Guild Wars 2

I favor the brown bear, the reef drake and the carrion devourer. Brown bear and reef drake speak for themselves as they do just nicely when it comes to tanking and distracting my enemies in PvE. As for the Carrion, I have yet to give him a full spin but his design for a devourer is pretty kitten sweet.

Aesthetically? The Jaguar. Practically? The wolf or the bear. 2 second aoe fear or group-wide cleanse

1. River drake, white raven: optic
2. Wolf: fear, knock down
3. devourer: survival, distance

Am I missing something? I haven’t used devourer in a long time but it was about the most garbage pet I ever tried. If you want a ranged pet why wouldn’t you use a spider that actually has a useful f2 and higher vitality for soaking up your conditions? Is it for the rng evade? I’m really not making fun of anyone, I’m genuinely curious if there is something that I’m missing.

Bears because I don’t even need to ask for build/gear. I just click kick

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Bears because I don’t even need to ask for build/gear. I just click kick

Lol right!?

I only WvW and PvP. I always run wolf and I swap back and forth between marsh drake and a bird, usually raven. The marshdrake comes out when I hit a camp or tower because the f2 attack +rampage as one= 25 stacks of might for me and poison on the npc’s.

The bears come out if I’m soloing a keep and in that situation it is murrelo and polar bear.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Bears because I don’t even need to ask for build/gear. I just click kick

Bear because it is the natural extension of the bow!

I normally run Jungle Stalker & Red Moa for group might and fury stacking.

Just on aesthetics I like the Black Moa, Krytan Drakehound, the Lashtail and Carrion Devourers and the Ravens/Eagles.

I guess I just love pets.

Reef and Marsh drake are my favorites. Reef can fire through a door and hit rams (which is funny) in WvW and marsh can hit a few targets and doesnt even have to be nearby. They both survive pretty well too

snow owl for its high damage when paired with sic em.

I play all game modes and use a variety of different build in WvW and spvp so I use a few different pets.

Shark: my most use pet it’s the only one that I have bothered to name as it has been on my bar since I tamed it, just after launch.

Wolf: my main PvP/Roaming pet, the only time I don’t have him on my bar is in duel Bird beast-master builds.

Drake hound and jungle spider: I grouped these two together as I use one or the other in the same type of builds. I use these guys in any none pet centric PvP/roaming build. It basically poison and ranged attacks vs KD, cripple and AOE Immob.

River Drake: the pet I use in the most variety of game modes, in PvE its my go to for trash mobs and general event farming. I use it in wvw roaming to help flip camps quicker and in spvp when I’m being team fight centric. Also note when I want to use duel drakes such as following a commander in WvW and map/event farming in pve I’ll use a fire drake.

Owl: my go to PvP and roaming beast master pet (raven if I want to go duel bird)

Jaguar: my go to PvE single target pet. In dungeons, LS and random open world stuff I often use Jag/River drake combo.

Ascetically, such as taking screenys I like the wolf and the owl

Jim Hunter.6821:

Am I missing something? I haven’t used devourer in a long time but it was about the most garbage pet I ever tried. If you want a ranged pet why wouldn’t you use a spider that actually has a useful f2 and higher vitality for soaking up your conditions? Is it for the rng evade? I’m really not making fun of anyone, I’m genuinely curious if there is something that I’m missing.

It is garbage. Devourer’s are worse than bears. At least Brown Bear and Black Bear have useful F2’s where as Devourer’s are just crap all around.

Still, if you enjoy it no harm in using it.

Personally my favorite pet is the Salamander Drake primarily for sentimental reasons. It was the first pet I tamed and I’ve been using it ever since, which has been over a year now. I swap out my secondary pet regularly depending on the situation but ‘ol Cinderella is always my go-to-gal for reliability. As I’ve said in the past, I enjoy drakes over any other pet simply for how sturdy they are, like the old family van. They do good damage, not great but more than acceptable, they can tank just fine, they’re the only pets with cleave and a blast finisher and thanks to the radius of their attacks they connect with their targets fairly often. Salamander Drake isn’t the best of the drake family but again, for sentimental reasons.

Cave Spider as primary, Brown Bear as secondary (for shout condi clear). The idea is to get as many conditions on the opposing player(s) as possible, and the spider will inflict poison, immobilize, weakness, and vulnerability all by itself (at range!). It doesn’t have the raw survivability as, say a drake. But that’s not really the point. Even if I’m not running a condi build, keeping poison up on the enemy is hugely important. The less chance they have of clearing poison due to the amount of condis on them, the better.

Since most of my time with my ranger is spent in WvW, and I run only ranged weapons, I tend to choose pets with some CC capabilities (so I can easily keep distance to the opponent(s)..)
So, for my the choices would be Wolf (AoE fear + knockdown) and Drakehound (AoE immob + knockdown)

Jaguar, Leopard, Snow Leopard. What can i say, i like big cats. And then there’s Melandru’s Stalker nostalgia.

Then there’s the River Drake for tankiness, that epic bouncing F2 and the blast finisher. Other drakes are neat, but it’s not the same without the bouncing lightning…

More specific combos include Hound/Wolf for cc, and passive Leopard/Red Moa/Warhorn for 1500 range buffed pew pew.

Even in PvP, I’ve found that the Marsh Drake and River Drake are the most reliable pets I’ve got. the marsh drake does awesome damage with its poison breath, and the tail slap is a burst finisher. Drakes, it you’re a beast master like I am, can also tank legendary opponents for you in dungeons and such. It’s great.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

It is garbage. Devourer’s are worse than bears. At least Brown Bear and Black Bear have useful F2’s where as Devourer’s are just crap all around.

Still, if you enjoy it no harm in using it.

I wouldn’t say this twice. Because I realized that I haven’t met a single Ranger player… A Single one… That would know that Devourers are the best Might Stacking pets when it comes to Rampage as One.
And with 3 points in Natural Magic – they’ll boost themselves by the same amount of might as they provide to you.

While bear is an empty meat-stick that does nothing but sit around being useless – occasionally cleansing 2 stacks of bleeding or something – devourers provide a knockback, stay alive for longer since they are ranged (less vulnerable to AoE), provide occasional Bleed bomb and stack you up with might during Rampage as One.

How exactly are devourers the best might stacking pet? Marsh drake does a channeled bouncing attack, I always hit 25 stacks when flipping camps and towers. If you are talking about vs. other players the projectiles are so slow that the majority of them miss moving targets and a dps pet like a bird are much better options.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Am I missing something? I haven’t used devourer in a long time but it was about the most garbage pet I ever tried. If you want a ranged pet why wouldn’t you use a spider that actually has a useful f2 and higher vitality for soaking up your conditions? Is it for the rng evade? I’m really not making fun of anyone, I’m genuinely curious if there is something that I’m missing.

Spider is only poison and a little bit immobilize. With the lashtail devourer i’ve a little poison (in my condi build is enough poison) bleeding and a nice. knock back. It’s my favorite pet for my trapper-build

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Am I missing something? I haven’t used devourer in a long time but it was about the most garbage pet I ever tried. If you want a ranged pet why wouldn’t you use a spider that actually has a useful f2 and higher vitality for soaking up your conditions? Is it for the rng evade? I’m really not making fun of anyone, I’m genuinely curious if there is something that I’m missing.

Spider is only poison and a little bit immobilize. With the lashtail devourer i’ve a little poison (in my condi build is enough poison) bleeding and a nice. knock back. It’s my favorite pet for my trapper-build

If you are looking for some extra bleeding you should try hawk or eagle. The birds hit much harder and more often, and they stack two 15 second bleeds on a 6 second cooldown (untraited). Oh and spider has 2 immobilizes which are 3 seconds a piece, if the spider manages to hit your target with the immobilizes your target is going to be forced to blow a utility or eat the full duration of your traps

/15chars/sylvaries

Just a tip for those of you talking about using condition pets with condition builds; pets conditions overwrite yours. Thus resulting in a pretty major DPS loss. If you’re a condition build always choose a power pet or a pet that provides conditions that you do not.

As for Devourers being good for stacking might, two drakes are just fine for that as well. Swap them while standing in a firefield and they’ll blast it with tail swipe.

I was unaware that Devourers were good for might stacking so that’s interesting but I would still rank them among our worst pets. Regardless, use what you enjoy unless you’re a fan of being meta (which personally I’m not).

Also, also.. Another thing that makes Devourer’s bad is that they have a retreating attack which is terrible when you’re trying to stack NPC’s in WvW…

Effectiveness: Wolf
Sexiness: Devourer
Sexiness & Effectiveness: Owl

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Just a tip for those of you talking about using condition pets with condition builds; pets conditions overwrite yours. Thus resulting in a pretty major DPS loss. If you’re a condition build always choose a power pet or a pet that provides conditions that you do not.

As for Devourers being good for stacking might, two drakes are just fine for that as well. Swap them while standing in a firefield and they’ll blast it with tail swipe.

I was unaware that Devourers were good for might stacking so that’s interesting but I would still rank them among our worst pets. Regardless, use what you enjoy unless you’re a fan of being meta (which personally I’m not).

Also, also.. Another thing that makes Devourer’s bad is that they have a retreating attack which is terrible when you’re trying to stack NPC’s in WvW…

I wouldn’t say that Devourers are the worst pets. They are just super situational. But I usually use them on Tequatl, since they’ll boost me up with more might, providing better damage than a Spider would. When my melee pet dies – devourer is my pet of choice.

Also, Drakes on world bosses would rarely blast might fields, when there is like 40 of fields in there… Not to mention that some bosses need you to stay Ranged to stay alive. So drakes won’t blast anything since they need melee range for casting that.

In my opinion, it’s kinda … Blindfolded to say that a pet is useless, just because you haven’t found an effective use for them.

I personally run with an Ice Drake and a Carrion Devourer. Both were chosen for aesthetics as well as usefulness.

Drakes in general are tanky, do cleave damage, and have a handy blast (they use it as their opener, so you can generally get a blast on it if you swap to them right after you put down the field). The Ice Drake’s F2 skill is useless, but it’s my favourite skin out of all the Drakes.

Devourers are also quite tanky and what I switch to when a melee pet would be useless/get slaughtered. The Carrion Devourer is my favourite skin out of the available options, and the F2 poison field is handy sometimes since I run LB/GS and don’t have any means of applying poison on my own.

I’m pretty new to the profession, but I like the drakes the best for the roaming I do in WvW.

They survive during the times I forget about them, they seem to blast finish well, and the tail whip hits hard.

Plus I think they look cool

Aesthetically, definitely the Fern Hound. I mean come on, it’s a collie made of leaves, it’s like the perfect pet for a ranger ;p

Practically, probably the Red Moa or Jungle Stalker. Fury and might for all!

I only PvE and there is no other choice than Jaguar. It’s the highest DPS pet. If I need a bit less squishy pet, I swap to River Drake. Still ok’ish DPS and quite tanky.

I really don’t get the popularity of bears. They perform horribly bad in DPS. I get that there are certain situations where you can let’s say tank a champ and conveniently deal damage from a safe distance. But usually the bear is just one of the worst choices for PvE.

Wolf/siamoth, wolf/spider, wolf/hound, wolf/raven. I pretty much only solo roam or in a party of 2-5 so for wvw. As you can see I like my wolf. With lb/s+d I almost always use siamoth and when running some condi variant I swap it to spider or hound. Drake I might swap in for clearing a camp but those are practically all I use.

I use a wolf and hawk (named Talbot and Airazor respectively), and a shark and blue jellyfish.

I run Devourers almost exclusively (Carrion and Lashtail) because I’m a Charr fanboy and I like the lore. Devourers are close to useless in sPvP or WvW. Enemy players are basically free to ignore them. To add insult to injury, Devourers don’t even tank well in WvW because Anet nerfed their health in this game mode. However Devourers might be the perfect pet for soloing PvE content, as they are virtually unkillable in PvE with their high toughness, knock back, and evades. Ultimately I love running with them but they are probably a bottom-tier pet for many purposes.

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

I run Devourers almost exclusively (Carrion and Lashtail) because I’m a Charr fanboy and I like the lore. Devourers are close to useless in sPvP or WvW. Enemy players are basically free to ignore them. To add insult to injury, Devourers don’t even tank well in WvW because Anet nerfed their health in this game mode. However Devourers might be the perfect pet for soloing PvE content, as they are virtually unkillable in PvE with their high toughness, knock back, and evades. Ultimately I love running with them but they are probably a bottom-tier pet for many purposes.

That’s perfect though (: You use them because you like them and that’s a big part about what I love with Ranger pets. Yes, they’re a big part of our profession and different pets have different benefits but to be honest I find in most situations it doesn’t matter what pet you choose as long as you know how to control it. Some might be worse than others but if you like it as your pet and can keep a leash on it there’s no harm in keeping it. Like I had said in my initial post, I know that the Salamander Drake is one of the worse pets out of the drake family but I always use it for sentimental reasons and I still get by just fine.

tldr; Different pets will do different things for you but in the end your control over them and how you play the Ranger as a whole are what make the biggest difference. Pick the pet you love regardless of how “good” it is and give it a silly name.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

that baby stealing dingo.7216:

I run Devourers almost exclusively (Carrion and Lashtail) because I’m a Charr fanboy and I like the lore. Devourers are close to useless in sPvP or WvW. Enemy players are basically free to ignore them. To add insult to injury, Devourers don’t even tank well in WvW because Anet nerfed their health in this game mode. However Devourers might be the perfect pet for soloing PvE content, as they are virtually unkillable in PvE with their high toughness, knock back, and evades. Ultimately I love running with them but they are probably a bottom-tier pet for many purposes.

That’s perfect though (: You use them because you like them and that’s a big part about what I love with Ranger pets. Yes, they’re a big part of our profession and different pets have different benefits but to be honest I find in most situations it doesn’t matter what pet you choose as long as you know how to control it. Some might be worse than others but if you like it as your pet and can keep a leash on it there’s no harm in keeping it. Like I had said in my initial post, I know that the Salamander Drake is one of the worse pets out of the drake family but I always use it for sentimental reasons and I still get by just fine.

tldr; Different pets will do different things for you but in the end your control over them and how you play the Ranger as a whole are what make the biggest difference. Pick the pet you love regardless of how “good” it is and give it a silly name.

Agreed, you have to run with what you enjoy, and with enough practice you can win with any pet. The pet choices add real flavor to the Ranger class that you just don’t get elsewhere.

My favourite pets are :
- river drake : I think it’s the very best of our pet for it’s deathly f2 skill
- Carion devourer : maybe the best suvivability in PvE (not for the retreat but because of it’s very high toughness). Very best pet to use with rampage as one because of it’s double hit attack pattern that stack 2 stack of might for each every second instead of one for other pets. And F2 is a medium lasting poison aoe with base damage tick every second, always nice.
- lynx : it has always felt a little more efficient then other cats since the nerf to pet’s damage.

No particular feelings :
Spider : slow attack… way to slow
Dogs : feel like they got their niche in spvp, don’t like it in pve because they tend to proc defiance on champs.

Never use :
- Moa : don’t really like it
- Bears : just totally hate them. As a BM it feel they got less survivability then any other pets.
- Pigs : can’t like the way their f2 is designed.

Dadnir.5038:

- Carion devourer : maybe the best suvivability in PvE (not for the retreat but because of it’s very high toughness). Very best pet to use with rampage as one because of it’s double hit attack pattern that stack 2 stack of might for each every second instead of one for other pets. And F2 is a medium lasting poison aoe with base damage tick every second, always nice.

That’s very misleading. Devourers will only stack the most might if the target doesn’t move for the entire duration of the skill and if there isn’t anything within 900 range that can be targeted.

If there is anything else that can be targeted (door, npc, supply, etc.) the marsh drake will stack more might.

If the target is moving devourers become the worst pet for might stacking. Even spiders will do a better job of stacking might as long as they land atleast 1 immobilize.

In general, drakes are my favorite pets in the game. They’re aesthetically and thematically interesting (not just real world animals, have some fantasy flavor), and they’re very solid in combat to boot. Only pets with cleave basic attacks, fairly good at taking hits, F2 abilities tend to pack quite a punch (though some are a bit iffy on actually hitting).

As far as which drakes I like best, aesthetically the Ice Drake looks the coolest (pun intended :p), but combat-wise I prefer the River Drake (which sadly has the least interesting model, though).

Second place for pet families probably goes to Devourers, since they also have a bit of fantasy flare to their design. Favorite of that bunch is…. uh… whichever one has a rocky appearance and the 6x tail needle special attack. Lashtail maybe? I can never remember the individual names of the devourers.

I also really like the Snow Owl, despite not being fantasy-related at all. I think its because it gives me Legend of the Guardians vibes and the sheer hilarity of having a little owl murder things.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Dadnir.5038:

- Carion devourer : maybe the best suvivability in PvE (not for the retreat but because of it’s very high toughness). Very best pet to use with rampage as one because of it’s double hit attack pattern that stack 2 stack of might for each every second instead of one for other pets. And F2 is a medium lasting poison aoe with base damage tick every second, always nice.

That’s very misleading. Devourers will only stack the most might if the target doesn’t move for the entire duration of the skill and if there isn’t anything within 900 range that can be targeted.

If there is anything else that can be targeted (door, npc, supply, etc.) the marsh drake will stack more might.

If the target is moving devourers become the worst pet for might stacking. Even spiders will do a better job of stacking might as long as they land atleast 1 immobilize.

You get it wrong Jim. Even without it’s f2 ability, devourer would still be the best at might stacking because their auto attack hit twice in the time every other pet hit once. which simply mean 2x might.

Dadnir.5038:

Jim Hunter.6821:

Dadnir.5038:

- Carion devourer : maybe the best suvivability in PvE (not for the retreat but because of it’s very high toughness). Very best pet to use with rampage as one because of it’s double hit attack pattern that stack 2 stack of might for each every second instead of one for other pets. And F2 is a medium lasting poison aoe with base damage tick every second, always nice.

That’s very misleading. Devourers will only stack the most might if the target doesn’t move for the entire duration of the skill and if there isn’t anything within 900 range that can be targeted.

If there is anything else that can be targeted (door, npc, supply, etc.) the marsh drake will stack more might.

If the target is moving devourers become the worst pet for might stacking. Even spiders will do a better job of stacking might as long as they land atleast 1 immobilize.

You get it wrong Jim. Even without it’s f2 ability, devourer would still be the best at might stacking because their auto attack hit twice in the time every other pet hit once. which simply mean 2x might.

No, sorry. Go test it out for yourself. What I wrote is completely accurate.

Well test are all done. the fact that a target move or not is irrelevant since no pet fare well against moving target. And still 2 might stack on auto for devourers.

The fact that you dislike devourers won’t change this fact.

Dadnir.5038:

Well test are all done. the fact that a target move or not is irrelevant since no pet fare well against moving target. And still 2 might stack on auto for devourers.

The fact that you dislike devourers won’t change this fact.

So I take it you tried it out on the moving golem and you are unhappy with the results? Dismissing something as irrelevant because it doesn’t support your argument is childish.

You can be a devourer fan, I don’t care, but if you try to spread misinformation I am going to correct you.

Your argument is that devourers are the best pet for stacking might but in reality this is almost never true. In the few situations it is true (when hitting something that never moves) it would still be better to have a pet that can buff the party and has better dps.

I like the lynx for my condi build, F2 has a leap and adds bleeds, perfect when players are moving all over in WvW. It actually hits then

Second is the wolf, simply cause of the fear and knockdown.

Seems I made a mistake before.

Even on completely immobile targets devourers are not the best pet for might stacking.
Thanks to the jungle stalkers f2, it will stack more might than a devourer on an immoblie target. On a moving target the devourer doesn’t even come close.

Pve wise i have not top pets i just change to the situation.

for WvW
1.snow leapord/ Frost drake = Rampage as one + f2 = 25might + shared boons > pet gains 25might also >deals a lot more damage and chills keeping the targets within my Barrage(that is powered by Predators onslaught+Sharpen edges(traited Sotf) first attack autos triggers my fury buff then i open hell fire.
Snow leapord still generates a lot might but helps me land my arrows since i don’t use RtW.

2.Bird/Soimoth these are for the swiftness+vun boost and the birds dps.
while soimoth gives me the ability to dual using that wonderful stealth+remorseless combos while combined with Sotf still equals a heavy burst form Rf or barrage without having to use up Utility slots on SotW.

3. Wolf / Snow wolf / Reef Drake
(these pets offer me a lot of Crowd control wolf does its fear(used defensivly used during a zerg fight)
Snow wolf used for Locking down Stragglers.
Reef drake (i havn’t used for a while but used it in Camps , using the F2 in combo with a poison trap it locksdown a target with confusion,weakness (if i leap or the drake blasts it before the f2) this means the target will not attack because he is weakened and confused , it will only speed up his death while those conditions are on him gives me the ground advantage by him being forced to back away while i hold a LB is not a good idea to do.

Alpine Wolf. I have my reasons.

My Ranger is a commoner with a name that’s a play on the common raven. That said, my main pet for PvE and PvP is the raven and recently picked up my wolf. I’m finding it hard to give up the pair of them. The fear and knockdowns from the wolf are too handy and thematically I can’t seem to put away the raven. The raven and wolf also put out respectable DPS.

Prior to that I’ve tried to keep a pet on hand that provides a chill. So I have my polar bear, white moa, alpine wolf, and owl. I would keep one of these with a river drake/drakehound as my primary.

Juvenile Siamoth.

Stealth + full boon gain. What else could a man ask for?

I forget…

Anything other than the tank ones die too quickly to be able to remember them clearly.

Aesthetically speaking, I do seem to vaguely remember I liked big cats.

My main pet is my Jungle Stalker, called Spot. It has to be for my Crazy Cat Ranger, I’ve even got a Jungle Stalker as my mini for the Ranger Runes.

My other pet is whatever I feel like using. I’m slowly collecting as many as I can.

The jungle spider..it has ranged attack with poison,ranged Immob and a poison field.

Also the marmaduke dog….that thing is insane..ranged immob,a charge and a KD…sexy sauce!

Malkavian.4516:

I favor the brown bear, the reef drake and the carrion devourer. Brown bear and reef drake speak for themselves as they do just nicely when it comes to tanking and distracting my enemies in PvE. As for the Carrion, I have yet to give him a full spin but his design for a devourer is pretty kitten sweet.

…Any that might actually work.

Wolf fear (even though I see the animation) hasn’t been.

Avoid combat not working to date makes a pet about as relevant as yesterday’s newspaper in an internet shop.

Headcase.4618:

I use a wolf and hawk (named Talbot and Airazor respectively), and a shark and blue jellyfish.

Is there a way to keep birds from dying at the outset??