Pets not part of party

I don't know if Anet has made it intentional or not but pet's aren't considered part of your party!

I think they should be, they are important enough to the ranger (It has it's own attribute and skills related to it) to be considered so.

I undestand that Bone horrors, minions and fiends aren't treated as party members but they aren't treated as allies either and can be summoned by the dozen.

Does anyone agree with me that Ranger pets should be included in as a *party members* or as an ally which can be affected by spells such as Heal party, Divine healing and Aegis?

I've often thought that too, it would also clear up one more skill in the bar for your class (Mo/R), not to have Comfort Animal in there.

But for other reasons, I can see why not. A pet is symbiotic with its Ranger, therefore I would imagine that only its Ranger can do anything for it.

Its an interesting problem.

No they should not be considered part of the party, these are wild animals that have been charmed by the ranger and remain a barely controlled force! Additionally, they hold no fealty to Dwayna, as Melandru is the goddess of nature.

Uhhh....One issue...If pets are apart of the party order of the vampire and order of pain will run rampant with awsome amounts of damage...But I don't know if that would be a big issue or not. I would like heal party and aegis to effect them tho...

god... IWAY with order of the vampire on pets.... *shudders*

I'm just pointing out.

Can you heal allies like Rurik or the Ghostly hero with heal party effects?

If so then the pet SHOULD be a party member. There aren't enough pet healing skill for the ranger to heal his pet unless he's a R/Mo. And I think the Pet is important enough to be considered a party member since he *is* symbiotic to the ranger.

Maybe they might consider new skills when the ranger is healed the pet is healed for a % also? or when there are party effects, if it affects the ranger it should affect the pet too.

(Out of context: Like the familiar rules in DnD.)

Maybe in the party in a different way

like this


>Username
||||>Pet

ofcourse petname/level a tad smaller so that people can see who's pet it is, but I don't have problems with the current way.

At least normal monk healing spells work on pets, that's something...but having party spells affect them as well would be sweet

No, heal party doesn't affect any 'allies' of the team.

However, I've taken to healing the pet/pets if I have the energy. they are NOT on my priority-heal list. Then again, the only one on that list is either the NPC who needs to stay alive or the tank. Everyone else gets treatment according to the situtation.

If the Ghostly Hero doesn't count as part of the party, then neither should pets.

You have no idea how hard this made me laugh. Thank you.

Allies are always from different parties (races / groups / departments) so pets should be allies.

Grrrr this makes me mad. Pets are already very un-derated and under powered. You should be able to heal them better! Or at least have more ranger heal-pet skills than a big freekin 2!

I think pets should stay part of the ally system. There are too many balance issues related to shifting them into the party system.

It can be really difficult to heal pets though and that sucks. I think that charm animal and comfort animal should be one skill. That would allow a slot for Call of Protection or the pet lunge that allows them to self heal (forgot the name off the top of my head).

Combining Charm and Comfort is not a new idea and not mine, but I think it's a great idea. Some people think this is overpowering, but I don't think so. I have played a ranger for over 450 hours and and have tried many different builds. In order to be an effective beastmaster you really need to pump the attribute points into it. You can not have decent levels in your other ranger attributes and beastmaster and your secondary. Or if you do add points to BM and a secondary, then you have to sacrifice, wilderness, expertise, or marksman to have decent points in the secondary. Basically, Beastmastery is almost akin to a complete secondary profession and your build must center around that. Any build that would benefit from a low BM attribute level and just having the pet there as a death benefit would also not benefit from having the combined Charm/Comfort skill. The only build that would benefit from this would be a BM main. A pure BM is not really an overpowered build, and with recent skill changes keeping a pet alive can be more challenging than ever.

I rarely if ever use the BM line now as I am trying new builds centering around mesmer secondary. So my suggestions aren't with fixing my current hunting style, but have been lingering around for some time after reading a few posts on the subject in another sites forums.

I'm curious as to what you mean by this. I've found it only getting easier to keep the pet alive, what with the AL increases and all.

It'd be nice to have like a week-long testing period where rangers test how they like their pets as party members.....then we vote on it...like a poll would pop up when we log on

If Pets aren't party members and are *allies*, why can't I target them with spell like Vengeance?

It specifically says in the descriptor of the spell:

Vengeance - Enchantment Spell
Bring target dead ally back to life at full health and full energy. After 30 seconds, or if this Enchantment is removed, the enchanted ally dies. Deaths while enchanted with Vengeance do not incur a death penalty.

The same thing in game (I checked). Try and bring a dead pet back with this spell! It'll say: Not a valid target.

So why would Anet make pets *not* be party members but count as allies. But make them *untargetable* for spells that also target allies.

This makes no sense It should be fixed

This links directly into skills like heal party and aegis which are exponentially more potent with more members affected, Having several pets benifit from party spells seriously unbalances the effectiveness of party effect moves, it is a simple equation that has to be balanced.

The removal of pets from party status was introduced the same time as the increased pet armor/defense, they made the pets more self sufficient so they don't recieve as much damage as normal party members, making them an easier target to keep alive, and also excluded them from party effects. This is a totaly fair and balanced alteration, and if you don't like it then you should be rooting for the return of all pets armor to thier former weakness as well as inclusion to party effects, this is what your subvertantly asking for.

No resurrection spell works on an "ally", they all work on party members. They should be written as such, though.

I'll try and see if I can vengeance allied NPCs that have fallen (non-important ones if you can find em lol)

If any of you can test if it *does* work, post it here or pm me. (I'm at work unfortunately )

I haven't tested recently, but I can take a guess. Vengeance is a res spell and I know you cannot use res spells on pets. Only the ranger can raise their pet.

I think the same is true of allied NPCs (except for the ranger part, obviously).

I don't really think having pets benefit from heal party and aegis is that unbalancing. Especially considering the amount of devotion you need to put into beast mastery for it to be viable.

But at the very least they do need to buff the pet healing spell. I mean, what does it max at? 87 at 12? Better than Orison (without devine favor), I guess, but at the expense of 10 mana! And that heal won't work on anything but your pet, who is not as valuble as an actual party member with a brain and full skill set. Rangers aren't monks, I know, but surely they should be able to keep their pet alive better. In other games with pets nobody can heal your pet better than you can.

You know there is only 1 elite Beast Mastery skill? That sucks.