Guild Wars 2

Druid part is interesting in and of itself, but not that exciting for me.

The real question is: do our pets still die easily and have silly AI? If so… I am not sure what the cool part is other than that they look awesome?

Irenio said there are going to be some changes to the core ranger class. He said he looked over the past weeks about the concerns in this forum and he addresed some of them. The changes will be tallked about in the Skill Balance segment later in twichcon steam.

The new pets are the highlight as far as i’m concerned.

The new condition pet also had 1800 condi damage, so that means they absolutely are giving the new pet (and probably several of the older condi pets) condition damage like we’ve long begged for.

No idea. From a glance, Wyverns share the same stats as Drakes, but their power seems a bit higher on attacks. On the plus side, Smokescale and Fire Wyvern F2 commands are full evade/immunity attacks, which will help compensate during encounters when retreating from AOE attacks and F3 won’t cut it.

They seem to have a fair amount of toughness/vitality, which, if Raids are designed (hopefully) so bosses cannot be bursted down under a minute, these new pets will be valuable assets.

Both of those pets mentioned also have their own fields in which will serve in future contents. Smoke field from Smokescale can be utilized in core content for parties to blast in for stealth and the Wyvern Fire Field lasts for a decent amount for Might and burning damage – which amplifies specs such as the Sinister Ranger.

We also asked for a better ranged pet but with more punch. The Bristleback seems to be an answer for that. Though it’s has a condition spec (bleeds), a quick glance at the stats (from memory) seems to be a balance between good ranged damage of a Spider and durability of Devourers.

I’ve posted this a few times already, but they didn’t show off the Tiger’s F2. I can only assume it might have a GW1 reference attached to it, most likely “Tiger’s Fury.” With that in mind, AOE Fury. All speculation.

Also, not to leave out the Lightning Wyvern, but the F2 is a short in-line knockdown with a lightning field. Should be helpful against breakbars and the lightning field synergy with the Scrapper traits to provide AOE Superspeed was mentioned to be something of significant value in upcoming Raids.

Other pets, however, might still die easily, as it seems (from quick glances and memory) the older/other pet families are overshadowed by the new ones, at least for new content.

AI has yet to be seen or mentioned if it will be applied to the pets.

We’ll have to wait for the Skill Balance session tomorrow and see what they say about pets. Adjusting their AI is no simple task so we’ll see what they say and make some judgments from there.

The tiger is likely a cat archtype.
The dinos we saw looked to have similar stats as the big lizards we currently have. The extra fields they made have some cool potential but their actual dps output might be on the low end.

Durzlla.6295:

The new condition pet also had 1800 condi damage, so that means they absolutely are giving the new pet (and probably several of the older condi pets) condition damage like we’ve long begged for.

1000 for the Bristleback. 700 for the Lightning Drake. The condition damage on the Drake is a bit odd since it has no condition damage attacks, but I’ll take base condition damage any day than having none on a pet so Sharpened Edges, Poison Master, and Companion’s Might is more effective.

One can dream, but I hope they add an electric condition damage so it pulses damage over time like linger shock. I digress, though.

Durzlla.6295:

The new condition pet also had 1800 condi damage, so that means they absolutely are giving the new pet (and probably several of the older condi pets) condition damage like we’ve long begged for.

Been away from ranger for a while but this is a right step now if they could make it for all stats. I would prefer pets scaling of you instead but this could work

Wondrouswall.7169:

Durzlla.6295:

The new condition pet also had 1800 condi damage, so that means they absolutely are giving the new pet (and probably several of the older condi pets) condition damage like we’ve long begged for.

1000 for the Bristleback. 700 for the Lightning Drake. The condition damage on the Drake is a bit odd since it has no condition damage attacks, but I’ll take base condition damage any day than having none on a pet so Sharpened Edges, Poison Master, and Companion’s Might is more effective.

One can dream, but I hope they add an electric condition damage so it pulses damage over time like linger shock. I digress, though.

Poison Master scales off of the ranger, not the pet, Toxicity, or whatever the master tier poison trait is in WS however, scales off of whoever applied it.

And i’m in the same boat as you, i’d rather SOME condi damage on all the pets rather than no condi damage.

Durzlla.6295:

Poison Master scales off of the ranger, not the pet, Toxicity, or whatever the master tier poison trait is in WS however, scales off of whoever applied it.

Woah, this is new to me. I thought the poison your pet gets after swapping is based on their condition damage.

See, the thing is, there are only so many pets used at the moment, because there are only a few pets that are good at certain things. Either the new pets will be good and replace the old ones, making the old ones obsolete, or the new ones will be obsolete.

One thing I noticed was that the Lightning Wyvern’s F2 had little/no start up time. It was just F2 —> CHARGE!, vs something like a pig which is f2 > long wind up > clunky dash.

Wuselknusel.4082:

See, the thing is, there are only so many pets used at the moment, because there are only a few pets that are good at certain things. Either the new pets will be good and replace the old ones, making the old ones obsolete, or the new ones will be obsolete.

No, a lot of the pets that aren’t used aren’t used because they’re literally just awful because one, or more of their skills have little or no use. Canine isn’t used because its CC is better than a pigs (because it’s not), they’re used because their OTHER skills aren’t absolutely trash skills. If Pigs auto dealt more damage, and their bleed skill wasn’t worthless, chances are quite a few people will use a pig for the 5 man 3s Knock Down + damage + tankiness. Even if their Forage was useless if their auto and bleed attack were -ok- they’d still see use.