Guild Wars 2

What title says, but more detailed, GW2 community knows little to none about pets DPS/cooldowns/passives. This post is mainly to compare other pets dps with smokescale. I just want to point out next things:

• People are going i know this because i heard it some where and you are wrong!
• People who are not dedicated rangers try to convince ranger forum that our pets are OP while they don’t even try to dodge our active/passive pet skills for once.
• People try to say that Smokescale is still broken and they hate this pet because it has insane burst.
• People have to stop talking non-sense, because obviously huge amount of people believe that and they keep complaining while they don’t know that there are already getting demolished by rangers with knowledge of their pets without needing Smokescale.

Let me put it this way, a lot of non-ranger-main players believing in santa crap as well.
I truly hope that ranger hate/bullkitten will once go away, same as stupid downrating of Guild wars 2 review. I often ask myself, am I the only one that made 9 classes to learn how to counter them?

Because of tons of BS that I read every day, I’ve decided to make post HoT relase pet DPS testing, to publicly show people that they are so wrongly convinced. All tests were made on heavy golem, 10x (5x with F2, and 5x without) and all values are in seconds needed to destroy a target objective.

Keep in mind that this DPS targets stand still and are IDEAL:
Bristleback: 14.5
Tiger: 15.8
Smokescale: 21.1
Electric Wyvern 38.8
Fire Wyvern 34.5

ALL PETS BEST SINGLE TARGET DPS TIME:
Bristleback: 14.5
Tiger: 15.8
Lynx: 15.2
Jaguar: 16.2
WhiteRaven: 17.6
Leopard: 18.6
Stalker: 18.7
Eagle: 19.1
Hawk: 19.6
BlackRaven: 21.0
Owl: 21.1
Smokescale: 21.1 <—- DPS even worst if there is 1 more target in range
ReefDrake: 29.8
RiverDrake: 31.5
SalamanderDrake: 33.2
Carrion Devouver: 33.3
MarshDrake: 33.4
AlpineWolf: 34.3
Fire Wyvern 34.5
BlackWidow: 35.7
ForestSpider: 35.8
IceDrake: 36.5
Wolf: 36.8
Boar: 37.2
WhiteMoa: 37.6
PinkMoa: 37.6
FernHound: 38.1
JungleSpider_ 38.6
Siamoth: 38.3
Electric Wyvern 38.8
Drakehound: 40.4
Warthog: 42.6
Lashtail Devouver: 39.6
Pig: 42.0
RedMoa:43.6
Whiptail Devouver: 44.7
BlueMoa: 45.8
BlackMoa: 45.8
Hyena: 46.2
Arctodus: 47.5
Murellow: 46.5
Brown bear: 55.7
Black Bear: 57.4
Polar bear: 1:00.3

Funny fact, if there are two targets or more next to each other, single target Smokescale DPS drastically falls:
21.1 —-————————> 31.3+

Most rangers(60-70%) that I meet in PvP or WvW, don’t even use pets actively, just to burst that F2 and then they put it back on passive, they never know when to use their pets for semi-active auto attacking.

A lot of people will try to excuse themselves with, but i took this pet because of utility as well. Well, i just want to point out DPS for those that think Smokescale is broke. You can believe in Santa, but stop with the BS. Ty

EDIT: for those that are asking if this is POST or PRE Smokescale nerf, but i can give you the data of both:

PRE nerf of smokescale: 18.9 sec
POST nerf of smokescale: 21.1 sec

Is this pre-smokescale nerf? Also what is “semi-active auto attacking”?

vespers.1759:

Is this pre-smokescale nerf? Also what is “semi-active auto attacking”?

i’d say current tests if not its a quick fix to check.

Semi active is actively controling the pet recalls / pet postion and letting it use its AA attacks in tendum with the druids/rangers attacks .

basicly Using the pet at all times not just for its KD or f2.

knowing when to use Huntershot to speed the pet up so it reaches its target or pet swapping for quickness or using zyphers speed for super speed, if a target is running away if the distance is judged correctly a quickness+superspeed pet will be in f2 leap range before the non-quicknened/super speed pet and perform its f2 without missing.

thats basicly what he means by Semi-active attacking .

most just use f2 and swap attack then leave it on passive because its too much effort.
looking beyond the pet alone.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

vespers.1759:

Is this pre-smokescale nerf? Also what is “semi-active auto attacking”?

i’d say current tests if not its a quick fix to check.

Semi active is actively controling the pet recalls / pet postion and letting it use its AA attacks in tendum with the druids/rangers attacks .

basicly Using the pet at all times not just for its KD or f2.

knowing when to use Huntershot to speed the pet up so it reaches its target or pet swapping for quickness or using zyphers speed for super speed, if a target is running away if the distance is judged correctly a quickness+superspeed pet will be in f2 leap range before the non-quicknened/super speed pet and perform its f2 without missing.

thats basicly what he means by Semi-active attacking .

most just use f2 and swap attack then leave it on passive because its too much effort.
looking beyond the pet alone.

Wish more people were here for constructive argumentation like this guy.

Good job, dude, but still what is that dps difference between owl, white and black ravens about? If any, it should be in favour of ravens due to the slightly lower CD on F2 ability, I think. May be 10x tests aren’t really enough…

great post. I love rangers so much i have 2. Sad to see the Bears down so low though. Kinda funny how an Owl out dps’s a Polar Bear!! I use the drakes mostly with wolf and moa in pvp.

I’m reluctant to use the bristleback although he’s clearly good, simply because everyone else does.

Interesting ideas…

Most Rangers I run into have very good situational awareness compared to the majority of those who play other classes. This is all anecdotal, but I frequently see Other Rangers sizing up my build and attempting (win or loose, to find a weakness, or out maneuver me).

I’ve even seen really good Rangers out Rotate me, or attempt to move me off point (accurately recognizing my build’s weaknesses and strengths). On the contrary, most other classes will relentlessly charge me to their death. So, I take issue with the 50-60% of Rangers don’t know kitten about their kittens. 20-30% tops, and they are most likely new players, so it is OK. It takes a while to learn.

2nd point: The pet’s single target DPS against a target golem is interesting, but somewhat unimportant as the interaction between the pet and Ranger are far more important. Swapping to river drake, in a fire field, after landing a hard cc, to get a nice tail swipe is priceless or might stacking with jungle kitty to buff self and pet to 25 stacks of might for a good 5-10s rampage at the right time, etc etc.

Edit: To be clear, how fast can you and pet take out Svanir, or wipe the Foefire Lord and his cronies in HotM (with different builds—Lb, melle, conditions, etc).

Yeh would be cool to see this test against the Svanir or another moving test target in the pvp lobby.

Any chance you can do this test once more per pet on the moving golem? I understand if you do not want to, the data would be valuable, but I’m not sure its worth investing a week into

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Any chance you can do this test once more per pet on the moving golem? I understand if you do not want to, the data would be valuable, but I’m not sure its worth investing a week into

I’ve done some tests on this and the results are displaying in what poor state the pets are.

Most of the F2 skills miss, the autoattack on some of them are downright missing all the time. Cats, birds, smokescale, dogs and bristeback(if the target isn’t moving too much) are pretty reliable. But considering that not all of the pets from those categories are really useful, it doesn’t leave us with many options.

Sadly the wyverns are utterly useless on a moving target.

what trait setup did you use for these tests? pet’s that apply conditions would have their dps increased by including hidden barbs or sharpened edges. it would be good to share that so if people want to test and compare results they can do it on a standard.

Wow, very nice testing you’ve done there. Thanks, much appreciated and good job putting those bullkitten speakers who know nothing in their respective places <3 I had done some testing on my on for pet dps times, but not as rigorously and to entire pets as you’ve done. You are my hero.

i’ll add a funny one to your list proving that the some people don’t know anything about pets and rangers

(fight with a live stealing mob that steals life on meley)

whisper from —-——— “hey you need to put your pet away its interfering with the fight, its healing the boss”
whisper to————" sry yeah, i’ll put it on passive now, should be better"
whisper from —-—— “no i mean put it away, dont summon it”
whisper to —-——-“pet’s don’t work like that, can’t put him away”
whispers from —-—-"OMG you NOOB! Learn to play (insert a bunch of swear words) put your kittening pet away or we will never win this fight! "

so yeah, not the first time ive heard either in whispers or map chats or /say chats to put ranger’s pets away.
Ive even defended a ranger while on my warrior saying “rangers can’t put their pets away, best they can do is put them on passive” to which he/she replied, “what do you know you are a warrior”

yeah, yay community…

The difference between the Raven and the White Raven confuses me. I was under the impression both of those pets were identical except for appearance.

Confirms my initial feelings that I had during beta on the Wyverns being completely and utterly terrible, though. Purely damage-oriented pets that have lower DPS than ranged / support pets, ugh. ‘dat godawful attack speed. Since I haven’t actually gotten either of them since the official launch I was hoping they’d have given them a speed boost or something, but I knew in the back of my mind it probably didn’t happen based on the utter lack of changes to any of the other pets.

Electro.4173:

Confirms my initial feelings that I had during beta on the Wyverns being completely and utterly terrible, though.

None of the new pets are just straight up damage like a jaguar is, except perhaps the tiger. They’re more about CC or fields. I think the entire GW2 community hasn’t quite learned what is going on with the new pets, and you have people overly worried about smokeskale bursts when the thing is actually a CC pet with stealth possibilities.

A lightning field from a wyvern can apply daze from our sword leaps.

If there was a bloody way to disable my pet, I would do it without a heartbeat. Pet AI is terrible, their speed is horrible, their abilities are counterable at best. I have played different online games as a archer stereotype ( ranger in some) but this game has the far worst pet mechanics I have ever seen. Pets do work, but what they are is not even a shadow of what they should be.

You want my best bullkitten that i’ve heard in my GW2 ranger time?
“1v1 me, kittening noob ranger, you always fight only 2v1..!”

That person was literally thinking that my pet was a player >_>

Bristlebacks are very good for pve teamed with a jungle cat or a stripped cat.

If you compare pet system with other traits, it is the weakest you can get. There should be an option for us to disable them altogether. Not everyone wants to play “beastmaster-taunt thingy”.

But if anet decides to keep them, at least there must be a way for us to increase their effectiveness.

And last time: I do not want a caster/druid, or be dependent to a idiotic AI. If I wanted one, I would play a caster class. What I wanted to play was an “ARCHER” which uses a longbow. Not sword, not staff, not axe. Bloody friggin longbow. Which attacks with arrows. Not pets, not celestial astral cosmic puking of magic. Just bows. Long ones. Which are called longbows.

alain.1659:

And last time: I do not want a caster/druid, or be dependent to a idiotic AI. If I wanted one, I would play a caster class. What I wanted to play was an “ARCHER” which uses a longbow. Not sword, not staff, not axe. Bloody friggin longbow. Which attacks with arrows. Not pets, not celestial astral cosmic puking of magic. Just bows. Long ones. Which are called longbows.

Lol, that reminded me of the dialogue from a Guy Ritchie movie:
Gary: Shotguns? What, like guns that fire shot?
Barry the Baptist: Oh, you must be the brains of the operation. Yes, guns that fire shot.

Love that movie btw

alain.1659:

And last time: I do not want a caster/druid, or be dependent to a idiotic AI. If I wanted one, I would play a caster class. What I wanted to play was an “ARCHER” which uses a longbow. Not sword, not staff, not axe. Bloody friggin longbow. Which attacks with arrows. Not pets, not celestial astral cosmic puking of magic. Just bows. Long ones. Which are called longbows.

Go ahead and roll a Warrior or Dragonhunter. There, longbow with no AI to distract you. Ranger is the pet class and picking it means you play with the pet at all times.

Ranger is a ranged class with an archetype of wilderness hunter/protector. AI is not distracting but frustrating. Even using as a field or a blast finisher pets offer little. They must either re-made or compensated and disabled in some ways.

And give me a class with decent archery abilities ( using longbow and arrows not magic) and 1800 range, I will choose it without hesitation.

It is easier to accept what is wrong, then fight for a change.

I am totally not a numbers person, so I’m not one of those people that knows every number related to their build/class/pet. But this was a very interesting read, ty OP!

It saddens me that Smokescale got the treatment it received and with Tiger and Electric Wyvern locked behind a giant meta event I’m kinda sad about the state of our new pets (this is mostly me though, I move through maps like a snail so reaching those 2 is hard for me).
It’s nice to see that the old pets have some nice DPS as well, so still loving those.

I don’t wanna say thx to each of you for supporting what I do, i want you to become educated players, and be curious on your own! Research your class, this was just a message for people that love to play ranger.

Too much kitten math…+1 though.

Keep in mind, damage is not the end-all, be-all for some of us. Aggro control might be the better option. For example, the fact that smokescale can hit multiple targets is a plus for farming and holding the target(s)’ attention.

Also, as you mentioned, you’re testing on a stationary target. In PvP, no one is standing still and the pets’ DPS disappears while it’s trying to catch the target.

Again, smokescale all but nullifies this effect the moment it teleports and attacks the target. This brings the overall DPS for the smokescale up quite a bit . . . and the reason I use it in both PvE and PvP.

Quite frankly, and this is self-serving, I’d rather the overall community be ignorant about pets and ranger/druid in general. Whenever they start noticing us, the nerfs also start rolling in. And this also includes rangers who don’t know what they’re doing. Yes, I also read the comments on the board and roll my eyes, but that ignorance also keeps the spotlight off of us in PvP. It’s the reason most PvPers don’t consider ranger a threat . . . and that makes me very happy in PvP.

Regardless, a pet holding aggro is king in PvE, and allows me to solo things most classes wouldn’t dream of trying . . . in my humble opinion. Damage is nice, but again I’d rather have a long-term fight and survive, than a short-term one and be dead.

Again, in my humble opinion.

Also, as you mentioned, you’re testing on a stationary target. In PvP, no one is standing still and the pets’ DPS disappears while it’s trying to catch the target.

IMO a lot of people in this forum way overstate this. While pets will generally miss moving targets that are chasing someone else, for the most part enemy players will be side strafing, backing up, or trying to get in your face. Such targets are generally not fast enough to escape pet damage (except the attacks with slow kitten windups, like F2 breath attacks.) Thats without talking about CC, which rangers have fairly decent access too.

You do realize that the pet having to chase the target, and not DPSing it, was one of the biggest complaints about the pets over the last few years on these boards . . . don’t you?

This is especially true in PvP.

It’s not an ‘overstatement’, but a real issue and one reason why some rangers rather go petless. Because the pet is too busy missing or chasing the target to make any difference in the fight. Anywhere from 30% to 50% of our damage comes from our pets, depending on how you spec, that is otherwise nullified because they can’t hit the target for various reasons.

And it’s a continuing problem we still voice about the wyverns and the bristleback because of additional axis issues.

Overstated? Are we playing the same game? A fleeing players is basically guaranteed not to get hit by our pets if they gain any reasonable distance. There’s a reason PvP players wanted the teleporting smokescale to be nerfed.

Please think about what you’re saying.

You do realize that the pet having to chase the target, and not DPSing it, was one of the biggest complaints about the pets over the last few years on these boards . . . don’t you?

yes and it was overstated i believe that was my point

This is especially true in PvP.

read as: only true in pvp

Overstated? Are we playing the same game?

overstatement occurs in the forums, not in the game ;p

Shoe.5821:

You do realize that the pet having to chase the target, and not DPSing it, was one of the biggest complaints about the pets over the last few years on these boards . . . don’t you?

yes and it was overstated i believe that was my point

This is especially true in PvP.

read as: only true in pvp

Overstated? Are we playing the same game?

overstatement occurs in the forums, not in the game ;p

The new HoT maps have very mobile enemies, if you haven’t given them a shot. Enemies also follow other players/minions around in PvE (especially instanced PvE) so long as you are not stacking, which reduces pet effectiveness significantly in non-stacking groups. Is there any reason that pets should not be able to hit moving targets, in your opinion?