Guild Wars 2

This is exclusively pertaining to PvE and no other game type.

Are drakes too good? They do hefty damage, they cleave, and they’re chunky; able to take a decent beating. Compared to other pets in PvE, other’s either lack damage, most don’t cleave at all, or they’re so squishy that they get stamped out by any large attacks you forgot to micro manage for.

I think it would be better if more pets cleaved honestly; either that or tax the drake a little bit for it’s ability to cleave.

Just give cleave/splash to other pets. Drakes are so good because of good overall stats, but mostly coz of cleave.

yes, drakes are very very strong in pve, no, dont nerf them.
buff other pets and they become too strong in pvp
well maybe pigs could get a little buff or two.. and bears… and jellyfishs.. and moas… and devourers……

I think they’re fine, they have their own little niche in killing trash. For dungeons they’re pretty mediocre. In open world big bosses I’m still usually using cats or dogs (I think dogs/drakes do more damage against non-moving bosses due to the fact you can’t crit, but I’ve never really tested it.) If a pet dies against a boss it will be because it got one-shotted, so the drakes tankiness is a waste. Otherwise swap pets when it gets to about 1/3 health. That’s out of laziness though, since I don’t use drakes in the open world.

No, they’re just not bad like most other pets.

J Eberle.9312:

No, they’re just not bad like most other pets.

Hurts my feels. FPS too high.

FPS so high I’m sweating snowflakes

river drake is the best PvE pet…period. add a cat for your swap pet, and you are good to go.
high survival stats…..predictable blast finisher….hard hitting range F2 that stacks might beautifully w/ RaO.

i’d say that makes drakes useful and not a hindrance like most pets. so not OP, but actually an effective addition to your ranger’s offence.

Relshdan.6854:

river drake is the best PvE pet…period.

I don’t agree. In random open world content, enemies die so quickly that often your pet won’t get any or just a single hit in. (I’m assuming you’re running berserker, if you’re running WvW condi gear this might be different.) Enemies are also often spaced so far apart you can’t fight more than 1 or 3 at a time. The one exception would be events in Orr or a similar area, and in that case not only is your pet struggling to get a hit in before things die, but you are as well.

In dungeons, trash mobs die so quickly pets again aren’t relevant at all. Most of a dungeon is spent on bosses. CoE is an excellent example of this. The bomb golems, the destroyers, the risen, etc. all die in a single or at most a couple hits. Most of the time is spent fighting the golem boss in the middle of the turrets or Subject Alpha, Bjarl, etc. Cat is unquestionably better here.

Drake is better in many cases than cat for soloing Arah, although that’s a pretty extreme example.

The one significant place a drake might do better than a cat is in world bosses, because you can’t crit against them. I don’t have enough data to speak to this. For example does the cat double swipe up their damage over a drake, even though the drake has higher power? Is the attack speed the same? I don’t know.

I see the argument for a drake on swap, but I would just rather have a second cat in case something happens to the first. It doesn’t hurt that jungle stalker and jaguar both have really excellent F2s, so you might want to swap them even if one isn’t injured.

My 2 cents on it. I wouldn’t complain if a ranger was using a drake in my dungeon run.

Drakes are not too good in PVE.
Others are just too bad in PVE.
Please buff the other pets :O

Other pets need buffs, omg bears need huge buffs.

Drakes have a low crit rate. I don’t use them unless needed for AoE.

Meh, not that great of pets they’re just good at a few things.

The only thing that wows me about them is their cleave. The F2 on river/marsh is nice but it still feels like the cat kill things faster over a long duration. They also can have some of the best survivability if you use carnivorous appetite since they crit so much.

I love my Ice Drake. Tanky, does decent damage, has a blast finisher, and I love his appearance too. I rarely need to swap him out at all.

I carry a Devourer as my other pet for the occasional time that I need ranged attacks. As a nice perk, Devourers are also quite tanky little things.

It really depends what you’re trying to do with it.

As a quick and (somewhat) easy way to apply might stacks via blast finishers, dual drakes with Flame Trap / Bonfire and Hunter’s Call, you’ve built 10 stacks of might on your party.

If you trait for increased boon duration on pets, drakes can effectively maintain their stacks. If you trait for reduced off-hand cool downs, so can Hunter’s Call when combined with boon duration increases – however the single stack applied by Hunter’s Call will, at best, last 20 seconds without investing heavily into boon duration for the Ranger itself, and therefor is not a reliably maintained source.

The perks: sharing boons with your pets negates the loss of might stacks on when swapping from drake one to drake two (if five party members / player characters are not in range) means that – with a little luck – your Drake has between 7 and 14 might stacks on him at the start of combat to help boost the lackluster damage from drakes attacks and make the F2 from River Drake pack more.

The downside: you’re burning that pet swap for 3 stacks of might on a 30-second cool down that cannot be micro-managed without attention to detail and good reflexes to either put up the fields or recalling the pet before it’s animation is complete. Combine this with the party members overlapping combo fields, and it can become troublesome. Bonfire is great with it’s 8-second duration to sit there as the oldest initiator, but takes up an offhand slot with the ineffective torch. Flame Trap, conversely, has short duration and requires quick reflexes and proper placement during pet swap.

Also, as the Ranger, you’re also putting a lot of weight into boon duration to make it effective, inevitably sacrificing something else along the way, either in traits, runes or gear. The question is: does this sacrifice, combined with the necessary skill to use the strategy effectively, outweigh the potential benefits?

Drakes are very good, and as Aomine said, most pet family are lackluster in PVE. Pets getting a certain percentage of their master’s stats and aoe reduction would make pets 100% better in pve.

One thing – Drakes are NOT “too good” anywhere. We’ve har enough of Heavy nerfs to our pets in the past. Thank u!

Many others needs buff/Changes to be improved tho…

Relshdan.6854:

river drake is the best PvE pet…period. add a cat for your swap pet, and you are good to go.
high survival stats…..predictable blast finisher….hard hitting range F2 that stacks might beautifully w/ RaO.

i’d say that makes drakes useful and not a hindrance like most pets. so not OP, but actually an effective addition to your ranger’s offence.

How is the blast finisher predicted? I’d like to synch up with my fields more…

Pets use their special attacks within a few attacks of you switching to them. So swap to drake and it will spin within about 3 or 4 autoattacks.

Kain Francois.4328:

Drakes have a low crit rate. I don’t use them unless needed for AoE.

Exactly. I only use them for the AOE. They’re only good by comparison to say, pigs or bears.

Still wish they’d go the perma-stow pet and gain a buff thing. That’d be nice.

Kibazuka.1390:

yes, drakes are very very strong in pve, no, dont nerf them.
buff other pets and they become too strong in pvp
well maybe pigs could get a little buff or two.. and bears… and jellyfishs.. and moas… and devourers……

Hey you! Don’t you hate on my porcine companions for digging up weapons for my opponent to beat me with!! :p

No drakes are not “too good”. The only place in PvE where your pet even matters is in boss fights. Cat’s excel here by far (with birds a bit behind). If you’re depending on “drake-cleave-is-so-great-omg” then you’re probably a bow-ranger and you’re doing it wrong in the first place. NO OTHER pet comes even close to the damage potential/output of the Jaguar. Dual cats is the way to go. Everything else is…meh.