Guild Wars 2

I’ve only been a Ranger for about a week now (just hit level 70) but it seems to me that there is one glaring problem with Ranger pets in dungeons: they die when a mob as much as farts in their direction!

They are too squishy for how dumb they are. By which I mean they need a lot more tankiness because the only thing they know how to do is essentially facetank all the damage. Even if they aren’t being targeted directly they are too stupid to move out of AoE or melee cleave.

Pets should get like 66% damage reduction whenever they’re inside a dungeon. Or something.

Oglaf.1074:

I’ve only been a Ranger for about a week now (just hit level 70) but it seems to me that there is one glaring problem with Ranger pets in dungeons: they die when a mob as much as farts in their direction!

They are too squishy for how dumb they are. By which I mean they need a lot more tankiness because the only thing they know how to do is essentially facetank all the damage. Even if they aren’t being targeted directly they are too stupid to move out of AoE or melee cleave.

Pets should get like 66% damage reduction whenever they’re inside a dungeon. Or something.

I don’t have that issue as much? I mostly hold them back and send them in after the first person engages, and keep an eye on the bar. Bears and drakes seem to last longer, but the poor wolf has a tendency to get freaking pasted against bosses :P

The problem is melee cleave, really. I can’t really babysit my pet 24/7 to make sure it is attacking the buttocks only of a mob.

I gotta look out for number one, me, first.

We need to be able to lock our pets away, not just stow until we take damage

Yuudai.5268:

We need to be able to lock our pets away, not just stow until we take damage

I want them to stay stowed for anything short of taking an actual hit and not just falling damage. For the sake of jumping puzzles.

First off, congrats on 70 in a week. Nice work.

Pet squishiness in dungeons is a hot topic, but there are things you can do to mitigate it. The root cause, their inability to dodge and the importance of dodging in dungeons, you can do little about. You can however:

• Choose a higher toughness pet to begin with, like a canine, drake, or devourer.
• Depending on the target, use a ranged pet, like a spider or devourer.
• Beef it up with beastmastery. 30 points gives 300 each in power, precision, vitality, & toughness to your pet. This helps.
• Stack a boatload of healing power. I’m currently running 1,414.
• Use all available heals, including signet of the wild and natural healing. I favor healing spring, and use fortified bond to push regeneration onto the pet. Combined, I push about 900 HPS onto a pet, not including the spike heal from healing spring. It goes down to about 600 HPS if I’m AFK.
• Mitigate damage with protection, which reduces direct damage by 33%, or looked at another way, effectively raises armor by 50%. Protection can be applied with companion’s defense, stone spirit, and guard. The first two benefit from fortifying bond, and any two of the three that I mentioned are sufficient to keep up protection indefinitely (with my traits & gear).

There will still be fights that are hopeless, like Kohler, Subject Alpha, and higher level fractals, but they aren’t all like that. My devourer, buffed with protection, has the equivalent of 4,500 toughness, and that plus 900 HPS makes it pretty hard to kill.

Daemon Hawk.9406:

First off, congrats on 70 in a week. Nice work.

Nothing to it. Was originally gonna be my Jeweler/Chef alt, so I kinda cheated by maxing those

sounds like a setup i am going for. usually always have a drake and fernhound in dungeons. course the spirit of renewal. (working on exotic gear if dwaynas altar ever wants to be able to purchase from) And I would love that much healing power. just need all the runes and gems. since current gear is lacking runes and gems. (and the trinket, necklace, rings. but getting gold to buy em)

any suggested runes by the way? I was thinking dwayna or apothcracy or something. more healing and such. forget just what else they do as i didn’t look at them that long.

If the question about runes was to me, I use 4 altruism and 2 water. From these I get some healing power, 30% boon duration, and are might on healing spring. Full build details are on my site — address is in my signature.

I tank bosses in dungeons with my bears often. They don’t last as long as a player granted but with a few heals from myself and the guard I normally run with my bears do a pretty decent job of taking the heat off the group. I suspect if bears where a little tougher rangers would be solo/duo dungeons. I think the balance is just right if you are full beast master (which I am).

For much better dungeon performance, you need at least 15 points in beastmastery. The extra stats and 20% reduced swap timer is invaluable . If you want the pets to tank you go bears . There is also one trait in the skirmishing line that gives pets life on critical .

I made a few tweaks in my spec that made my pets a bit more reliable. First i must say that I run a condition build with 20/30/0/0/20, with Full rampager’s (P/Pr/Cond), Undead Runes (T/Cond) and working on Rabid Jewels (Pr/T/Cond – still considering some healing gems).

From Skirmishing line I got Pet’s Prowess to increase their damage and Carnivorous Appetite, so they can heal on crit. The other trait is Quick Draw (mainly run bows, with some melee weapons on bags for when needed).

From Beastmastery I got Compassion Training (pets heal for more) and Rending Strikes (mostly run Jaguar/Devourer/Shark, can be changed to any sort of pet you run).

With this setup my Jaguar can stay up for a very long time during champions and world bosses. It doesn’t work that great on dungeons, but it is rarely an insta kill (except for agony attacks). I also try to keep him (and me) with regen as much as possible, via signet, and via Healing Spring with projectiles combo finisher or Troll Ungent (those heals always stay on CD, I use them whenever it’s possible).