A pet is a pet is a pet...

Unless we could have some diversity among the types of pets, just as we do among our weapons. Such as:

Felines have slashing attacks + crippling
Avians have piercing attacks + deep wound
Crustaceans have blunt attacks + weakness
The Phoenix has fire attack + set targets afire
Arachnids have piercing + poisoning
Bears have slashing + increased chance of critical (x2) damage
Canine pets have slashing attacks + bleeding

The chances for their secondary effect would be level based, such as .5% for each level of the pet, maximum 10% chance. Any skills that incorporate a condition would then boost the animal's inherent one.

Creating pets that have speed modifiers or damage amount differences may not work well considering all pets should be classified as a single weapon since it requires only one skill to use, as opposed to say an actual sword vs. a hammer (where there is a difference in swing speed and damage) and thus requires a change in entire skill sets. Your thoughts or comments? I'd like to keep this thread specifically about the pet's mechanics, rather than we need more kennel space, or we need to be able to dye our pets. Thanks!

I would say this was overpowering, adding conditions to pet attacks spreads conditions way more faster. Think about a party bringing "felines" crippling all over without having the need of a crippling ranger, "avians" deep wound all around without an eviscreate.

Taint necro or a crip/apply ranger with a pet, conditions everywhere.

I think it would be great to have some diversity among the pets. I see very little problem with speed and damage modifiers for pets. Any negative views can be easily remedied.

What classification would you put the Warthog?

http://www.gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Pet

Some pets already do have different damage types. (the * about the incorrectness of the Prima Guide is in reference to the fact that Warthogs supposedly did blunt damage).
Every other suggestion does seem overpowered.

PvP toons are only able touse Elder Wolf, so I'd say "No".

Also, we'd see less diversity in which pets people use because everyone would just move to the most "l33t" one. Not to mention this suggestion is overpowering.

There are already conditions available for pets and they are applied with skills, just like everything else in the game. To balance this you'd have to have weapons that caused these same effects for each profession without using skills. Not good.

Actually, I like the idea but with a modification:

Each type of pet does get a different type of attack like blunt, piercing, slashing etc. However, the pet can also do the suggested "condition" attack but only if you have a special call/lunge type skill on your skill bar.

This new skill would have a cost (to be determined) and a recharge time (to be determined). In that way it wouldn't be super spammable, but it would allow some differentiation between pets. Currently there is a Canthan skill called "Poisonous Bite" that basically poisons your foe. This could easily be switched to "Enraged Attack" where the pet's special skill was applied to the foe. I think this would be balanced.

EDIT:

Dean, I think my modification would address your concern.

It would be an option for pets to be like prefix mods on swords etc. It would be devastatingly unbalancing for certain animals to cause crippling (for example) outright, but not so rediculous for certain animals to "Increase Crippled Duration by 33%" when using a pet skill.

This difference in pets fits in better with the ability to tame multiple pets, because otherwise you might find your pet's particular strength preventinmg you from modifying your build, and changing your build is what makes GW different.

You can USE skills that actually inflict conditions

That might be a fair idea, giving pets inherent "weapon mods", especially since that is sacrificed by using a pet as a weapon in the first place. For pretty much every mod except zealous, it seems pretty simple to just slap that ability on a pet and call it a day. For example:

Spider: 5/1 vampiric (bloodsucker) +7 vs. physical (exoskeleton)
Moa: 20/20 Sundering (pointy beak) not sure for suffix,maybe a -2 second to the skill disabling time?
Bear: 10% chance that owner gains adrenaline on hit, +30 health (it's a big bear)
Dune Lizard - +33% bleeding duration (pointy teeth) and +5 armor (thick scales)
Stalker - +33% crippling (ankle biter) and +7 vs elemental (warm coat)
Lynx - +33% poison duration (bad dental hygiene) and 20% chance of +1 beastmastery when using a special attack.

you still can use your weapon if you have a pet...

In beastmaster builds using the pet to deal damage, it is very rare that you will concentrate on both pet attacks and weapon attacks. Yes, bunny thumpers, I know. It gets really tricky to use your weapon effectively when you've put 12 points in beastmastery and expertise in order to use the pet as a damage source. Not to mention the strain on the skillbar.

I would hate to have to get a new Level 20 pet every time I want to run a different build calling for a different type of condition or modifier. Especially since it was so much trouble for me to raise my pet as dire.

Unless what?

There already are different damage types for pets, there are only 3, and there are pets for all 3 damage types unless at some point they removed some. As well, I think that pets have different attack speeds, but I am not certain of that.

As for making alternate status effects and new ways for them to trigger, this is a simple imbalance in skill efficiency, there are already skills which deal certain amounts of conditions, and they are balanced based on attributes invested in Beast mastery, not including unbalanced additions of diverse conditions based on personal insterest instead of balance.

They could change Beast mastery, but it is balanced, and there are several builds which exploit the use of pets, so assuming there should be an improvement is a bit unjustified. They can make new skills to improve or alter the way beastmastery is used, but expecting them to make blind additions so something that is balanced (whether you agree or not) is wishful thinking and not a legitimate suggestion. Anet has decided it is balanced, and even if you disagree, they will not add a rainbow of improvements to a function which they have decided is balanced.

Beast mastery can at maximum only take 97 points of your attribute pool, you can either deck your expertise for extremely cheap beastmastery skill use, or use a combination of wilderness survival or marksmenship with beast mastery. You can easily place 10 points in 3 different attirbutes for the cost of 2 less max on 2 attributes in order to build a multi attribute class. You can put points in to beast mastery as well as another weapon or attack type and a healing attribute, or Expertise for energy managment and a weapon or healing attribute, or max Beast mastery and Marksmenship for 2 max power attack attributes and leave the healing to another class. As a warrior and assassin player I often have to put points in 2 attributes just to do damage, and save some points for another attribute to cover healing, why rangers think their one beast mastery attribute should match Critical Strikes+Dagger Mastery or Strength+(Weapon) Mastery in effeicency is beyond me, they obviously don't recongize balance nor cost.

All physical classes require 2 attributes to deal competative attack damage, and most casters require points in 2 attributes to make efficient use of effective attacks, and most of those classes require another attribute to cover healing no different then Ranger, so whether you putting your extra points in Expertise to make your pet attacks cheaper, or putting points in Marksmenship to gain more attack output, your not liable to any more constraint then any other job, it is different, yet balanced, whether you accept it or not.

All pets, except for the spider and moa, do slashing damage. The spider and moa do piercing. All the pets deal the same amount of damage. The bear has the slowest attack speed and is thus the worst pet. Other than that, all the pets are the same.

there are several builds which exploit the deaths of pets

There, fixed that for ya.

When was the last time you saw a pet attack build in a serious PvP match? They're fun to screw around with in PvE, but not that effective. Just because it's in the game right now doesn't mean it's balanced.


Pretty much any ranger build without expertise pumped up is worthless. Spammiing out those attack skills like any good ranger will make your energy run dry faster than an ele with no energy management. Usually the way is works out, you can put 12 in beastmastery, 12 or 13 in expertise, and then around 9 in marksmanship. Bow attacks are taking a major hit in attributes here, let alone that you can't use WS.

No one thinks a build with only points in beastmastery should match weapon mastery + strength, or dagger mastery + critical strikes. However, a build with expertise and beastmastery with a few point in a another area for support should be equal to that, no? I'll say it again, any ranger build without a significant number of points in expertise is broken.

Finally, you forget the skillbar burden. After adding in charm animal, a pet rez, and a people rez, you have 5 spots left to work with. Let's throw in one self heal for our fearless beastmaster so he doesn't get eaten. We'll leave out an evasion skill for now and hope for the best. That's 4 left. Let's be conservative and say 2 pet attacks. Now we have 2 slots left, although it's not a terrible idea to use 3 attacks here if you can fit it. We'll use call of haste to increase our pet's damage, call of protection or otyugh's cry to increase it's tanking ability. It would be nice if we could use both, but we're already running low on slots here. So even with a conservative estimate, we have one slot left for a bow attack, which would be best used for energy management, not wasting more energy that we don't have. There's just not room to be both an effective marksman and an effective pet attack build.

what if the pets offered a boost to you in some minor way instead of causeing/dealing more damage/conditions.

like: the bear = armor
the warthog= life
the spider =lengthen posion
the moa bird =range to bow
wolf =attack speed
phionex=energy
ect.ect.

/notsigned - balance issue. Plus there are pet skills for a reason...


However if you want to suggest tamed bears no longer have a skill like Brutal Mauling that's totaly worthless and screws your other pet attacks, I'd sign that.

I know you are referring to built in attributes but

It costs 5 energy, has a 0 cast time and recharges in 5 sec. Granted the damage delt is minimal but that is not why I use it, I use it for the interrupt. If everyone is on the same target and if anyone else is using an interrupt as well, your pet dosen't need to deal much damage. At least IMHO.

I like that. Each bonus would have to be very minor though.

I had similar thoughts a while back.

Pets should have special attack types to add diversity and meaning to which pet you choose to charm, for example the spider could poison foes.

Such conditions would have to have very small durations so as not to cause any major imbalancing issues and the chance of your pet performing such an attack successfully should depend on that pets level and your level of beastmastery.

PvP characters should be able to select their pet from a dropdown menu when creating a character or in game using and emote '/changepet crane'.