Charm Animal Utility

Give commands to your pet via the Charm Animal skill.

• You target an enemy and use Charm Animal - Your pet attacks that target.
• You target an ally and use Charm Animal - Your pet attacks that ally's target.
• You target yourself or nothing and use Charm Animal - Your pet yeilds and returns to you, ignoring the attacks of enemies until he gets to you or you issue another command.

Your pet, by default, does not attack until you issue a command in this fashion, allowing you to pull without your pet ruining it.

Easy and simple control with 1 button without having to painstakingly create a GUI for pets. Charm Animal just sits in your skillbar doing nothing. Why not give it a practical use that will make pet builds more viable? Perhaps we could rename it to "Animal Ally" or somesuch.

I have suggested this before, but not in its own thread. I know many people have suggested a whole new pet window to issue commands, but I really don't see that happening, as GUIs are a pain to impliment, whereas this requires much less work.

I think it's a winner.

I like this idea. I also had another idea for Charm Animal.

If you already have an animal charmed and you have charm animal on your bar you can charm other animals in the area temporarily for that instance you are in. So you could have many animals with you at a time for that instance. If the animal dies while under this temporary charm you can not ressurect it. It is gone forever. It's like an alternate to Minion master sorta.

On a side note I'd also like to see the level of some wild animals raised. Level 5 animals everywhere seems weak. At least level 10. Maybe change the level of wild animals based on the level of the enemies in the area. Max 20 of course.

After much /rage last night trying to pay with a pet...


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mainly to be able to pull with a long bow when my pet is with me ......

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This isn't the first time this idea has come up, but since A.net hasn't caught on, damnit, post it again, and again, and again.

This doesn't add any undeserved power to pet wielders, it makes natural use of a good skill more reasonable.

Wile some players might appreciate the auto attack of their pet when they are getting slammed and can't issue a command, the assurance that your pet doesn't do anything retarded is a much better function, and unless additional efficient options be added as well, it would be no significant lose to have a pet who only attacks on command.

It wouldn't be bad if certain actions automaticly triggered your pets attacks, like an innitial attack, but the ability to target your enemy and send your pet in first is priceless.

/signed, I sign realy big cause I work at the bank, it's all up on the line above and below.

Great idea. But if this were to be taken into effect, I would say you would have to have a certain level of beast mastery or something. I think it would be very confusing for a beginner to be clicking the charm animal skill and end up getting different results. "Wtf? Why did my pet do that and now it's doing this when i use the charm animal skill?"



Otherwise, /Signed

They would probably add that part to skill description...

/signed

i think that pet commands are good ideas, but i think part of the reason charm animal doesn't really do anything is to balance out the effect of having another high level being in the group. Pets are stupid(not as stupid as some players though ) but they are effective in a group, that extra damage and tank ability can go a long way.

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Do I have to do it again? This is a perfect idea.

as if it hasnt been said enough:

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Loads of ppl think that beast masters arnt viable dmg sources, but when you actually see how much damage scavenger or brutal stike does, they tend to change opinion. The biggest problem with pets as i see it, is their complete lack of control. I attack a target, it attacks the target, i change target, it doggedly continues to attack the target, i disenage and run away, it gets itself killed, i stop attacking cos Healing Hands or Mark of Protection goes up, it just sits there healing them. This little extra utility on charm animal solves these problems. It doesnt make Beast Masters overpowered, it merely makes pets more controlable.

I hope this forum gets spotted by devs and considered to be implemented. They can increase dmg from pet skills all they like, even add in crazy new pets like crabs, but at the end of the day, if they cant do what u want them to do, u aint much of a beast master.

I imagine they would have those little pop-up help advice thing-a-ma-bobs, just like for the monk's maintained enchantments the first time you use one.

And yes, probably a detailed skill description too.

One thing I've noticed in video games in general is that you have to go all the way with AI and impliment a really good script or else it's simply better to give the control to a human. There's no half-assing it. Some games can afford to spend a lot of time on AI, but a game like Guild Wars is too big a project to really do that. It just makes sense to give us control, especially when the battle system in Guild Wars is as highly strategical and complicated as it is.

Oh hell yes.

/signed again and again. This would be great.

Adding the ability to control that damage source, provided by the charm animal skill is an important part of justifying the use.

Since the pet currently wanders and makes determental moves, it reduces the usefulness of the charm animal skill, this thing should be alot more reliable then a henchmen or Minion, this is a trained pet in the beast mastery line.

I can agree with making the response improve with beast mastery, although that would be an unneccessary hastle IMO.

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although one other thing that might be interesting is that your pet is more likely to follow your commands the longer you have had the pet or the higher its level is or maybe the higher your level of beast mastery is. (im not quite sure which of those 3 would be best)

Anet implement this NOW

/fistshake

Meh. Why bother? I mean, as you level up your skills will improve. As your pet levels up his health and damage will get better. Isn't that enough?

Besides, that just makes it more complicated for ANet to impliment. It may also turn newbies off of beast mastery forever, since their pet's commands appear kinda useless when they're just starting out.

very good points, i retract my earlier suggestion

/signed!

Second tool bar for pets.

GW pets are fairly useless IMO. You are better off using assassin or archer skills.

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Nice idea. Maybe the pet can be more usefull then.