Guild Wars 2

People ask me from time to time which pet is better for what and what not. So I took a couple of hours to make this guide to clarify few things about every pet that is actually useful in PvP.

DPS Pets

Birds or Felines?
These pets are the pets with the highest DPS output, due to their high critical chance. Pretty much guarantee 1k+ or just under every time they hit, which can lead to a high DPS output if opponents don’t bother with your pet, which is a huge plus when they crit for 5k (yh, it can go even higher xD) and they don’t even know what hit them xD

Note: Birds have higher health than felines, with the same crit chance and power.

Black Raven& White Raven (preferred bird pets)
Blind (6 ¼ secs) on F2 Ability on 18 seconds CD.
Vulnerability (15 secs) on passive skill on 8 seconds CD.
Swiftness (10 secs) on passive skill on 20 seconds CD.

Note: For some reason White raven has less health than Black Raven. I think this is due to the fact that White Raven is mean to be a Hall of Monument Reward (GW1 related).
Note: Ravens seem to attack empty air sometimes, but this is actually that they are using their passive skills.

Lynx & jaguar
(Lynx) Bleeding (25 secs) on F2 Ability on 30 seconds CD.
(Jaguar) Stealh (6 secs) on F2 Ability on 30 seconds CD.
Bleeding (12 ½ secs) on passive skill on 20 seconds CD.

Why this selection over the other birds and felines?
Eagle and hawk only do a miserable amount of bleeds, which amount next to nothing.
Owl (6 secs) and Snow leopard (8 secs) do chills, which some people could find practical depending on the opposite team, otherwise, meh, up to preferences.
Note: tool tips on the game say 3 secs and 2secsx2 respectively for this pets, which is not totally correct.
And the Jungle Stalker, well, the F2 sucks hard, u need to be in range of its skill to get the might (we all know that pets love to wonder even without enemies), for some reason the cast get interrupted if u move and the cast time takes forever.

Condition Pets

Spiders or Canines?
Most people kill out that Spiders are better than Canines, but I leave it as an open discussion. The truth is that both have plus and cons, which I’m going to indicate next.

Black Widow & Jungle Spider (probably the best spiders in the game atm)
Stuns (2 secs) on F2 Ability on 45 seconds CD.
Immobilize (3 ¾ secs) on passive skill on 20 seconds CD.
Poison Field (3 ¾ secs) on passive skill on 20 seconds CD.

*Juvenile Wolf & Krytan Drakehound
(Wolf) AoE Fear (2 ½ secs) on F2 Ability on 45 seconds CD
(Hound) AoE Immobilize (2 ½ secs) on F2 ability on 20 seconds CD
Cripple (6 ¼ secs) on passive skill on 20 seconds CD
Knockdown (2 secs) on passive skills on 40 seconds CD

Why canines when they don’t even do conditions?
Well, the thing is, the abilities on canines are huge assets if they r used wisely. AoE fear can be used to prevent your own stomp or teammates stomps if the opponents don’t have stability, then u jump in and quickness resurrect the down teammate. Plus, on pet swap, if the Knockdown ability of the pet is off CD, that is the first move they will do.
So, ikittennow this and time it well, people r going to be eating your traps while they lay flat on the floor. And the immobilize, well, u immobilize them and throw traps on them xD end of it.

So far so good, however, canines can be countered hard (fear and KD abilities), specialize if the opponent has stability, or a way to mitigate damage (mist form, stealth, block from guardians, etc).

Why I don’t like spiders?
For starters, because they attack in form of projectiles (ranged). Projectiles from spiders r easy to be avoided, u don’t even need to be playing attention to dodge the immobile, stun and the poison field is a joke, since they use the skill when they feel like using it. As for abilities, compare them yourself vs the canines. Because canines’ abilities are AoE, you have higher success rate on actually getting someone with the F2 abilities

Survival Pets
Not exactly my preferred type of pets, but hey, I’m here to help.

Bears vs everything else
It seems that everyone that think bunker pet think on bears. Don’t get me wrong, they have kitten loads of health and that defy pain guarantees to make them live through pretty much everything.

Brown Bear & Murellow (yh, freaking murellow xD)
(Bear) 1 Condition Removal (25 secs) on F2 Ability on 25 seconds CD
(Murellow) Poision AoE (2 ½ secs) on F2 Ability on 35 seconds CD

Well, that is it for bears. One single condition removal and the other one does poison, to punish people trying to take your precious node while they fight you. The rest of the bear are little use in PvP, but keep reading xD

And a pet class that people don’t expect to see in PvP or for that matter in PvE, Pigs.

Forage (search for a useful item) on F2 Ability on 40 seconds CD
Bleeding (7 ½ secs) on passive skill on 12 seconds CD
Knockdown (3 secs) on passive skills on 40 seconds CD

So, what is special about this class?
The F2 for every pet will be different, so this is what each one of them can drop every time you use their F2 ability. They appear in order of what I consider useful in PvP

NOTE
The opponent can pick up this drops as well, since they are consider environmental weapons, however, they don’t even know what the pet does, and they won’t be playing attention to it.

Forage (Pig)
Seed Pod – Grant regeneration to yourself and nearby allies. 190 healing, water field.
Egg – Restore health and initiative. 2182 healing, 6 initiative.
Elixir of Heroes – You become invulnerable (3s)

Note
Bottle of Rum: You receive invulnerability (3s) / has never dropped for me :L

Forage (Warthog)
Gunk – Throw gunk at target area to inflict a random condition. 900 range, 153 damage, Combo field: Ethereal
Venom Sac – Cover the area in a poisonous cloud. 10s poison, 900 range, Combo field: Poison
Scale – Throw the scale to bleed and poison your foe. 10s bleeding, 20s poison, 10s weakness, 900 range, projectile combo finisher (20% chance), 255 damage.

Note
The fields actually last far longer, and the conditions can stack up up to 30 seconds plus.

Forage (Boar)
Skull – Strike fear into nearby foes. 3s fear, 600 range
Rock – Throw a rock to daze your foe. 900 range.
Bone – Stun your foe. 3s stun, 170 range.

Forage (Siamoth)
Plasma – Gain all boons (10s protection, regen, vigor, might, fury, swiftness, aegis).
Feathers – throw a handful of feathers to blind nearby foes. Stealth yourself. 3s blind, 3s stealth, 120 range.
Tuft of Hair – Blinding Tuft: Throw a handful of feathers, vanishing in stealth and blinding nearby foes. 3s blind, 3s stealth, 120 range.

Sorry but you forgot about drakes in Wpvp.

They have a very nice aoe attack along with strong f2. With guard you can throw on up on the wall or down on a ram and get massive aoe damage.

They are also pretty sturdy. I am not a fan of running around with one from point to point, but in keep take/defense, they are pretty solid.

Snow leopard chill is 8s, Owl is 6s. Not exactly small. I think you mean the stalker grants might, and yes, it isn’t worth it. Ranged pets are pitiful. They deal some of the worst damage and miss often, so I agree with that. Should tell everyone to pick a porcine over a bear any day. Porcine deal significantly more damage, have a 3s knockdown (that usually missed) and some decent utility. Also, you consider the pig most useful than siamoth? I would flip your list of porcine upside down in terms of usefulness in PvP. CC and utility are much more useful than a heal/condition item.

Pretty nice guide! Personally, I just use birds as most people tend to not notice them and focus on me while they get pecked to death XD

Lysico.4906:

Sorry but you forgot about drakes in Wpvp.

They have a very nice aoe attack along with strong f2. With guard you can throw on up on the wall or down on a ram and get massive aoe damage.
o
They are also pretty sturdy. I am not a fan of running around with one from point to point, but in keep take/defense, they are pretty solid.

Unfortunately, drakes are bugged and only use their normal attack and the F2 skill.

Jaguars F2 sucks? It’s the best pet ability in the game for quickness burst, at least when you’re in melee range a lot like I am with sword. I would love other pets being as responsive as the jaguar, and not attack the air when doing a quickness swap with activated F2 ability right away.

OGDeadHead.8326:

Jaguars F2 sucks? It’s the best pet ability in the game for quickness burst, at least when you’re in melee range a lot like I am with sword. I would love other pets being as responsive as the jaguar, and not attack the air when doing a quickness swap with activated F2 ability right away.

that was my bad, it was a typo. I mean to say the jungle stalker, which grants 5 might. i hope that u agree on that xD

Nice guide bro, I only do sPvP once in a while because I get bored by it too quickly, but I do play a fair bit of WvW.
Usually I go for the Wolf + Drakehound because they offer the best cc.
Rangers kinda lack in cc removal, so an option is to cc your enemy with pet skill when you are stunned/immobilized yourself.

I run a 5/30/20/0/15 build with GS+Shortbow. Teaming up with a D/D ele or other bursty class (thief, mesmer) makes you steamroll anyone caught within range.

Great guide.

Yea, Jungle Stalker F2 does suck for the most part. The only place I’ve seen it as a good pet is in PvE with a build using Fortifying Bond since that gives the pet 10 stacks of might on F2 cast (assuming you’re in range).