Guild Wars 2

So I have been wondering this for some time, but I haven’t really touched the ranger class yet. Are builds that don’t incorperate a pet viable in any area of the game and do you feel rangers should use pets even if the build doesn’t support their pet?

The reason I ask this is simply because I love the long bow on a ranger, but I have never been a big supporter of using a pet with a ranger. Has anyone else done something similar?

Picking a Ranger is picking 2 characters to control. If you don’t like pets, picking a different class might be better for you. Pets are integral to rangers and choosing to neglect them is like choosing to fight with only one hand.

Pets are really powerful if you learn how to use them and keep them alive

You can always not put any traits toward your pet if you want, to try and maximize your own damage…but as already stated, you might as well play a bow warrior or thief instead. Anet has stated that pets are factored into the class to be present 24/7 and be a good portion of our dps…you could be the best ranger on the face of the earth but if you’re not using your pet you won’t be as good as a decent player of another similar class, by design. A minimal pet build is fairly common, just using bears or spiders, real fire and forget type of pets that will help a bit and last awhile with no real effort or investment on your part, but to try to play your ranger with no input from your pet whatsoever just wouldn’t make any sense.

Thanks for the input, all of it was spot on to what I was looking for.