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How are the rangers and their pets in 5.0? My impression was that they were pretty bad early on, so i skipped the class. Having returned after all the DLC releases, i'm considering doing a ranger multi with Chanter. My experience with rangers back in the beginning was with Maia, whos pet i found more of a liability than help, though she was a decent ranged autoattacker with spells (geomancer). Have rangers improved since early on? Are pets worth the investment now? Or would i be better off jus going Ghost Heart and sticking to Marked Prey and Wounding Shot?

So, I'm planning to roll up a Ghost Heart multi-class soon that will have some CC, some DoTs available to it, and maybe some slow healing available to it, depending on the 2nd class. I'm trying to decide which animal companion would work best for the Ghost Heart. I've done some research already and playtested a bit with the wolf (it dies quickly). On the one hand, the two main damage dealers are the Wolf and the Lion. The Wolf is squishy (but Ghost Heart = no Bonded Grief) but stronger than the other companions, while the Lion has more health and has an attack speed bonus. On the other hand, the Bear and the Boar are semi-decent off-tanks, from what I've read. The Bear has a bit more armor and does decent damage, while the Boar has the most health and has a health regeneration effect, but is slow and doesn't deal a lot of damage. I've read that animal companions generally don't deal a lot of damage, even with all of their buffs (Predator's Sense, Merciless Companion, Vicious Companion); if this is still the case, is it even worth going something other than Boar? I mean, I could go Bear for a little extra armor, but will that really make a difference? As added information, I am planning to be a Hearth Orlan for extra crits and I am going to be running with the official companions. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Things I like: Rangers. They're good at ranged DPS and I like ranged DPS characters. Maia. Her commentary is funny and her personal quest is interesting. Ishiza as a character. Stinkfeathers is a good bird, despite only liking me for my meat. Things I do not like: Microing Animal Companions. If I could take the option to have a Ranger with no Animal Compaion or force every Ranger to be a Ghost Heart, I would. Unfortunately, Maia is a Gunhawk. Bonded Grief. I especially dislike Bonded Grief when my party gets AOE'd and there's very little I can do to stop an Animal Companion from dying and tanking my Ranger's effectiveness. Ishiza as a combatant. His damage and durability are just not high enough to be useful, especially on POTD. He regularly gets shot to death or blown up with the rest of the party, and the only way to keep him alive consistently is to send him to the furthest corner away from enemies when the fighting starts. What I want: The ability for Maia to pick up Ishiza to remove him from active play. Nothing extravagant, just a dialogue option that stores/retrieves Ishiza from Maia's pack like the Familiars from Baldur's Gate. I noticed how badly I wanted this when I was screwing around on Poko Kohara and Maia's mentioned putting Ishiza in her pack because of the poor weather conditions. I'm really tired of Ishiza getting dunked on by enemy ranged attacks and AOE and I'd like the ability to put the bird away so she's not such a pain to have along. I tried modifying the files to remove her Bird Companion ability as part of her progression and, surprisingly, it worked perfectly. Her dialogue doesn't experience any bugs without Ishiza there (except for a missing portrait), so such a feature wouldn't cause any major hiccups for her conversations. Hell, you wouldn't even need to record new dialogue - the bark line she uses for Poko Kohara would be perfect for the pick-up, and her line demonstrating her "come" command would be perfect for retrieval.

Hi, i have a question about Ranger animal companion in PoE 2. In PoE 1 of what i remember , animal companion only gain HP and DR when lvl up. Are they got more scale in PoE 2? And, is single-class ranger animal companion stronger than multi-class one?

I recently tried to play as ranger, but I found what I consider to be a detrimental factor in its balancing, other than in the fun playing it. Or you develop Ranged abilities Or you take pet's ones. Mixing is unsatisfying in my experience. Now, my frustration comes from the fact that the pet IS a second character, I am forced to keep it but its death cripples my Ranger performance. Therefore to augment its functionality and survive-ability I must devolve the points gained from levelling up on said improvements. This result in a very boring Ranger. If instead I decide to strengthen my Ranger, then the pet becomes much of a burden and more frustrating than fun. I've been pondering a lot about it, and I honestly think that the "pet only" abilities (like DR reduction, knock-down, or damage boost) should be automatically unlocked upon levelling up much as the priest spells do. Another way to do it would be to allow me to level up my animal companion independently (separate pet XP). In this way I would still have some chance to learn some new abilities and to progress my Ranger ranged proper development. I feel this change should be implemented by Obsidian, but since probably it won't happen, I would like to know if anybody could Mod it according my suggestion, or teach me how to do it myself. Thanks for the reading.

I got this game right after it came out. Despite being the two classes I was looking forward to most, the ranger and druid classes were a huge let-down. Ranger: Despite being marketed as one of the main damaging classes, the ranger's DPS was nothing to write home about. Neither was the animal companion. (But I kept playing anyway, because I love animals.) The Druid was an even bigger let-down. Despite all the pre-release updates gushing about the spiritshifting abilities, it turned out to be very weak. It was only mildly effective during the first few levels of the game, but then it failed to scale up with the character. That, combined with the complete lack of special abilities to boost it the way you got tons of abilities to boost your spellcasting, meant you quickly had to abandon it and stick to spellcasting exclusively. (I know I sound greedy and ungrateful since the druid was one of the best spellcasters at the time, but it was the spiritshifting ability I really wanted. I would have gladly taken the option to focus on spiritshifting over spellcrafting, and sacrificed being able to become a first-rate spellcaster to become a second-rate warrior if only it meant spiritshifting didn't get me killed every battle.) There was some talk about the devs eventually balancing them better, but I quickly finished my first playthrough then moved onto other games and projects while I waited. Now I'm back, and I'd like to know if anything has changed since I've been away? Or should I aim to finish my cipher or chanter instead?

I have not been able to figure out how to get an animal companion for my ranger. She is a level 4 Deadfire Arch Hunter. What do I need to do? Thanks in advance

Description: Detection circle isn't showing up for my Ranger's animal companion. The detection mechanic is still working, and I hear the 'ping' when the AC is detected and combat starts. Didn't notice at first because Calisca/Heodan was always at the fore. Since Valewood, the lion's been leading and no yellow/red detection timer has been showing for it. Have since tested with 3 different companions at start of game - none show a detection circle. Steps to Reproduce the Issue: Start a new game, normal difficulty. Create a Ranger with Lion, Wolf or Stag (haven't tested the others) animal companion. (Wood-Elf / Pale-Elf, Living-lands, Hunter background if that makes a difference). Approach first wolf enemy with the AC - no detection circle shows up, though it does work for Calisca and PC. Expected Behaviour: AC gets a detection circle (especially as wolf is said to be a good scout) (Last ranger I had was Sagani in 1.04 - I'm pretty sure Itumaak had a detection circle then) Can't upload save-game to dropbox/mediafire/4shared as they're blocked in China - if nobody else is having this problem, I'll try a full reinstall.

Not surprisingly, I thought the ranger was prett lack-luster. Although I don't think the ranger's in danger of winning any overpoweredness contests, I actually didn't think the ranger was too weak. The ranger is really just the pet-owner class. Other than the fact that D&D also had (and struggled with) animal companions, the class barely feels like a ranger at all. This wouldn't be a huge problem if it didn't mean that, in the end, there's almost nothing to do with the ranger in both character building and combat. In my opinion, the ranger would make more sense (and probably be a lot more fun) as a series of talents available to any character. (Think about it: then Sagani could be a rogue!) That's a pretty dire verdict on a class. I'm not joking though. At this point, if I had to fix the ranger I would just get rid of it completely and allow any character to buy into the ranger pet through a series of talents (starting with something weaker, of course, since a whole ranger pet would be a bit OPed for just one talent). The remaining abilities could be divided among other classes as made sense. I'm not being hyperbolically negative here either. I actually think this would be a nice improvement to the game--allowing characters to be distinguished by the fact that they have an animal companion rather than defined by the fact they have an animal companion. The fighter with a pet wolf would feel a lot different than one without, both mechanically and from a storytelling perspective. Same for every other class.

I am currently playing with the ranger and chose a bear animal companion. A couple of things regarding the animal companion mechanics are not clear too me and I could not find hints in the manual or strategy guide. When the animal companion endurance is decreased during combat, after combat its health actually never changes. For the player and normal companions the lost endurance is removed from health points. Is this indendet? Can my animal companion actually never die? If the endurance of my animal companion drops to zero my main character gets a penalty. But after combat the animal companion just recovers to full health and endurance. Is there actually no penalty for an animal companion dropping to 0 endurance?

So I have noticed that all the other Animal Companions have actual attributes spread But the wolf. The wolf has straight 10's through all attributes yet the wolf description says he is high damage. The bear has 15 might so 15% increase to damage yet the wolf only has 10 might. does this actually matter do attributes factor in? if so the wolf is clearly under developed I hope this gets fixed with the next patch. If anyone out there knows the engine or how to look into the actual stats I would love to know if this actually factors in.

I just love the game so far, so detailed and exciting... but still cannot understand such massive bungle - which is driving me nuts! If playing as a ranger (as I do) every time you select your pet (a bear in my case) it makes no bear-sound at all, it's as if it was lifeless, a robot or puppet. You click him, order him to go or attack... and no sound produced. Complete silence, what's highly weird I must say! Actually I've noticed that there are bear sounds created and used throughout the game (for instance, the big bad bear in a cavern in the beginning) so I keep wondering why the hell Obsidian made such a blunder. I suppose it's the same with the other pets (boar, wolf, deer, lion...) Please, fix it. Thank you in advance! A fan

The Ranger's Animal Companion should receive an Athletics bonus tied to the Ranger's own skill level. As most of us have already discovered - Athletics is the most useful skill in the game and every character benefits from at least one or two points so you can finish a dungeon without resting. The Ranger's Animal companion is fatigued from only a few hours however and I feel this should be looked at.

I love the portraits in PoE especially the newer ones. But if you play with an animal companion a huge portion of your portrait is cut off, which annoyed me quite a bit. Is it possible to either change the shape or size of the animal companion icon or place it completely elsewhere (like above the portrait as an example) so that everyone including the rangers can appreciate the awesome artwork? Screenshot: http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/526132676951183015/738A3BE1567476B00EEEB9DD6E4F59C73C774A46/ The latest build is great btw! I'm counting the days to the final release!

I searched these forums for topics on the animal companions, but couldn’t find anything dedicated to animal companion mechanics. Hence this topic. When I first played the BG series, I rolled an elven ranger who I stuck with throughout both games and the expansions. I really like the idea of a marksman tracker and therefore I’m toying with the idea of playing an elven ranger again. However, I feel that the ranger class is not quite as appealing as some of the other classes (e.g. the cypher or monk) based on the details that have been revealed so far. Where the cypher and monk have a lot of abilities and mechanics to fuss over, namely the concepts of focus and wounds that power special abilities, the ranger’s key distinction seems to be bonuses/abilities in ranged weapons and the animal companion which seem a little bland at first sight. What I mean to say is that, for example, cyphers, monks and wizards have plenty of abilities and “resources” that need to be managed and therefore allow the player to be more involved with the actions of the character. We don’t know much about the ranger class yet, but based on the information at hand, the class doesn’t seem to require as much attention from the player or provide as much strategic depth, except for the management of shared health/stamina pools between the ranger and animal companion. This is what Josh had to say about rangers: “ "Rangers have the second highest single-target damage output capability (behind rogues) but have the advantage of range. While many rogue abilities allow the use of ranged attacks, the rogue needs to be relatively close to the target to use them. Rangers do not have this restriction. Rangers also all have animal companions. They are an integral part of the class and animal companions gain additional abilities as the ranger advances. Because rangers and their animal companions are soul-bonded, they share a common pool of Stamina and Health. Mechanically, this means that rangers cannot use their animal companion as a "meat shield", but they can gain good synergistic benefits from working together.” As the animal companion is such a distinctive part of playing a ranger, it’d be interesting to hear the opinions of others on what you expect the animal companion to play like and what kinds of companion mechanics would you like to see implemented in order for the ranger class to be as unique and appealing as some of the other classes? Also, what kinds of animal companions would you like to see (e.g. large melee type animals, stealthy scouts, magical creatures)? TLDR: What kinds of animal companions and animal companion mechanics would you like to see in P:E?