Guild Wars 2

Not sure if I would categorize Mesmers as a pet class, simply due to the nature of their Illusions.

No I’m more curious about the Ranger and Necromancer (and to a lesser extent, Engineers with turrets)

I know Necromancers have to dedicate Utility skill slots to be a Minion Master (and recently got buffed in the last build), while the Ranger has a pet as the class mechanic. My question is, if running an MM build, does a Necro “outperform” a Ranger as a pet class? And between the two which has more utility in group settings (WvWvW, dungeons, fractals, etc.)?

Also Guardian
For me the order of preference would be Guardian, Ranger, Engineer, Necromancer.

Necromancer pets die very very easy, but do a ton of damage before they die. You basically run in, everything is killing everything, and you mop up the left overs. Re-summon and repeat.

This is before you buff your pets with traits. Not sure how well or poorly that works, as I haven’t used that traitline.

But they don’t offer much in the way of support for others, or help in wvw. They’d die to AoE.

For both Ranger and Necro, I favor dropping traps/wells/marks on people. The pets are just added utility. The ranger pet can revive you, and if traited, can revive others.

Both have their abilities to support groups, but not really with their pets. Ranger would be better if you want to use your pet along with being versatile in whatever builds you decide. Necro versatility comes with not using the pets as much and using other skills more.

I’ve kinda found the necromancer pets to be.. underwhelming to put it diplomatically. I could also say shockingly useless compared to pretty much anything else you could fit in those utility slots, but I won’t! ^^ the elite one is actually quite nice though to be fair.

But yeah I think the way to look at it is that necromancer has a lot of expendable pets that you can in theory resummon during the fight if the CD allows, and I’m sure you can make some use of them if you want to, while the ranger has a companion animal which you would always want to keep alive. Kind of like teamplay almost. Also you can get many different ranger pets, which means you can choose something appropriate for many different situations.

As for guardian.. they can get some useful pets/spirit weapons, but they only last for a short while unless you’re specced for them specifically. Which is perfectly viable as well of course, just don’t except to do it from level 1 :P

Ticee.2451:

But yeah I think the way to look at it is that necromancer has a lot of expendable pets that you can in theory resummon during the fight if the CD allows, and I’m sure you can make some use of them if you want to,

That sounds like a mesmer.

Khisanth.2948:

Ticee.2451:

But yeah I think the way to look at it is that necromancer has a lot of expendable pets that you can in theory resummon during the fight if the CD allows, and I’m sure you can make some use of them if you want to,

That sounds like a mesmer.

Yeah difference is that as a mesmer you CAN resummon them a lot during a fight, not just in theory