Guild Wars 2

I recently acquired my Hall of Monuments rewards and after getting the rare pets unlocked, I’ve been temped to make a ranger.

I have access to all the HoM ranger pets, and someone told me once to not be one of those standard rangers that uses the bear pet. So, I kinda shifted my attention the black widow, black moa or white raven. What do you think?

I personally use the Black Moa and a jungle spider, I believe. All of the HoM pets are just reskins of other pets, so the only difference is appearance, not skill. That being said, if you want to play ranger, I’d suggest taking one melee pet, and one ranged, so you have versatility (instead of two melee pets)

The better question is: are there any good Ranger pets?

KyreneZA.8617:

The better question is: are there any good Ranger pets?

Having played a Ranger since beta, nope.

(Waits for somebody to come along and say ltp or micro manage your pet or my dog works amazing or something similar).

Mystic Starfish.2586:

I personally use the Black Moa and a jungle spider, I believe. All of the HoM pets are just reskins of other pets, so the only difference is appearance, not skill. That being said, if you want to play ranger, I’d suggest taking one melee pet, and one ranged, so you have versatility (instead of two melee pets)

Isn’t the black widow a skin of the jungle spider? Out of curiosity, why do you choose using the black moa?

I don’t have the black widow pet unlocked, so that’s just coincidence that I’m using the jungle spider (I like the poison skill as opposed to the bleeding that most other ranged pets have). And as for the black moa, I think it’s a reskin of the pink moa, but I just like the daze/shows off my HoM stuff XD

Spiders aren’t bad as a ranger pet. Like all of the pets, their use is situational. They are good as ranged pets that have AOE or controls skills for when you need those.

There is a chart you can find on the ranger forums that demonstrates spider is highest DPS of ranger pets when the target is moving, all things being equal. Also, that jungle spider’s cacoon immobilze is just fantastic. I love using that spider in wvw. I also use it in fractals versus enemies it’s important to slow down, like the legendary suit when it gets under the bucket (muddy terrain is a better option there but I still bring spider just in case), or the legendary archdiviner who is much easier to fight when perma crippled or outright immobilized.

KyreneZA.8617:

The better question is: are there any good Ranger pets?

Wolf, hyena, drakehound, fern hound, black bear, red moa, jungle spider, shark, armorfish, jellyfish, carrion devourer, lashtail devourer, jungle stalker, lunx, jaguar, eagle, hawk, raven, snow owl, snow hound, siamoth, pig, warthog, river drake, marsh drake

Are all pets that should be used consistently in wvw and pve/dungeon. It depends on the situation.

Facing Old Tom in a pick up group? Use a devourer, take the fan or a battery, and stand behind the devourer with shortbow. Devourer eats damage since you stand behind it. Easy as pie—if you know your pets. Because most of you might not have known how useful a devourer can be to kite around.

Need fury? Red moa.

Want real CC potential? Dogs. They’re great roaming in wvw and actually good versus some enemies in pve. Say you’re in TA original path struggling with hound knockdowns. Use your own dogs to knock them down. This applies in COE too versus the ice hound elementals.

What about a good charged knockdown? Porcine believe it or not. Their charge used to be 600 units so it almost never landed. It was recently shortened and it works much better now. Plus, the environmental drops are actually pretty good.

Black bear for the aoe weakness which negates a ton of damage potentially. Also, it’s another dynamic invuln. with the shout.

I think there’s a lot of good pets honestly.

Chopps.5047:

KyreneZA.8617:

The better question is: are there any good Ranger pets?

Wolf, hyena, drakehound, fern hound, black bear, red moa, jungle spider, shark, armorfish, jellyfish, carrion devourer, lashtail devourer, jungle stalker, lunx, jaguar, eagle, hawk, raven, snow owl, snow hound, siamoth, pig, warthog, river drake, marsh drake

Are all pets that should be used consistently in wvw and pve/dungeon. It depends on the situation.

Facing Old Tom in a pick up group? Use a devourer, take the fan or a battery, and stand behind the devourer with shortbow. Devourer eats damage since you stand behind it. Easy as pie—if you know your pets. Because most of you might not have known how useful a devourer can be to kite around.

Need fury? Red moa.

Want real CC potential? Dogs. They’re great roaming in wvw and actually good versus some enemies in pve. Say you’re in TA original path struggling with hound knockdowns. Use your own dogs to knock them down. This applies in COE too versus the ice hound elementals.

What about a good charged knockdown? Porcine believe it or not. Their charge used to be 600 units so it almost never landed. It was recently shortened and it works much better now. Plus, the environmental drops are actually pretty good.

Black bear for the aoe weakness which negates a ton of damage potentially. Also, it’s another dynamic invuln. with the shout.

I think there’s a lot of good pets honestly.

Sorry, I know asking what is the “best” pet is always kind of a stupid question considering each are designed for different situations. I guess what I was curious about is if these HoM monument pets were actually good.

I heard the jungle spider is one of the best (can’t remember if that applies to PvE or PVP) and someone on here just told me that the black widow is a reskin of the jungle spider. Do you think that would be a good choice for my first ranger pet when making a new character?

As far as rangers being good or bad go, I honestly don’t care too much. Even when I played Warcraft, I played a druid (which at the time, were considered one of the weaker classes), it ultimately comes down to the fun factor for me. I know a lot of people who say guardians are good, I just can’t play them because it doesn’t suit my play style haha. Doesn’t mean they’re bad though.

For brand new rangers, I generally recommend bear/bear to start with. They are low damage but very tanky. This means a new ranger has an easy learning curve when learning how to manage pets. When the new ranger has gotten used to watching their health, pulling them away from the target and switching them out as needed, then it’s a good time to change to the more fragile but higher dps pets. It’s discouraging to start off with a pet that dies fast in combat and you aren’t used to keeping an eye out for them.

Astral Projections.7320:

For brand new rangers, I generally recommend bear/bear to start with. They are low damage but very tanky. This means a new ranger has an easy learning curve when learning how to manage pets. When the new ranger has gotten used to watching their health, pulling them away from the target and switching them out as needed, then it’s a good time to change to the more fragile but higher dps pets. It’s discouraging to start off with a pet that dies fast in combat and you aren’t used to keeping an eye out for them.

Good idea, I kinda made that mistake last year when I tried a ranger for the first time. My moa would die rather easily and I got destroyed at most events haha.

I use a Raven ( blind) and an Eagle ( bleed) both apply swiftness.
I don’t have HOM and I die of envy every time I see someone with a White Raven- just saying.

Been such a long time since I started my ranger, but if I recall correctly, your initial pet options are race dependent and from a limited list.

My ranger is human but cannot recall if a bear was an option. Regardless, I selected the jungle stalker as my initial pet, and I still use this cat regularly along with the snow leopard.

When I need ranged pets, I always use devourers. I tried spiders but always found the devourers (carrion and lashtail) more useful.

Note:
The first goal you should set for your new ranger is collecting all the pets. Start with easy ones you can find in the cities first, then work your way through the starter maps, then the next map tiers, etc. Most are in starter to mid-level maps with only a couple in higher level maps. There is one pet (wolf) only found in WvW (Eternal Battlegrounds map).

I think I started with some form of drake, human ranger. When I got the pig in the starter zone I used that mostly. Did not use bears until the ugly naked ones (merelow) with the nice poison aoe. Now I use devourers for range and merelow for melee. Never did get the knack of birds.
To answer directly the question, yes spiders can be a good pet.

Astral Projections.7320:

For brand new rangers,

Been using a River Drake and keep coming back to it. Decent standard damage semi-high HP, tail-spin knockdown and a ranged Lightning Breath attack. Stack some might on ol’ Jake Dadrake and he holds his own.

Picked up a Jaguar recently and really like the stealth attacks.

Rotate in my Black Moa, Eagle and Snow Owl quite a bit. I’d love to use my Warthog, but I find the Forage skill less than useful (but he is a good scrapper otherwise).

I find that I use a drake and bear most of the time. Very rarely switch to anything else. The bears tank well and the drake has a high damage (relatively speaking) tail whip – and the drakes do look impressive waddling about in town!

When starting out I used bear/bear. A new player can get both in the Norn area. The polar bear is in Hoelbrak and the brown bear is at one of the first hearts.

Personally I use the fern hound and Krytan drake hound for general PvE. They do fair damage and I love their knockdown. I switch to spiders or devourers for something like the Scarlet events where ranged pets seem to live longer.

Wolf is a great pet and it’s only found in wvw EB NE part of map, just north of a camp. Also, someone asked about HoM pets. They are identical to pets rangers can already get. Literally: they are just skins.