one time, it's not an issue really :)

You'll find the pets with heals also tend to stay alive a lot longer. There definitely are 'tanking' pets that are designed more for being beat up on (like the pink moa has a higher toughness stat than most pets).

 

i basically said screw the pet and made him a sniper. which "worked" the problem is even though i stowed the pet he would automatically come out like freakin psyduk from pokemon run headlong into machine gun fire and limp back to my, i found put though that they auto heal even when downed so really ignore them let them do their own thing lol

and yes i watch the health bar of the pet but it became worthless to heal him because a) he died to fast for me to get any heal off and b) i couldnt heal myself if i suddenly started getting kicked around.

This is one on the few things I really dislike about GW2. The pet system works very good, there are lot of pets with diferent skills, stats and everything looks more usefull and confortable. What I don't really like is the lack of choice for the player like GW1. I can't choose the stats or skills of my pet so everytime I need one pet I have to choose based in their skills and not the type. There are no trainings, and I think that's cool because it was a really boring thing about the first game.¿But do the game really need to eliminate the chance of changing the pet skills and stats and let the player get what he likes like the first game?

For example I play with bears in PvE because with 2 of them you can tank groups of mobs or hard elite mobs/bosses much better than any other pet. The only problem here is.... I don't like bears. Maybe for someone who cames from other game where yo can't choose like in GW1 sounds like something stupid, but I really miss the freedom of choice in this.

Originally posted by Magnetia

To all rangers complaining about dead pets.

Did you notice it's health bar? Did you heal it when it was getting damaged?

I think much like myself most people had no idea where the pet information was and never took care of the thing, thinking it would just heal itself or something. One thing I couldn't get used to was using my heal cd to heal my pet. I only healed when MY health was low. I never even thought about healing my pet. 

Eventually I used pet swapping and that made it a little easier, but wasn't a complete fix.

This is probably the best advice. Troll Unguent is very useful for this in solo PvE.

 

Anyway, we all know that what we really want is to be able to get armor for our pets. Not expecting it though.

i always keep an eye on my pet's health and use my area heal to keep it up or swap the pet when necessary.

i usually have a tank (bear, dog, pig) and a DPS pet (cat, eagle) to swap back and forth. it works pretty well for me. i also try to choose the pets for the best situations, ie. when playing in groups i choose my cat (group buff on F2), when running around solo a lot i select the eagle (DPS special).

i am used to play with pets from my SWG times (loved being a creature handler and a beast master later on) and i always build my playstyle around the pet/master system when playing such a class. of course there are best pets, but i found in GW2 each pet can be useful when you know its strength and weaknesses.

in underwater combat they seemed to have weakened the overpowered jelly fish from what i noticed in the last stress tests. but those little buggers are still the best pets in the game (good tanking with an area heal in water that could heal me too and an incredidble damage skill on F2 burning thru the health of all mobs nearby) :-).

pretty sure in a very recent interview they said that the pets will now regain health slowly even after downed

Originally posted by yaoming36

Hi I'm ranger level 25. In most fights, my pet is pretty decent tanker.

I have 2 signets on, one which increases the defence of pet and myself

And another which provides regenaration of myself and pet. Both of these are passive. Usually in any DE, my pet can survive  quiet easily with the help of my heal. 

The only place my pet ever dies is when we're taking on a boss or so and even then I can usually avoid death by simply pressing F3.

Pro Tip: Swap out pets right when one pet has about 10% hp left. That way your cooldown for bringing the initial pet back into fight is 20 seconds as opposed to 60 seconds if you let it die first. 

I feel many people don't use the swap function often. Swapping pets is crutial and another form of strategy to the ranger. Here are some reasons below.

- Full health upon swapping.

- Downed pets can't be swapped in or out and they'll be fully revived. 

- Allows to pull your pet out of damage AoEs instantly. 

 

i agree with you here, i rolled a ranger and i LOVED it so much, so much versitility in gameplay.

Get your pet in there and shoot with your longbow (longbow speaks for itself, just make sure to save point blank shot as you dont want to push enemys away at this time), get some bleeding going on before swaping to a sword/axe combo and getting stuck in to get some poison effect along side the pet attacks+bleeding+cripple.

Taking a little much damage up close, simple, swap out to the longbow and point blank shot to push the enemy back then heal/swap pet out and repeat for some condition heavy controled fights

P.S. the axe offhand means that wile your in close if your taking damage from alot of ranged attacks, just whirling defence and BOOM!

Originally posted by Magnetia

To all rangers complaining about dead pets.

Did you notice it's health bar? Did you heal it when it was getting damaged?

I think much like myself most people had no idea where the pet information was and never took care of the thing, thinking it would just heal itself or something. One thing I couldn't get used to was using my heal cd to heal my pet. I only healed when MY health was low. I never even thought about healing my pet. 

Eventually I used pet swapping and that made it a little easier, but wasn't a complete fix.

Yea I definately knew where the health bar was and watched it closely. Troll Ungent is by far the strongest heal, but also has the longest cd. I think a dedicated pet heal would be nice instead of having your heal tied in with your pets heal.

I mentioned this earlier and didn't see a response to it, but I think it'd be awesome if there was a tactics menu like the one you find in the Dragon Age games. If you could set up you pets tactics so they would use their specials at certain times or run out of AoE damage it'd be nice. 

Just to change up the tone of the thread a bit, what's everyone's favorite pet combnation?

I use a Bear/Jungle Stalker and a Jellyfish/ Drake combo.

 

For ordinary PVE roaming around,maybe doing some DEs as you come across them and see people playing...

 

Use two bears.  That's your best bet if you just want to be mostly lazy.   Do a pet swap as their health gets low.

Originally posted by enoch420

Originally posted by Magnetia

To all rangers complaining about dead pets.

Did you notice it's health bar? Did you heal it when it was getting damaged?

I think much like myself most people had no idea where the pet information was and never took care of the thing, thinking it would just heal itself or something. One thing I couldn't get used to was using my heal cd to heal my pet. I only healed when MY health was low. I never even thought about healing my pet. 

Eventually I used pet swapping and that made it a little easier, but wasn't a complete fix.

Yea I definately knew where the health bar was and watched it closely. Troll Ungent is by far the strongest heal, but also has the longest cd. I think a dedicated pet heal would be nice instead of having your heal tied in with your pets heal.

I mentioned this earlier and didn't see a response to it, but I think it'd be awesome if there was a tactics menu like the one you find in the Dragon Age games. If you could set up you pets tactics so they would use their specials at certain times or run out of AoE damage it'd be nice. 

Just to change up the tone of the thread a bit, what's everyone's favorite pet combnation?

I use a Bear/Jungle Stalker and a Jellyfish/ Drake combo.

 

I couldn't test the heals extensively because I only spent a small amount of time on the ranger but just enough to start notciing its health. It really does seem like they need some armor change or something.

I had a drake pet and that thing died all the time on me. My armorfish though was badass.

If you want to do a lot of WvsWvsW, I'd suggest the warrior over the ranger. Rangers pets are pretty darn useless in big WvsWvsW battles.

 

I played a Ranger a little bit.

I kinda saw my pet was useful as just a distraction.  Trying to play a dps pet that early in the game is going to be difficult. A tanky pet seemed to keep a mob busy for a bit while I dispatched the other nearby mobs that always seem to be around.

 

Once max level rolls around we will have to see how they play and how strong the pet builds can be. I for one would be planning on a pretty weak pet and buffing my own combat abilities for W V W v W , a weak gimmick pet with poison or something  might help some but I would plan on doing most of the damage myself.

Rangers will be wanted in the mists, so don't worry about that.

 

See my whole issue is that a ranger, like the WoW hunter, is a class based on pet/player combat. If I wanted to just shoot stuff I could play a few of the other classes and that'd be fine, however, the ranger's pet should play a bigger part in combat and in Ranger survivability without taking away from the fact that players shouldn't be lazy and just rely on the pet. In WoW you could pull multiple mobs with your pet and they'd be able to really dish out some decent damage while staying alive. I'm just a big fan of being a beast master and would love a beast master tree buff, but again I really want to get a ranger to a higher level before I can be sure or not if it's viable or not.

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by stevebmbsqd
The pet system in GW2 is really weak. I rolled a ranger and I just couldn't get into it. It didn't feel like a ranger or even a hunter for that matter.

same actually ranger was the only class of the 8 i didn't care for

 

Agree, which is a shame as if it wasn't for the pet I enjoyed the others aspects more than the other classes.   

Originally posted by grapevine

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by stevebmbsqd
The pet system in GW2 is really weak. I rolled a ranger and I just couldn't get into it. It didn't feel like a ranger or even a hunter for that matter.

same actually ranger was the only class of the 8 i didn't care for

 

Agree, which is a shame as if it wasn't for the pet I enjoyed the others aspects more than the other classes.   

What specifically about the pet?

Originally posted by Zooce

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

IMO, the ideal would be to leave it like it is now, but make pets insta-revive once combat ends. That way they're always up and ready to go, because they actually serve their purpose just fine now as combat initiators and buffers when used correctly. The annoyance comes in having to constantly revive them. Get rid of that, and they'd be fine.

That's a good suggestion.

I didn't play a ranger often but I agree with this.

My Moa and Bear did more tanking than anyone else in our Explorable mode Catacombs group.

They are not squishy at all.  Go beastmastery and use tanky pets.  Buffing them would make them ridiculous.  Lynx, Hyenas, Wolves, Moas, Bears, Drakes, and Devourers are all powerful pets for various reasons.  I could see buffing Ravens and Boars though.

Originally posted by RizelStar

Originally posted by Zooce

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

IMO, the ideal would be to leave it like it is now, but make pets insta-revive once combat ends. That way they're always up and ready to go, because they actually serve their purpose just fine now as combat initiators and buffers when used correctly. The annoyance comes in having to constantly revive them. Get rid of that, and they'd be fine.

That's a good suggestion.

I didn't play a ranger often but I agree with this.

As discussed in earlier pages they actually did put in instant revive and it doesn't even have to wait till after combat. It's called pet swap and it works wonders. After combat the pet swap CD is nonexistent so if you really just dont like your second pet it's stil not an issue. Swap, swap again. They could do what you said though and make them something you don't have to click one button to fix.