Whydid they even put pets in this game?

This game boasts about the most horrible pet system of any game I have ever played. The fact you need at least 2 slots 2 simply use a pet(comfort animal to keepit alive) is kind of excessive. But when consider this game has no controls whatsoever for pets its a real pity.

Truthfully the devs had no buisness putting in pets if they were going to half ass it. Everquest has had a superior pet control system and that game is a decade old. Basic things like pet attack this target and pet come back to me....not even in the game. Much less a guard this area command.

The pet system is so retarded that if I take one god damn step my pet comes running back to me. He wont stay on the target. So I send my pet on a monk, and the monk moves around the corner a little bit. The minute I adjust my view to see him the pet comes right back to my feet. How in the world did this kraptastic pet system make it past beta?

Truly unbelievable, horrid system. It makes no sense to require charm animal and basically comfort animal, AND then have no controls at all. Pets are simply a shoddy gimic in this game. To invest 10+ points beast mastery and 2 slots....just to have the pet, not to mention attack skills, only to find you have a braindead idiot following you around instead of attacking the target you want him to is beynd comprehension. How about a positive update and fix this issue. It should have been done at release.

Well, I have fought the ranger build recently in Tombs. Their main strategy was using pets. I was quite suprised, they worked pretty well and they have beaten us.

Pet attacks are actually better than normal ranger attacks... e.g.
distracting lunge.... same as distracting shot but with a cooldown of 3 seconds less. Remember, the game is about specialisation, and therefore you have to specialise to get anything out of a pet ^^

Whatsmore beast mastery also has tigers fury, symbiosis and fertile season in it.... what more do you want ???

If you dont know how to use pets, dont use them.
If you are low in beast mastery dont use them, youre just feeding a necro.

If youre high on beast mastery your team size just increases by almost 1 members at the beginning, depending on how high beast mastery and amount of beast skills in bar is.

Best mastery should never be below 11, because most beast mastery numbers increase fast for every extra atribute point spend in it!

The good thing about pets is that your pet skills determine what kind of foes are your pets favourite food, but your foe most times doesnt know your pet skills fast enough.
pets are a "secret kind of class" in early match.

Pets are ok for PvE, especially early on, but they are worthless in most builds for PvP. In addition, they get toasted in the late stages of PvE because the can't be protected by being infused.

The lack of basic commands and the fact that they require so much real estate on your skill bar to even be decent is a sad fact. This is one area that GW really suffers by comparison to other online games.

would it be "unbalancing" to give the pets the same rudimentary understanding of orders that the henchies have?

i think not, but who am I to judge.

one reasin why Thunderhead Keep is relatively difficult is, the dwarf king uses pet AI.

but pets are just not like hencheman, hencheman are full players, pets are not intended to be such.

I think it looks great a girl in armor, with ascalon helmet, carrying a big axe, and have a pet. Looks like W/R w/ pet is the most underrated choice. Am proud!

Pets are done better in every other game i have played. If you move for any reason, your pet stops attacking the target. The ability to sic a pet on one target at least be free to move would be the very least GW could do. Consier how much point/skillbar investment is required just to use a pet.

Some commands would be nice, but in strictly PvE, the pet AI can be better than the henchmen. The pet will stay on a target while I target other things to poison or disrupt them, not try to run to each one in succession and end up not doing anything, like Stefan will for instance. He seems to stay pretty good in PvE, even if I move.

Then, mobs dont tend to move like people do in PVP. Haven't used a pet PVP, so couldn't comment on how much a problem that really is. Perhaps it's something to do with the target moving, and the pet 'losing' it's target.

full players? they more behave like well trained dogs.

thats what my pet should be able to do.

(at least at high beast mastery that is)

well i got a clue: ask peter molineux or howsthatspelled if you could take the pet routines from black and white:

oh yea, heres the flurry rope... come on, be nice to that troll, you know, it just had a hard childhood...

oh and not to forget: eat that darn villager! come on! eat it!
and now take a crap right in the middle of the market place... good boy...

Not true, in the June 29th update pets were given the equivalent of infused armour.

I minimally want to be able to call my pet to my target and call it back to me.

I want it to go to the target I initally call, allowing me to roam across other targets and have it stay on its target (it does this); If I need it to break off, I want tab utton that calls it back to me, overriding its urge to fight. If I want it to break off and target my opponent I suppose that this could be accomplished by calling the pet back, then calling a target again.

What would be even nicer is if my pet had an attack bar like I do, showing what my pets opponent was doing. This way I could sick my pet on a healer in the back, to use pet skills like disrupting lunge on, while using my bow to poison/harass others. This would make the pet more useful. Have it so a called pet won't attack until I call a target, so to pull a group, I simply call my pet first, then attack, then run back - pet stays with me. Once I want the pet to run back in I call target and off he goes. I get two target bars, one for my pet's enemy and one for mine.

Best of all would be to make pets either resurrectable by a monk OR have the charm animal skill double as the resurrection skill. Comfort animal can be kept as a skill, it would instead heal the pet and cure conditions (maybe just the conditions that an antidote signet cures) - that or just merge the current charm animal and comfort animal skills.

In reply to the topic title: For the scrubs who just have to have a pet, because, you know, pets are sooo cool.

as someone else has stated Pets make a very good addition if you are specializing in beast mastery. This entire game is about specializing in one area....not being great at everything. Spread your points out amongst 4 or 5 attributes and you aren't going to be effective...spread them out over 2 or 3 attributes and you're going to be incredibly effective...this is where the pet becomes effective.

Also...most characters have an obvious workable build very early on....Ranger is a very tough class to get familiar with. More and More we are seeing solid PvP AND PvE builds that make the ranger very very useful. Namely the 4 man UW Trapper Builds...and a few of the PvP builds(One based entirely around pets and beast mastery)...But for the new players wanting to play a ranger for the first time it can be quite difficult to find a build that works and makes you a contributing member of a team. The addition of a pet makes it easier for you to contribute without having to know an extensive amount about builds. The pet acts as a tank and an extra damage dealer. This is why you notice later in the game that select few rangers are still using their pet...and the ones that do generally have a VERY useful Pet build.

The requests the OP asked is actually things i want to see on HENCHMEN first. I would lke to be able to tell henchmen to attack target or come back to me and STAY HERE. I dont expect such commands for each henchmen, just for the whole group [leader of team gets it if its a mixed team]. Telling hench to stand still, follow and attack sounds pretty basic, only THEN would i expect them on pets :P

I was thinking that only the henchies were given that, thanks for the correction Alex.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=30792


already argued

I've actually seen top 50 guilds using pets effectively in gvg and have tested that pets are actually useful and can deal out good damage here and there. To use a pet effectively you need 3-4 slots on your bar. Rangers dont need anymore than 4 skills of their own mainclass to be super effective. A preparation 2 attacks and another skill maybe a stance. If your monks know to heal the pets then they dont die easy.

Definately a good place to start.