Pet control

I wrot a fairly long post, and then my web died, so here is the short version

I like pets, they cool, but not overly useful, to make them more usefull without changing any balance or anything I have the fallowing sugestion

A pet window, will display your pets name, health and have the fallowing boxes which you can check to control behavour patterns

Control (targeting)
tight: your pet will atack what you atack, if you atack something else, it will switch targets and atack that thing
loose: your pet will attack what you attack, but if you switch targets, your pet will not switch, untill its target is dead
None: your pet will attack whats closest to it

Range
heel: your pet will stay right next (agacent) to you
defend: your pet stay near you (nearby)
patrol: your pet will stay in the area of you
roam: you pet has no boundries

Charm animal will be used to provide 2 aditional comands,
"sic em!" your pet will atack your current target, regardless of control or range settings, aftwards it will revert back to normal
"here!" if you have no current target your pet will come to you.


this will allow you to pull without your pet stoping the oponenets advance midway or gathering unwanted aggro by putting it in heel or defend mode. If you want your disrupting lunge to go against the enemy monk instead of one of their wars have your control set to tight, or use the charm animal skill to "sic em".

I have long been a supporter of better pet control, but I feel this is a bit too extensive. I feel the charm animal command should be usable to put your pet in a "accute" or "passive" state, and perhaps even a "retreat" state.

One click on Charm Animal would cause the pet to engage whatever enemy you are targeting. The second click would allow the pet to attack whatever is close, or continue attaking whatever he is already attacking wile you run around. And a third click on Charm Animal would stop the pet from attacking and force him to return to you, this helps prevent your pet from damaging himself if he has a certain hex on him, or ensures that he will retreat with you when you are fleeing.

Leaving the pets health gauge on the party bar allows teammates to support your pet more readily, it may be underscored by all the other characters in your party, but pets are rarely primary targets, and also the most expendable (sometimes intentionally expendable).

Since Charm Animal isn't used to activate anything else wile a pet is active, I think it is most appropriately improved with the use of some simply, yet vital tactical improvements to your pets targeting. I don't think such an improvement will give Ranger an unbalanced advantage, only a properly due one, dynamic use of pet control would revolutionize the use of pets, they way they should be.

Wile extensive commands and a seperate command window may be feasible, I think it takes up too much space for something a simpler improvement could provide. If it were possible to make an effective pet interface without creating too much blockage, it would be alright, it certainly isn't a bad thing for them to improve pet control one way or another, I just perfer simplified 'Charm Animal" commands over a cluttersome window of commands.

Something like this would allow pets to be used the way they were ment to be used, as an expendable front line unit which can be sent in first, and even better, being able to control their target or retrieve them appropriately would make them significantly more useful, and redefine the effectiveness of bringing a pet. With this, they can also be used to pull enemy creatures, an invaluable asset.

I would love for pets to be more useful, this is a great idea.

Great idea, but as a balance reason, all the pet attacks need to nerfed.

Currently, pets attacks are better than weapon attacks. Where bow attacks +20, pet attacks +30

good idea but honestly i dont think anet would have
enough coffe to add such a function, i wouldnt mind if they did

and pets are very underrestimated
an average pet can deal a base damage of 17-41
thats more than a warrior people

I have one MAJOR complaint about pets. They get in the way. I have died or failed to help a teammate more than once because my dumb pet was preventing me from moving away from danger, attacking an enemy, or protecting an ally. If anet and the GW programmers can make the game so you can walk through NPC's they should also do the same thing for pets. That exact change was made for the Diablo LoD Valkyrie NPC ally for the Amazon character.

As for pet attributes and characteristics it would be nice to be able to have the pet as offensive or defensive in nature and to be able to send it into the enemy target area to get their attention.

Bow also gets range, pets are melee...

That's an awesome idea.

/signed

This has been asked a lot to upgrade our pets, i would just be happy with an XP bar , the charm animal key being used for multiple purposes has been stated, but i like the check off kinda thing where your pet would be a little more easily controlled. Also i'm still trying to figure it out, but when you call your target while attacking it your pet automatically runs to that target, or even have that enemy targeted, kinda like henchies.


Dire pet = 20-40 damage at lvl 20
Thats MUCH higher than a bow, idk where you ppl dont think they do enough damage Try enraged lunge {E} with symbiotic bond, call of prot and an alternative pet attack, doing 100s to wars

That way they are even more annoying, some bows are also easy to evade just by strafing

Bows don't die and disable your skills...

I second that. I'm always getting hung up on the damn things...

I like this idea, I have a beastmaster and sometimes it's hard to control. Other things that would help would have an icon of the next pet attack that your pet will do (so if you use disruption lunge, an icon of that will appear until the animal has preformed that attack) and show icons of what shouts are on your pet, like call of haste.

for size I dont see the window being bigger than the compas, and you can open it, set your boxes and close it if you cant fit it (I would probly just put it underneth my "u" map) . On the subject of pet damage, yes their individual atacks do deal more, but they have a much slower atack rate.

/signed

a pet on itself takes 2 extra skill slots!!!! thts kinda alot

then you have to add a pet attak +1 more skill slot

resurect/sig

self heal

here, thats more half your skill bar. that means that if you want the pet to be "efficient" you have to go almost full BM, maby have 1 bow attak. the down side is that you cant use the pet if it died... so if kitty died in middle of fire imps camping, you become pretty much useless with your 1 bow attak+buff

All you really need are...
-Attack my target
-Come to me
-Stationary

true but i figure if your going to add a feature, why go minimalist?

All this has been said before by the way. Controling pets is nothing new. I like the ability to tell pets to either attack your target, or stay on the one you attacked first.

I often play thumper, and build adrenaline on one target, and then switching to another to spike isnt possible becuase the pet doesnt follow the new target. However, leaving the pet to attack the last target means i am able to continue to pressure a spellcaster while i can interupt a rez with a well timed hammer bash.

However, the last suggestion, the ability to attack targets without actually attacking them makes the pet rather unbalanced imo. That would allow a team to send in a wave of pets without ever getting into aggro.

Basically, i am for a new control method, or a improvement in AI, but nothing radical in terms of pet mechanics. You have to be careful to overpower the already nasty Thumper.

i think the minimalist approach would be fine, seeing as those are the big problems w/ a pet:

they attack whatever they want

they don't flee any better than minions

they run in and aggro when u wanna pull w/ ur bow and have em just sit there

i think aside from those problems, and the fact that u have to keep urself alive, and ur pet (which is helped a lot by heal as one or predatory bond) pets are amazingly powerful

Pets however attack slower than a bow, switch targets less easily, don't have preparations, have no way to remove conditions easily (unaffected by Extinguish, Martyr, ranger can't clear them (though can clear his own blindness with antidote sig)), are easily overextended (target kites back, pet is beyond support range), are unaffected by party-level heals/protection/buffs (no Orders, Heal Party or Aegis for them), can be eliminated as a threat in two ways, pressure to either pet OR controller and so on. In addition, pets don't get a +20% customization bonus to their damage, don't get vampiric or other mods and so on.

Pets have gotten a much needed boost to effectiveness, and in some ways are scarily effective, but without updated pet AI/controls they are still a limited tool. Ever watched a pet chase someone? They hardly ever attack while pursuing, despite being faster thnan the target. Engaging an approaching foe? They'll run to intercept, stop to attack, but have to chase again due to the attack-initiating delay pets seem to have, so you seldom get an attack off before the foe is stationary attacking someone. They have little in the way of control, and I've had my pet killed by being dragged into traps/lava etc... many times - pets are dumb. Controls would be nice, but I would go with a minimalist structure as well for them - a bit better AI, a minimalist control set and I'd be a happy beastmaster.