Yes, more Pet Suggestions...

One very, very little thing I'd kinda like to see is pets showing in your party list in town, so if you get someone with a pet join your group, you'll know right away "oh look, he has a pet!" Of course this would be something to implement once pets become been a bit more useful, because if you did it right now it would just serve to prevent the few beastmasters out there from ever getting a group. "Oh look, a ranger with a pet, well pets sux so no thx" *kick*

Gaile Gray, Thomasuwoo here. Long time "We are for pets" promoter. Having run our pet build in the tombs and totaly tearing up with it I can understand why pet's cause the dmg they curently do. There are a couple of niggling things though that would be nice.
Someone mentioned it earleir but when your pets first engage they stay staic for an entire attack animation cycle before attacking. That is unless you have call of haste on. We've been trying to use muddy terrian to keep the pets in range of atatcking but because of this animation cycle problem unless we criplle the pets target they rarely land a blow.
Another thing that bothers us a little is the fact that the pets won't atatck unless you attack someone with a weapon so our warder has to constantly use his wand to get his pet to aggro a target. then all the target needs to do is move out of our warders agro circle (Might be a bit further on secconfd thought) and the pet returns idle. We tried using otugys cry to remidy this hopping it would get our pets to all focus on the one target (If this would have worked I can imagine the enimies terror when they saw that shout on them !) but it didn't work either. Not that we're complaining it gave all pets in the area 20 armour and that's not to be shunned at!

On the note of combining charm animal with comfort I had a thought. If you're going to make it so it can res your pet why not make it function as rebirth for pets with a longer cast time, higher recharge, and harsher penalties. So if your pet cops a few unlucky blows and hits the dirt after the fight you can res him, but like rebirth it's just not a good idea to do it in the thick of battle. At present we get one player to bring revive animal. If after the fight (We tombs with our pets) we're a couple of critters down and we need em back on their feet before we move onto the next battle we get that player to go reviving. It's like light of dwayna for pets with a longer cast time.

I'm all for improving pet's AI but be cautious in buffing them up, we're tearing up the tombs enough as is. The only team in there without a monk and able to outheal every team. If you've beaten us it's usually because you've ganked us. We've taken on 3 spikers at once and lived. Buff the pets if you will but just keep us in mind .

Just one last thing can we please have the option to dye our pets! Moa's look awsome as is but just imagine their horror when they see a bright pink one charging at them.

Oh no... I know I'm going to regret mentioning this and my pet mates are going to kick my arse....
But the pets are bugging with predatory season. They're not getting any hp from atatcking but players with pets whenever they are attacking are getting 2 predatory season bonuses! Our ranger/war with cyclone axe is tearing up. Just another side note with predatory season. is supposed to heal for 5 hp per hit and drop heals by 20%. This effects predatory season too! So each strike is only healing for 4hp! Was this ment to be this way or is it an unfactored byproduct?

Oh.... about pet's hp.... Either revive animal or Comfort animal is lying to us about the amount of HP it gives to your pet.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one suggesting this.

Im totally for animal dying...

You know how hard it is to see that darn BLACK widow spider sometimes?

I wanna dye mine green when i get him and call him a moss spider... WHICH IS ANOTHER SUGGESTION! MOSS SPIDER TAMEABLE!!!!!! *ALARMS GO OFF*

GOGO!

And yes, the pets lag and stand still for a whole attack cycle, i noticed that the moment i got my pet and it still irks me to this day x.x

I do wonder why moss spiders aren't able to be tamed. There are some 'green' ones presearing. They would make great pets. At least have one other kind of spider in the game with pet status. I wonder if it's a bug.

There is a spider with pet status.... its the black widow spider...

But... ITS IN UW >.< so you have to go through close to the whole game and ascend to even think about getting one.

I bet Anet was like.

"Spider will be a popular per, lets make it close to impossible to get one and tease everyone with a non-tameable green spider in pre-searing".

WELL YOU KNOW WHAT ANET!

I DONT WANT SOME UBER BLACK WIDOW SPIDER! I WANT A PIDDLY LITTLE BROWN SPIDER FROM PRE-SEARING! heck i'll make another character if they change that to tameable.

Edit: Or besides presearing they could throw a few in maguuma around the giant enemy spiders!!!

Edit: *dances to Haddaway - what is love* *nods head over and over like night at the roxbury* ~.~

lmao

I tried taming that little brown spider. I thought a necro with a spider would be awesome. A Maguuma would be great.

Rofl.

You're a legend, if you still have any openings in trying this build , add me please. In game name Onfire Of Phoenix.

Well, here is my suggestion for pet commands: i think they should be activated with mouse and not with keyboard or screen buttons. The idea is to double-click the mouse on target to make pet attack/come/stay... while holding some key like shift or anything like that. Just like the ctrl-doubleclick works for targeting. For example:

1) you hold shift and double click enemy: pet attacks that enemy
2) you hold shift and double click yourself: pet comes to you (and behaves like it usually does, follows you when you move etc)
3) you hold shift and double click pet: pet sits and stays untill you command him something else or get too far from him

Of course, if you don't target an enemy, your pet will still attack the one you are attacking.
I like the bubbles (shouts) idea which could also work with this - the bubbles could show up when you command, but that isn't necessary.
Instead of shift, any key could be used for targeting.
There could also be pet emotes like those already suggested. It would be REALLY COOL if your pet would be dancing with you (picture that ) or sitting when you are.
Suggestions and corrections are welcome.

don't pets work like henchies anyway? you can get henchies to attack by calling ( they run off on their own without you havein to aggro) and get them to come back (even if they are under attack) by calling that you are following yourself (not always but most of the time)

I agree with all of it too, Anet....... open your eyes here!

No, they'll attack the first thing you attack with a basic attack (Ie, Wand, Bow, Srowd etc.) Not spells. They'll change target when you attack something else.if the targt moves too far away the pet will give up chase and mill around until you attack something again.

For my final character slot I decided to give a beastmistress a go, I'm only fairly new with her but I feel I've got enough experience to comment on some of the suggestions here.

Yes. A full out beastmaster/mistress I believe can get away with this usage of skill bar slots, but more diverse builds which by how the game mechanics works Guild Wars seems to promote suffer too much from this.

For a pet to be effective at least half your skill bar has to be devoted to it, which I believe to not be balanced with other characters. The minimum one could get away with would be charm animal and 2 attack skills. These attack skills would then have to be one of the 4 5sec recharge ones (scavengers/predators/disrupting/brutal) to maintain any kind of reasonable damage over time. You then can't inflict a condition yourself to use scavengers on, and if you're not going to be taking comfort animal then predators is fairly essential.

You are then screwed if your pet dies in battle (is bad enough in regular quests/missions but UW/FoW and it's really no fun), in PvE where renegade W/Mo's rule supreme this will no doubt be fairly often so you are forced to bring a pet revive as monk res's or signet don't work on your pet, and you're not going to find a group with another ranger with revive animal on him. I just can't see any way of cutting back from 4 skill slots just to keep your pet somewhat effective in the average pick up PvE group.

A warrior on the other hand, or a marksman can easily get away with using 3 skills to be an effective force (more so I believe than a pet with 4) on the field leaving much more option for diversity in other attributes.

You then still miss out on the bleeding/extra dmg combo of feral lunge and scavengers as with only 2 attack skills you can't get away with only getting 3 attack skills off in a 10 second period, also you don't get any usage of pet buffs (oltyugh's cry/call of protection/call of haste). Effectively anything that would make your pet as strong or stronger than for example a warrior or marksman without devoting more of you skill bar to your pet.

I like the idea suggested here by which charm animal is replaced by comfort animal after you have charmed a pet. Once you have gotten rid of your pet this skill return to comfort animal. This comfort animal must then be equipped at all times that you want your pet.

I don't agree with this, although being a beastmistress this would of course be very nice for me I believe the current system to be a suitable penalty.

Yes. Not much more to be said about this one, unless you want to strip a swordsman of his sword when he dies and has to run from the respawn to go and collect it before he can be effective again I don't see how this can be fair.

Definately, this is something I very much miss when comparing my beastmistess to my other characters. I like stats, I want to see if so and so skill I'm using is effective or whether I should be trying something else. I want to know if adding some buffs to my pet is making him do enough more damage for the extra skill slots/attribute points/energy costs are worth it. I would also like is as some feedback that my pet is actually doing something, rather than just relying on the attack animation which my view to often blocked to or is hard to see. Especially on some of the tougher baddies and when there are many players in your party using various skill I just have no idea whether my pet is being effective or not.

What if Charm Animal worked like Res signet for pets? A One off use that can be used on any allied pet once, unless recharge with a moral boost?

I just think they should combine charm and comfort into one skill. Easiest solution IMO.

if ANet thinks, this may become unbalanced, then what about this:
Combine Pet rezzing & Pet acompaning in an Elite Skill.
No pet healing, but saving up 1 skill slot for the cost of the elite.
I myself would not be completely satisfied with it, but it may be a compromise.


For the rest of the suggestions: I'm still desperatly waiting for the displaying of your pet's dmg...


Also for the statistic: The pet could show up in the Inventory Window (I) including all stats. So you can actually see you pet develop and not only the level and indirect the health when healing it.
I understand this will require a lot of changes and a major update, but the ranger is always special with his companion and therefor truly needs special care

The one that i really care about is the dispaly of damage dealt by your pet. I don't really know if my pet is effective or not (though i think they are better than bows for dmg dealing)

A bit overpowered though don't you think? The IDea about combining comfort and charm into an elite skill has merrit though.

Bumpity Bum Bum Bump

I agree with the original poster.

Pets are fairly good, but aside from the fact that you have to keep both it and you alive (taking at least 3 slots already from charm, comfort, and a self heal), they are just too damn stupid to be good. You have 5 slots left. Who cares? It's just going to run halfway across the arena, and sit by your corpse after you're dead.