Idea For Ranger Beast Mastery Fix

There are plenty of skills but only 8 slots.
And even without Fire Attunement you can be a fire elementalist. Without Charm Animal, you can't be a beastmaster.
Your point fails to hold any water.

8 Skill Slots
-1 for Charm Animal
-1 for Comfort Animal
-1 for Res Sig/Res spell
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5 skill slots for rangers to do they're Damage as BM.. (not including secondary profession skills.. which i usually use an average of 2. or Traps which most groups want the rangers to bring..)

so around 3 Skill Slots for a BM... I dunno about you guys, but last time i checked Warriors/Eleys/Monks/Mesmers/Necros don't need to bring any specific spells to have their weapon equipped...

I Actually agree with the Gloves posted by the OP.. or at least mix the Charm Animal and Comfort Animal into the same Skill.. how many times are ya gonna Comfort Animal if you don't have Charm Animal equipped...?...

/signed - if charr can avoid AoE, why not pets?

/signed - I could finally try one of the new Factions pets (never giving up my warthog )

I understand the point of Charm Animal - beyond the initial "capture" of a pet, it signifies when you "equip" the pet - but there is no justification I can see for having to use 1 skill slot just to "equip" a pet, and a 2nd slot to heal/res.

Personally, I think Charm Animal and Comfort Animal should be combined -- what's wrong with this: Charm a pet if you don't have one // Heal pet if it's alive // Res if it's dead? At the very least, the Charming and Res'ing functions should be combined as mentioned previously.

I have a W/R (not IWAY) that brings a pet for fun -- but when I bring him I have to load Charm Animal, Comfort Animal, and a Res Sig (if doing a mission)... that leaves me with 5 slots... and keep in mind the pet is more of an extra body -- certainly not the focus of my build. I usually bring 3-4 attacks, but when I bring a pet I either have to reduce my number of attacks, or I have just 1-2 slots for stances/shouts/skills. Either way, I am giving up an awful lot just to bring along a pet at BM 3-6 or so. Add on top of that the skill lock when my pet dies (I know they got rid of the lock when you res a pet), and I have significantly weakened myself just to bring along some company.

And this doesn't even touch the lazy pet AI, or the fact that pets block you (whereas hench don't, for example) - I can't tell you how many times after killing an enemy I target the next one and press Space to attack, only to find that I'm "stuck" on my pet... so I have to back up/turn, run around him, and retarget... incredibly annoying when you're watching the hench get themselves killed - thinking at least you're doing your part - and then realizing your pet is blocking you... again.

I have a W/R (not IWAY) in the same boat. I made her R secondary because I wanted her to have a pet, but eventually I gave up on that. Not enough slots left over for damage/defense skills. Combining charm/comfort into one skill makes sense--it would only free one slot, but that's better than nothing.

Diversify the different pet attributes besides the evolution of the pet.

Give Rangers a weapon (besides a bow) with mods or requirements to attributes other than marksmanship.

Change the Charm Animal to the Tamed <Pet> Signet. That way Rangers can have different pets tamed and bring the one out that you want to adventure with depending on which Tamed <Pet> Signet you equip.

More pets, more weapons, more choices.

Interesting idea... being able to tame/"equip" more than one animal (but only one at a time, of course) would be worth having its own skill slot imo.