Guild Wars 2

What do you think are the best pets for pvp? I know they nerfed smokescale to the point where they’re not meta anymore. Theres also a theory that ranged pets are far better because they can more consistently hit a moving target. I know taking BM trait line makes a difference (ex favors birds), but what about if you don’t take BM traits?

Smokescale is still our best pet option, followed with Bristleback or Tiger depending on if you’re traited into BM or not.

Tiger is better for 1v1, where Bristleback has great cleave damage and if you line a spike up with team mate Bristlebacks F2 is super deadly.

Birds are still good if you’re running E.g. condition Taunt build, but even then Smokescale works with taunt rather well.

In order

• Smokescale
• Bristleback
• Tiger
• Birds
• Wolf & Hound

Rest of pets are almost complete garbage now, Drakes aren’t too bad but they’re not meta anymore.

I run the might cat and wolf. I have only condition dmg so its the only pet that will assist my dmg and still deal dmg of its own.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Lynx

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Wolf

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Owl

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Hawk

Thees 4 are the absolute best pets in any game mode really.
Lynx is one of the best and most reliable damage pets we have (the tool tips on the wiki are outdated rending pounce and maul deal over 3k bleeding damage in-game and so doses lacerating slash).

The owl has the most burst on its f2 and it has the best synergy with taunt (since birds will try to get in range before firing off the f2 skill, meaning the taunt will mostly always connect)

Same goes for the hawk, it deals less burst but has some good damage over time (not nearly as good as the lynx), but its f2 is the best with go for the eyes and withering strike because of the 4 sec cooldown.

The woolf has good cc abilities, although with a long cooldown.

Now from the new pets the smoke scale and the tiger are quite good (especially if they synergise with your build) but i find that they are not as amazing as ppl claim. The tiger lack the bleeding pressure of lynx and the radius of fury is small so it can often miss you, the smoke scale looses most of its damage if you fight more than 1 person (so in a full on team fight smoke assault barely does anything).
The bristle back is also quite good but has a totally useless f2 that never hits if the target moves at all of ether one is on a different elevation from the other.

Lynx/Wolf is still the best combo for most situations imo.

Lynx has the best DPS and cats as a whole are the best DPS since they land the most hits. They work well with beastmastery too. I could see tiger being good, but since i usually run survival on both condi and power builds it is kind of redundant. I do run stalker in groups as a might bot. The cat leaps are also nice since they don’t need to be inside the enemy character model for F2s to land.

Wolf has 3 CCs with beastmastery and is one of the few interrupts we have that works semi-well for interrupting revives, getting thieves out of SR etc. especially in a condition build.

Smokescale 81% dmg nerf… just lol.

Bristleback can’t hit anything which makes what might have been a decent pet useless.

I also ran the poison drake (marsh?) on my troll trap build to stack up poison and that worked quite well. It also blasted my fire fields with decent regularity which was a nice surprise. I think that’s the only drake worth using though because it has an F2 that can actually land.

Bristleback can land it’s f2 and it devastates glassier classes. You have to help it though, through our plentiful immob’s/ dazes/ knockdowns.

It’s all about lining up your burst. It is far from useless.

I haven’t bothered buying the expansion, but from the base game I’d say, besides the dogs, the best pet is lighting drake. Drakes can stand up decently well in a teamfight. They have a strong tail whip aoe ability that is a blast finisher – it pairs well with opening strike. Lightning drake particularly stands out for its f2 attack – it does a lot of damage, tracks, and can be an AoE attack if needed.

Spiders are great as a secondary pet. Their range allows you to petswap instantly and not worry about them fumbling around trying to get to the target to make the most out of stuff like quickening zephyr on petswap or call of the wild on petswap. They have a 20 second cooldown immob. The negatives are their damage is mediocre, they are hard to control (maneuver them out of AoE) as a base pet, and their AoE poison ability, while great, the poison field doesn’t last nearly as long as it should (considering the projectile arc on that kitten thing).

Cats are also a good secondary pet. Their f2 ability is a ranged leap, with allows for some neat combo finishers, and easy petswaps as mentioned above. They have good damage. The only negatives are: They are terrible in teamfights, and have no CC abilities besides the snow leopard.

Birds are awful. They may be good with taunt (I haven’t tested it yet), but they fumble around too much because of the take-off/landing animation (anet, just make them constantly flying in combat please). Their f2 attacks are usually just their base attacks with a condition modifier on them. Their screech is useless because swiftness is handed out like candy on the ranger now – Resounding Timbre and Clarion Bond. They die too quickly in a teamfight. But they MIGHT be good with taunt (I doubt it since they have such low health).

Everything else is just bad or useless. Ether they have skills that aren’t useful, or their animations are too clunky to be of any use.

Dogs, by far, are the most versatile though. They have a cripple, and a ranged leap knockdown for 2 seconds. On top of that, their f2 affects everyone in an area, and usually it has a strong impact CC like an immob or fear.

Dolt.2731:

Bristleback can land it’s f2 and it devastates glassier classes. You have to help it though, through our plentiful immob’s/ dazes/ knockdowns.

It’s all about lining up your burst. It is far from useless.

You’ll have to explain how CC helps it land the skill since the issue is terrain based.

I <3 my Drakes, Durable, Most attacks cleave and Dat Tailswipe…have a folder FULL of 15-20K spikes from Tailswipe.

Smokescale and Dogs good as well, birds and cats too squishy for my liking.

Chicago Jack.5647:

They die too quickly in a teamfight. But they MIGHT be good with taunt (I doubt it since they have such low health).

Tried using an owl in PVP once, a few months ago. Not the best bird choice in hindsight since chill is made redundant by taunt (I chose it based on the CD of the slash coinciding with taunt’s ICD), but coulda, shoulda, woulda. Your suspicion is correct, I found the bird kept folding like paper repeatedly in matches, on top of all the issues you mentioned already. Not worth using that in place of meta PVP pets.

Been running Wolf/Lynx for ages now and still considering it the best of the options we have. CC on command is something you simply cannot responsibly pass up in PvP.

wolf is a mandatory in one of the 2 slots imho. between the knockdown and the fear it is an AMAZING pet!

my other slot is usually black widow, 2 immobilizes and a poison
also ranged attacks so the pet doesn’t get nuked down (and its attacks actually hit)

Seeing as the good pets are covered, a little off topic. The day Wyverns are fixed are the day we get a new choice for a meta pet…

- Fire field, using this and the SB/LB/Axe got me 500+ burn ticks from the combo field in Cele.
- Electric Wyvern has a KD
- Both will have Area Denial
- Wing buffet looks like it may be pretty good.
- I’ve see decent numbers on the (still) Golems. Slightly stronger then the Canines.

Flying, elemental puppies tbh.

You can kind-of make pets teamfight-worthy against cleave with troll unguent and natural healing trait, but natural healing doesn’t scale with healing power. Also it relies on your personal heal. It also doesn’t solve the condi dmg problem pets have ether to be teamfight-worthy. I wish bears could actually be useful in this department, but they’re not. Drakes do it better. Bears need cleave on their auto – among other things. It doesn’t help the fact that I, and I assume many others, have no idea when the bear uses their invuln skill.

Moas seem like a neat idea for a support spec (Moa with Sylvari Hound), but their animations are so absolutely useless. Moa heal needs to have larger range.

Pigs need work. Their forage ability should replace the f2. Their charge is good, but requires a set-up cc to land it and the damage is underwhelming if it does hit the target.

It’s crazy how everyone has different opinions on this, clearly no meta yet. Pre HOT I ran wolf and spider, wolf was great for 1v1 and spider for teacmfights cz of the range and poison field.

Smokescale seems like it might be a better wolf (shorter knockdown CD), not sure how to take advantage of the F2 tho. Bristleback is another nice ranged option, but not sure how it compares to spider, (more damage, less CC?)

Dunecoon.5134:

It’s crazy how everyone has different opinions on this, clearly no meta yet.

There never will be a meta for pets. Even before HoT people ran a huge variety of pets. Not even the wolf is taken by all players.

Dunecoon.5134:

Smokescale seems like it might be a better wolf (shorter knockdown CD), not sure how to take advantage of the F2 tho. Bristleback is another nice ranged option, but not sure how it compares to spider, (more damage, less CC?)

I think the wolf is generally better than smokescale, but I’ve been using the 2 of them. Use the smoke field for blinds with projectiles or stealth with some allies.

Dunecoon.5134:

What do you think are the best pets for pvp? I know they nerfed smokescale to the point where they’re not meta anymore. Theres also a theory that ranged pets are far better because they can more consistently hit a moving target. I know taking BM trait line makes a difference (ex favors birds), but what about if you don’t take BM traits?

Except if your pet has been turned off by Anet….