Guild Wars 2

Nice post Rob.

Raven/Owl are decent for small group WvW. Panther and Snow Leopard combo are my favorite if I’m trying to find 1v1’s.

Large scale WvW… I’m afraid it really doesn’t matter. Forgive me but I have to eye roll a little bit when you say proper pet management is the key. Yeah you might get lucky and send your pet in at just the right moment to get a reef drakes skill off once. If you’re even luckier it might be facing towards some enemies at that moment, but it will die right after and you will be left at 60% effectiveness and a long cool down before you can swap him out.

Large scale WvW our pet’s are utter fail. No amount of lipstick is going to make this pig look good.

Starting out/leveling, my brown bear “Thunderbutt” never left my side. Bears ability to take the pain and clean my conditions were super helpful. Now at 80, I primarily am PVE right now, I tend to go with Jag (for dishing the pain)/other. Mostly “other” is my wolf “Lucky Dogg”, but if I’m clearing low-level areas then I just like to play around for variety. Under water I’m all about my shark “Mr Finns” and red jelly “Fat Boy”.

You should start of by dropping few details about your build, like: traits, stats you mostly prefere or weapon combinations.
I’m kind of surprised you’re not really into group support – zerg disturbing pets, mostly wolf or drakehound. For me, they are the kings. They will handle long enough to not die due empathic bond, both can knock down and overall do decent job in fight against melee or even against group (due to 500 range).

PvE…. I will probably never PvE again, in any game. Well unless my wife forces me too.
sPvP/tPvP…. Depends on build, but most likely canines. Having a knockdown, and a fear if it hits is awesome.
WvW …. Cats, with full BM spec. Panther is amazing for stealthing, and taking out those nasty ballista people like to use at supply camps. It just sucks cats can’t climb over tower walls, or birds can’t fly over them anymore to take out siege.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

neverborne.4736:

Large scale WvW… It really doesn’t matter. I have to eye roll a little bit when you say proper pet management is the key. Yeah you might get lucky and send your pet in at just the right moment to get a reef drakes skill off once. If you’re even luckier it might be facing towards some enemies at that moment, but it will die right after and you will be left at 60% effectiveness and a long cool down before you can swap him out.

Large scale WvW our pet’s are utter fail. No amount of lipstick is going to make this pig look good.

Haha, well, in my experience when the zerg clashes, it only lasts about 10-15 seconds before a clear victor is found, and you’re either running for your life at that point, or stepping over the bodies of your enemy. I tend to use ranged weapons in WvW, so I hold my pet for the first 5 seconds of the Zerg clash, which gives the AOEs a moment to end and be in CD.
However I don’t even know of any player classes (even guardian) that can handle the zerg for more than a few seconds on the front line, so I don’t really fault pets too hard for dying in the zerg clash.

We usually have hour face offs, with a three hour, THREE WAY SM Castle fight in the lord room. This is why I switched to the Necro for WvW, with an AE build. I can pop Plauge as a Necro, and stay inside the enemy zerg most fights, for the entire 20 seconds before I have to dodge roll out. As a Thief, I’m always in the enemy zerg, 100% of the time. My Guardian, and Warrior both feel a lot weaker now, than they used too, and I’m not sure why yet. They’re less tanky than my tanky Mesmer build.

For open world I like the cats. Vulnerability, bleeds on crit (traited), leap finisher works well with flame trap/torch for a flame aura.

WvW, I usually go with a dog (hyena mostly) for CC and a polar or black bear to be a bit more tanky.

Dungeons mostly Moas. They have a good health pool, heal, protection and fury as you mentioned. Also with trait you get 5s of AoE vigor on switch, nice for kiting. I might try switching to some devourers for bosses, especially where I don’t need to kite.

PvP … yesterday was actually the first time I played any PvP since the beta. I used cats, but I plan on experimenting a bit with it if I play more.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

PvP
I find PvP moves a bit too fast to find pets for certain situations, because it is really hard to plan for an encounter and be right. I have a few favorites I tend to bring, but really this is also build dependent. I tend to bring one tanky pet, and one utility pet to PvP, with the utility pet fitting a niche.
Tanky: Brown Bear is a great choice, especially with empathic bond and the shout “Protect me”
Utility: Raven is fun: blind, vuln, and swiftness.
Utility:Wolf: Terrifying Howl – because it can save your life. I’ll stress the word can.
Utility: Reef Drake: People often ask me why I bring this into matches, and I feel it’s a good tanky pet with a confusion, and a blowout. I don’t often use him, but when I’m facing a bunch of thieves, this guy can really be helpful, even with “Protect me” for when you’re getting heart-spammed

I will only answer for what I play
dmg/control Drakehound: Canine type, this means that his first attack after being summoned will always be a knockdown, this is important for burst cycles and knowing when to apply pressure. He also has an AoE immobilize and a cripple.
dmg/control Wolf: Canine type again meaning first attack is a knockdown, also has a cripple. His AoE F2 is a fear which also can be used while in down state to stop players from stomping (the knockdown as well).
rng/control Jungle Spider: Spider type which means first attack is a poison aoe that takes far too long to fire, if it hits it does an overly large amount of poison duration. (I just wish you should choose when to use it, such as immediately after an immobilize in its attack chain would make more sense. Its f2 ability is to immobilize a single target for 2 seconds, it also has another immobilize that is under pet control for an additional 2 seconds which can be a good amount of immos.
dmg/tankish River Drake: Drake type which means its first attack will most likely be its tail swipe which when paired with trap spec you can use semi-reliably to build might stacks or perhaps frost aura. The weakness with the river drake is the harsh treatment of f2 abilities as they are literally direct ports from PvE creatures. What makes the drakes specific f2 abilities weaker is they charge time comes in just under 3 seconds with a completely obvious animation (and that they stop moving), during this time the drake cannot re-align to properly aim at a target. This means that if a player during the “shooting” phase of the ability walks behind the head of the drake for a split second the f2 ability cancels itself.
Underwater Devourers: The slow movement speed underwater makes ranged much more effective, I rarely spend any time underwater though. Drakes are pretty fun underwater though because they allow instant aoe fields underwater, wish this design was applied on dry land for pets.
I also think that the bear pets were poorly designed for sPvP as they do no real damage so its pretty much for protect me. Any DPS class bringing a bear even if they spec to full glass cannon loses out on about 20% (at least) of their total damage just for one defensive CD that allows for double skill hits on the pet. If you are a bunker it will be overkill for protect me as you would usually be in the BM line.

The reef drake, I cringe everytime I see someone use it. You should rethink it’s use as almost 3 seconds for a conal ability that does not adjust its cone is horrible. Anyone who is being hit by this is doing so at their own ignorance and not owners ability. It is far too slow and far too punished because of its type in PvP. As I don’t see the build up time being reduced in the near future I would suggest either use the river drake or abandon drakes all-together for sPvP.

The ranger dude strikes again. O.o
Respect.

PvE

Wolf – balanced stats and a good disengage pet skill which goes well with it’s knockdown
Spider – Mostly the one with weakness on its active. Has ranged attack for bosses and a lot of snares.

I use the trait that gives Canines and Spiders cripple on their pet skill. This gives me an even stronger CC and 2 crippling hits for my Spider.

WvW

Wolf and Dog – Zerg charges in zerg runs in fear, Zerg comes back zerg is snared + mass cripple. After these 4 seconds of glory I am busy running for my life. Really good for chokes and 1v1.

PvP

Wolf and Dog

Dungeons

Wolf for the utility and because I am running 30 BM which makes them tanky enough vs non-boss enemies.

Spider or Devourer for bosses. Spider when the team needs to kite. Devourer when kiting isn’t very beneficial (very rarely).

Underwater

Shark for fun, ‘cause it’s called Angry Joe.

Armorfish for everything else, funny how it outdamages the shark.

Fun! I’ll bite…

General PvE – Jag/Raven – tear through trash mobs like a hot knife through butter (or a cold knife through warm butter). Stealth and blind keep the heat off the pet for boss fights. Health on crit keeps them pretty well healed with minimal effort on my part.

Dungeons – Porcine/Moas – keep those pets on passive to control where and when you deliver a damage boost, or support to the team. Red/blue moa are my go-to’s 75% of the time. Devourers/dogs in some situations too.

WvW (roaming) – Wolf/Raven- KD, fear, blind, swiftness. Everything a growing ranger could need to control the situation.

WvW (zerg surfing) – Drakes/birds – group swiftness on demand, and the only AoE damage pets we have. Let the zergs crash into each other before sending your drake in so it doesn’t become a primary target.

WvW (siege attack) – usually moas for the group buffs, but it really depends on how/where/what we are assaulting.

WvW (defense) – Jag and any buff pet if I’m on the wall (jump down and send the jag after siege, then run back in). Wolf/drakehound/fernhound if I’m skirmishing on the ground.

PvP – wolf/fernhound/drakehound/raven/jag – some combo of these depending on what I’m trying to accomplish. Two dogs + SB/GS = stun lock party on your face, and I’m invited.

Of course I deviate situationally, but these are my general choices.

Hey Robert,glad to see a ranger fan amongst the devs. If you don’t mind,can you share with me your lifetime statistic in this thread?i would love to see a devs stats. Thank you Robert.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Share-and-post-your-Lifetime-Statistics

After using the ranger for 1885hrs in gw2 and trying out all the different pets,these are my pet selections.

Open World,WVW and dungeons
Wolf- For the fear and knockdowns and melee combat
Spider-For the deadly venom,immobilise,poison aoe and ranged combat

UW
Amored fish- I use it for the stun and it is a tanky pet so i use it for me lick wounds healing,most inexperienced players do not aim the pet when a ranger is downed,this is where i capitalise on their error.For the experienced players they will kill my pet first b4 killing me in downed state,thus the amored fish gives me more chance to recover.
Devourer- Ranged combat underwater + stun

TPVP
Wolf will be permanently slotted.
2nd option is rotated depending on the enemy composition
If opponents are mostly burst dmg types i bring Pig for the chance at 3 random healing foraged items+knockdowns
If opponents are mostly control points types i bring Boar for the chance at 3 random CC foraged items+knockdowns
If opponents are mostly mobile skirmishers types i bring krytan hound for the immobilise and knockdown

I find knockdowns and CC is more important than DPS for the pets i use.

Pets i won’t use until the bug is fixed will be Drakes due to their chomp attacks healing the enemy instead of the pet.

As of late for me, its pigs. All pigs, all the time (mainly warthog, siamoth, and boar ironically). Though the confusion on reef drake is fantastic. And the fact it has AoE attacks beyond that is icing on the cake.

Great tip about switching pets when dropping down from walls!

Since so much great general advice has been given, I’ll comment on a couple of the coolest things I’ve done with pets.

First: Jumping puzzle shenanigans- At borderlands map, I saw an invader coming at me, I dropped Guard on a rock and jumped to the next rock. When my opponent got to said rock, wolf knocks down! Then, I used Terrifying Howl to fear the invader off the rock. See ya!

Second: Condition ranger + entangle + hilt bash + reef drake confusion. GG

Third: Kiting in all 5 sparks using pet and myself against Simin. I’m just kidding I never did that but would be awesome to see.

I use different pets for different builds/styles/moods.

Standard
Changes often but Red Moa, Fire/Marsh/Reef Drake, and all Devourers are what I typically have for general use.

Solo Hunting
Jaguar/Lynx traited for high crit damage. With Master’s Bond and Sick ’Em, the pets do really nice damage at really long ranges. I have this one trick where I turn into a block of ice, my pet grows in size automatically, and then I use jaguar stealth, sick ’em, and quickening zephyr all while I am sitting there invulnerable. Unless the enemy stealths, he is in big trouble. If I do go down, the pet gets even more quickness. Sort of a downburst.

Reckless
When I want to be really reckless I get myself a handful of defensive traits and skills, then use a Black Bear and Siamoth and leap off tower walls into the attacking horde with two melee sets. The Black Bear’s area weakness reduces incoming damage and makes it harder for enemies to dodge away. The Siamoth’s Plasma (with up to 50% boon duration) gives me 15s of buffs which is a good way to start a fight or escape from it, and the same can be said for siamoth stealth. They both have enough health to make Protect Me worthwhile, and I might combine it with active signets and Runes of Svanir for periods of invulnerability. I soak up tons of damage this way.

Supportive
Fern Hound and either Blue or Red Moa to bolster my support capabilities. With the right pet traits, Water Sigils, and Flock armor, I can do a lot of AoE healing, which is great for keeping allies (including Spirits) alive longer than usual.

Underwater
Carrion Devourer and Blue Jellyfish. Most of my underwater fights involve massive numbers of Krait and these pets have the durability and the AoE to win those fights. Also, sharking through a jellyfish’s light colored cloud plays a lot like Swooping through a Healing Spring on land… it is a fighting style I like.

Bubbles
Taking Frost Trap and two Drakes for long lasting AoE frost armor or a Warthog and a Drake for occasional AoE Chaos Armor is a quirky fun way to play sometimes. I already get plenty of bubbles from sword/greatsword/torch/flame trap/runes of the fire. Sometimes I have frost aura and flame aura up on myself at the same time. If I’m only using fire fields, I sometimes swap in a Hyena for some extra small bubbles.

Dungeons
Have had good success with Drakes and Devourers. They have survivability, and I can swap between ranged and AoE. Lash Tail Devourer named Mister Flingy, and a fire drake named Mister Misses A Lot.

OPEN WORLD

Generally me and my beloved Fern Hound, Wilson, will run around and kill things together, i tend to take MB in open world so that i don’t need to swap my pet, but the off pet is generally what ever else i had equipped at the time.

WvWvW

Hunting Scouts: Wilson, and Zoltan the raven are pretty common for me to have for this, that or I take Chuckle and Cackle (My Hyenas)

The Zerg: For the Zerg i tend to take Chuckle and Cackle and then Clucky The Reborn (Red Moa) to provide some group support before the zergs clash. The main reason i take Chuckle and Cackle is because Cackle likes to run blindly into the Fray and cause some havoc before his brother Chuckle joins him.

PvP

Oooooh, this changes A LOT.

For my bunker build i tend to run Beary Bearington and Clucky the Woeful (black moa), for my GC Build i tend to run both Clucky the Reborn and Clucky the Woeful. For my spirit build i run Chuckle and Cackle along with Wilson and Rocky the Rock Dog (procs, procs everywhere!), and then for my general beast mastery build i run Bagheera(jaguar that is actually a panther) and Clickity Clack the Devourer.

Dungeons

Almost every dungeon i do either Wilson or Chuckle and Cackle are in the pet selection, because they have never let me down on tanking bosses and killing things. After that it depends on what we need, if we need a tank i bring Beary Bearington because he’s a big beastly brown bear who don’t need no ranger, if supports needed Mr Spindle the black widow, or one of the Clucky brothers will join us.

Underwater

Underwater i tend to use Snapper the Armor Fish and Glub Glub the rainbow jellyfish, however Stinky, Chilly, Smokey, Sparky or Bubbles will join me on my underwater (and sometimes on land) adventures (Those are drakes, i think you can figure out which one is what).

I’m a big fan of using ranged pets and keeping my foe crippled, immobilized or stunned while we destroy them from a range.

Since I mostly PvE and Dungeon, the list is easy:
Land:
Snow Owl: Hits hard enough to make up for its lack of survivability, three seconds of chill on command is extremely useful in almost all situations.

Spider (Jungle or Cave, depending on whether I deem extra immobilize or weakness/vulnerability more useful for the current situation): I prefer the higher vitality than a devourer’s higher toughness to mitigate condition damage better, at the cost of more micromanagement (spider’s don’t retreat . . . ever).

Water:
Rainbow Jellyfish: As stated above, freezing the enemy is amazingly useful. As is having an underwater water and smoke field.

Armor fish: Tanky enough to stay alive until I can swap back to my jelly. Having an on-command stun that acts as a leap (in combination of the two fields from the jellyfish) is really nice.

Pet is almost always on passive, so I can keep track of its movement/target more easily.

PvE: whatever I feel like at the moment. Usually Raven/Owl, or 2 drakes.
For dragon hunting, two ranged pets.

Dungeons:
I almost always use 2 Drakes to spam blast finishers along with my short cooldown GS leap finisher. When needed, I will switch to Jungle Spider, Carrion Devourer for ranged.

WvW:
Roaming or small group stuff: Drakehound and Wolf. The control is too much to pass up.

Zerging: Raven/Black Bear. The bird can go in for a nice hit and get out, while AOE weakness and high vitality is great on the bear. Ranged or buff pets sometimes get the call in.

Choke-points: sometimes I will bring drakes for these, since the cones are too good if I can get them activated down a corridor or similar choke-point.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

These are just my personal choices for what to bring. I’m eager to see what you all bring, and why you do it.

EDIT:
Totally forgot about my underwater pets! In general I swim with the shark, and my rainbow jellyfish.

Hi, with the new WvW update coming, I was wondering how are pets going work in WvW with the GS update on Mesmer, won’t this effect our pets in a massive way seen as our condition removal transfers to our pets.

Shouldn’t rangers have better option for condition remove so we aren’t always forced to kill our pet.

Don’t you find bringing two Devourers to a boss fight severely hampering as far as DPS goes? I mean, sure, you don’t have to look after them, but they are also not doing very much…

Ranged pet damage is pretty bad, unfortunately.

Neb.4170:

Don’t you find bringing two Devourers to a boss fight severely hampering as far as DPS goes? I mean, sure, you don’t have to look after them, but they are also not doing very much…

Ranged pet damage is pretty bad, unfortunately.

Pretty much this..

Actually, devouers dps is rather good, especially considering it’s easy to keep them on tagrget nearly 100% time.

Open World
Raven and Jag, because their crits make kills happen soooooo much more quickly.

WvWvW
Devourers, because sending a melee pet into a zerg is basically handing someone a free/easy rally.

PvP
I’m not really into PvP, but for the few hours I played it, I brought a Red Moa for fury buffs and a Jungle Stalker for might buffs and dps, and they did okay.

Dungeons
Devourers, because sending melee pets to get one-shotted by bosses is pointless.

Underwater
Armor Fish and Shark, but seriously… Rangers don’t need no help underwater. :P j/k

Neb.4170:

Don’t you find bringing two Devourers to a boss fight severely hampering as far as DPS goes? I mean, sure, you don’t have to look after them, but they are also not doing very much…

Ranged pet damage is pretty bad, unfortunately.

Yeah, but the saying goes, “a dead dps is no dps”. The devourers have at least a retreating chance at staying alive and outputting damage (however lackluster it may be), versus melee pets that some bosses can one-shot before they can even get a hit in, resulting in them doing nothing except limp after you for however long until you can swap. That’s just my experience of course, so if you can micro your melee pet(s) and keep them alive and fighting, more power to you.

Having to take a massive DPS loss because of terrible PVE mechanics and pets is rather depressing…

achensherd.2735:

Yeah, but the saying goes, “a dead dps is no dps”. The devourers have at least a retreating chance at staying alive and outputting damage (however lackluster it may be), versus melee pets that some bosses can one-shot before they can even get a hit in, resulting in them doing nothing except limp after you for however long until you can swap. That’s just my experience of course, so if you can micro your melee pet(s) and keep them alive and fighting, more power to you.

You’re still taking a large DPS loss. If our damage is based on having something like a Jaguar and we’re stuck with the pew pew peashooter of a Devourer…

Xsorus.2507:

Having to take a massive DPS loss because of terrible PVE mechanics and pets is rather depressing.

Agreed, but until our pets are given better survivability in dungeons, what can we do?

I suppose a case can be made for the jaguar in dungeons, since stealthing it can allow it to get in some heavy hits with relative impunity, but it still has no good answer for red rings of death, and when it’s not stealthed it pretty much has to be set to passive to keep it from getting its glass bones ground into dust. A case can also be made for the Red Moa and its AoE fury buffs, but that’d be all it’s good for, and sending it to awkwardly and ineffectively bonk an enemy with its beak feels like animal abuse…

Neb.4170:

You’re still taking a large DPS loss. If our damage is based on having something like a Jaguar and we’re stuck with the pew pew peashooter of a Devourer…

No disagreement there. I’m just saying it’s a choice between some damage versus potentially no damage depending on the boss. YMMV.

It’s awesome to have a dev around in this forum!

Build: Condition trapper (20/30/20/0/0).
SB (LB) & axe + torch (WH)

Solo pve:
Low levels: Birds. Love the swiftness. Usually Raven (blind) and Owl (chill).
High levels: Boar for AoE knockdown and Devourer for range. Usually Siamoth (Love plasma) and Carrion for AoE poison.
Tough foes: Jungle Spider for immoblize.
Aquatic: Drake for AoE and Shark for ….. well it’s a kitten shark!!

Dungeon:
Red Moa (fury) and Jungle Stalker (5x might)
Carrion Devourer for bosses.

www:
Drake Hound + Wolf

What pet do you use against the Jade Maw? :P

General PvE: Marsh Drake (F2 hits at any angle + long range) and Jaguar (Jag’s F2 has good synergy with Carnivorous Appetite, mostly for when low on health)

Dungeon: Whichever the group benefits the most from, then at least a Spider or Devourer in boss fights

WvW (Solo/Group): Wolf and Jag
WvW (Zerg): Spider and Jag
WvW (Keep Defense): Wolf and Reef Drake (their F2 abilities go through the main gate)

I may give Hyena a whirl now after reading everything here.
Also, if you can land a poison cloud (i.e., with the Carrion Devourer) onto a buncha mobs or onto a boss/vet while you’re Rampaging, you can EASILY and QUICKLY get 25 stacks of might.

Robert. Thanks for your post.

However, personally IMO most all pets are pretty much worthless in WvW. Or, they’re just not as worth as they ‘should’ be…

The F2 ability takes WAY WAY too long to fire off..
Pets are unable to really be useful against human opponents and only a minor nuisance to them and become a major one to manage for us.
Pets take agro from an attacker when one is trying to retreat and boom, our run speed is blown…

Pet’s run speed and Ranger’s run speed should be separated.
Pets need to stay right by the Ranger’s side at all times and stop pulling unwanted agro yet still protect the Ranger if he is attacked.
F2 abilities need to be sped up big time.
F3 needs to be more responsive.

Ability to control from a bind key the stowing and Passive/Attack modes of the pet, plus ability to prevent the pet from showing up if the Ranger takes damage from falling or whatever (a mode that prevents the pet from showing up at all…)

On rally, the 3’s ability needs a shorter cooldown to initiate it. (have they considered if the pet is out and about frolicking with a Moa (for some ungodly known reason…) that it takes the pet time to disengage and run all the way back to you?)

That being said, I’ll run Hyena and maybe Bear or Wolf, but wish at most times I can just totally disable the pet.

cats or birds , cause they look cool . I liked my brown bear Ted, but he seems rather useless. Still keep him for underwater combat though

sorry pets in WvW are a non factor and a major blow to this class

I use the fern most of the time for the regen, it takes 100 button mashes for it to actually go off, I wish I could just perma keep the kitten pets stowed

Eagle/Hawk due to their somewhat overpowered F2 ability. Their DPS just blows most other pets out of the water due to it.

In WvW I have I have in the past always run with both wolves for the knock down and cripple, and with the non-alpine wolf its howl is unbelievably useful if you use it well.

Recently though I have come to love the spiders. Their webbing is really great and has won me many kills. Its a little unpredictable because it often misses, but when it works it really works.

I dont trait up BM so I use pets more for their utilities rather than damage. The damge they do is a nice help but I dont depend on it.

I have a constant jaguar as I love that guy.
For my 2nd ill either take devourer/reef drake/wolf depending on what I’m doing.
Underwater I use two drakes as their f2 is pretty good underwater.
On a side note,reef drake has reflection skill underwater? I would give all my monies for that to be its on land skill….

" Note: If you go melee ikittenerg, dodge roll back first, then swap to a ranged pet, then run back into melee. This means your ranged pet will stand to the side and shoot instead of being right next to you and shooting. This rule applies in almost every situation for melee rangers swapping to a ranged pet. "

wait what? If your a Gs ranger your most likely going to have 5 points into a skill which gives you quickening zypher for 2 seconds. If you have to dodge roll back, then switch out your pet, not only are you waiting that ability but you are also waiting a dodge.

This brings me to my next point, Gs ranger is horrifyingly weak in PvE because of this, espically in wvw. Yes you can get in there and tank for a bit, but it does not last long ikittenerg, not to mention your cds are long. It seems to me the only way to run a ranger is to keep them in the back line, and even then they are sub par due to high mobility classes (thieves…) that can 2 hit most squishy rangers.

I find that running a bear, with 3 traps (frost, fire and spike) and doges at the right helps keep them at bay. Note that i use bear only because he is tanky, and spider with poison so i can keep a good amount of poison on him. I find that with 22k hp (virility, condtion, power) on a ranger, it helps with survivability dramatically.

TLDR, i use bear and spider for almost everything, and i run a tank condition damage ranger. It works, though it is still underpowered compared to other classes.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

These are just my personal choices for what to bring. I’m eager to see what you all bring, and why you do it.

EDIT:
Totally forgot about my underwater pets! In general I swim with the shark, and my rainbow jellyfish.

Robert,

Don’t mean to be rude here but please, if you get the chance can you get someone to make a difference between the blue and rainbow jelly besides the name.

I don’t use my ranger at all anymore (not for assumed reasons) but before I stopped I only used Jag/Lynx. Water I used Rainbow and Blue Jellies.

Reasons: Cats have good dps and Jellyfish are awesome. Yep I’m a really adept ranger.

After much experimenting with pets, I’ve come to the opinion that you should just stick with devourers in every area of high-level PvE and WvW unless you are using a beastmaster build, with the exception of areas like the jade sea fractal where enemies reflect projectiles.

My reasoning is this; all melee pets die too easily and run around too much. You get more out of a devourer than any of the melee pets as they stay alive pretty well, can hit things like burning oil and cannons, have decent damage output, and generate a lot of might for you with Rampage as One.

Why not spiders though? Mainly because of that poison spit attack. It can be useful if used on a group, but It just takes too long to use, isn’t useful at all if you have someone in the party using poison as a condition build (since the spiders poison damage is weaker than theirs), and I find it to just take away from its damage output in general situations.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I tend to use ranged weapons in WvW so I hold my pet for the first 5 seconds of the Zerg clash, which gives the AOEs a moment to end and be in CD.

See and here in lies the issue. You are limiting your dps because of the way ranger is setup. If you where a ele your would go 100% at start of the fight not having to worry about your meteors kitting killed and you lose 30%+ dmg for 60secs.

Terkov.4138:

Actually, devouers dps is rather good, especially considering it’s easy to keep them on tagrget nearly 100% time.

Last night had devouer shooting at me and I was moving side to side totally avoiding the attacks. It is almost as easy to avoid as the Guardian Scepter auto attack.

Moddo.7105:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I tend to use ranged weapons in WvW so I hold my pet for the first 5 seconds of the Zerg clash, which gives the AOEs a moment to end and be in CD.

See and here in lies the issue. You are limiting your dps because of the way ranger is setup. If you where a ele your would go 100% at start of the fight not having to worry about your meteors kitting killed and you lose 30%+ dmg for 60secs.

anyone who jumps in the front of a zerg will probably get melted in 10 seconds, unless they have built themselves to be incredibly tough or escapable
building yourself to be incredibly tough lowers your dps

keep in mind you can do the same for your pet.
signet of stone, call of the wild are meant for this, even guard gives protection and some pets have defensive abilities.

do you see how most players play in wvw?
they generally stand in the backlines waiting for the initial zerg goers to clash peppering the enemy with fairly weak ranged attacks. very few people can go balls to the wall ikittenerg and survive.

my biggest problem with such ranger tactics, is the cool downs on the signets are incredible, usually like 120 seconds i mean yeah they are essentially timed like they were elites.

For some reason, truly unknown to me, I’ve yet to encounter this transitional episodic version of WvW that let’s me stop and change my pets out (other than between the basic two) to suit whatever situation I’m in and optimally prepare for the next phase.

My experience is that WvW is much more fluid. It can go from soloing, to small group, to zerg, to keep/tower dynamics in a few seconds and I lack the prescience to know when that’s going to happen.

Well, at least now I know what I’ve been doing wrong.

Before i use my pets, can you please fix them first?

PvP
Don’t play

WvW
Don’t play

PvE (all forms)
2 permanent wolves. Not because of mechanics, but because of aesthetics.

I still believe that having your pet’s function/stats tied to it’s look is dumb when you decided to decouple it on armor…

Here are a few of my observations. For the most part GW2’s pets are rather well behaved compared to pets in other MMO’s. This is all PVE based. PVP in any form just does not appeal to me, so I can’t comment on using pets in PVP.

Canines – Their knock-downs/immobilize work well against Risen who tend to run quickly directly to you if not prevented. Downside is like cats, they die pretty fast against anything tougher than a single trash mob. I want to get a wolf now after watching someone use the fear they can cast to drive crazed mobs away on Southsun. The neat thing is while the mobs are retreating you and your pet can attack them with impunity. Guess I will be spending some time in Eternal Battlefields in order to get one.

Spiders – Their immobilize is ranged so they work well when you want to keep a champion away from you while you pew pew from a distance. They share with Devourers suicidal tendencies for boss face tanking. Spiders ranged attacks however are slow, in open spaces mobs often move before the poison reaches them. This changes in tight spaces, where you and the mobs are forced to melee and are practically pinned down to fight. In those cases the spiders can’t miss and the poison attacks do wonders to reduce (-33%) veteran or champion healing.

Devourers – When ranged is the only way to go against a strong foe or boss. Unfortunately Spiders and Devourers have a bad habit. They can be pew pewing beside you at a good range from a boss, when they suddenly get this urge to run up and try and face tank the boss which simply yields pet toast.

If Arenanet could fix that behavior of ranged pets they would be way more useful against bosses.

Birds – Their swiftness buff is useful when fighting out in open areas where more speed is helpful either avoiding or closing on enemies. Note: this is swiftness as in run faster not shoot faster ala quickness.

Cats – Their high crit attacks can be useful when you want to quickly bring down trash mobs for things like daily kill counts, daily kill variety, etc.

Moas – If you are trying to solo a small “guard the traveling vendor” type dynamic event, the Moas can provide group buffs of protection or fury, to help your NPCs survive.

Brown Bear – Group condition removal is always a good thing. Sadly it has control issues as in, I pressed F2 but the condition removal either never happened or came long after I could have used it.

Arctodus – A hairless bear, but comes with extra strong BO that works like a poison AOE, so good against groups of mobs. I think it holds a groups aggro better than the other bears, but that’s a judgement call only.

Stonefish – I think it tanks better than a bear underwater.

Shark – when you want a fast underwater high damage attacker. The big cats of the sea. The fear attack is worth it to drive a few mobs away from you when you need it.

Jellyfish – Jellies have blinds and immobilizes that work against multiple foes, so bring the Jelly when you have to face multiple foes at once. Extra bonus, regeneration for itself and allies.

Hyena – I can’t think of a situation where these would be useful. F2 summons a second one, BUT, each hyena has half the vitality and other stats of other pets, so it may as well just be one pet. Quickly becomes a liability as the second hyena is uncontrollable. It will not return to you when called and once the initial target has died it will run around and attack anything in sight.

Drakes – I have changed my mind about Drakes, the reef Drake now is my favorite. The confusion it can cast on several targets can yield some huge damage, plus there tail swipe is a blast finisher that provides an additional heal in Healing Springs water field. The Ice Drake is my other choice as the chill it provides slows down the pace. All Drakes are pretty tough and tank as well as bears. Using Guard with these gives you about the strongest pet versus Veteran or better chance than any other pets, so they are my choice now for dungeons.

I don’t play PvP or WvW, so I won’t give my opinion on them. But for dungeons and exploring Tyria I pretty much stick with the same pets. It’s less for what sort of things I need for the situation and more for their synergy with my build.

The drake is my go to pet choice. Specifically Quill my frost drake. Other variants might be better, but I just think Quill looks the cutest. Anyway, what makes Quill such a great partner is that she’s tied with canines for the second highest toughness, but unlike Canines trades in single target lock down for area weakness (on a blast finisher no less), self healing and a cleaving bite. Also, unlike Devourer’s she’s not spending more time running than fighting and, while her toughness is lower, she has a nice chunk of extra vitality. All this adds up to making an excellent ally when I’m dead set on healing, restoring and creating combo fields.

Quill’s not my only pet though. Snowflake the Owl was a hilarious gimmick my guild got to enjoy for a while. I was abusing the fact that birds have high precision, better vitality than cats and carnivorous appetite to create a horrifying tank. Unfortunately, birds hit twice with their basic attack, but still attack slower than cats and also have a lower damage output. The team swiftness is nice, but that ship has sailed. Snowflake did help me get over my hatred of precision though.

I’ll just talk about one last pet here. Mystie, my Rainbow Jellyfish. Whenever I go underwater, if it wasn’t for the fact that I find it fun that Quill’s capable of following me everywhere, I’d basically always use Mystie and its identical twin Mystie, the Blue Jellyfish. This is because despite being a crazy supportive ranger on land, underwater I don’t have healing spring, so I need to provide my allies healing in some other way. I love the supportive abilities of a jelly and Chilling whirl is kinda ridiculous. It gives your team a water field which is sorta like healing spring and also lets you all enjoy a smoke field, it’s hard to make use of because of how random pets are but yeah, combos.

Edit: Just to make things a little easier to read, since I like talking about my pets a lot…
Drake – An excellent control type pet, has amazing toughness and AoE which works wonders for a tank when healing is involved. It’s your only blast finisher, so if you’re a supportive ranger or spam combo fields I highly recommend at least trying it.

Bird – Hilarious crit based tanking build via carnivorous appetite. But other than that just seems a little strange for any sort of build. They at least stay out of melee range to attack, so might be useful in some very wierd scenario.

Jellyfish – Great underwater support, active skills have some ridiculous stopping power too. I highly recommend for any ranger underwater.

@Jalad Actually, Hyenas only have half the POWER of the other canines.. and even then it’s not exactly half, and once you get 30 BM in them both Hyenas out is actually more damage than the other canines, granted not by a whole lot.

I love the black Jaguar, use it most of the time. Alternate is the frost wolf.