Guild Wars 2

i resently started a ranger and i do a lot of WvW. i am little confused on which are the best pets for WvW and why?. i prefer to play with LB/SB if what weapon i use makes a difference. Also i like to use protect me utilty skill.

So some helpful advice with pro’s and con’s for my options would be helpful. Are some pets better for attacking or defending yourself?. Thx

There are a couple ways to go about looking at this, and I could argue it either way.

First things first, if you plan on using protect me, I would suggest a Bear of some sort. Using protect me on a weaker pet usually results in them going splat. When choosing what bear to use, I would look at the F2 abilities and decide which best suits your spec and playstyle. For example, I am a poison stacking melee ranger so I use the Murrelow.

Now, for the pet that you swap to, I would recommend using the pet’s abilities to help you determine what best fits you. I would suggest a pet with high damage such as a cat, or a pet with good CC abilities like a dog or some birds. Agains, it comes down to playstyle. Being a melee bunker build myself, I use the Fern Hound for the regen.

As a follow up, when you are part of a zerg group, or in a stand off situation, I would recommend a pet that buffs you and keep it on passive. A red Moa gives Fury, the Jungle Stalker gives might, etc… In the case of lots of people, sending in a pet is suicide for it, so it’s usually best to keep it next to you on passive.

Depends somewhat on preference, but pets with solid damage and useful CC seem to be the best.

Dogs are a good choice as they have solid damage, a good knockdown and average tankyness. Fear from the wolf can be used to keep enemies from reviving friends and finishing allies.

The raven is the best pet for damage, since his active can do two hits for 2-3k and it blinds. I prefer birds to cats since they have better actives (activate much quicker), cast swiftness and are a bit more sturdy.

In my opinion, defense/buff oriented pets are not particularly useful for WvW. Pet buff actives take too long to activate and don’t last long enough to make them very useful. Using a low damage pet like a bear just for “protect me” isn’t worth the lack of damage. Signet of stone with “actives affect you” is far more reliable and lets your pet continue to dps while you are both invulnerable. The dps of bears, boars and moas is just too poor to make them worth using.

Spiders and devourers don’t have good damage either, although range can be useful in certain situations. Immobilize and F2 effects for spiders are good, but lack of dps and slow attack speed are too big a con.

Basically, you want pets you can swap to that come out and hit really hard/have strong CC as soon as they come out. This means wolves and raven (other birds are ok, but less damage on actives.).

spiders and devourers will be nice because of the range attack, otherwise they might get destoryed in the middle of a zerg.

I like moas and the fern for their heals. If there is a big zerg I’ll just stow my pet constantly and when it’s around me use the f2 ability either for healing or protection (I think that’s the blue moa)

I think protect me should halve the dmg transfered to your pet, or something, anyway on topic I like to carry a wolf with me, they are durable and the like to pounce enemies to the ground.

I mostly run wolf/dog combo, both knock down which is quite handy when someone gets close to you, most of the time in passive mode so they use their knock down when i really need it.