Guild Wars 2

Pets in dungeon: Avoid combat. A Temporary Solution!

Bear over me now. This is not the way it should be done and it is not a definite solution to pet’s poor survivablity or devastating impact from AoE. However I have experienced that my pets are far more beneficial for the group when the pets are in “Avoid Combat” mode.

I tried this in 2x CoF, TA and AC with my pets on “Avoid Combat”. Yes, I did loose some minor dmg from my pets since they didn’t engage in the fights directly, but they would die anyway after a few seconds if they did charge the foes.

What I did was to use pets that buffs the group like eg. Jungle Stalker, Fern Hound, Siamoth (or any other boar).

The pet stayed close to me and followed me around. So when I ran out / dodged out of red circles, most of the time the pets followed with success. In those 4 dungeon runs I think I lost pet twice. And I have 0 points in Beastmastery.

The benefit I / we got from the pets were “Extreme Might”, 10 seconds of 5x might for the group. Not Bad!!! This was a reliable source every 30 seconds (or 24 if traited). Imo, this is much better than allowing the Stalker to go fight for a couple of seconds and then die. A also used siamoth for the plasma, both for myself and others in the group (Gain all boons: 10s protection, regen, vigor, might, fury, swiftness, aegis).

Again, I underline that this should not be the way to be a ranger or the way to handle pets, but as it is now I think it’s the best temporary solution for the group.

ps. sometimes when you activate F2, pet charges the target when it should eg. give “Extreme Might” where it stands. Or when I had the siamoth and activated F2, it would engage target first, without making the “Forage”.
This is a bug, I believe. I hope Anet fix’ this soon.

Cheers all :-)

Hey axe thanks for the write up and explanation

But this is pretty much obvious for all rangers that reach dungeons. It’s not really a tip that rangers should keep pets on avoid combat in dungeons, but a requirement that most know. Also, in dungeons you should always keep a offensive/defensive setup with your pet. Whether that comes with a melee/longrange form or offensive F2/support f2 pet is upto the player.

But keeping them on avoid combat is pretty much obvious in dungeons lol. Keeping longrange pets pretty much solves the DPS issue because they will stay and attack in the spot you currently tell them to attack from. So find a good spot and theyll stand in safe area attacking.