Guild Wars 2

Is The Tropical Bird better than The Rock Dog (damage)? I have the Rock Dog at the moment, but I see a lot of tropical birds.

Are you talking about the summoned pets from the runes? I’m not sure really, but I do know the birds (from privateer runes) scale to our pets health/damage ^^

Rune pets; are the Tropical Bird and Rock Dog as far as damage and health the same?

If I’m not mistaken, don’t rock dogs also have the charge/pounce abilities common to all dog-like NPCs which inflict knockdown and crippled respectively?

(If so that is a significant advantage in PvP)

No, they don’t knockdown. They have that “crushing leap” however, similar to NPC ones (heck, they’re a copy) which deals better damage from time to time.

As for the parrot – the runeset by itself is just better imo, but I haven’t tried the pet. If it scales with Ranger’s pet damage, Brid should do more damage.

They are a set damage because they are a rune set. From my experience, tropical bird hits harder, hits more frequently, and has a much larger leash range than the rock dog, making it a far more effective damage dealer. As for the defensive capabilities, I never felt rock dog’s presence in a fight but I can definitely feel the birds (and its hp seems to be about the same as a normal ranger pet bird while the rock dog is not equivalent to the ranger wolves). This might make you think it is squishy. It can be, but since the cd on the runes is low the respawn on the bird is practically instant.

Rock Dog is probably weaker since it’s a tier 4 bonus while the bird is a tier 6 bonus. Personally I went for Ogre runes purely for RP flavour; my Norn Ranger chose the Ogres as her racial ally, and she really doesn’t like pirates. :P

Bird is very annoying in providing extra dps to already dps-bunker professions and it’s harder to avoid than the rock dog (visually). Although I wouldn’t trust the success of a match to the extra pet, it does help.

Naughty Goddess.3018:

Is The Tropical Bird better than The Rock Dog (damage)? I have the Rock Dog at the moment, but I see a lot of tropical birds.

Rock dogs are essentially a second dog pet, they’re fairly tanky, stick on the enemy well, and can cripple and instead of a knockdown have an AoE “stomp” thing.

The Parrot (tropical bird) is a clone of a bird pet minus the AoE swiftness, it has quite a bit more damage than the dog, but Is squishier and doesn’t have the cripple.

Essentially Bird = more damage but easier to deal with, Rock dog = less damage, slightly more control, harder to deal with.