Guild Wars 2

Hey guys I’m thinking of leveling a ranger alt as I really love some of your skills and traits but one thing that puts me off is the pet.

I don’t know why but every game I’ve played that has a class that utilizes some sort of permanent pet mechanic I found to be quite unenjoyable. I always found dealing with the pet to be a nuisance either from dumb AI or just the micromanagement from using a pet. (setting it to passive stance etc…)

So I was wondering is it possible to play the ranger class without bothering with the pet too much and how much does it affect the gameplay of the class (would I be put at a severe disadvantage for not bothering with the pet ie not using it’s abilities).

Thanks for any responses in advance.

The pet is what defines the class. Thief has steal, Guardian has virtues, Necro has death shroud, ranger has a pet.

The pet’s damage combined with the rangers is what puts it on par with the other classes. So you can ignore the pet, which means it will die often, but you will be kitten because of it.

I’ve read about the pet mechanic in the wiki.

There is only skill F1-F4 and 2 of those are attack and retreat. What I’m wanting to know is how does the pet work in higher levels. Do they function like necro minions? or is the alot more complicated then that and need a lot more micromanagement?

Also certain class mechanics are passive such as the guardian’s virtues, you won’t be using them unless it absolutely necessary or the thieves steal which is very situational( you got a few tricks you can use with it but with a 45 second untraited cooldown you don’t use it a lot) and not crucial if you aren’t running some GC build for mug.

Honestly, your pet is going to be a decent bit of your potential, especially in terms of damage, even if you do not go BM. However, it is significantly less so when you’re not BM. If you really just enjoy the class but don’t want to worry too much about the pet, your best bet would be to go for a zerker ranger build with something like shortbow/GS or shortbow/1hs+dagger. Assuming you are talking PvE, anyway.

That said, part of being useful as a Ranger means knowing how to utilize your pet, including what pet to use when, what to make it do when, how to utilize its skills, and so on. For example, it’s good to make use of pigs in dungeons. The utility they bring with seed pod/elixer of heroes it great, and paired with a pet that does decent damage output you can have both utility and damage on your pets. Also, no matter what build you use it is a pretty good idea (less so now, but still the case) to have 5 points in BM for the quickness on petswap, and that means knowing when to make use of it too.

Basically, can you play the game without caring too much about the pet? Yes. Will you be as effective? No.

You cant totally ignore your pet (well you could but I wouldnt advise it). I dont really like having pets either so I tend to keep my wolves on passive, but I do send them in when I need them. Also even if you really do never want to use them, you can at least pick a pet with a good F2, such as the AoE buffs or heals or CC, or something.