Yes, more Pet Suggestions...

1) Allow our pets to be Infused. This is a MAJOR problem later on, and it is unneccissary and easy to fix. My pet is my weapon. However, whenever a Mursaat even takes a glance at poor Tony Montana, he dies in 1-2 hits.

Yay, you finally implemented this one! Thanks!

2) Let us use them in the Doppleganger fight. As I said, my pet is my weapon. I was a bit suprised when I realized I had left my pet behind while the Doppler was whailing on me. A small change, but it would be nice for up-and-coming beastmasters.

3) AI Improvement and Pet Commands. Right now, my pet is plagued with... stupidity. For example, if I die in PvP and there is nobody attacking my pet, why does it just stand around? Why not fight nearby enemies?

I feel it should be fixed with basic pat comands such as:

Attack: Engage nearby enemies at will.
Defend: Only attack enemies engaged on the pet or the master.
Heel/Stay: Orders pet to stay where it is.
Come Back: Calls the Pet back to it's master's side.

These comnands should not be skills, just basic commands given to a user when she/he is using a pet. There should simply be a keyboard shortcut and/or onscreen butttons.


4) Do away with "Charm Animal". Well, not completely do away with it (This skill should only be used to charm an animal). Instead of making it neccissary to have "Charm Animal" equiped to use a pet, you should instead have "Comfort Animal" necccissary. Either that, or have pets available whenever you have a skill equiped that targets the pet directly.

5) Do away with the "Skill Disabling" when your pet dies. I see no reason why all of my skills should be disabled when my pet dies. Mabey my pet sklills, but not mine. I do not feel this would be unbalanced in any way.

I do agree that their should be a penalty for letting your pet die. If they must have skills disabled for letting it die, change it so that your skills aren't further disabled for using comfort animal and have it so that BeastMastery effects how long you will have skills disabled.

6) When our whole team wipes out and we respawn, let our pet respawn too! I don't see why it shouldn't, and I'm sure many will agree on this one as well.

7) Let me see my pet damage! The pet is a part of me, so let me see how much damage I am doing. Are you trying to hide something?

8) Allow the Monk skill "Heal Area" effect Pets. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The pet is my weapon; a part of my character, likewise, he is a team member and should be treated like a player.

9) More pet attack skills. There are only 9 skills that direcly orders your pet to use an attacking skill (If you count the Disrupting skills and skills that add a condition). The number itself isn't half bad, but given the fact that it takes a whole skill slot to have your pet out and another to revive/heal it, you could probably imagine that there is certainly a lack of variety in skills.


Most of these suggestions don't take much to be implemented and it would vastly improve gameplay for beastmasters eveywhere. Right now I will admit, Beastmastery is definitaly lacking, but I love Tony Montana

With a few minor improvements, Beastmasters can be taken more seriously in PvE/PvP.

I second all of these suggestions!

I'd also like to add being able to tame multiple pets and keep them in a pen. You can switch them out when you go to your guild hall.

I just dropped my beastmaster line, and i don't know if i was too hasty but i was so furious when i went all the way to Altheas Ashes, my pet runs up the platform and dies on top. Nice.

Now not only was half my skillbar useless, i couldnt rez my pet [because he is just slaughtered immediately] for the rest of the quest! . Team gets wiped a bunch of times and we are rezzed nicely at the shrine.......but not my pet?? Did i miss something, what is a beastmaster suppose to do now ? Leave the zone?

if 5) would be implemented then pets would never be targetted in PvP as their damage output is too low for what they are worth to kill.

Also a pet in PvP requires 1 slot (I only use 1 at least) for actually no energy to get a decent tank + some minor damage and that sounds pretty good to me.

On 3) Try calling targets, that usually agros your pet. Also if he doesn't attack, standing closer and then attacking (no spell) helps.

"5) Do away with the "Skill Disabling" when your pet dies."

we keep this because you SHOULD have a penalty for letting your pet die. This helps do away with all those people who only have 2 or 3 points in beast mastery and bring a pet for the heck of it.

"4) Do away with "Charm Animal". someone said before, maybe make a skill that combines charm and comfort?

There's no reason for it! Punishing anyone who brings a pet (maybe I bring one as a secondary on my necro for the extra corpse, maybe I bring it because it adds to my fun but I don't expect it to do anything).

WHY should people be punished when the pet dies? You get punished when you res it too. It's almost as if they're saying "don't bring a ****ing pet'

I agree with most of your points except for this one:

The disabling of all of your skills, when your pet dies, is to express the connection you and your pet are supposed to have. Your pet is an extension of you, in the game world. When your pet dies you have, in essence, been disarmed (To use your "weapon" analogy). A distracting activity at least, and if you're the animal master you're portraying, then it's distressing as well. While you might be able to continue on without your pet, I agree with the "inconvenience" of having your skills disabled in game.

It's quite simple, you're bringing an extra attack to bear on your enemies. If you don't want to have your skills disabled, don't bring your bear.

It's a trade off... More attacks with the possibility of having your skills disabled for 10 seconds, or not having them disabled at all and not bringing the extra damage dealer.

ye. id really like to see pets buffed somehow. at least for them to be more useful. because it is fun to play with a pet. just that you have to decide if you want to use 2-3 skill slots for them to be somewhat effective, or use the slots for more helpful skills to you and your party...

Well if you are in fact a beastmaster , then your penalty is 4+ skills on your skillbar just became absolutely useless until your pet is alive again....I would think that is penalty enough. Beastmasters will be sitting ducks -anyway- , whether their skills are disabled for 8 seconds is probably least of their worries.

So my suggestion? Reduce the penalty the higher your beastmastery. If you max your beastmastery then you should not have more than 1 second penalty [or at the very least no penalty when you rez your pet again].

That way people will not just bring a pet because they can. In fact i would think the penalty should be HIGHER if you bring a pet and don't even have points in Beastmastery! Heck, i would even be content with the idea that you must have x beastmastery to have pets a,b and c....i think this is a serious oversight imho.

Good idea. You can have multiple weapons to switch between (even mid-battle), why not multiple pets?

Yay! I love you Anet! They implemented my first suggestion, all because of me! I know, I know, you can thank me later

Yay!!! Rage Against The Mursaat!!! :d :d

hmmm the penalty for being careless and letting your pet die isn't that bad. there are worse things that might happen, like fore example in D&D, when your animal companion (thats the right way to call it) dies, u lose part of your health points forever. So, that skill disabling isn't that bad ^_^

What IS bad is the lack of everything on our animal companions, they doenst have much health, their armor rating sucks, their attack capabilities are, well i better don't say here what i think about that.... like if wasn't hard enough to play a ranger, specially if u want to solo, our animal companion is super weak. I got a lvl 20 lynx, and she only can do some decent hurt on enemies below lvl 10.... thats a bad joke! >_<

Yay!~ infusion!! happy day!

You need more points in BeastMastery and pets have a buttload of HP.


And I do agree that their should be a penalty for letting your pet die. If they must have skills disabled for letting it die, change it so that your skills aren't further disabled for using comfort animal and have it so that BeastMastery effects how long you will have skills disabled.

Personaly I think sacrificing one skill slot for a whole other member is a pretty good trade-off.

And yes, respawn pet after party dies. When this happens I usualy have to aggro everything that already killed me once just to get to my pet. Sometimes you might want to change plans and try to go another route. Oh, but wait! I have to go back and try to get my pet anyways, since I probably wont get much further without it than I did with it.

And yes, infusion at last!

*prays anet reads this topic and sees the light!

the most important thing in my opinion at this point is the combo charm/comfort. i would also like there to be a quicker response time for my pet to change targets when i do. also, how about asigning a key to call back my animal? there is no way to get the pet out of battle short of running away yourself, leaving the rest of your team behind.

EDIT: Added 2 new suggestions.

-same for heal party.
-this is prob asking a bit much but a skill bar for pet skills?

EDIT: Added another suggestion. Please tell me what you think.

Heal Area doesn't work on pets??? I know Heal Party doesn work, but Heal Area? That would be just insance, heal area heals -enemies- .

Btw, does the ranger skill "healing spring" at least heal my pet? I might forgive Heal Area [because it's monk related], but theres no excuse for Healing Spring because it is a Ranger spell....

On that note, my monk/ranger just gained "Divine Boon" which seems like THE monk enchantment to have, i still need to check whether it will actually affect my pet...if not....bad bad.

wow. I was just going to come here and post just about all of this, but you did it for me.

I agree with everything said here.

I agree with everything suggested here. And I fully appreciate the effort Anet is putting in to making this game better. I just hope more pet fixes/tweaks are comming soon

These are all great suggestions. The two most important issues for me are:

- Make pets respawn with the rest of the party. Currently, if your party dies within a big mob, you have to convince the rest of the team to go back to resurrect your pet, which will result in many irritated "Stupid pet" remarks from your party members. Alternatively, you become useless for the rest of the zone.
- When a pet dies, the ranger's skills are disabled for 4 seconds, and again for 8 seconds when you resurrect it. This means that when your pet dies, you will be a sitting duck for around 15 seconds in total. In PvP this is fatal, because many warriors by now know that this is a sure way to kill a ranger: Kill the pet, and then immediately go after the ranger.

TOTALLY AGREE!!

the thing where you have a higher beast mastery the smaller the recharge would nerf the warriors I wil avenge you build where they just kill their pets over and over and use I will avenge you to get huge boost with a putrid necro.

/stamped with wax ring

Some I agree with some I don't. There is a pet build that I am about to run through tombs. Looking at it on paper it worries me that it may actually be Overpowered. Have spent the last 3 days testing which skills effect pets and comrade pets and this combination is just... Suffice to say that if you see Darren Shann's group winning HoH that pets CAN have a place in PvP.

1. Yes and YES! Thank you Areanet!
2. Heh one of my first cahracters half the skill bar was my pet. Boy did the dopleganger have fun with me. Agreed.
3. I'm not sure about this one. The pet build I'm about to run is scary enough. Having 16 fully controlable cahracters on the map at once is just scary.
4. No, No , No and No. Charm animal stays. You don't Have to bring a pet res. In fact in random and team battle PvP I don't even bring comfort animal. My pet build nobody is running it eaither. We do however have a character with revive animal. Once again Wait until My guild and all guilds involved have tested our build.
5. Sorry but the skill recharge is an important part of a pet. If there was no such penalty even with all the current pet "problems" they would be overpowered. Everyone with even noting in beast mastery would bring the things. They are a pain in the arse to get around... That rasies another issue about better pet control. Imagine the body blocking in PvP. Hmm Need to think about that one.
6. Last time i had a pet in the tombs (Was about a month ago) he was rezzed along with the rest of the team with the presit. If this has been changed I agree that it should still be true. A pet is part of you. Edit: Oh! Pve. Yes... I think. Using ur pet to lure away part of the huge mob that killed you is usefull. I'd be happy either way.
7. I'd like an option to see my pet dmg and dmg delt. I belive the primary reason AreaNet doesn't display this is because the screen would get too cluttered. The option to see it to familiarise myself with my pet would be welcome though.
8. Heal area doesn't effect pets? Why not! It effects everything else! Heal party on the other hand. No That would be way too powerful.
9. I find they're pretty balanced at the moment. I suppose theres room for more but i have enogh trouble deciding already!

Oh I already take Beast Mastery VERY seriously in PvP. There is a powerhouse of untapped skills and spirits in there that most don't understand the true potential of. Once a rangers been in my group and learnt about edge of extinction they never go back.

There is room for a little improvement but please allow me a few more days to test out my pet build. I'll return with more coments then.

Why would it be too powerful? Are you saying healing a pet is more powerful than healing 7 real players? Thats like saying "healing my monk [which keeps me alive] with heal party would be too powerful" ....Heal Party is an expensive spell + slower than Comfort and does not heal as much as the other Monk Spells......what about Healing Spring, should that also not heal my pet? [in fact does it even heal my pet???]

AS far as I was awear healing sping and area did effect your pet. Howver heal party doesn't effect alies at present (Preist, ghost, etc.) so i see no reason for it to also effect pets. Once again The all pet bould we are running is scary enough. Heal party over 18 players (Players + pets + ghost + priest) Seems just a little too powerful to me.

Heck if heal party worked on pets as well I'd bring edge of extinction with my pet build.

I like my wolf and I'd love if they fused charm animal and comfort animal.
I support all the other suggestions.

i have a Me/R and as u all know mesmer doesnt make the highest damge in the game with his weapon, so i have done like this: My weapon and mysecond hand item gives me energy for my skills and my pet takes care of tanking and natural damage (damage that is not made by a skill). But i have one problem! my pet doesnt do so much damage and even if i put all my attribute points at beast mastrey i dont fell and change! GW plz fix this or i'll make a new mesmer that has'ntranger a second proffesion! By the way i think u should do in expanson set make more number of creatures that u can charm! I think it get a little bit botin with wolf and stalker...



YAAAAY! This is my fisrt long reply! Watch out, cuz here coems The silent mesmer and his Pet =D

I agree 100% with BigTru.

I would also add that I'm a Ra/Mo and would like to use my monk resurrect skill on my pet. I can use most of my monk healing skills on my pet and/or party and having to bring a res skill for my pet and a second res skill for the party seems rather redundant and costs a skill slot to boot.

We haven't been in the tombs yet but an hour ago we decided to test out our pet build on a four man basis. Here is the result.

Pic Here

Seeing as we plan to run the team on HoH in a few nights we don't want to give too much away. That's the reason for the blanking.

heal area does work on pets, my guilds monk likes to heal area my pet all the time XP

I agree with that. It would make more sense though, if the black-out time is proportional to your beastmaster level. The way it's set up right now makes pets too much of a liability for secondary rangers. I play as a Mo/R. Nowadays I just leave my pet at home, as losing him in a fight could doom my whole party.

I would also like to see my pet engaging an enemy that's attacking me, so I have a little time to get out of harms way.

Confirmed. Just while we're on the topic, so does Aegis .

In that case... we should also have the EVUL PET as well.

Say we have the loveable Yogi Bear. Then we need an evil version. One with fangs, big teeth, a pet from hell.
We should have "Boo boo" the dancing bear.

Let those two slug it out. while our Hero and his mirror fight it out.

also be able to charm more types of pets, like Birds, that fly
eg an Eagle, Hawk, etc
a large snake?
i dunno these are all of the top of my head.

I realise that the few days on the promised pet build in the tombs has turned into weeks but rest asured. Myeslf, fellow guildees, and allied guilds have turned many players into nasty pet users. We've got 8 players ready. We've been refining the build in the team arena the last 3 days (And my god it's been a blast!) and should be in the tombs maybe as soon as tonight. We'll post our victroy pic here when/ if we clean up .

although it's hard to argue with 50 straight wins, i will withold judgement until Thomasuwoo posts a pic from tombs. tombs is very different from 4 vs 4. consider the fact that rangers generally own in the arenas. not so in tombs. that said i wish Thomas and his guild success in tombs. i've showed his pic in my guild's forums and they are extremely interested in doing someting similiar. one last comment. i can honestly say i never thought a pet build would have any success anywhere. dare to be great!!! go! go! go!

Yes! Why on earth can't I command my pet, its a part of me, I should be able to tell it what to do. I mean come on? Aye, or just combine the two, make it so once you use Charm Animal it turns into a Comform Animal, once you get rid of your pet, you can then buy a new Charm animal sig.... like you can buy additional capture sigs!

Yes Yes! Why does it happen at the moment? My pet is part of the team, it should res with me!

Again yes, I couldn't care less about the rest of my party... but again my pet is a part of me, I would like to know how much damage it doing so I can work out how best to use pet skills to aid him or her.

All healing skills should work on pets... buffs and all. Really again it odd how you can'y at the moment, I mean a pet is part of the team isn't it?

The way I see, pets are underuse due to these limitations, I mean really it makes sense to add these in. Pets are part of the team!