Guild Wars 2

Recently got into running dungeons and with all the aoe/ground targeted damage from bosses the pet is 100% useless.
I dont post much if at all in forums and im one of those guys that can adapt his game to be effective through class bugs/imbalance but this is really bad.
From what ive read the pet is the core mechanic and class defining feature of the ranger and it is not working in its current state.
I think giving playes the option to create a petless build if they choose would be a great idea.
In GW1 did you have the option of going without a pet?

sorry for bringing this up again if it was already covered in another post.

I found the alot of help. Problem solved, ranger pets.

This has been talked about a fair bit although as a beastmaster ranger who has done all the dungeon content with pets I can safely say that pets do work in dungeons, it’s just not as easy as people think. For reference this is the build I run for most dungeons and pve. The skills listed there get mixed up a lot, they are the pure dps ones, but I often put in a signet if the pets are in for a rough fight.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMRdG2JSF9VWFkkFsWII6CYPOkiQ0TR6Vv/goS5JloqVA;TsAA1CtoKyUkoIbRuikFtEZIyGEA

(you may have to copy-paste this link to get it to work on these forums)

First off, if you want to use pets other than the high HP bears or ranged pets then you are going to have to invest something into your beastmaster trait line. The dps pets are just too squishy without it. Felines and birds will likely get one-shotted too often to be useful if you are taking them into dungeons with 0 BM points. If I run a build with 0BM then I almost always have my pets on passive and choose pets with good defensive/buffing skills like the fernhound, wolf, moas etc.

Secondly pets require a bit of micro management to be truly effective, especially for high dps. I have attack and retreat mapped to the side buttons on my mouse. I’m constantly checking the position of my pet during battles and keeping an eye on their health bar too. Knowing when to pull them back from danger (incl. the dreaded AoE) or switch from melee to ranged is critical to keeping them alive. Juggling between your two pets before they die is encouraged by the game mechanics so switch as often as possible.

Thirdly picking the right survivability skills for your pets is important. Signet of Stone grants your pet temporary invulnerability and alllows your heals to catch up with dmg which is great when dealing with big dmg spikes. Healing skills like trolls ungent that heal your pet wherever they are are are far more useful to you than healing spring unless you have fortifying bond (share boons with pets) trait from the NM tree.

Lastly picking the right pet for the fight makes all the difference. Trying to send a melee pet up against a hard hitting melee boss will only end in a dead pet whilst a devourer with their ranged attacks and evasive burrowing will do a great job. You have a lot of options within the pet roster. Melee-dps, ranged-dps, melee-aoe, ranged-aoe, high hp, buffing, control, conditions… it’s all there, if you are serious about using pets make taming them all a top priority. The pets themselves can do a lot to help their own survivability, and yours. For instance the jaguar can stealth and drop all aggro whilst dishing out huge crits, the raven can blind a foe shutting them down for a time, the wolf can AoE fear mobs stopping you both from being overwhelmed, the drake hound can AoE root countering mobs that chase own and KD etc etc. There is a perfect pet for every encounter.

As for your other questions. Yes, you can run petless in GW1 but I would personally never do it in GW2. In GW2 pets can only help a ranger, even with 0BM they are still a mobile buffing/healing/control station that will take aggro off your back. Running without one wouldn’t benefit my marksman builds at all

Anyway that turned out longer than I’d intended, hope it helps!

crazyhorse.5843:

Recently got into running dungeons and with all the aoe/ground targeted damage from bosses the pet is 100% useless.
I dont post much if at all in forums and im one of those guys that can adapt his game to be effective through class bugs/imbalance but this is really bad.
From what ive read the pet is the core mechanic and class defining feature of the ranger and it is not working in its current state.
I think giving playes the option to create a petless build if they choose would be a great idea.
In GW1 did you have the option of going without a pet?

sorry for bringing this up again if it was already covered in another post.

You could ignore the pet in GW1 and put 0 points (out of a maximum of 12, 16 with runes) or even bring it as pure eyecandy: you were a fool if you did, pet orienated builds were horrifically broken (in the overpowered sense). Your pet could hit harder than pretty much any other class in melee all the time instead of peak-and-trough damage output, had a shout that made all it’s attacks unblockable for 26 seconds (the recharge time of the shout was 30) and… well you get the idea. Of course, everyone was too busy trying to be Legolas to notice, so the ranger was underpowered underupdated and Hated Forever and the devs are meanies and so on. Because archery on it’s own sucked.

On the Guildwars 2:
If you want to use anything other than bears or devourers in a dungeon, you’re going to have to put points into beastmastery. Sad that you actually have to invest in something for it to work, but such is life in Tyria. I use 30 in a dungeon and beyond the “I KEEL U” oneshotting stuff you usually have time to swap the pets out before they’re downed, even the squishier ones. I’d say more but Rhaps pretty much covered all the fundementals. I’ll try and give an abridged though:

1. Put points into beastmastery, or you’re stuck with the tougher pets whether you like it or not.
2. Your pet is not an immortal fire-and-forget missile of damage over time. It will get attacked, it will get hurt.
3. Because of #2, you will need to keep half an eye on the health bar or the pet itself. Ideally both. Such is the price you have to pay for being able to easily split your DPS over targets.
4. Try not to swap pets for the heck of it. See #5 for why.
5. When you see That Wretched Thing winding up it’s aoe I keel u attack, switch the pet out if it’s going to get hit. If you’re pet swap’s on cooldown, press F3 and hope they get out in time.

Is it utterly foolproof? Well no, sometimes the pet just can’t dodge an attack and gets downed, which sucks. Hopefully something will be done for that, however saying the pets are ‘useless’ for any dungeon is utter rubbish. They are useful, you just have to pay attention to them and not treat them as a glorified minipet for you kitten.

I agree that pets need help, but Loki’s reply is very informative and helpful. Dungeons just need to go a little easier on pets somehow I think.

That’s the thing though; only a handful of places give me any hassle, and it’s usually specific enemies in specific situations.

Ascalon Catacombs is a bit of a faceroll. The only sticking points are the scavengers doing the knockdown lock Lt Kholer with his 360, and route 3’s howling lord with its Very Gernous arc of damage from the scream (270, maybe even 300, degrees)

For the first, you swap the pet out, end of problem.

For the second, you swap the pet out when/if it’s pulled in to the 360 attack. If you didn’t get pulled in, odds are the pet will spawn out of range, so you just need to press F3 for a moment before pressing F1. If you did get pulled in, hope you’ve got lightning reflexes or the condition removal signet and as you roll uot hit the swap. While the swapped pet will take damage, if you’ve got 30 beastmastery it will usually survive (albiet barely) a partial mauling from it (sounds tricky, but it’s actually quite easy when you have to do it). I’ve managed to fight him with a bird/spider combo never getting downed for the entire fight.

For the third, you grit your teeth in frustration and just focus on walloping it down.
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For the Cathedral of Flames is pretty basic, beyond the flamethrowers nothing sticks in my mind honestly.

Honour of the Waves, once again, beyond a few bosses with specific attacks (such as route 1’s 360 spin attack for melee pets) there’s again not much the pet isn’t okay with at 30 beastmaster.

The only ones I honestly find a pain are the ones with skills that oneshot a player and are hard to dodge as well.