Druid, ranger, pets, AI and you.

[Lilyanna.9361]

> @Chaith.8256 said:

> > @Lilyanna.9361 said:

> > > @Morwath.9817 said:

> > > > @Chaith.8256 said:

> > > > > @ZhouX.8742 said:

> > > > > > @Chaith.8256 said:

> > > > > > > @ZhouX.8742 said:

> > > > > > > How many druids did last monthly AT see vs firebrand, mesmer, scourge and thief? This sort of answers your question in itself.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > The answer isn't exactly the the one you'd think though:

> > > > > >

> > > > > > November

> > > > > > Elementalist: 1

> > > > > > Engineer: 7

> > > > > > Guardain: 21

> > > > > > Mesmer: 12

> > > > > > Necro: 21

> > > > > > Ranger: 11

> > > > > > Revenant: 0

> > > > > > Thief: 11

> > > > > > Warrior: 11

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Edit: Ranger on Thief/Mes/War levels of representation

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Edit: By presenting this November monthly representation I'm not agreeing that Druid needs any fundamental changes or nerfs. Seems like it's in a spot relatively balanced around the games current power level. I'd rather talk about Scourge, Firebrand, Ele as a whole, Rev as a whole.

> > > > > >

> > > > >

> > > > > Ah interesting, I didn't realize ranger was on footing with thief / mes. This is good to know.

> > > > >

> > > > > Sad to see revenant and ele so low. I would think we should look at buffing them first, toning down scourge and MAYBE shaving Firebrand (maybe even let it stay as is) and see how that would pan out before looking at any other classes including ranger at this point. Revenant and Ele are definitely in need of some representation.

> > > >

> > > > A good part of giving Ele representation is allowing Tempest to not be simply deleted by Firebrand's existence.. Until Ele is situationally better in some way FB needs nerfs too.

> > >

> > > First thing Quaggan would do, he would revert nerfs which happened to Fire traitline, let Blinding Ashes be great again.

> >

> > And also giving us might on cantrips back as well. Celestial has proven to be hilariously weak, so stacking might ain't gonna make us op with a scourge throwing up on a point.

>

> Celestial is not hilariously weak. It's not worse than Sages/Avatar for Weaver when up against power damage. I tested this extensively with Phantaram, If Weaver had 20+ might, Celestial would be the optimal choice. Weaver lacks might, to buff Weaver I would suggest simply adding might to various traits and deserving skills.

 

That would require putting on the fire traitlines and Weavers can't afford it. I honestly can't imagine where you could stick might stacks without making it look random or redundant. Weaver you are always giving up something that /could/ make you useful.

 

That's the only reason why I suggest just putting the might back on cantrips, because in most builds as an ele, you are always taking some form of cantrip. It's not exactly might stacking, but it's a start to what you are suggesting though.

[Chaith.8256]

> @Lilyanna.9361 said:

> > @Chaith.8256 said:

> > > @Lilyanna.9361 said:

> > > > @Morwath.9817 said:

> > > > > @Chaith.8256 said:

> > > > > > @ZhouX.8742 said:

> > > > > > > @Chaith.8256 said:

> > > > > > > > @ZhouX.8742 said:

> > > > > > > > How many druids did last monthly AT see vs firebrand, mesmer, scourge and thief? This sort of answers your question in itself.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > The answer isn't exactly the the one you'd think though:

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > November

> > > > > > > Elementalist: 1

> > > > > > > Engineer: 7

> > > > > > > Guardain: 21

> > > > > > > Mesmer: 12

> > > > > > > Necro: 21

> > > > > > > Ranger: 11

> > > > > > > Revenant: 0

> > > > > > > Thief: 11

> > > > > > > Warrior: 11

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > Edit: Ranger on Thief/Mes/War levels of representation

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > Edit: By presenting this November monthly representation I'm not agreeing that Druid needs any fundamental changes or nerfs. Seems like it's in a spot relatively balanced around the games current power level. I'd rather talk about Scourge, Firebrand, Ele as a whole, Rev as a whole.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Ah interesting, I didn't realize ranger was on footing with thief / mes. This is good to know.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > Sad to see revenant and ele so low. I would think we should look at buffing them first, toning down scourge and MAYBE shaving Firebrand (maybe even let it stay as is) and see how that would pan out before looking at any other classes including ranger at this point. Revenant and Ele are definitely in need of some representation.

> > > > >

> > > > > A good part of giving Ele representation is allowing Tempest to not be simply deleted by Firebrand's existence.. Until Ele is situationally better in some way FB needs nerfs too.

> > > >

> > > > First thing Quaggan would do, he would revert nerfs which happened to Fire traitline, let Blinding Ashes be great again.

> > >

> > > And also giving us might on cantrips back as well. Celestial has proven to be hilariously weak, so stacking might ain't gonna make us op with a scourge throwing up on a point.

> >

> > Celestial is not hilariously weak. It's not worse than Sages/Avatar for Weaver when up against power damage. I tested this extensively with Phantaram, If Weaver had 20+ might, Celestial would be the optimal choice. Weaver lacks might, to buff Weaver I would suggest simply adding might to various traits and deserving skills.

>

> That would require putting on the fire traitlines and Weavers can't afford it. I honestly can't imagine where you could stick might stacks without making it look random or redundant. Weaver you are always giving up something that /could/ make you useful.

>

> That's the only reason why I suggest just putting the might back on cantrips, because in most builds as an ele, you are always taking some form of cantrip. It's not exactly might stacking, but it's a start to what you are suggesting though.

 

I'm suggesting to buff Weaver might stacking without the need to spec fire.

 

Things that would make sense to give might thematically:

 

- Elemental Refreshment (Additionally gain might on Dual Attack)

- Bolstered Elements (Additionally gain might on Stance).

- Fire Strike, Fire Swipe. (Currently they do nothing but damage.)

- Flame Uprising (Needs more reward for the risk.)

 

I think that if a reasonable amount of might was added to these mechanics, among other changes, Weaver would be a lot more competitive at its 1v1 role.

[Morwath.9817]

> @Chaith.8256 said:

> > @Lilyanna.9361 said:

> > > @Chaith.8256 said:

> > > > @Lilyanna.9361 said:

> > > > > @Morwath.9817 said:

> > > > > > @Chaith.8256 said:

> > > > > > > @ZhouX.8742 said:

> > > > > > > > @Chaith.8256 said:

> > > > > > > > > @ZhouX.8742 said:

> > > > > > > > > How many druids did last monthly AT see vs firebrand, mesmer, scourge and thief? This sort of answers your question in itself.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > The answer isn't exactly the the one you'd think though:

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > November

> > > > > > > > Elementalist: 1

> > > > > > > > Engineer: 7

> > > > > > > > Guardain: 21

> > > > > > > > Mesmer: 12

> > > > > > > > Necro: 21

> > > > > > > > Ranger: 11

> > > > > > > > Revenant: 0

> > > > > > > > Thief: 11

> > > > > > > > Warrior: 11

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > Edit: Ranger on Thief/Mes/War levels of representation

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > > > Edit: By presenting this November monthly representation I'm not agreeing that Druid needs any fundamental changes or nerfs. Seems like it's in a spot relatively balanced around the games current power level. I'd rather talk about Scourge, Firebrand, Ele as a whole, Rev as a whole.

> > > > > > > >

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > Ah interesting, I didn't realize ranger was on footing with thief / mes. This is good to know.

> > > > > > >

> > > > > > > Sad to see revenant and ele so low. I would think we should look at buffing them first, toning down scourge and MAYBE shaving Firebrand (maybe even let it stay as is) and see how that would pan out before looking at any other classes including ranger at this point. Revenant and Ele are definitely in need of some representation.

> > > > > >

> > > > > > A good part of giving Ele representation is allowing Tempest to not be simply deleted by Firebrand's existence.. Until Ele is situationally better in some way FB needs nerfs too.

> > > > >

> > > > > First thing Quaggan would do, he would revert nerfs which happened to Fire traitline, let Blinding Ashes be great again.

> > > >

> > > > And also giving us might on cantrips back as well. Celestial has proven to be hilariously weak, so stacking might ain't gonna make us op with a scourge throwing up on a point.

> > >

> > > Celestial is not hilariously weak. It's not worse than Sages/Avatar for Weaver when up against power damage. I tested this extensively with Phantaram, If Weaver had 20+ might, Celestial would be the optimal choice. Weaver lacks might, to buff Weaver I would suggest simply adding might to various traits and deserving skills.

> >

> > That would require putting on the fire traitlines and Weavers can't afford it. I honestly can't imagine where you could stick might stacks without making it look random or redundant. Weaver you are always giving up something that /could/ make you useful.

> >

> > That's the only reason why I suggest just putting the might back on cantrips, because in most builds as an ele, you are always taking some form of cantrip. It's not exactly might stacking, but it's a start to what you are suggesting though.

>

> I'm suggesting to buff Weaver might stacking without the need to spec fire.

>

> Things that would make sense to give might thematically:

>

> - Elemental Refreshment (Additionally gain might on Dual Attack)

> - Bolstered Elements (Additionally gain might on Stance).

> - Fire Strike, Fire Swipe. (Currently they do nothing but damage.)

> - Flame Uprising (Needs more reward for the risk.)

>

> I think that if a reasonable amount of might was added to these mechanics, among other changes, Weaver would be a lot more competitive at its 1v1 role.

 

...but don't you think Fire could get some love? It's the worst trait line after all those nerfs.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Ok this is just getting deeper and more skewed in opinions than it needs to be and that scares me because anet has a history of actually listening to threads like this. So please allow me "as a ranger main for many years" to take an alternative approach to this discussion and explain how to deal with bunker druids as it really is a l2p issue.

 

**Step #1, Understanding how Bunker Druids win battles of attrition** - The Bunker Druid by itself has very little damage but what it does have is plenty of small poison proc. Wilderness Survival and the trait Refined Toxins is becoming popular nowadays. Refined Toxins is a 6s poison that happens every 5s. With the use of venom sigil it becomes a 7s poison so long as the Druid remains over his 75% health threshold, the Refined Toxins work. This essentially means that you will be poisoned the entire duration of the 1v1 against the Druid. So not only does the Druid have superior healing in general but it is also constantly nerfing all of your healing by 33%. Even so, the damage from the Bunker Druid alone will not be enough to down you unless you're running some kind of ultra glass dps spec, can't figure out where your dodge roll button is and/or are plainly ignorant enough to stay in the 1v1 attrition battle that you can clearly see, you are losing.

 

**Step #2, Understanding how Bunker Druids kill players with PROPER pet bursting** - Yeah so this isn't quite as passive as users who are posting in here seem to think it is. Sure, if a new guy comes at a Druid wielding a poorly constructed Warrior spec, the AI alone on any pet will probably shred him apart without the Druid needing to use any pet skills. But if a good Spellbreaker comes at a Druid, the pet trying to attack him just fuels Full Counter usage and the Druid often has to set the pet to retreat and have it opt out of the 1v1 entirely. These are two extreme examples where on one hand, the pet AI is OP against less experienced players but on the other hand it is actually completely useless. Save your conjecture of other Class vs. Druids examples for later, I'll get in to it. Point being: Killing good players with pet usage isn't so easy. Pet AI may be OP against weaker players but it feels flat footed and clunky against strong players. Again, this is a l2p issue. When a Bunker Druid kills you with pet bursting, it looks something like this example:

* Druid is running Beastmastery and is using the Beastly Warden trait which causes pet F2 skills to proc a 2s taunt, every 20s.

* Druid is running Smokescale and Bristleback.

* Druid baits out opponent's dodges and defensive cool downs, stunbreaks and stabs with mini bursting that looks like attempted full dps bursting.

* Druid then waits for Smokescale to use Smoke Assault, which is his teleporting Rev Dog attack on 20s CD and the bulk of it's burst damage.

* This positions the Smokescale on top of the opponent. The Druid then uses its F2 skill which procs 2s taunt.

* Druid immediately positions himself on top of the opponent and swaps to Bristleback and pushes its F2 skill, which is heavy burst.

* Druid also uses Protect Me! for additional Taunt CC when he stands in between opponent and pet. The opponent cleaves almost always proc the Taunt.

* Druid swaps to his greatsword, uses hilt bash for daze/stun, goes into maul, followed up with a swoop if opponent is still standing.

* It's a lot of DPS burst for a bunker spec, it is. But know that this is not easy to do against good players because they already know the steps that are listed in Step #3.

 

**Step #3, Understanding how to not die to Bunker Druids** - It's real simple: Stop wasting dodge rolls/defensive CDs on the Bunker Druid and start using them vs. the pet attacks. This mitigates the large bulk of the dangerous DPS/CCs and renders the 1v1 into a situation where it becomes a knockback CC decap battle where neither player dies and they both are waiting for a + from a team mate to clear the node. If this still doesn't make sense to you, please refer to the meme that I posted earlier in this thread.

 

**Quick analysis and explanation of how different classes can survive against, kill or at least push a Bunker Druid off a node:**

* Scourge - Bunker Druids are immediately forced to leave the node when a Scourge shows up. The Bunker Druid relies too much on boons to survive, which end up being converted into conditions and Bunker Druids are weak to condis anyway because they only have two sources of cleanse. If the Druid tries to stay on the node against the Scourge, the pets explode from condi DPS and when the pets die, this eliminates the use of Signet of Renewal. This leaves the Druid with only 1 source of condi cleanse "Cele Avatar" and it isn't enough. The only thing that the Bunker Druid can do is put range between himself and the Scourge and kite it with ranged attrition. The Druid will also unleash a melee pet to stay on the Scourge, this forces the Scourge to choose between trying to DPS the ranged attrition or to focus the pet. If they are smart enough to down the pets, the Bunker Druid will have to leave the fight and go elsewhere or he'll be wasting time pew pewing with no pet support DPS. If they try to focus the Bunker Druid, the pet DPS and the Druid DPS will eventually kill the Scourge and the Druid will retake the node. **If you are a Scourge, LOS from the Druid attacks and kill the pets when the AI pathing comes to you around a corner. The Bunker Druid will have to leave the fight.** It is important to point out here though, that pets get absolutely nuked by Scourge condis.

* Spellbreaker - This is a never ending node hold battle. If the Spellbreaker can 1v1 kill a Bunker Druid, that is a bad Druid. If the Druid can 1v1 kill the Spellbreaker, that's a bad Spellbreaker. **No reason to go into detail here other than pointing out that pets certainly are not an OP advantage here. If anything they need to be set to retreat so the AI doesn't allow the Spellbreaker to so freely proc Full Counter.**

* Mirage - A good Mirage kills a good Bunker Druid, eventually. The Mirage will lose the node for awhile and the Bunker Druid will take it, for a short time. But the Mirage will eventually kill that Druid and retake the node. The quickest way that an intermediate Mirage can kill a good Bunker Druid is by downing the pets and removing the use of Signet of Renewal. Remember, pets don't dodge shatters. This is how the Mirage should do it: 1- Attack the Druid initially until you see him use Signet of Renewal. That first use of Renewal will transfer all of the Druid's condis on to his first pet. 2- Start focusing that pet and shut it down. If you're lucky, he will have recently used a pet swap and be on a 20s CD before being able to swap again and you kill that pet. Worst case scenario, he swaps to 2nd pet and is now on 20s CD for swap. 3- Keep focusing that pet and it dies fast to Mirage bursting. 4- So on and so forth until both pets are down, on 60s CDs before revival and the Druid has only 1 source of condi removal, Cele Avatar. this tactic also serves to mitigate the CCs/DPS from the pets, which eliminates any possible chance of the Bunker Druid being able to kill the Mirage or even make it leave the fight. However, **if you are a seasoned Mirage, you can kill Bunker Druids simply by focusing the Druid and ignoring the pet entirely. ** It should also be pointed out that it is very difficult to even touch a good Mirage with a pet burst.

* Holo - This is in my opinion, a fairly balanced match up. The Holo has just enough CC/DPS to actually kill or drive off the Bunker Druid if he knows what he's doing but he is also squishy enough that the Druid/Pet attrition can dwindle him down fairly quickly. **The Holo can down the pets with focused bursting, if he wants to eliminate the Bunker Druid's DPS for the purpose of simply bunking/holding his color against him or he should ignore the pets entirely if his goal is to kill the Bunker Druid, if the Druid is defending it's own color. The key for Holo to actually kill the Druid lies within understanding how the Druid uses its stunbreaks and learning how to stop that up so the Druid cannot so easily escape CC chains, get up and heal.** Pet play here is more harmful to the Holo than in the previous explanations as the Holo is a glass DPS spec.

* Firebrand Bunkers - You will forever battle the Bunker Druid and neither one of you will die. It will amount down to a decap battle and waiting for +.

* Physical DPS Guardian Specs - You're gonna get countered by the Bunker Druid unless he's a bad Druid. Avoid these 1v1s unless it's important to hold the node. Immediately call to your team for a +.

* Burn DPS Guardian Specs - The Bunker Druid will get countered by the consistent small burn procs and will eventually have to leave the node or stay and die. Remember that the Druid has only two sources of condi cleanse, both of which clear ALL condis on the Druid. So don't try and land enormous burn bursts, setting all skills in to CD, because the Druid will mitigate that damage quickly with remove ALL condi skills. What you want to do is land smaller more consistent bursts, which the Druid will eventually have to waste his two big condi clears on. **If you see Signet of Renewal on CD, wait until the Druid comes out of Cele Avatar and THEN land a big burst on the Druid. The Druid will die quickly if he was stupid enough to stay in the 1v1 up to this point, along with his pet. The pets die quickly to burn guard AoEs.**

* Thieves of all types - **Stop it, stop trying to 1v1 Bunker Druids. It never works out well unless the Druid is terrible or the Thief is amazing. Focus on the role of +ing and decapping.** Here I do have to admit that pet damage feels OP vs. Thief but.. what kind of DPS doesn't?

* Heralds of all types - It is possible for good Heralds to actually kill or push the Bunker Druid off the node but generally, this is going to be another 1v1 that neither party wins. The Herald can however decap the node over time with knockbacks and due to the use of the Druid's Cele Avatar Stealth but the Druid will also use knockbacks to take the node back. **Just another decap battle unless one of the players is somewhat stronger in combat than the other.** The pets here don't bother the Heralds so much. Good Heralds often just use the pet bursts to heal anyway. Another situation where the mindless AI is actually helping a good player fighting the Bunker Druid.

* Other Bunker Druids - **You win 1v1 by dodging pet bursts. You decap by landing your knockbacks and not getting hit by other knockbacks. Real simple. If both Druids are excellent however, this is just another 1v1 that will never end festival of decap.**

* All Ranger Oriented DPS - **You're only shot at killing a good Bunker Druid is to bait out its defenses and then unleash high DPS with CC chain attached. If you can't interrupt it's heals during DPS burst and do it quickly, the Bunker Druid is going to kill you in a battle of attrition.** 1v1s amongst ranger players likes this, amongst various build structures, is actually fun because they usually amount down to who is more experienced with ranger builds, rather than one player just having an OP build. There are actually many viable Ranger/Druid/Soulbeast specs right now. Pretty cool actually.

* Eles - Unfortunately, Ele is just kind of in a bad spot right now. Tempest isn't doing the job it once had and Weaver has the same problem that Ele has always had "the DPS is high but boy oh boy does it lack adequate defenses while running DPS". I can see anyone running Ele would think that pet DPS was OP. However they need to understand that this is not a problem with the pet's AI or statistics, it is a problem with the Ele class. **The best thing they can do here is not engage a Bunker Druid 1v1. But if the situation calls that the Ele is the only person to hold a node neutral or his color, I would say the best thing to do is to land all of that big Ele DPS on the pets. Down them and eliminate the Druid's DPS so the Ele can actually stay on the node, otherwise he's gonna get chewed by the steady pet spam attacks. **The Ele shouldn't expect to kill the Bunker Druid unless the Druid is less skilled than he is. If the Ele claims pets are too hard to DPS, he is doing something wrong as pets do not dodge roll, they don't block and the Druid only has so many heals to go through. If you can't kill the Druid, focus it's pets. They die a lot faster than the Druid will and it at least neutralizes the Druid's DPS so the Ele can hold a node against him.

 

Furthermore, in response to a couple of the suggestions I read in this thread:

* **Pet attributes scaling with the amulet the Ranger wears** - Are you sure about that suggestion? Did anyone stop to consider what it's going to be like when a smokescale comes them with berserker amy, fury buff and 25 stacks of might? Did anyone stop to think about pet healing when it scales with Mender?

* **Allowing full control of ALL pet skills to the player** - It's too much in my opinion. A Razer Naga as example, barely has enough buttons for the user's right hand to handle the actual character's functions. The user then uses his left hand to control WASD, dodge rolls and w/e other functions he already has set on the keyboard. If the the pet panel was given an additional 3 keys to control the pet's auto, 2nd and 3rd skills, we'd have 7 buttons as F skills and a lot of new focus to dedicate not only to the positioning and attack streams of the Ranger but now also precision play for attack streams on the pet. It's just too much imo. It would be like controlling two characters instead of one. I feel the AI is fine as it is.

 

Besides that, I think everyone needs to be more worried about the balance aspects that Chaith has already mentioned.

 

[OGDeadHead.8326]

@ Trevor Boyer - Good post!

 

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> Furthermore, in response to a couple of the suggestions I read in this thread:

> * **Pet attributes scaling with the amulet the Ranger wears** - Are you sure about that suggestion? Did anyone stop to consider what it's going to be like when a smokescale comes them with berserker amy, fury buff and 25 stacks of might? Did anyone stop to think about pet healing when it scales with Mender?

 

The people that argue this never thinks about it from that angle. What they mean to say is that currently pets are as good as they should be, and if you go bunker, pets also should get lower damage - way lower. They would NEVER argue that if you go zerker, pets should deal a **hell of a lot more damage** than they currently do.

In short - the ONLY thing they want is for pets to get nerfed, pure and simple.

[Cynz.9437]

> @OGDeadHead.8326 said:

> > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

>

> Good post!

>

> > Furthermore, in response to a couple of the suggestions I read in this thread:

> > * **Pet attributes scaling with the amulet the Ranger wears** - Are you sure about that suggestion? Did anyone stop to consider what it's going to be like when a smokescale comes them with berserker amy, fury buff and 25 stacks of might? Did anyone stop to think about pet healing when it scales with Mender?

>

> The people that argue this never thinks about it from that angle. What they mean to say is that currently pets are as good as they should be, and if you go bunker, pets also should get lower damage. They would NEVER argue that if you go zerker, pets should deal a **hell of a lot more damage** than they currently do.

> In short - the ONLY think they want is for pets to get nerfed pure and simple.

 

So it is ok for druid to go bunker, still dealing maradeur/zerker dmg via pet (which also makes druid particular immune to CC because if i CC say warrior he can't attack me back but if i CC druid, his pet still shreds me)? Pets should have reduced stats and scale with druid, if balance would pick that route instead of making pet a mobile utility.

 

If this is what ranger community thinks, no wonder same community defends every pet bug that allows them to one shot enemies.

[Razor.6392]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> Ok this is just getting deeper and more skewed in opinions than it needs to be and that scares me because anet has a history of actually listening to threads like this. So please allow me "as a ranger main for many years" to take an alternative approach to this discussion and explain how to deal with bunker druids as it really is a l2p issue.

>

> **Step #1, Understanding how Bunker Druids win battles of attrition** - The Bunker Druid by itself has very little damage but what it does have is plenty of small poison proc. Wilderness Survival and the trait Refined Toxins is becoming popular nowadays. Refined Toxins is a 6s poison that happens every 5s. With the use of venom sigil it becomes a 7s poison so long as the Druid remains over his 75% health threshold, the Refined Toxins work. This essentially means that you will be poisoned the entire duration of the 1v1 against the Druid. So not only does the Druid have superior healing in general but it is also constantly nerfing all of your healing by 33%. Even so, the damage from the Bunker Druid alone will not be enough to down you unless you're running some kind of ultra glass dps spec, can't figure out where your dodge roll button is and/or are plainly ignorant enough to stay in the 1v1 attrition battle that you can clearly see, you are losing.

>

> **Step #2, Understanding how Bunker Druids kill players with PROPER pet bursting** - Yeah so this isn't quite as passive as users who are posting in here seem to think it is. Sure, if a new guy comes at a Druid wielding a poorly constructed Warrior spec, the AI alone on any pet will probably shred him apart without the Druid needing to use any pet skills. But if a good Spellbreaker comes at a Druid, the pet trying to attack him just fuels Full Counter usage and the Druid often has to set the pet to retreat and have it opt out of the 1v1 entirely. These are two extreme examples where on one hand, the pet AI is OP against less experienced players but on the other hand it is actually completely useless. Save your conjecture of other Class vs. Druids examples for later, I'll get in to it. Point being: Killing good players with pet usage isn't so easy. Pet AI may be OP against weaker players but it feels flat footed and clunky against strong players. Again, this is a l2p issue. When a Bunker Druid kills you with pet bursting, it looks something like this example:

> * Druid is running Beastmastery and is using the Beastly Warden trait which causes pet F2 skills to proc a 2s taunt, every 20s.

> * Druid is running Smokescale and Bristleback.

> * Druid baits out opponent's dodges and defensive cool downs, stunbreaks and stabs with mini bursting that looks like attempted full dps bursting.

> * Druid then waits for Smokescale to use Smoke Assault, which is his teleporting Rev Dog attack on 20s CD and the bulk of it's burst damage.

> * This positions the Smokescale on top of the opponent. The Druid then uses its F2 skill which procs 2s taunt.

> * Druid immediately positions himself on top of the opponent and swaps to Bristleback and pushes its F2 skill, which is heavy burst.

> * Druid also uses Protect Me! for additional Taunt CC when he stands in between opponent and pet. The opponent cleaves almost always proc the Taunt.

> * Druid swaps to his greatsword, uses hilt bash for daze/stun, goes into maul, followed up with a swoop if opponent is still standing.

> * It's a lot of DPS burst for a bunker spec, it is. But know that this is not easy to do against good players because they already know the steps that are listed in Step #3.

>

> **Step #3, Understanding how to not die to Bunker Druids** - It's real simple: Stop wasting dodge rolls/defensive CDs on the Bunker Druid and start using them vs. the pet attacks. This mitigates the large bulk of the dangerous DPS/CCs and renders the 1v1 into a situation where it becomes a knockback CC decap battle where neither player dies and they both are waiting for a + from a team mate to clear the node. If this still doesn't make sense to you, please refer to the meme that I posted earlier in this thread.

>

> **Quick analysis and explanation of how different classes can survive against, kill or at least push a Bunker Druid off a node:**

> * Scourge - Bunker Druids are immediately forced to leave the node when a Scourge shows up. The Bunker Druid relies too much on boons to survive, which end up being converted into conditions and Bunker Druids are weak to condis anyway because they only have two sources of cleanse. If the Druid tries to stay on the node against the Scourge, the pets explode from condi DPS and when the pets die, this eliminates the use of Signet of Renewal. This leaves the Druid with only 1 source of condi cleanse "Cele Avatar" and it isn't enough. The only thing that the Bunker Druid can do is put range between himself and the Scourge and kite it with ranged attrition. The Druid will also unleash a melee pet to stay on the Scourge, this forces the Scourge to choose between trying to DPS the ranged attrition or to focus the pet. If they are smart enough to down the pets, the Bunker Druid will have to leave the fight and go elsewhere or he'll be wasting time pew pewing with no pet support DPS. If they try to focus the Bunker Druid, the pet DPS and the Druid DPS will eventually kill the Scourge and the Druid will retake the node. **If you are a Scourge, LOS from the Druid attacks and kill the pets when the AI pathing comes to you around a corner. The Bunker Druid will have to leave the fight.** It is important to point out here though, that pets get absolutely nuked by Scourge condis.

> * Spellbreaker - This is a never ending node hold battle. If the Spellbreaker can 1v1 kill a Bunker Druid, that is a bad Druid. If the Druid can 1v1 kill the Spellbreaker, that's a bad Spellbreaker. **No reason to go into detail here other than pointing out that pets certainly are not an OP advantage here. If anything they need to be set to retreat so the AI doesn't allow the Spellbreaker to so freely proc Full Counter.**

> * Mirage - A good Mirage kills a good Bunker Druid, eventually. The Mirage will lose the node for awhile and the Bunker Druid will take it, for a short time. But the Mirage will eventually kill that Druid and retake the node. The quickest way that an intermediate Mirage can kill a good Bunker Druid is by downing the pets and removing the use of Signet of Renewal. Remember, pets don't dodge shatters. This is how the Mirage should do it: 1- Attack the Druid initially until you see him use Signet of Renewal. That first use of Renewal will transfer all of the Druid's condis on to his first pet. 2- Start focusing that pet and shut it down. If you're lucky, he will have recently used a pet swap and be on a 20s CD before being able to swap again and you kill that pet. Worst case scenario, he swaps to 2nd pet and is now on 20s CD for swap. 3- Keep focusing that pet and it dies fast to Mirage bursting. 4- So on and so forth until both pets are down, on 60s CDs before revival and the Druid has only 1 source of condi removal, Cele Avatar. this tactic also serves to mitigate the CCs/DPS from the pets, which eliminates any possible chance of the Bunker Druid being able to kill the Mirage or even make it leave the fight. However, **if you are a seasoned Mirage, you can kill Bunker Druids simply by focusing the Druid and ignoring the pet entirely. ** It should also be pointed out that it is very difficult to even touch a good Mirage with a pet burst.

> * Holo - This is in my opinion, a fairly balanced match up. The Holo has just enough CC/DPS to actually kill or drive off the Bunker Druid if he knows what he's doing but he is also squishy enough that the Druid/Pet attrition can dwindle him down fairly quickly. **The Holo can down the pets with focused bursting, if he wants to eliminate the Bunker Druid's DPS for the purpose of simply bunking/holding his color against him or he should ignore the pets entirely if his goal is to kill the Bunker Druid, if the Druid is defending it's own color. The key for Holo to actually kill the Druid lies within understanding how the Druid uses its stunbreaks and learning how to stop that up so the Druid cannot so easily escape CC chains, get up and heal.** Pet play here is more harmful to the Holo than in the previous explanations as the Holo is a glass DPS spec.

> * Firebrand Bunkers - You will forever battle the Bunker Druid and neither one of you will die. It will amount down to a decap battle and waiting for +.

> * Physical DPS Guardian Specs - You're gonna get countered by the Bunker Druid unless he's a bad Druid. Avoid these 1v1s unless it's important to hold the node. Immediately call to your team for a +.

> * Burn DPS Guardian Specs - The Bunker Druid will get countered by the consistent small burn procs and will eventually have to leave the node or stay and die. Remember that the Druid has only two sources of condi cleanse, both of which clear ALL condis on the Druid. So don't try and land enormous burn bursts, setting all skills in to CD, because the Druid will mitigate that damage quickly with remove ALL condi skills. What you want to do is land smaller more consistent bursts, which the Druid will eventually have to waste his two big condi clears on. **If you see Signet of Renewal on CD, wait until the Druid comes out of Cele Avatar and THEN land a big burst on the Druid. The Druid will die quickly if he was stupid enough to stay in the 1v1 up to this point, along with his pet. The pets die quickly to burn guard AoEs.**

> * Thieves of all types - **Stop it, stop trying to 1v1 Bunker Druids. It never works out well unless the Druid is terrible or the Thief is amazing. Focus on the role of +ing and decapping.** Here I do have to admit that pet damage feels OP vs. Thief but.. what kind of DPS doesn't?

> * Heralds of all types - It is possible for good Heralds to actually kill or push the Bunker Druid off the node but generally, this is going to be another 1v1 that neither party wins. The Herald can however decap the node over time with knockbacks and due to the use of the Druid's Cele Avatar Stealth but the Druid will also use knockbacks to take the node back. **Just another decap battle unless one of the players is somewhat stronger in combat than the other.** The pets here don't bother the Heralds so much. Good Heralds often just use the pet bursts to heal anyway. Another situation where the mindless AI is actually helping a good player fighting the Bunker Druid.

> * Other Bunker Druids - **You win 1v1 by dodging pet bursts. You decap by landing your knockbacks and not getting hit by other knockbacks. Real simple. If both Druids are excellent however, this is just another 1v1 that will never end festival of decap.**

> * All Ranger Oriented DPS - **You're only shot at killing a good Bunker Druid is to bait out its defenses and then unleash high DPS with CC chain attached. If you can't interrupt it's heals during DPS burst and do it quickly, the Bunker Druid is going to kill you in a battle of attrition.** 1v1s amongst ranger players likes this, amongst various build structures, is actually fun because they usually amount down to who is more experienced with ranger builds, rather than one player just having an OP build. There are actually many viable Ranger/Druid/Soulbeast specs right now. Pretty cool actually.

> * Eles - Unfortunately, Ele is just kind of in a bad spot right now. Tempest isn't doing the job it once had and Weaver has the same problem that Ele has always had "the DPS is high but boy oh boy does it lack adequate defenses while running DPS". I can see anyone running Ele would think that pet DPS was OP. However they need to understand that this is not a problem with the pet's AI or statistics, it is a problem with the Ele class. **The best thing they can do here is not engage a Bunker Druid 1v1. But if the situation calls that the Ele is the only person to hold a node neutral or his color, I would say the best thing to do is to land all of that big Ele DPS on the pets. Down them and eliminate the Druid's DPS so the Ele can actually stay on the node, otherwise he's gonna get chewed by the steady pet spam attacks. **The Ele shouldn't expect to kill the Bunker Druid unless the Druid is less skilled than he is. If the Ele claims pets are too hard to DPS, he is doing something wrong as pets do not dodge roll, they don't block and the Druid only has so many heals to go through. If you can't kill the Druid, focus it's pets. They die a lot faster than the Druid will and it at least neutralizes the Druid's DPS so the Ele can hold a node against him.

>

> Furthermore, in response to a couple of the suggestions I read in this thread:

> * **Pet attributes scaling with the amulet the Ranger wears** - Are you sure about that suggestion? Did anyone stop to consider what it's going to be like when a smokescale comes them with berserker amy, fury buff and 25 stacks of might? Did anyone stop to think about pet healing when it scales with Mender?

> * **Allowing full control of ALL pet skills to the player** - It's too much in my opinion. A Razer Naga as example, barely has enough buttons for the user's right hand to handle the actual character's functions. The user then uses his left hand to control WASD, dodge rolls and w/e other functions he already has set on the keyboard. If the the pet panel was given an additional 3 keys to control the pet's auto, 2nd and 3rd skills, we'd have 7 buttons as F skills and a lot of new focus to dedicate not only to the positioning and attack streams of the Ranger but now also precision play for attack streams on the pet. It's just too much imo. It would be like controlling two characters instead of one. I feel the AI is fine as it is.

>

> Besides that, I think everyone needs to be more worried about the balance aspects that Chaith has already mentioned.

>

 

Good post, but above all it is interesting that you consider killing the pet a viable option. According to most people here, you're bad if you even think of attacking it. Only seems to work against condi builds though.

 

Two pointers:

* I'm fine with a pet and zerk stats. Obviously a medium ground would have to be adjusted. It's not like bunker stats pet will hit for 10 damage and zerk will do it for 10000.

* Full control is fine. From F1 to F5 would suffice, with a command or 2 either getting merged or remaining automated. This is 100% a buff though, so it a tradeoff would be required lol. Don't think I'm trying to buff druids here.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

Completely disagree with full control being a flat buff. You'll have some older veteran Ranger players who will be good enough to take advantage of full control but the large majority of Ranger players, even some of the older ones, won't be able to correctly position the Ranger and the pet to take advantage of a full control situation. Watching and controlling the attacks/positioning of two different vectors is not going to be as easy to do as it sounds. Having that option for core ranger is more practical as it has no special panels to toggle to do other than the full control but having full control 7 pet skills on top of Druid Cele Avatar panel or Soulbeast Merge, is too much in my opinion.

 

Things like Firebrand F skill paneling or Engi F skills and kits are a bit different because you are only worrying about 1 vector being the source of these panels and only 1 panel is toggling at a time. A Ranger running 7 pet skills with Cele Avatar and needing to worry about 2 vector sources is too demanding on the brain to the point that it won't even be fun.

 

Now if you're talking an option to check mark on or off about having full control or normal AI, then sure. That wouldn't be a problem.

[OGDeadHead.8326]

> @Cynz.9437 said:

> If this is what ranger community thinks, no wonder same community defends every pet bug that allows them to one shot enemies.

 

Oh do we now? Lol.

 

You're a thief to the core and you keep defending the class everywhere I see you post, so look who's talking. Now it seems you want to remake the ranger class completely by making it so that the pet should be cc'd when the ranger suffers from it, and I bet, the other way around as well.

[Chaith.8256]

> @Morwath.9817 said:

 

>

> ...but don't you think Fire could get some love? It's the worst trait line after all those nerfs.

 

I'd be open to that, I'm sure Fire has plenty of uses in the game but in PvP I didn't really see it fitting in no matter what you did to it at this point. I simply thought getting Weaver to be good with the least effort on ArenaNet's part is add some might in to the current meta build

 

 

[Lilyanna.9361]

> @Cynz.9437 said:

> > @OGDeadHead.8326 said:

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> >

> > Good post!

> >

> > > Furthermore, in response to a couple of the suggestions I read in this thread:

> > > * **Pet attributes scaling with the amulet the Ranger wears** - Are you sure about that suggestion? Did anyone stop to consider what it's going to be like when a smokescale comes them with berserker amy, fury buff and 25 stacks of might? Did anyone stop to think about pet healing when it scales with Mender?

> >

> > The people that argue this never thinks about it from that angle. What they mean to say is that currently pets are as good as they should be, and if you go bunker, pets also should get lower damage. They would NEVER argue that if you go zerker, pets should deal a **hell of a lot more damage** than they currently do.

> > In short - the ONLY think they want is for pets to get nerfed pure and simple.

>

> So it is ok for druid to go bunker, still dealing maradeur/zerker dmg via pet (which also makes druid particular immune to CC because if i CC say warrior he can't attack me back but if i CC druid, his pet still shreds me)? Pets should have reduced stats and scale with druid, if balance would pick that route instead of making pet a mobile utility.

>

> If this is what ranger community thinks, no wonder same community defends every pet bug that allows them to one shot enemies.

 

If it scales with the ranger, there is gonna be a lot of people crying about one-shots.

 

Smokescale with Marauder? AHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's beta smokescale all over again??

 

Do you REALLY want that? Because you would only make them offensively ridiculous.

 

I mean, I don't care. Better for me since I'm practicing my druid again anyways.

[Arheundel.6451]

> @Cynz.9437 said:

> > @OGDeadHead.8326 said:

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> >

> > Good post!

> >

> > > Furthermore, in response to a couple of the suggestions I read in this thread:

> > > * **Pet attributes scaling with the amulet the Ranger wears** - Are you sure about that suggestion? Did anyone stop to consider what it's going to be like when a smokescale comes them with berserker amy, fury buff and 25 stacks of might? Did anyone stop to think about pet healing when it scales with Mender?

> >

> > The people that argue this never thinks about it from that angle. What they mean to say is that currently pets are as good as they should be, and if you go bunker, pets also should get lower damage. They would NEVER argue that if you go zerker, pets should deal a **hell of a lot more damage** than they currently do.

> > In short - the ONLY think they want is for pets to get nerfed pure and simple.

>

> So it is ok for druid to go bunker, still dealing maradeur/zerker dmg via pet (which also makes druid particular immune to CC because if i CC say warrior he can't attack me back but if i CC druid, his pet still shreds me)? Pets should have reduced stats and scale with druid, if balance would pick that route instead of making pet a mobile utility.

>

> If this is what ranger community thinks, no wonder same community defends every pet bug that allows them to one shot enemies.

 

I don't think players here have a full understanding of how pets works and neither know the full roster of ranger pets:

-If this pet https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Cheetah would share its stats with ranger who can wear dunno ...**demolisher amulet** + scrapper runes +stone signet...you'd have a one shotting shadow step tank, this pet is not used because of its piss poor stats..otherwise many thievs would have left the game

- what about https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Owl and many others? what about healing pets that have 0 healing power base and 2k heals specials?

 

I think people confuse bunker support role with tank role because I don't see how pet sharing ranger stats would make their life any easier than now..if anything it would get much much much worst

[Razor.6392]

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> Completely disagree with full control being a flat buff. You'll have some older veteran Ranger players who will be good enough to take advantage of full control but the large majority of Ranger players, even some of the older ones, won't be able to correctly position the Ranger and the pet to take advantage of a full control situation. Watching and controlling the attacks/positioning of two different vectors is not going to be as easy to do as it sounds. Having that option for core ranger is more practical as it has no special panels to toggle to do other than the full control but having full control 7 pet skills on top of Druid Cele Avatar panel or Soulbeast Merge, is too much in my opinion.

>

> Things like Firebrand F skill paneling or Engi F skills and kits are a bit different because you are only worrying about 1 vector being the source of these panels and only 1 panel is toggling at a time. A Ranger running 7 pet skills with Cele Avatar and needing to worry about 2 vector sources is too demanding on the brain to the point that it won't even be fun.

>

> Now if you're talking an option to check mark on or off about having full control or normal AI, then sure. That wouldn't be a problem.

 

When you have a character, class or hero, you dont consider its power level based on your average or bad player, you do it based on the best ones.

 

If every game balanced their hard-to-play characters based on the majority of people who suck with them, then you'd have the best players completely obliterating everyone thanks to the unwarranted buffs that the character would get.

 

Of course, some games do have the occasional balance patch based on low level play (when something is plain unfun to deal with, or way too good at pubstomping), but those are exceptions.

 

That's not to say ranger would become the new hardest and highest apm class. You are not gonna control the pet movement, just a couple more abilities that before used to be automated.

 

Take for instance this example: The cardmaster hero from LoL. Subpar base stats, very low damage, bullied by everyone in mid lane and as far as I remember, 90% of them that ended up on my team, fed and didn't know what they were doing. Everybody knew that, at the top level, this hero was extremely powerful. According to your logic, since the large majority of cardmaster players sucked, and only a low top % was doing well with him at diamond or so, Riot should have perceived this hero as weak, and buffed him. That's not how it works. The hero is perceived as strong because of what the top % can do with it, when properly used.

 

If one were to make deadeye's rifle no longer be point and click, and instead gain unlimited range and headshot mechanics (only playable in action cam), would you say this isn't a buff to those that excel at FPS? Just because the vast majority of deadeye players would not know how to make use of these buffs, doesn't mean it _isn't_ a buff.

 

To drive things home, if giving full control is a buff (yes it is) a shave would be required somewhere.

[BigEvs.6971]

> @Zintrothen.1056 said:

> > @"Hyper Cutter.9376" said:

> > The HoT/PoF pets are at the level that _all_ pets should have been at, an actual threat rather than something you can safely ignore entirely. Anet needs to revamp all the others to bring them up to speed, but they'll never do it because people screech and whine as soon as anything AI-controlled is able to actually hurt them.

>

> Because nothing passive should _ever_ do high damage. _EVER_. And how can you "safely ignore entirely" something that knocks you down and does so much damage without the ranger pressing a single button? Pets are passive threats. All we want is for them to either be active threats (ranger can control them better), or be killable outside of hoping your AoE damage is enough. I'll be _totally_ fine if ranger received buffs in other areas if that meant a nerf to pets. There are absolutely compromises that can be made. Pets being OP is a plain fact...IMO (that's a joke btw for those who have no idea that jokes can be made over the internet).

>

> Shadowpass, I don't mean any disrespect to those who worked hard to master the ranger aspect of the profession, but I will never have respect for the idea that pets are part of mastering the ranger. Surely you have mastered Druid. But how can you master an AI? You just tell it to attack and pull out/swap when it's low or you need a different attack. _SO MUCH MASTERING_! I've played Druid in high AoE situations, and I know that pets can melt when not watched carefully. But I also know that pets are hardly part of mastering a ranger/Druid. If the AI is crappy and your opponent knows how to path in such a way to avoid the brunt of the pet's damage, then why would need to focus on what the pet is doing? You're essentially not using it then. So where's the mastering come from there? If the pet is focused, then you can easily swap or call it back. Not too hard to do. Plus, something that is hitting your pet isn't hitting you or a teammate (unless your team is stupid and stands in AoEs). So don't go around saying that we disrespect the time and effort that has been put into perfecting a profession, when all we are talking about is the one aspect that takes the least to master. Players fighting the ranger also worked toward mastering their professions (well, most have), and we don't like how annoying and passive the pets are, and how little counterplay there is outside of mindless AoE spamming that hopefully kills it. There's no fun in that. We want fun, and so do you. I love the idea of making pets more active. That would be a fantastic start. Another fantastic thing to do is working toward fixing their pathing.

 

Has it ever occurred to you that not a single ranger wants that knock-down "without the ranger pressing a single button?" If you played ranger much you'd know that managing the swap cooldown is the only way to even semi-reliably "activate" the smokescale knockdown manually since it uses abilities pretty much off cooldown (50% of the time you'll swap hoping for the knock-down and smoke assault will happen instead). That "passive" is not desirable and it undermines your point to call it an advantage.

 

Try chilling the pet, for example. Many classes have access to cheap chill. You'll increase the cooldown of the pet's abilities such as the knockdown and slow it down from reaching you. If the Druid goes to the trouble of clearing the chill (they won't), congrats. You caused them to reactively use a clear or swap when they probably didn't need it.

 

To your point, the mastery in these situations where your opponent is maximizing the options that make your pet less useful is to capitalize as much as possible during the moments where your pet CAN impact the fight. Furthermore, if pets are so OP, why is "something that is hitting your pet" suddenly not valuable for not hitting you? If the ranger itself does nothing then isn't neutralizing the pet for even a few seconds the same as shutting down the player for that length of time?

 

The practice of holding your pet back to preserve stronger cooldowns is an often overlooked aspect of its play. In the past when fighting the then very strong power herald, baiting an unrelenting assault primed with Shiro Heal Daggers onto a pet before swapping it was a huge health/CD swing in your favor. Failing to do this allowed the herald to essentially reset the fight without healing power. Guess what, when the risk in the power herald's sustain via leeching is removed (your pets can't really dodge outside of smoke assault and will essentially provide the revenant free healing) then you have to get creative about finishing the fight quickly or at all. This is just one example of the need to have some sort of understanding of pet usage. It sounds simple but I never ever saw it employed when fighting rangers as a power herald. Or how about timing smoke assault + your own dodge to deny the old Power Berserker an Arc Divider it desperately needed to keep adrenal health?

 

For disclaimer, I am an ele main. Complaining about druids and their pets is very outdated. Are we gonna start clamoring for Fresh Air buffs while we're at it?

 

As a response to the OP's point that pets are immortal in small scale fights: Druids have always excelled in small scale fights with their healing and evasiveness, that their pet does as well with its damage is not an issue. The reason you keep seeing perspectives of 5v5 conquest is because this strength in small side point skirmishes is reined in by the Druid's struggle to stay relevant in larger fights (this relationship between small and large fights is the same for the pet). Zintrothen, this high damage you speak of is only even moderately-high (in bursts exclusively) at best, and ONLY in small scale fights.

[brannigan.9831]

I dont even know if you need to look at overall ranger balance to see if the pet is partially broken. You fix whats broken and if the ranger is too weak afterwards you buff the ranger. I've never been for protecting problematic aspects of a class because the whole is only average. The pet to me is to tanky period end of story and its too valuable without having to spec a damn thing into it. I remember in the beginning Guardian Spiritweapons, temporary pets with a cooldown, were basically invulnerable. They eventually changed that even though nobody ever used them.

[lightningz.1465]

Full control of all pet skills for druid? Oh yeah give me that, i have enough empty buttons in my g600, and with full control of all pet skills, a skilled ranger wil get even stronger, and people will get salty even more. The autoattack of pets is weakness not strength.

[ZhouX.8742]

> @brannigan.9831 said:

> I dont even know if you need to look at overall ranger balance to see if the pet is partially broken. You fix whats broken and if the ranger is too weak afterwards you buff the ranger. I've never been for protecting problematic aspects of a class because the whole is only average. The pet to me is to tanky period end of story and its too valuable without having to spec a kitten thing into it. I remember in the beginning Guardian Spiritweapons, temporary pets with a cooldown, were basically invulnerable. They eventually changed that even though nobody ever used them.

 

If you want to fix what's broken let's look at Scourge, Firebrand and how mesmer and thief absolutely dominate conquest pvp with features that surpass any class in the game. These are more game breaking than far point bunker druids imo. Furthermore, the game mode itself is in need of help with it's shoddy matchmaking and massive decline in playerbase due to patches once every 6 months. These are the true threats in PvP , not bunker druids.

 

--

 

*" The pet to me is to tanky period end of story and its too valuable without having to spec a kitten thing into it."*

 

Scourge and condi mirage says hello , or any consistent condi uptime class for that matter.

 

Also, guardians aren't forced to use spirit weapons so your point is redundant. There's a massive difference in having an optional set of utilities to run in very specific cases vs having a thematic non-optional portion of your class being absolutely gutted (while also keeping in context that these pets have also been nerfed 4-5 times since HoT has dropped) while also not giving ranger any build diversity in return.

 

Although, there are some obvious notable things to take out of this thread.

 

*If you REALLY want ranger to have full dmg coefficients , trait lines buffed outside of just beast mastery and full control of their pet and while also have the pet damage nerfed across the board (not even tied to an amulet , just nerf them for those trade offs ) , I'd be fine with this and I'm sure a lot of people would be fine with that.

 

This would open build diversity for the ranger as a whole, allow new specs away from druid and more into a soulbeast / core or even offensive druid style play as opposed to being forced to be only a point bunker because ranger is so pigeonholed at the moment.

 

But you would definitely see more crying because by doing this you would raise the skill ceiling immensely for ranger and the good rangers would dominate even more than a far point bunker ever could.*

[Morwath.9817]

@ZhouX.8742

Quaggan would like to point out that meta "bunker druid" doesn't use beastmastery, but WS/NM/D.

[shadowpass.4236]

> @Cynz.9437 said:

> > @OGDeadHead.8326 said:

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> >

> > Good post!

> >

> > > Furthermore, in response to a couple of the suggestions I read in this thread:

> > > * **Pet attributes scaling with the amulet the Ranger wears** - Are you sure about that suggestion? Did anyone stop to consider what it's going to be like when a smokescale comes them with berserker amy, fury buff and 25 stacks of might? Did anyone stop to think about pet healing when it scales with Mender?

> >

> > The people that argue this never thinks about it from that angle. What they mean to say is that currently pets are as good as they should be, and if you go bunker, pets also should get lower damage. They would NEVER argue that if you go zerker, pets should deal a **hell of a lot more damage** than they currently do.

> > In short - the ONLY think they want is for pets to get nerfed pure and simple.

>

> So it is ok for druid to go bunker, still dealing maradeur/zerker dmg via pet (which also makes druid particular immune to CC because if i CC say warrior he can't attack me back but if i CC druid, his pet still shreds me)? Pets should have reduced stats and scale with druid, if balance would pick that route instead of making pet a mobile utility.

>

> If this is what ranger community thinks, no wonder same community defends every pet bug that allows them to one shot enemies.

 

Aren't you the one blindly defending thief? You're one to talk.

 

Also, "marauder/zerker dmg via pet" while running bunker is a gross exaggeration.

[shadowpass.4236]

Honestly, if anything... pet's are weaker now than they've ever been before. Smokescale has seen so many nerfs that its entire burst hits for around 3k. Bristleback has been nerfed consistently to the point where its barely even usable anymore. Wyverns used to be alright after the change to the autoattacks, but Scourge deletes them in a fight. The new ones aren't anything special either.

 

I really don't understand why people here are complaining about pets when the general consensus is that they aren't even good to begin with.

 

If it was really such a big deal, you'd see people at the higher tiers also struggling against pets. Yet, anyone who is semi competent would be able to easily play around them.

 

Think about it like this... You. A functioning, thinking human being, are being outplayed by crappy AI that follows a skill rotation and struggles to hit a moving target. _Nice._

[shadowpass.4236]

I understand complaints about Scourge, Firebrand, and Mirage. They have such a large impact and drastically overperform in a conquest setting. If you want to see how useless pets are vs. a Mirage, watch my fight vs. Kronos on condi Mirage. I'm running bunker druid in the duel.

 

https://go.twitch.tv/videos/185354704

 

In the video, you can find me at:

* 26:21 - thief

* 01:39:00 - druid

* 02:35:15 - mirage

* 02:48:53 - 1v2

* 02:55:40 - holosmith

 

02:35:15 is my fight against Kronos

 

02:48:52 is my 1v2 I did for fun

[Razor.6392]

> @lightningz.1465 said:

> Full control of all pet skills for druid? Oh yeah give me that, i have enough empty buttons in my g600, and with full control of all pet skills, a skilled ranger wil get even stronger, and people will get salty even more. The autoattack of pets is weakness not strength.

 

Full control would come with nerfs, you know that, right?

[Razor.6392]

> @shadowpass.4236 said:

> Honestly, if anything... pet's are weaker now than they've ever been before. Smokescale has seen so many nerfs that its entire burst hits for around 3k. Bristleback has been nerfed consistently to the point where its barely even usable anymore. Wyverns used to be alright after the change to the autoattacks, but Scourge deletes them in a fight. The new ones aren't anything special either.

>

> I really don't understand why people here are complaining about pets when the general consensus is that they aren't even good to begin with.

>

> If it was really such a big deal, you'd see people at the higher tiers also struggling against pets. Yet, anyone who is semi competent would be able to easily play around them.

>

> Think about it like this... You. A functioning, thinking human being, are being outplayed by crappy AI that follows a skill rotation and struggles to hit a moving target. _Nice._

 

It's not whether they're super OP or not (they aren't of course), it's how it's free AI damage with almost no interaction between either the attacker (cant kill it for shit) and the ranger. Just one of many instances of bad design.

 

Imagine turret engi but the turrets are really hard to kill. Oh wait, that happened and they got nerfed lol.

[shadowpass.4236]

> @Razor.6392 said:

> > @shadowpass.4236 said:

> > Honestly, if anything... pet's are weaker now than they've ever been before. Smokescale has seen so many nerfs that its entire burst hits for around 3k. Bristleback has been nerfed consistently to the point where its barely even usable anymore. Wyverns used to be alright after the change to the autoattacks, but Scourge deletes them in a fight. The new ones aren't anything special either.

> >

> > I really don't understand why people here are complaining about pets when the general consensus is that they aren't even good to begin with.

> >

> > If it was really such a big deal, you'd see people at the higher tiers also struggling against pets. Yet, anyone who is semi competent would be able to easily play around them.

> >

> > Think about it like this... You. A functioning, thinking human being, are being outplayed by crappy AI that follows a skill rotation and struggles to hit a moving target. _Nice._

>

> It's not whether they're super OP or not (they aren't of course), it's how it's free AI damage with almost no interaction between either the attacker (cant kill it for kitten) and the ranger. Just one of many instances of bad design.

>

> Imagine turret engi but the turrets are really hard to kill. Oh wait, that happened and they got nerfed lol.

 

I don't think you understand. So let me try to break it down for you as simple and direct as I can.

 

# NOT TANKY

* TURRETS ARE **NOT** ENGIS' CLASS MECHANIC

* MINIONS ARE **NOT** NECROS' CLASS MECHANIC

 

# TANKY

* CLONES **ARE** MESMERS' CLASS MECHANIC

* SHADES **ARE** SCOURGES' CLASS MECHANIC

* PETS **ARE** RANGERS' CLASS MECHANIC

 

If they aren't mandatory, they shouldn't be invulnerable/hard to kill. **THAT'S WHY RENEGADE IS GARBAGE.** Their class mechanic can be easily killed/cc'd. Thus, it renders their **ENTIRE** class useless. If you don't understand it past this, you've got issues way past not being able to outsmart dumb AI. Pets have received nerfs **CONSISTENTLY** almost every single patch. If you really can't handle the shitty pets now, you probably got roflstomped back when HoT first came out and pets actually were dangerous. Ooh, I remember the days when I could win multiple 1v3s **EVERY MATCH** in high plat/legend on zerker ranger. But nope, can't do that anymore. Instead, we're pigeonholed into a stupid bunker spec that can barely do damage even with our "OP pets" if we want to be viable in a competitive setting.

 

And no. I do **not** like spamming staff auto attacks for damage while my pet tickles someone all match long until someone from my team rotates to kill. That is why I like to play core ranger and soulbeast. On those, I actually feel like I'm doing something except healing and doing nothing else for 15 minutes. So please, fuck off with:

* "pets do so much damage"

* "pets cc me constantly"

* "help it's chasing me"

* "I can't kill the pet in a 1v1"

* "pEts 2 Ez KiLL eVeRybOdY Wen U PrEsS f1"

[Razor.6392]

> @shadowpass.4236 said:

> > @Razor.6392 said:

> > > @shadowpass.4236 said:

> > > Honestly, if anything... pet's are weaker now than they've ever been before. Smokescale has seen so many nerfs that its entire burst hits for around 3k. Bristleback has been nerfed consistently to the point where its barely even usable anymore. Wyverns used to be alright after the change to the autoattacks, but Scourge deletes them in a fight. The new ones aren't anything special either.

> > >

> > > I really don't understand why people here are complaining about pets when the general consensus is that they aren't even good to begin with.

> > >

> > > If it was really such a big deal, you'd see people at the higher tiers also struggling against pets. Yet, anyone who is semi competent would be able to easily play around them.

> > >

> > > Think about it like this... You. A functioning, thinking human being, are being outplayed by crappy AI that follows a skill rotation and struggles to hit a moving target. _Nice._

> >

> > It's not whether they're super OP or not (they aren't of course), it's how it's free AI damage with almost no interaction between either the attacker (cant kill it for kitten) and the ranger. Just one of many instances of bad design.

> >

> > Imagine turret engi but the turrets are really hard to kill. Oh wait, that happened and they got nerfed lol.

>

> I don't think you understand. So let me try to break it down for you as simple and direct as I can.

>

> # NOT TANKY

> TURRETS ARE **NOT** ENGIS' CLASS MECHANIC

> MINIONS ARE **NOT** NECROS' CLASS MECHANIC

>

> # TANKY

> CLONES **ARE** MESMERS' CLASS MECHANIC

> SHADES **ARE** SCOURGES' CLASS MECHANIC

> PETS **ARE** RANGERS' CLASS MECHANIC

>

> If they aren't mandatory, they shouldn't be invulnerable/hard to kill. **THAT'S WHY RENEGADE IS GARBAGE.** Their class mechanic can be easily killed/cc'd. Thus, it renders their **ENTIRE** class useless. If you don't understand it past this, you've got issues way past not being able to outsmart dumb AI. Pets have received nerfs **CONSISTENTLY** almost every single patch. If you really can't handle the kitten pets now, you probably got roflstomped back when HoT first came out and pets actually were dangerous. Ooh, I remember the days when I could win multiple 1v3s **EVERY MATCH** in high plat/legend on zerker ranger. But nope, can't do that anymore. Instead, we're pigeonholed into a stupid bunker spec that can barely do damage even with our "OP pets" if we want to be viable in a competitive setting.

>

> And no. I do **not** like spamming staff auto attacks for damage while my pet tickles someone all match long until someone from my team rotates to kill. That is why I like to play core ranger and soulbeast. On those, I actually feel like I'm doing something except healing and doing nothing else for 15 minutes. So please, kitten off with:

> "pets do so much damage"

> "pets cc me constantly"

> "help it's chasing me"

> "I can't kill the pet in a 1v1"

> "pEts 2 Ez KiLL eVeRybOdY Wen U PrEsS f1"

 

It's not whether they're super OP or not (they aren't of course), it's how it's free AI damage with almost no interaction between either the attacker (cant kill it for kitten) and the ranger. Just one of many instances of bad design.

 

(Repeating since you're kinda slow).