Guild Wars 2

…Very likely the worst pets to use in PvE.

I love pets,its one of the reasons that I created a Ranger (I don’t like Sylvari but I love their cultural armors so…) but the pets I like to use are one of the worst to use in PvE,at least thats what I think.

I like Fern Hound just because it reminds me of Amaterasu from Okami,but I kinda like the special ability too (regeneration,also he can knock down for 2 seconds)

Second…Eagles. I love these birds,they just look cool and the hawk kinda fits my armor :P

Third: Wolves,I like them.

I want the Lynx too,but I haven’t found them yet.

But to the point:
The best pets in PvE are ranged (spider,devourers,etc..) and the bear,right?

I just don’t like the idea of using a weaker pet while everyone is running around with their OP bear,but I don’t want the bear…
1st: Because everyone uses them
2nd: Bear is used by botters lol,bears have a bad reputation in my book

The tank pets (brown bear, polar bear – has a bit more power than all bears, and the murellow – F2 a good aoe poison) are good while leveling. I had 30 points in Marksmanship and Skirmishing and 10 in Beastmastery but yesterday I put 30 in Beastmastery and wow what a difference that made. All my pets have great survivability now. Now my snow owl and snow leopard can take on Veterans and sometimes Champions. I continue to swap my pets during combat but putting 30 points in Beastmastery made a big difference.

If you want more your pets to have greater survivability then put points in Beastmastery. I did this so I could choose any pet to use. Before the change my snow owl and snow leopard wouldn’t last more than a few seconds but now they can take on almost anything (Champions and some Veterans are a bit more rough).

The bird pets do the most damage because their auto attack hits twice. If you are insane enough to do a pet damage build you can see your eagle hit for 4k and up (i did it once, was hilarious but wholly ineffective)

Dante.3754:

The bird pets do the most damage because their auto attack hits twice. If you are insane enough to do a pet damage build you can see your eagle hit for 4k and up (i did it once, was hilarious but wholly ineffective)

I got up to 11.5k on a glass cannon Thief and 8.2k on a Warrior with 2500 toughness, or so.

I can’t find my original data so I’ll need to run these tests again, but running a 30 BM build and timing how long it takes a pet to take down a heavy golem:

Cats are by far the best DPS pet. They kill the golem is almost half the time of the next best pet. With 30 BM they will crit about 70% of the time. Add a fury buff (e.g. warhorn 5 or rampage as one) and it’s 90%. The jaguar can stealth for 100% crit chance for 3 attacks. Their innate skills w/ cooldown do good damage with short cooldowns (8 and 20 sec – other pets’ skills are usually 20-40 sec).

Bird are the next best. Yes they attack twice, which is good for spike damage, but the interval between those two attacks is twice as long as for cats. So their overall attacks/sec is about the same. Their 8 sec skill is ok, but their 20 sec skill (which gives you swiftness) costs the bird two attacks (a skill only costs other pets one attack) and really hurts DPS. Their BM trait grants you vigor while is kinda useless, while the cats’ BM trait gives bleed on crit (which is most hits). OTOH the birds are tankier with 50% more hp.

The other pets are pretty close behind birds, with one exception. The bears have the worst DPS, taking roughly 4x longer to kill the golem than the cats. I guess that’s the trade-off for having 3x the hp. Use bears when you need a damage sponge, not for DPS.

So for PvP, I’d recommend the cats (the jaguar in particular) first, birds second. For PvE I’d go with cats first, drakes second (good toughness and hp, AOE attacks, and also benefit from bleed on crit trait). Use the other pets depending on the situation (ranged, knockdowns, damage sponge, etc).

They really need to change the pet type-specific BM traits so that they affect all pets. The bleed on crit trait is by far the best one and gives cats (who have higher precision than devourers and drakes so crit more) a massive advantage.

I run with wolves at 80. I haven’t found a situation where I really needed to change up. I use Fern Hound mostly. I think his regen is helpful. He rarely dies on me either. I use Alpine Wolf when the Fern Hound dies, but I’ve been thinking of changing him up with a cat.
I just play with what I like and so far it hasn’t gotten in my way at all.

Sorean

if i remember correctly the lynx is in the 40 to 50 zone just south of hoelbrak.
just exit the south end of hoelbrak then start heading south west and should run into one pretty quick. there is a snow owl in that area also, over on the east side.

I love beastmastery. My first 10 points go in there immediately. I’ve toyed with using the GS and LB, but I don’t want a glass cannon build. I also thought about going 30 BM and then the rest into traps, because I really like the traps.

Not sure where I’d put the rest of my traits, either power or crit. Anyway, I beastmastery is where it’s at for pet survivability. I play a ranger for the pet mostly, and once some of the bugginess is cleared out, I think it’ll make for a much better experience, better than it already is.

Polar bear is not used by botters and i do believe it has one of the highest health bars for a pet

I actually hate bears. They are a great set-it and forget-it pet but imho canines are vastly superior in almost every way if you can actually handle your pet. Just because a lot of people use it doesn’t actually mean it’s ‘the best’

Personal opinion here but I order pets as follows:

1) Canines (CC, tanky, and good DPS)
2) Birds (great dps)
3) Devourers (if you need ranged only)
4) Moas (great for buffs and heals in groups)
5) Cats (really squishy though)
6) Spiders
7) Bears (for those who can’t use a better pet)
8) Porcines
9) Drakes (because they are broken)

For underwater it’s Jellyfish or nothing for me.

Thanks for the answer guys,I got Lynx now and I think he is the best for my build right now,and I’ll keep the hawk until I see a better pet.
I’m still leveling my ranger,I don’t have a lot of pets yet,I want to catch them as I see them,but the Lynx I really wanted him so I went after him :P

But I have a question about PvP in the end of this post

Majik.8521:

Sorean

if i remember correctly the lynx is in the 40 to 50 zone just south of hoelbrak.
just exit the south end of hoelbrak then start heading south west and should run into one pretty quick. there is a snow owl in that area also, over on the east side.

Thanks,I got him and I must say his leap + bleeding is awesome,I’m using Lynx and Hawk now

@ Solandri

Do you think cats are good in PvP? what about ranged pets? I’m using spiders in PvP because I thought ranged pets were the best in PvP

@ Avatar Rage

Yeah,thanks to ArenaNet the best looking bear isn’t used by bots and it is actually stronger than others,must…get…him,gotta catch em’ all afterall,right? :P

@Edit

@Unspecified

Why Drakes are broken? Broken as in OP or broken because some skill just don’t work?
I’m glad I don’t like them,they are clumsy and have 0 cool looking factor. :P

Unlike cats,canines and birds which are awesome.

I can’t wait till we have Elona with lions

Wolves are actually pretty awesome as pets. They don’t look like it at first since they have a lot of utility/cc based abilities, which is why they are so well adapted to PvP, but they also have a very fast attack animation and do well in PvE since they bring solid dps while being stout enough to survive dungeons better than most other dps pets.

This is why I frequently run with canine pets in PvE.

Sorean.5379:

@Unspecified

Why Drakes are broken? Broken as in OP or broken because some skill just don’t work?
I’m glad I don’t like them,they are clumsy and have 0 cool looking factor. :P

Drakes currently don’t use any attacks other than their auto-attack. No blast finisher, no bite to self heal. I meant broken as in buggy broken obviously. If they actually used their skills they might be better but it’s hard to say.

Their F2 abilities also have some serious issues hitting but that can be overcome in various ways.

Solandri.9640:

I can’t find my original data so I’ll need to run these tests again, but running a 30 BM build and timing how long it takes a pet to take down a heavy golem:

Cats are by far the best DPS pet. They kill the golem is almost half the time of the next best pet. With 30 BM they will crit about 70% of the time. Add a fury buff (e.g. warhorn 5 or rampage as one) and it’s 90%. The jaguar can stealth for 100% crit chance for 3 attacks. Their innate skills w/ cooldown do good damage with short cooldowns (8 and 20 sec – other pets’ skills are usually 20-40 sec).

Bird are the next best. Yes they attack twice, which is good for spike damage, but the interval between those two attacks is twice as long as for cats. So their overall attacks/sec is about the same. Their 8 sec skill is ok, but their 20 sec skill (which gives you swiftness) costs the bird two attacks (a skill only costs other pets one attack) and really hurts DPS. Their BM trait grants you vigor while is kinda useless, while the cats’ BM trait gives bleed on crit (which is most hits). OTOH the birds are tankier with 50% more hp.

Hey man, I ran tests on DPS too and Birds always beat cats. You’re doing it wrong, you don’t judge DPS based off auto attacks. Use the F2 on a Raven then swap to an Eagle and use F2 again, then in 6 seconds again. Try the same thing with two cats. Bird’s also can take more shots and swiftness in PvP is a great utility.

Grizledorf.5290:

Hey man, I ran tests on DPS too and Birds always beat cats. You’re doing it wrong, you don’t judge DPS based off auto attacks. Use the F2 on a Raven then swap to an Eagle and use F2 again, then in 6 seconds again. Try the same thing with two cats. Bird’s also can take more shots and swiftness in PvP is a great utility.

Ok, just tested again. 30 BM, rending attacks, 10 skirmishing, 30% extra damage on crits (shouldn’t favor either birds or cats since both have the same crit rate).

Jaguar pet, hit F2 to stealth and attack, nothing else. Killed the heavy golem 11, 10, and 11 sec. Without stealth (i.e. just autoattack) it took the golem down in 12-14 sec.

Did the birds as you said (I tried both raven and eagle, and hawk and eagle – no real difference so go for the blind on the raven). Hit F2 to initiate the attack, as soon as the blind/bleed showed up I swapped birds and hit F2 again. When F2 came off cooldown I hit it again. Most of the time they took 14-19 sec because they kept casting swiftness. On one occasion, the F2 skill seemed to be superseded by casting swiftness (i.e. F2 went on cooldown without the skill actually firing – the bird cast swiftness instead).

After about 15 tries, I finally got a trial where neither bird cast swiftness and F2 worked properly. Took them 11 sec to kill the golem. Then I thought what about the trait which reduces the F2 cooldown. So I added that trait (takes the bird F2 skill down to 4-75 sec). I tried about 50 more times to get another run without them casting swiftness. The first one I goofed on the stopwatch so didn’t get a time. The second one came out 11 sec again.

It’s like I said, the bleed on crit trait is just so much better than the other pet traits. The jaguar was putting on a 6-7 stack of bleed by the time golem died (4 from the maul skill, 2-3 from its regular attacks). I added 10 points to WS and Marksmanship for the increased pet condition damage and duration traits. The jaguar’s times with stealth went down to about 10 sec, best kill was 8 sec. With just autoattack (no stealth) it averaged 12 sec, best time was 10.5 sec.

There was one trial where the first bird managed to take the golem down to 25% in 5 sec (I was a bit slow and it managed F2 + 2 regular attacks before the swap – all must’ve criticaled and rolled high for damage), so the birds can definitely put out more spike damage than the cat’s Maul. Unfortunately the second bird insisted on casting swiftness and didn’t manage many criticals, taking the total time to kill up to 14 sec. So hypothetically, if you got fury on both birds (might be tricky to do that right after the swap), and they don’t cast swiftness, they should be able to beat out the cats. But on average, the cats win easily. Mostly because the birds cast swiftness (which might not be a bad thing in PvP).

Incidentally, if you tap F2 with the jaguar, it will attack but won’t stealth (and F2 does not go on cooldown). You have to hold down F2 for a bit to make it stealth before attacking. /rolleyes bug

In PvP:

Dogs if you are speced in beastmastery

Dogs or Devourers if you are not depending on how many enemies and your intent

Maybe birds for swiftness if you run some kind of sword/dagger + shortbow hybrid

Buff pets if there are lots of enemies and there is no way your pet can engage without being disintegrated

Or a bear moving him back and forth over the tab target/auto target line to screw up enemy targeting making them continuously target something out of range.

If you want a high damaging pet but don’t want to give up pet survivability for pet damage. Go 30 Beastmastery (Natural Healing) and Signet of the Wild with cat pets. My lynx can take more punishment than my ranger.

Unspecified.9142:

Sorean.5379:

@Unspecified

Why Drakes are broken? Broken as in OP or broken because some skill just don’t work?
I’m glad I don’t like them,they are clumsy and have 0 cool looking factor. :P

Drakes currently don’t use any attacks other than their auto-attack. No blast finisher, no bite to self heal. I meant broken as in buggy broken obviously. If they actually used their skills they might be better but it’s hard to say.

Their F2 abilities also have some serious issues hitting but that can be overcome in various ways.

Umm… Drakes were fixed in the last patch. They will now regularly cycle through their skills on auto attack. (INCLUDING their ‘Tail Swipe’ which is indeed a Blast finisher)

They are awesome on mobs – that Tail Swipe alone can damage multiple targets for more damage than any of the birds do on a single target.

@Sorean : I love cats pet, but honestly, while I was leveling through my 80 ranger, my second choice was always fern hound ! His dps isn’t that bad (ok, not like jaguar, but nothing beats him ^^), he’s quite though and he has ones of the best f2 (especially with 30 BM) imho.

Birds are cool, but i don’t really like them :/ they take sooooo long to attack a target …

MaRko.3165:

Unspecified.9142:

Sorean.5379:

@Unspecified

Why Drakes are broken? Broken as in OP or broken because some skill just don’t work?
I’m glad I don’t like them,they are clumsy and have 0 cool looking factor. :P

Drakes currently don’t use any attacks other than their auto-attack. No blast finisher, no bite to self heal. I meant broken as in buggy broken obviously. If they actually used their skills they might be better but it’s hard to say.

Their F2 abilities also have some serious issues hitting but that can be overcome in various ways.

Umm… Drakes were fixed in the last patch. They will now regularly cycle through their skills on auto attack. (INCLUDING their ‘Tail Swipe’ which is indeed a Blast finisher)

They are awesome on mobs – that Tail Swipe alone can damage multiple targets for more damage than any of the birds do on a single target.

I agree with you Drakes are awesome now (probably my new favourite pet for most things).

However, I posted that before the patch.

Actually Sorean, your fav pets have their place and are not bad. I love my Fern Hound too and I think a lot of people roll with one as an off-pet in open world PvE. And I don’t PvP but I think Wolf is an often-used pet due to its fear.

Other popular pets: Jaguar, Raven, Drake

I want the Lynx too,but I haven’t found them yet.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Lynx
Here go get her!!

The best pets in PvE are ranged (spider,devourers,etc..) and the bear,right?
My tanker pet I prefer use dog-type or devourer oh drake too
if u like Amaterasu from Okami try use snow-wolf it white like her.(Aemi is female.)
Tanker pet look on they status focus on tough or vit and look on master what u need
to co-op with your buddy?

Cat+bird for DPS/Cri dmg.
Spider for combo field semi tank.
Jellyfish god mode in water…
Moa buff kungkittenbird
Pig semi tank+cc+dirty toy

etc…

Sorean.5379:

…Very likely the worst pets to use in PvE.

I love pets,its one of the reasons that I created a Ranger (I don’t like Sylvari but I love their cultural armors so…) but the pets I like to use are one of the worst to use in PvE,at least thats what I think.

I like Fern Hound just because it reminds me of Amaterasu from Okami,but I kinda like the special ability too (regeneration,also he can knock down for 2 seconds)

Second…Eagles. I love these birds,they just look cool and the hawk kinda fits my armor :P

Third: Wolves,I like them.

I want the Lynx too,but I haven’t found them yet.

But to the point:
The best pets in PvE are ranged (spider,devourers,etc..) and the bear,right?

I just don’t like the idea of using a weaker pet while everyone is running around with their OP bear,but I don’t want the bear…
1st: Because everyone uses them
2nd: Bear is used by botters lol,bears have a bad reputation in my book

The bear is terrible in terms of damage, and I wouldn’t consider it OP at anything, except maybe being a punching bag with no real purpose. I never use it. And by NO means are the best pets in pve ranged. (unless we’re talking dungeons, then you’re kind of forced to use them sometimes.)

Bird pets are amazing in PVE, I use them in orr all the time. They do absurd damage.

Same goes for the lynx and other cat pets, I use them not only in PVE but in WvW as well.

Canines tend to work a bit better in PvP but they’re leagues better than the bears.

And drakes, which you didn’t mention, are pretty much usable everywhere, and do great AOE damage and have a blast finish, providing good synergy with traps/bonfire/healing spring.

Devourers seem to be far better tanks in my experience than bears if you are heavily BM spec and have some healing gear. Signet of the wild tics for massive heals along with natural regen and the heal on crit trait, nothing except a nuclear blast kills that scuttling little kitten. The massive toughness keeps him going while bears get rocked in the same circumstance against champions and tougher veterans like karkas or abominations.