Guild Wars 2

So out of interest last night I went into the Special Forces Training Area and tested a bunch of pets DPS.

All pets were traited with BM, but no other effects. Tests were run until 200,000 damage had been dealt, so 80% health on the 1 million health stationary golem.

I didn’t test all the pets as many of them are the same so I just tried to pick the most commonly used ones. F2 was used on CD for all pets except Smokescale, Fern Hound and Boar.

Jaguar – 1117
Tiger – 1110 DPS
Lynx – 1103 DPS
Hawk – 910 DPS
Bristleback – 777 DPS
Smoke Scale – 778 DPS
Forest Spider – 674 DPS
Red Moa – 600 DPS
Fern Hound – 571 DPS
River Drake – 552 DPS
Boar – 513 DPS
Fire Wyvern – 467 DPS
Electric Wyvern – 427 DPS
Lashtail Devourer – 458 DPS
Brown Bear – 344

Keep in mind these numbers are averages.

I will test these pets again tonight with the moving golem.

w0w didn’t expect anything to do less dps than wyverns.

zero.5316:

w0w didn’t expect anything to do less dps than wyverns.

… It’s the brown bear… I’m surprised it’s in the triple digits

zero.5316:

w0w didn’t expect anything to do less dps than wyverns.

Wait until I post the moving golem numbers.

Depending on which traitline you use, you’ll see differences. With Skirmishing, pets with more condi damage might end up with slightly different DPS amounts with the extra bleed damage. And especially since skirmishing is the main PvE traitline. And naturally with NM, pets will get your boons so all their DPS will go up by a lot more.

bloodpyrope.8630:

Depending on which traitline you use, you’ll see differences. With Skirmishing, pets with more condi damage might end up with slightly different DPS amounts with the extra bleed damage. And especially since skirmishing is the main PvE traitline. And naturally with NM, pets will get your boons so all their DPS will go up by a lot more.

Ofc. Which is why I didn’t use any of those except for the BM traitline minors.

Obviously a cat with Sharpened Edges and Companion’s Might is going to gain more of an advantage and therefore more DPS than a bristleback or w/e.

I actually tested all 3 cats with Sharpened Edges, Expertise Training and Companion’s Might and the DPS increased to around 1600 which is a large increase indeed.

Test against the moving golem in the SFTA;

Tiger – 944 DPS

Fire Wyvern – 166 DPS (How pathetic is that, this test took 20 minutes to deal 200,000 damage)

Bristleback – 923 DPS (The real surprise here, it should be fairly similar due to being a long range pet, but its greatly increased, this show the DPS test in the 1st test needs to be run much longer to get a better average)

Smoke Scale – 582 DPS (AA very rarely connects)

Forest Spider – 582 DPS (Identical to Smokescale in damage and time, 344s)

Hawk – 800 DPS (Quite telling, not a big drop from a stationary foe, the 300 range AA makes a big difference here)

Red Moa – 470 DPS

Brown Bear – 270 DPS

Lashtail Devourer – 485 DPS (The 10% chance to poison on the AA could be made 100% and this pet would be quite improved for moving enemies)

I didn’t bother doing anymore because I ended up finding a link to a good amount of data that did this testing extensively at http://guildwarshub.com/ranger-pet-dps-comparison/

No big surprises here. I wonder how much bird dps would go up if we had the ability to disable swoop and quickening screech.

Gonna just mention this again since it’s a common trend on DPS tests, the brown bear is going to do less damage than he would in a real fight, since they only use their bite attack (only other offensive move) when they have taken damage, so if they’re at full health they wont use their highest damage ability because it applies regen and the AI seems to think it needs health missing to use it.

Not that i don’t think it wont be dead last still, but it’ll probably beat the wyverns.

Also, you say you used the F2 on every pet but smokescale, fernhound, and boar, so that’d mean every ~20s or so you had your bear clearing condis instead of doing damage.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Test against the moving golem in the SFTA;

Tiger – 944 DPS

Fire Wyvern – 166 DPS (How pathetic is that, this test took 20 minutes to deal 200,000 damage)

Bristleback – 923 DPS (The real surprise here, it should be fairly similar due to being a long range pet, but its greatly increased, this show the DPS test in the 1st test needs to be run much longer to get a better average)

Smoke Scale – 582 DPS (AA very rarely connects)

Forest Spider – 582 DPS (Identical to Smokescale in damage and time, 344s)

Hawk – 800 DPS (Quite telling, not a big drop from a stationary foe, the 300 range AA makes a big difference here)

Red Moa – 470 DPS

Brown Bear – 270 DPS

Lashtail Devourer – 485 DPS (The 10% chance to poison on the AA could be made 100% and this pet would be quite improved for moving enemies)

I didn’t bother doing anymore because I ended up finding a link to a good amount of data that did this testing extensively at http://guildwarshub.com/ranger-pet-dps-comparison/

Keep in mind that chart uses the build that’ll give the absolute highest dps possible for a pet, you’re doing a test that’ll show the more common pet damage numbers.

Key word stationary.
Most pets have a difficult time hitting moving foes, with the exception if moas..

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Thank you for posting this. Had no idea the tiger could be so powerful. Wish it held aggro better in PvE though.

Edit: Man . . . the tiger is no joke. I love my smokescale, but my God. . . .

The F2 on tiger is no joke, I tend to use it and bristleback for pve for their f2 busts and fury uptime from tiger

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Jaguar – 1117
Tiger – 1110 DPS

How come Tiger doesn’t outdamage the other cats since it should have more or less permanent 20% higher chance to crit compared to the others (well, jaguar gains +25% critical chance and +25% critical damage when using stalk, but that only lasts for six seconds out of 24 seconds).

I’ve done my own testing in the past which included trait changes, buffs, specs etc. The Lynx is top damage

OGDeadHead.8326:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Jaguar – 1117
Tiger – 1110 DPS

How come Tiger doesn’t outdamage the other cats since it should have more or less permanent 20% higher chance to crit compared to the others (well, jaguar gains +25% critical chance and +25% critical damage when using stalk, but that only lasts for six seconds out of 24 seconds).

With beast mastery the Jaguars CD is like 19s, and i never see my jaguar NOT crit while stalking, so I’d imagine it’s just the crit damage and how high it’s crit becomes pushes it over the edge.

A tiger is definitely better vs moving targets though due to the leap.

Durzlla.6295:

With beast mastery the Jaguars CD is like 19s

30 seconds cd according to wiki, that should translate to 24 seconds when traited, not 19, unless the wiki is wrong.

Durzlla.6295:

i never see my jaguar NOT crit while stalking, so I’d imagine it’s just the crit damage and how high it’s crit becomes pushes it over the edge.

Hm yeah, those six seconds with +25% crit DAMAGE seems to compensate quite well. But on the other hand, if a jaguar gains +25% crit CHANCE during stalk and crits more or less on every single attack during that time, a tiger should crit more or less on every single attack due to constantly having +20% crit chance. What’s the base chance to crit for cats?
Also, Furious Pounce deals a lot of damage, which should compensate quite a bit compared to the ferocity gain the jaguar gains during Stalk.

Anyone care to do some maths? I’m just wondering if pets actually benefits from fury?
Easiest way to test that I guess is in the testing arena with/without permanent fury buff applied to the pet.

Curious, when you apply buffs in the test areia through that console, do they transfer to your pet if you have the trait? or even without the trait?

Pets benefit from Fury and additional precision (Spotter, Banner of Discipline), but their critical chance formula is different than ours. If we were to have matching precision with Felines, their formula leaves them with a lower critical hit chance.

Jerus.4350:

Curious, when you apply buffs in the test areia through that console, do they transfer to your pet if you have the trait? or even without the trait?

If you are referring to Fortifying Bond, yes, the boons applied to you through the console will apply to the Pet. Though, there is an option to copy boons applied to you permanently to the Pet through the console so…

Wondrouswall.7169:

Jerus.4350:

Curious, when you apply buffs in the test areia through that console, do they transfer to your pet if you have the trait? or even without the trait?

If you are referring to Fortifying Bond, yes, the boons applied to you through the console will apply to the Pet. Though, there is an option to copy boons applied to you permanently to the Pet through the console so…

Cool, I honestly haven’t tested anything on ranger so I never even noticed, but thanks for the heads up.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Pets benefit from Fury and additional precision (Spotter, Banner of Discipline), but their critical chance formula is different than ours. If we were to have matching precision with Felines, their formula leaves them with a lower critical hit chance.

Do you know the formula, and how much base crit chance the pets have (well, felines in this case) @ lvl 80?

Here you go OGDeadHead

When you’ll get lvl 80, exactly 21 marginal precision = 1% crit chance. It doesn’t allow for rational points of critical chance (you can’t have 50.1% crit chance, you either have 50% or 51%). You start with 916 precision on lvl 80 and 4% crit chance, so to know how much precision (P) you want for a desired amount of crit chance (X), the formula is P=916+21*(X-4)=832+21*X.

Below level 80, like you are, the maths are less clean and you gotta worry about upscaling and downscaling as well. The wiki as most of what you need to estimate it.

The expected damage formula is this one:

Expected damage = Base damage * (1 + (0.50 + (Critical Damage / 100)) * Critical Chance)

Thx bruh Always wanted to test myself but never got around to doing it

I’d like to point out for people using this as a guide, that these tests are flawed.
First, pets are being tested unbuffed, which favors the pets who can buff themselves, like tiger fury.
Second, not applying vulnerability on the target means cats have an advantage, they apply it on the auto attack. Also no cripple (15% direct damage from MM gm).
Third, using pet traits/bm, that are not picked in a druid build, be it condi or power. And again, they favor pets who have conditions/condition damage on their attacks/stats.
Fourth, testing only the first 200k hp means bursty pets will have an advantage over sustain ones, or to those that have a high f2 cooldown. Also the pets crit chance isn’t 100% so the lower the time the higher the variaton due to range on crits.

If inside the hitbox bristleback is the highest dps, else it’s lynx. Both jaguar and tiger are behind. And the difference between them is low enough to not really matter enough over the added utility that the f2 from tiger brings.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Do you know the formula, and how much base crit chance the pets have (well, felines in this case) @ lvl 80?

Unfortunately, I do not. Spent a good hour this morning while having my coffee trying to at least ball-park it. Only Anet knows and if they state Pets are using the same precision formula as Players, I’m ready to call BS as tests prove otherwise.

Or maybe they do and are bugged. I recall in the old Ranger Bugs compilation thread last year where a handful of us were testing Pet precision. If it’s the case that Precision is bugged for Pets (and possibly all NPCs), then we are just SOL until a fix.

Wondrouswall.7169:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Do you know the formula, and how much base crit chance the pets have (well, felines in this case) @ lvl 80?

Unfortunately, I do not. Spent a good hour this morning while having my coffee trying to at least ball-park it. Only Anet knows and if they state Pets are using the same precision formula as Players, I’m ready to call BS as tests prove otherwise.

Or maybe they do and are bugged. I recall in the old Ranger Bugs compilation thread last year where a handful of us were testing Pet precision. If it’s the case that Precision is bugged for Pets (and possibly all NPCs), then we are just SOL until a fix.

nah don’t bother.

in my experience probably the devs gave the pets some “fictionary” numbers to give the players some idea about the pet’s streghts and weakness.

but ultimately the pets still have internally a fixed stats that do not correspond with the stats listed, although close i don’t think they relate directly one to the another.

anduriell.6280:

Wondrouswall.7169:

OGDeadHead.8326:

Do you know the formula, and how much base crit chance the pets have (well, felines in this case) @ lvl 80?

Unfortunately, I do not. Spent a good hour this morning while having my coffee trying to at least ball-park it. Only Anet knows and if they state Pets are using the same precision formula as Players, I’m ready to call BS as tests prove otherwise.

Or maybe they do and are bugged. I recall in the old Ranger Bugs compilation thread last year where a handful of us were testing Pet precision. If it’s the case that Precision is bugged for Pets (and possibly all NPCs), then we are just SOL until a fix.

nah don’t bother.

in my experience probably the devs gave the pets some “fictionary” numbers to give the players some idea about the pet’s streghts and weakness.

but ultimately the pets still have internally a fixed stats that do not correspond with the stats listed, although close i don’t think they relate directly one to the another.

That’s kind of my impression of it as well… Like I said, a permanent 20% higher crit chance for tigers should reflect in the dps chart.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Durzlla.6295:

With beast mastery the Jaguars CD is like 19s

30 seconds cd according to wiki, that should translate to 24 seconds when traited, not 19, unless the wiki is wrong.

Durzlla.6295:

i never see my jaguar NOT crit while stalking, so I’d imagine it’s just the crit damage and how high it’s crit becomes pushes it over the edge.

Hm yeah, those six seconds with +25% crit DAMAGE seems to compensate quite well. But on the other hand, if a jaguar gains +25% crit CHANCE during stalk and crits more or less on every single attack during that time, a tiger should crit more or less on every single attack due to constantly having +20% crit chance. What’s the base chance to crit for cats?
Also, Furious Pounce deals a lot of damage, which should compensate quite a bit compared to the ferocity gain the jaguar gains during Stalk.

Anyone care to do some maths? I’m just wondering if pets actually benefits from fury?
Easiest way to test that I guess is in the testing arena with/without permanent fury buff applied to the pet.

Just checked in game, it literally says 19 3/4 for the CD, so the wiki is wrong. Also, i don’t think it just increases the jaguars crit chance by 20%, crit damage, it absolutely does, but crit chance no. Over the course of 10 minutes of attacking a golem it has not failed to crit a single time while in stealth.

Additionally, with the pet menu open when the jaguar stealths the ferocity stat increases, but the precision stat remains the same. I’m pretty certain that the jaguar crits 100% of the time while stealthed, where out of stealth with fury it does not, which means that it’s certainly not sitting at like 80% crit chance normally.

The test for the crits when it was stealthed was done with no boons.

Thanks for the test. Good to see the new DPS with the semi-buff to pets. How many tries did you average for each pet?

UnitedChaos.8364:

Most pets have a difficult time hitting moving foes, with the exception if moas..

Moa’s // hit moving targets better than most other pets?

I’ve been using Pink Moa a lot lately (WvW) and really like the daze. I don’t usually pay much attention to my pets damage unless I’m using Beastmastery so I hadn’t noticed whether the Moa was hitting often or not.

Just wanted to ask if it’s commonly known that Moa’s // hit moving targets better?

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

UnitedChaos.8364:

Most pets have a difficult time hitting moving foes, with the exception if moas..

Moa’s // hit moving targets better than most other pets?

I’ve been using Pink Moa a lot lately (WvW) and really like the daze. I don’t usually pay much attention to my pets damage unless I’m using Beastmastery so I hadn’t noticed whether the Moa was hitting often or not.

Just wanted to ask if it’s commonly known that Moa’s // hit moving targets better?

Well they did increase the attack range from 130 to 170 which seems to have helped. Now they can go change this for all pets.

It’s just so depressing seeing the absolute pathetic dps of the brown bear. And then it is one of the most popular pets you see in open world PvE.

Durzlla.6295:

Over the course of 10 minutes of attacking a golem it has not failed to crit a single time while in stealth.

I’m pretty certain that the jaguar crits 100% of the time while stealthed, where out of stealth with fury it does not, which means that it’s certainly not sitting at like 80% crit chance normally.

The test for the crits when it was stealthed was done with no boons.

Before anyone takes “pretty certain” as certain: Stalk (or being stealthed) does not guarantee the Jaguar strikes to be 100% critical hits.

I was able to have it land non-critical strikes within the first minute. Tested more with Spotter, Beastmastery, Fury, and a combination with 1 or 2 of those not applied to the Pet.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Before anyone takes “pretty certain” as certain: Stalk (or being stealthed) does not guarantee the Jaguar strikes to be 100% critical hits.

I was able to have it land non-critical strikes within the first minute. Tested more with Spotter, Beastmastery, Fury, and a combination with 1 or 2 of those not applied to the Pet.

Stalk used to be a 100% crit chance guarantee back in the day, it’s not the case anymore.

However, I would think that Stalk, granting 25% increased crit chance, in combination with Fury and Spotter should place it way over 100% crit chance. Keyword here being should.

I’m not convinced crit chance is working as we think it should work when it comes to pets.

I’d love to see someone run a test, similar as the one OP did, with/without 100% uptime of fury applied to the pet, and compare the results. That would be quite interesting. If I get time to do it myself, I’ll post the results here.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Fire Wyvern – 166 DPS (How pathetic is that, this test took 20 minutes to deal 200,000 damage)

I’m glad my favorite pet is perfectly viable for pvp.

OGDeadHead.8326:

However, I would think that Stalk, granting 25% increased crit chance, in combination with Fury and Spotter should place it way over 100% crit chance. Keyword here being should.

I’m not convinced crit chance is working as we think it should work when it comes to pets.

I’d love to see someone run a test, similar as the one OP did, with/without 100% uptime of fury applied to the pet, and compare the results. That would be quite interesting. If I get time to do it myself, I’ll post the results here.

I think we can all conclude critical chance for Pets is at least different from the Players. As for tests with the above mentioned buffs and without, I believe that means very little. If Pets had more varied Precision stats, sure, but there’s not enough variation to care.

The one thing that seems odd about Stalk for the Jaguar is that, with Spotter and Fury, it is very difficult for it to NOT be a non-critical strike. Results with Fury seem “normal”, though, it acts differently when using it and with an external source that boosts its Precision – unlike when traited with Beastmastery.

I would almost say that Stalk is a special case to Jaguar as it either: provides an unlisted bonus, an unintended bonus, or if Pets are supposed to use the same Precision formula as Players, it corrects its values during use. This assuming it has Spotter or even Banner of Discipline.

Take it with a grain of salt though as tests were done in an hour or so. That, and 4 years in, along with many other moves, are left with undefined tooltips and leaving the Players to figure things out because the devs themselves may or may not know or are unwilling to comment.