Guild Wars 2

Since the changes to pet stats, cats have become a good alternative to using birds since they have 300 more condition damage. Especially the lynx with all the bleeds.

What do people think? I’ve been testing out the lynx, and while the extra bleeds from lynx are nice, their F2 pounce is pretty noticeable and much easier to dodge than the bird’s slash. Also I feel like cats seem to attack at a bit of a slower rate than birds, and don’t follow as closely, making it a bit harder to land taunt.

You guys think that extra 300 condi damage makes it worthwhile to bring lynx over birds?

Cats are better than birds in damage by A LOT now, however birds are capable of sticking to the target better. The gap between damage on cats and birds vs a moving target is a lot smaller now that cats deal more condi damage, and can take full advantage of the 2 oncrit bleed traits for pets, but birds still win out vs moving targets.

The only times i’d really take a cat over a bird is if you have a lot of slow and immob in your build (IE lock them down for the cat), you have the two on crit = bleed traits for your pet (one in skirmishing, one in BM), and/or you’re in PvE where the target is almost guaranteed to be stationary most of the time.

cats=pve
birds=pvp

Makes sense, pretty similar to what I experienced. I just saw a few more rangers using lynx than before and wondered if I was missing out on anything obvious.

Puck.9612:

cats=pve
birds=pvp

In my opinion this, also if you pvp I still prefer raven or owl over hawk and eagle as I see the burst of them better than the bleeder birds in most cases you still gain dmg from companions might (might) and will have the bleed as a solid bonus instead.

Manekk.6981:

Puck.9612:

cats=pve
birds=pvp

In my opinion this, also if you pvp I still prefer raven or owl over hawk and eagle as I see the burst of them better than the bleeder birds in most cases you still gain dmg from companions might (might) and will have the bleed as a solid bonus instead.

Hawks are condition-bots.
7 second (5+aftercast) on weakness and blind are a real nuisance to fight against.

Both Owls/Ravens and Hawks are viable choices.

I always found the bird swooping animation to make them hit less? Was that changed? I use the lynx right now. Good crits and bleeds.

F2’s are also so kitten unreliable… spam them 6 times to get them to work. the low cooldown on the hawk sounds good in theory but it rarely lands in my experience.

vespers.1759:

I always found the bird swooping animation to make them hit less? Was that changed? I use the lynx right now. Good crits and bleeds.

F2’s are also so kitten unreliable… spam them 6 times to get them to work. the low cooldown on the hawk sounds good in theory but it rarely lands in my experience.

They don’t even need to hit to apply the blind/weakeness/taunt though, plus its so spammable, if it misses the actual attack, its up again 5s later.

Hm… went to test it a bit. The lynx maintains a much much higher bleed stack than the bird. I’m seeing bleeds of about 300 with bird and 700-800 with the lynx. The bird however gets to activate taunt sooner because the lynx F2 CD is 24s and the bird is 4 1/2… however the bird taunt circle is also a lot smaller. The bird grants swiftness too though which is nice…

I think I prefer the lynx to the bird.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

vespers.1759:

I always found the bird swooping animation to make them hit less? Was that changed? I use the lynx right now. Good crits and bleeds.

F2’s are also so kitten unreliable… spam them 6 times to get them to work. the low cooldown on the hawk sounds good in theory but it rarely lands in my experience.

They don’t even need to hit to apply the blind/weakeness/taunt though, plus its so spammable, if it misses the actual attack, its up again 5s later.

They actually do need to hit to apply weakness, I believe.

vespers.1759:

Hm… went to test it a bit. The lynx maintains a much much higher bleed stack than the bird. I’m seeing bleeds of about 300 with bird and 700-800 with the lynx. The bird however gets to activate taunt sooner because the lynx F2 CD is 24s and the bird is 4 1/2… however the bird taunt circle is also a lot smaller. The bird grants swiftness too though which is nice…

I think I prefer the lynx to the bird.

Are you testing on a training golem or against a player? It makes a pretty big difference.

Puck.9612:

vespers.1759:

Hm… went to test it a bit. The lynx maintains a much much higher bleed stack than the bird. I’m seeing bleeds of about 300 with bird and 700-800 with the lynx. The bird however gets to activate taunt sooner because the lynx F2 CD is 24s and the bird is 4 1/2… however the bird taunt circle is also a lot smaller. The bird grants swiftness too though which is nice…

I think I prefer the lynx to the bird.

Are you testing on a training golem or against a player? It makes a pretty big difference.

This. The only non-bird thing I can get to hit a human is a canine on swap because of the KD.

Don’t for get you can slow you opponents ability to move with cripples, and imobs. also not all players and classes can constant kite and use skills, melee builds don’t spend the entire time kiting. people stand still to stomp and rez.

I have been favoring the lynx of late in short bow builds because you get two crippling shots between pounces (which also causes bleeds based on pet condi). If you fire off crip shot then f2 your f2 lands more reliably particularly if you have taunt.

I pick my pet based on the buildI’im running at the time

I tested on a stationary target golem. dunno how it would work vs players. There were a lot of threads here a while back about birds being unable to hit anything because of the fancy swoops? Did something change?

Also is the beastly warden aoe circle really smaller on the birds? it definitely looks smaller but I haven’t tested to confirm it.

You guys should test them on the running golem. There is a reason the running golem exists.

As rangers though we have some of the best soft control in the game if you build for it. Which you should if you intend to use your pet as your main damage source. I’m pretty interested to see how much harder my cats will hit now that they have condition damage.

Ehecatl.9172:

You guys should test them on the running golem. There is a reason the running golem exists.

As rangers though we have some of the best soft control in the game if you build for it. Which you should if you intend to use your pet as your main damage source. I’m pretty interested to see how much harder my cats will hit now that they have condition damage.

That running golem will make your pets cry, though.

Lynx with Sharpened Edges and Companion’s Might ought to be pretty nice, really. Expertise Training, too. Just need to get it to hit moving things.

I’d actually like to run a condi pet with a power LB/GS roaming build, but if they still cannot hit anything consistently… Power is still really the only way to go.

What are spiders like now? I calculated once that you would be able to get one to 50% crit chance, at least, if the precision bug was fixed. A Spider with those traits mentioned above would be pretty great, throw in Refined Toxins and Poison Master and it looks pretty nice.

On my condi build I honestly found companion’s might to be lackluster but I take it because it’s the only thing worth taking there if you’re going to take Beastly Warden. The blind is kinda useless (also the tooltip says attribute adjust +253 and i have no idea what that means?).

Sharpened edges could be good in a precision built but in a build with low crit it is pretty useless in my experience… especially given that you can take trapper’s expertise and spike trap which is a good combination.

Also random question but how do the bleeds work now? if my pet applies some and has X condi dmg and I apply some at X condi dmg, how is the damage of the bleed stack calculated?

Calculated as two seperate entities. I actually forgot that pets conditions are bugged atm, apparently, and are not stacking properly anyway.

vespers.1759:

On my condi build I honestly found companion’s might to be lackluster but I take it because it’s the only thing worth taking there if you’re going to take Beastly Warden. The blind is kinda useless (also the tooltip says attribute adjust +253 and i have no idea what that means?).

Sharpened edges could be good in a precision built but in a build with low crit it is pretty useless in my experience… especially given that you can take trapper’s expertise and spike trap which is a good combination.

Also random question but how do the bleeds work now? if my pet applies some and has X condi dmg and I apply some at X condi dmg, how is the damage of the bleed stack calculated?

The blind is pretty fantastic with hawk or eagle but I have a hard time giving up resounding timbre.

Ok, so I just spent a few minutes letting my bird and lynx go at the running golem. Surprisingly, the lynx killed the golem on an average of 10 seconds faster than my raven. This was also using F2 off cooldown. Lynx got more hits in, had more damage from the bleeds than the raven.

Of course landing the F2 was a lot more difficult than the raven, but still, I’m a bit surprised by that.

If anyone else wants to run a more through testing, they should probably go ahead, but I’m pretty surprised by the findings.

Lynx has always been the highest damage pet and has always killed the moving golem the fastest. People like birds because of the F2 and I guess the autoattack.

Yeah the training golem, even the moving one, don’t move like a player does. I can kite a cat around all day without getting hit but the birds attack animations actually let them land their attack. It’s also a thousand times easier to land the taunt with birds since they wait until they are right on the person before it goes off.

I’ve only found cats to work well against player in the water or when using Sic ’Em.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Calculated as two seperate entities. I actually forgot that pets conditions are bugged atm, apparently, and are not stacking properly anyway.

No kidding.

I am dying more now with a “buffed” pet than with a regular pet who isn’t bugged.