Guild Wars 2

I’m new to the Ranger, and I’m still level 15, and honestly… I have no idea what I’m doing with my pets. I’m just running with 2 bears and I let them tank for me.

I would like a few tips! Which pets have the best dmg output? Which pets have ranged dmg? Which pet should I use and in which situation? Stuff like that!

Thanks in advance!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pets

All there.. Read up

For highest dmg use Cats like Jaguar or Lynx (Dogs
have more toughness and power, but less precision and lower dmg (I think) and CC skills, Birds have more Vitality, but as much precision as Cats, but a bit lower dmg (I think)).

For highest ranged dmg use Spiders (Devourers being the tanky ranged).

For tanking, use Bears. And Brown for condi removal, Polar for AoE chill… (Bears have identical stats, but Polars have highest power).

For group support use Moas. They have F2 skills like AoE regen/fury…

Pigs are in my opinion strange. They all have the same F2 skill, Forage, which pops an environmental weapon. Things like Skull for Fear, A Thing, which heals/gives initiative for Thiefs, Something that can Stun a foe. These environmental weapons depend on the Pig. 1 has offensive Forage, 1 has supportive and for the last one I can’t remember.

Drakes, well, I don’t know anything about Drakes. Only that they have F2 skill that have condition (poison, confusion…).

I have a glasscannon build, so my pets are glasscannon too. Jaguar is my primary. This is the pet I use QZ with. F2 skill for 6 seconds of stealth and nothing but crits, which is awesome.
My secondary pet is Fern Hound. The knock down is nice, and so is the 10s AoE regen I can use to help my party (I run Fractals like all the time).
It’s kinda funny, that I have a full Berserker build, but then I realize that 4/6 Major traits are for the pet (to give it Might, more crit dmg for it, heals on crit and pets heal for more, which is nice, because then the crits heal more, Fern Hounds AoE regen is more powerful and Search and Rescue and Lick Wounds ress faster).

Bears are, for the most part, your tanks. They have high toughness and Vit, and have some handy debuffs/condition removal.
Felines are High-precision, low toughness. They aren’t as good for taking a beating, but are capable of decimating damage. The Jaguar is good in this way, as his F2 (Stealth) makes foes stop attacking him, while the jaguar crits with every hit.
Birds are like Felines, except more glass-cannon. They usually have fast cooldowns on their F2’s, and can hit VERY hard.
Drakes are slow but can hit hard.
Spiders are higher-hitting ranged attackers.
Devourers are tankier ranged attackers.
Canines are like felines, but sturdier and with less output. They usually have control or boons on their F2’s.
Moas are great for support. Don’t expect them to pack too much of a wallop, though.
Pigs can be very useful in teams, as their forage (f2) items can be used by any allies. The downside is, the foraged items replace the weapon skills of whoever picks it up.

Sorry for the wall, hope it helps!

I should probably add, You should use the pets that best SUPPLEMENT your playstyle. If you are rocking a high attack, low defense ranger, a Bear would be useful to soak up the hits for you. I myself am specced into beastmastery, so my damage output is low. I use a Bird (raven) and a cat (Jaguar) to deal most of my damage for me, while I buff them up or distract the enemy.

These are the times of how long it take each pet to kill the heavy golem. My timing…

Moa: 19:83
Bear: 31:64
Pig: 19:83
Wolf: 16:41
Drake: 20ish
Devourer: 23:40
Spider: 29:12
Bird 18:16
Feline: 14:60

Keep in mind though that hounds have the knockdown and so do porcine pets. Also, ranged pets are never as good unless you have someone else tanking because they will just die (spiders) or spend time running away (devourers).

Note: I do not know what my build was but i think i was completely untraited and had no amulet.

You know I seem to have slightly better results with drakes tanking, even devourers when the buggers will sit still for a minute, the toughness seems to offset their lower vitality by alot. The bears seem to just get rocked for some reason, crits are much bigger against them.

The wildly differing damage for the spider vs the cats seems weird to me – I thought all pets were supposed to do ~50% of Ranger total damage, and spider already has a built-in disadvantage of being a ranged glass cannon.