How do I keep a Rangers pet alive?

[Torm51]

I am using Sagani just to see what ranger is like and with a Arquebus she hits VERY hard (slow shot buff) but...she obviously is a lot more effective with her pet (wounding shot etc) I just don't know how to keep the thing alive.  Thing is the way agro works when multiple enemies are engaged the AI will pick the one with lowest deflection...and I cant give the wolf a pike haha he has to get close.  So no matter what once he gets into the fray even if both of my tanks have engaged everyone the enemy will turn around and pound the wolf (smart hah)....so I guess I could take that talent that gives a Rangers pet DR.  Any other advice?

 

PS I know this is one of the weaker classes right now..for this exact reason.  Should probably just grab a rogue and give him the firearm.

[the streaker]

How do you keep anything alive in melee? Smart positioning around the main tank, friendly buffs, enemy debuffs. Cipher, priest and wizard have countless options.

[Raven Darkholme]

How do I keep a Rangers pet alive?

You don't, It will die eventually.

You arer better off with a rogue.

[Torm51]

How do you keep anything alive in melee? Smart positioning around the main tank, friendly buffs, enemy debuffs. Cipher, priest and wizard have countless options.

Streaker, anything that doesn't have a pike there isn't much a tank can do. The melee dpser will have to engage at close quarters and can't fight behind the tank like pikeman. They have lower deflection so the A I will turn to them. ...unless I am missing something

[MadDemiurg]

You have to flank and take out enemies 1 by 1. Pets have enough endurance to survive if not being focused by multiple enemies. Works well with stunning shots from the ranger. It's not like pets can't use a buff but you can make it work.

[the streaker]

 

How do you keep anything alive in melee? Smart positioning around the main tank, friendly buffs, enemy debuffs. Cipher, priest and wizard have countless options.

Streaker, anything that doesn't have a pike there isn't much a tank can do. The melee dpser will have to engage at close quarters and can't fight behind the tank like pikeman. They have lower deflection so the A I will turn to them. ...unless I am missing something

 

 

I think you give the AI too much credit. Anything that is engaged with tanks will not move elsewhere until the tank disengages (typically, there are some exceptions). So under normal circumstances, your bear should be engaging one enemy. In the meantime your ranger is dumping a load of damage on this same target, as well as (hopefully) at least one or two other party members, because focus fire makes sense regardless of the pet. The times my pet dies, is usually because I've made a mistake with controlling the enemy.

[Kaylon]

The pet is a distraction,  a damage add, use him to kite/pull enemies one by one or for flanking - not to tank. 

[tinysalamander]

Pet's primary role is using Takedown. At least that was my experience.

[Razorchain]

Are you kidding me, I have a custom ranger with a bear on potd and no problems.  Yes the pet dies occasionally but after reading the forums on how bad the pet was I was pleasantly suprised by how durable the pet was.  And yes the pet is not a extra tank that will stand there and tank 3 enemies without a sweat.  It will reliably tank one enemy.  I mean if you could tank 3 mobs why would you make a tank then? Just make a couple of rangers and tank with their pets

[Torm51]

Been following everyones advice here and its worked out.  Obviously I have 2 beast mode tanks with my Fighter and Paladin (playing on hard atm) so if its just one that pet has zero problem and its the focus target anyway.

[Exoduss]

Problem with ranger pets is : Fight Starts , You cant Send your pet yet or he will insta die , Enemy aggro your tanks , now you can send your pet but ranger already used 2 blunderbusses out of 4 and killed 2 enemy mages already , you send your pet to flank something , He recieves 25 Disgengagement Attacks even if mobs are attacking tank at that moment they will turn to pet for a milisecond to engage and disengagemenet attack him pet dies like the piece of **** it is  , here you got yourself nice grieving debuff , proceed to reroll rogue .

[luzarius]

1. Have the pet as a front line off tank.

2. Make sure they're standing on consecrated ground (heal spell the priest casts).

3. When they're at 3 bubble of health, have them disengage while they regen health.

4. Find an alternate person to fill the gap temporarily.

 

NOTE: Sometimes it's okay to let the pet get knocked out towards the end of combat, because by the end of the battle he's served his purpose by tanking enough to protect the squishies in the back who should've annihilated the enemy by now.

Edited May 23, 2015 by luzarius

[Exoduss]

Pets Purpose is to give Stalkers Link jeesus ... and that is close to impossible to have reliably and you waste a Neck Slot of items for Stalkers Link bonus , which is enormous but just because Stalkers Link is so bad .

[Evange]

Itumaak is too weak. I wished she had a bear instead. Arctic bear maybe?

[Silent Winter]

For me, Itumaak was getting knocked out a lot early game - mostly because he was charging the enemy and getting there first - figured out how to use him and the he rarely died.  Just wait a second before sending him in - let main tank(s) engage first.  Status-effect/debuff the enemy for good measure. Take pet talents at level up for added durability and damage.  Add in wounding shot and penetrating shot for the ranger - Sagani was ace.

[sims796]

For me, Itumaak was getting knocked out a lot early game - mostly because he was charging the enemy and getting there first - figured out how to use him and the he rarely died.  Just wait a second before sending him in - let main tank(s) engage first.  Status-effect/debuff the enemy for good measure. Take pet talents at level up for added durability and damage.  Add in wounding shot and penetrating shot for the ranger - Sagani was ace.

Exactly. Just let your main tank engage the enemies first, and use your pet to either double (triple with the Ranger) team the engaged target, or to pick off stragglers. If you can, weave your pet to attack sensitive targets like wizards or ranged units, knocking them down so you can rain death from afar.

[Exoduss]

Are you guys playing on normal or something? Its not like your tanks can engage even half of enemies on POTD ( 8 engagement slots vs 20 enemy ) , and if you try to flank with pets or melee damage dealers they have to be tanking while being flanked themselves 

[roller12]

Itumaak is an off tank, he is fast and he has 2x knockdown, in other words send him to where is the most pressure to help out and keep the lines, but for gods sake dont make him the main tank or send him through "25 disengagement attacks" path lol. He rarely died on me unless i wanted him to. (where it was him dying or the wizard)

Edited May 25, 2015 by roller12

[KDubya]

Why try to keep the pet alive?

 

The best thing about the pet is that it bounces back totally fresh every fight. Try not to get it killed in the first five seconds but dying near the end of every fight is great and means you are getting the most out of the pet.

[Exoduss]

Well you know.... some people build rangers to do damage and they dont do any if pet die's ( not talking about laughable warbow builds that fits some nerds dream )

[cctobias]

I have killed the Sky Dragon (on Hard) with a party using 4 rangers and no tank characters.  Note I didn't truly have the AC's tank the Sky Dragon rather I interrupted it and stunned it via Stunning shots.  People seem to forget about stunning shots.  Multiple rangers lays down an ass ton of stuns from range.

 

A priest + multiple animal companions actually works pretty well.  You can tank ogre spawns with it.  A single AC that gets focused will die of course.  But multiple AC's, as far as  Ican tell, pretty reliably spread out targets and provide a pretty good meat shield that requires no resting.

 

This might sound weird but rangers actually do well with more rangers.

 

Also the +50% reload speed on Swift Aim is pretty amazing with arbalests etc and a chanter.  A party with 3 rangers and heavy hitting slow reload stuff can offtank much better than I think most people realize and with Gunner + SA + chanter have +90% reload.  You can take out caster VERY fast with that setup and three AC's are possibly the best offtank in the game, considering they are quite decent damage.  If you lay down a consecrated ground or a druid heal thing for your AC's they can deal with 3 things no problem.  Getting em to work with a real tank will take some micro of course.  But in general with 4 actors you can obstruct a lot of things.

 

I had an AC hit sky dragon for 26 damage, considering its DR is over 20 that's pretty nice and its deflection is rather high.

 

People saying Ranger's do no damage if pet dies are just being silly.  Its about 15% less damage.  And hopefully if you are doing things right your pet isn't dying at the beginning.  And if they die near the end you still have plenty of damage to finish.

 

Anyway if you do it right you can make a Ranger heavy party that barely needs to rest at all and kill very fast.  Don't use warbows, use the hardest hitting thing you can and get a ton of reload speed and use clothes.  Tank+priest+druid and 3 rangers can wreck things (don't need the tank actually, but you could do it anyway, o really just make chanter tank).

Edited May 25, 2015 by cctobias

[Raven Darkholme]

Sky dragon is a solo enemy (+silly wurmling). Try the adra dragon and it will be harder, but anything is doable with a party, adra has been soloed by ranger after all.

[cctobias]

Sky dragon is a solo enemy (+silly wurmling). Try the adra dragon and it will be harder, but anything is doable with a party, adra has been soloed by ranger after all.

 

Yeah its all been done solo, just having 6 idiots and enough traps/scrolls/figurines could work.  So I haven't bothered.

 

I did clear all of Od Nua up to adra dragon though.  And I killed Sky Dragon in 30 seconds going purely range and having the companions tank with nothing below 75% end at the end.

 

The strategy worked for hard solo encounters and hard group encounter such as Ogre Shaman bounty.  Note: that my party was an interrupt build and my rangers were actually specced for melee interrupt so they sometimes switched to 10 melee actors in certain circumstances.  But the main point here is multiple animal companion and a support caster is a very viable tanking strategy, not saying its the best, but saying they are useless is provably wrong.  And against things like Dank Spores they are very useful.

 

I can't say this would work on POTD, I seriously doubt POTD scales well do the math behind the systems of POE.  But on hard is a perfectly viable strategy.  If you can't make say 2 animal companion tank 3 guys when you have a priest in your party then you are doing something wrong probably.  I wasn't even using bears I was using stags for their aoe carnage.

[Razorchain]

Are you guys playing on normal or something? Its not like your tanks can engage even half of enemies on POTD ( 8 engagement slots vs 20 enemy ) , and if you try to flank with pets or melee damage dealers they have to be tanking while being flanked themselves

Yes I am playing on potd with a Ranger that just got to level 12. I didn't spend a single point to buff my pet bear and he does just fine. I have 3 melee frontliners + a bear. I send in the bear along my melee to make a defensive line and the bears job is to stay alive. I dont use stalkers link that much as my Ranger focus fires on casters. 3 shots to the face in quick succession takes down most casters.

 

I dont use my pet or expect it to save the day. Most of the time it tanks 1 enemy or maybe 2 and is way tougher in melee than my ranger.

 

My melee damage dealers are my tanks, I go with offensive builds that stomp on the enemy, no ubertanks that stand around looking good while not contributing to the fight. This helps the pet as the whole melee line is supposed to hold, on potd you dont have much opportunity for flanking

 

Do you know the difference between a tanky paladin and an offensive monk?

 

400-500% damage output.

[Torm51]

agreed on the tank aspect lol but my paladin is exactly that.  This is my first time playing through ( I am playing on hard) and I know this game can be very unforgiving so I am scared haha.  hes got 130 deflection and extremely high Fort, Reflex and Will...I have a feeling once I am through this playthough and more comfortable my tanks will be more offensive.