Guild Wars 2

Here are just a few thoughts on using pets given most of us rangers stick with just a few pets. Some of the pets have specific uses often missed.

Bird:

A. EAGLE AND HAWK The only class which has 2 F2 abilities which are the same. Lacerating Slash can be on a 1) Eagle and 2) Raven. This is a very fast bleed (6 second cooldown) and the bird is reasonably reliable and fast. Good damage too 1275 but remember to get good damage you really want to stack might which will be incredibly easy post Dec 10th.

B. OWL isn’t bad at slowing down runners so you can catch up and attack them. The bird is fairly fast to acquire the target and 3 seconds of chill usually does it. Works decently with rangers who go melee. Swapping pets while running to catch an enemy is pretty easy to do. Changing weapons/traits/gear is not and our utilities that slow the enemy down are not long range.

C. QUICKNESS. So you are running away but have no horn up and are using SOTH for move speed. I often put a bird on a mob and pray for quickness.

CANINE

A. HYENA. Sure it does less damage but having 2 with Howl of the Pack is quite effective for knockdowns and as a leap finisher. The leap finisher is great fun with traps especially to provide Fire Armor. Same for torch.

B. ALPINE WOLF. A lot of people like the Drakehound for its immobilize, but I prefer the Alpine wolf for an AE chill. It lasts longer and chill just has a wider range of uses.

C. FERN HOUND. It is a decent regen and heal to stack with all the great leap finishers of Cannines.

FELINES
Overall, the best feature of felines is bleeding and their overall damage. Traited, the felines can really put a few stacks of bleed on opponents. People also forget about the vulnerability a cat will provide with its basic attacks too.

A. STALKER Excellent might stacks (5) on a reasonable timer. I use Jaguar a lot when playing nature (15+ pts) because the stacks will go for the pet and me. When I get stacks, the pet also gets the same buff. So it is like getting 10 stacks on the pet with one howl. Nice! Fits any might stacking build even with it being a bit hard to fire consistently (a bit buggy).

B. LYNX and LEOPARD. Remember both of their F2 actives are leaps meaning you can do some decent combos. AND YOU control the timing unlike the other leaps (that is if you think the pet AI is really control but better than passive).

Cont in Pt2

MOAS:
Don’t underestimate harmonic cry in a longer group v group fight. The key is to get that darn bird in the midst of your group’s pounding on the same target so when it goes off it helps. 240 range sucks but I have seen it be useful used well.

I need to play more with the mechanics and get back to you.

RED MOA: 15 seconds of group fury on 25 cooldown is great. You just need to work on placement of the group and Moa when you trigger it.

PINK AND BLACK MOAS: They daze in a cone. Ok, need to work with this one a bit more. In theory, it should reset opening strike with remorselessness. If it does, it would have some value as an interrupt. Not a big fan of them.

PORCINE:
Porcine Charge is well. . . buggy because of the wind up. But the class does have a bleed and a knock down. Bleed is on a 12 sec recharge and can hit a couple of very close targets. It you trait the pet or extra condition duration or extra condition damage it isn’t bad as an extra benefit.
Ok, the real value is the foraged items. They are clunky but can be extremely good in some situations especially with a group that knows how to use them. Takes some real practice. In 1v1, you often are not the right person to quit what you are doing to pick up the item.

REMEMBER, anyone can use a foraged item so call out when you are foraging and that tends to ensure it is your team collecting. I tend to forage in the backline allowing my group member to run and grab the item if they can use it.

BOAR: Your forage 3 of 4 items that serve as cc. 3 sec fear/3sec stun or a knock down. Remember ranges are different!!!! Also, the knock down rock is also a guaranteed projectile finisher. But more importantly, the gunk serves as an ethereal field. Blast for chaos armor.

PIG: Almost always useful to some party member with all skills that focus on healing.
Healing seed with also remove conditions and is another water field for a group heal blast or whirl. Eat egg isn’t much healing without some serious buffing of the pet but the initiative will help a thief. Elixir of heroes is great when one of your group members gets low. Run and drink the elixir.

SIAMOTH: This is one you forage with BEFORE a fight. So, you can go into the fight with a character with all boons or being able to stealth and blind quickly. Plasma has really good length on those buffs.

WARTHOG: A bit of everything but 50% chance you will have an item to create either a poison or ethereal field. 5 seconds of AE weakness with a blast finisher is nothing to sneeze at.

Continued below

SPIDERS
Again, if only you could choose the rotation of the pet’s skills (or fire them yourself if you wanted to). But the spider has great passives if you watch out for them. Poison gas is a poison field which can really help if your group pays attention. It has an easy to spot animation fortunately. Don’t forget the pet eventually will shoot webs that immobilize.

The thing people often forget is that spiders basic attacks and web attack are projectile finishers (20% chance for each basic attack). Make sure if you have fields that the spider is positioned to shoot thru them especially if playing with a necro in your group.

I need to do some checking on spiders again and try to mix up targets with the weakness and poison F2 abilities as well as use AE attacks. Will edit later.

FORREST: surprisingly good ability to stack poison. Often pop it right after the poison field.

CAVE: 2 attacks each will have 3 stacks of vulnerability for 10 seconds is a healthy damage boost considering you also get weakness. This pet is underutilized.

DEVOURER:
Overall their passives are ok. Don’t forget the fast cooldown tail lash is an interrupt. When using RAO the twin darts help because they are two attacks. At 10% poison, yeah it helps sometimes. . . just not consistently.

LASHTAIL: Key for lashtail is it has a 7 attack bleed. This is GREAT when using RAO to stack might on yourself and the pet (assuming you have 15 in nature).

CARRION: the F2 drops a poison field. Depending on class makeup of group, this can be extremely useful.

BEARS: Tanky for PvE and camps. They have some specials which are well known and others I am surprised are not used a bit more.

BLACK BEAR: 10 seconds of AE weakness can be very powerful or can force a cleanse. I like keeping my opponent’s weak. This is a skill I am playing with more. range isn’t bad at 600. This is incredibly useful when traited to increase duration.

MURRLOW: Downside is it will need to be in melee range. Upside is the darn poison cloud lasts a long time (especially if traited).

POLAR BEAR: Pet is tough to use because the animation takes too long. It can’t catchup to the enemy etc.

DRAKES:
Remember the drake can blast finish but irregularly and is a good damage AE. Still in a long fight. . . . Drakes tend to tag more enemies and therefore are really ideal when trying to get stacks from sigils.

SALAMANDER: really good damage with burning cone.

JELLYFISH:
Couple of things to know.
1. They have a reasonably good regen another 130 sec can help.
2. Their prize skill is dark water which most folks forget is a smoke field. Not a lot of underwater smoke fields in most builds so. . . blast to stealth. Not predictable but if you get lucky it can certainly help.
3. The F2s are whirl finishers.

Well, the eagle and hawk don’t deal damage at all with the bleed because they have (even traited) about no condition damage (unless they get their might stacks). And the lynx for example also mostly misses with the leap, like the most canines. And a moa’s or drake’s F2 is avoidable way too easy.

Not perfect and yeah you need might stacks for birds. Likewise, the leap does miss too much and stalker does miss his might stacks too often and go on cooldown. Pets are buggy, but when you get them to work, there is value in the variety.