Guild Wars 2

Hi!

I’ve been using ranged pets a lot in fractals in situations where melee pets are less than stellar. I’m wondering however which one does more damage, I don’t see a lot of difference, but google didn’t help come up with an easy answer, so I thought I’d ask before I attempt any form of more serious testing. Thanks in advance!

Spiders, I say. The auto hits very hard, they have a poison field and Cave Spider F2 is Vulnerability + Weakness. Can’t really beat that.

They also don’t waste time burrowing.

It really depends imo.

Spiders have their stupid slow poison field which misses more often than not and devourers have their burrow skill.

Devourers are great with RaO because they shoot double on their basic attack which means fast might stacks

Spiders have very good utilities and their immobilisation is great at time.

Up to you to decide

Do spiders’ immobilize still root champions and some bosses? I can’t remember if that was ever patched or not.

(general PvE, don’t know about dungeons)
Spider deal more damage and have better CC. Devourers’ only advantage is staying alive longer because of the retreat skill.

Drakes are good in fractals. Spiders are sometimes the second choice (be careful with poisonfields if your party is stacking might or using waterfield heal pick up a Devourer instead). Cats are the best in most other dungeons or some easier (less AoE) fractals.

Norjena.5172:

Drakes are good in fractals. Spiders are sometimes the second choice (be careful with poisonfields if your party is stacking might or using waterfield heal pick up a Devourer instead). Cats are the best in most other dungeons or some easier (less AoE) fractals.

I use cats, whenever feasible. I started this topic, because I thought I might need to rethink my ranged pet choices.

“Spider or devourer for pve?” and you guys are talking about Drakes and Kitties

btt:
Definitly 100% spider! They deal like 50% more damage. A cave spider requires 34 sec to kill a light golem at the mists, the forest spider requires 35 sec. The lashtail devourer however requires 41 sec without tunneling or knockback, or even 54 with tunneling and knockback! Devourers aren’t even worth taking just for RaO.

In general use the cave spider. She has the best F2 for groups due the long vulnerability. Also good on dangerious enemies (weakness). The jungle spider just looks kitten good and is pretty ok / good for solo open world or enemies that regenerate (like CoF p1 endboss).

The devourers used to have better DPS, better toughness, same vit, meaning they were almost always the better choice. But their attack rate was slowed down during the pet rebalance patch a few months back. Their DPS is now about 80% that of spiders, 90% for the Lashtail if you use F2.

All Anet had to do was buff the spiders’ vit to achieve a good balance between devourers and spiders. But by also nerfing devourer DPS the two pets have swapped places. Spiders are now better than devourers in every way except toughness (i.e. devourer is better if you expect a lot of AOE healing).

Solandri.9640:

The devourers used to have better DPS, better toughness, same vit, meaning they were almost always the better choice. But their attack rate was slowed down during the pet rebalance patch a few months back. Their DPS is now about 80% that of spiders, 90% for the Lashtail if you use F2.

All Anet had to do was buff the spiders’ vit to achieve a good balance between devourers and spiders. But by also nerfing devourer DPS the two pets have swapped places. Spiders are now better than devourers in every way except toughness (i.e. devourer is better if you expect a lot of AOE healing).

So thats what happened to my devourer…..

The direct damage difference between a Lashtail and Spiders in a 30 second span is roughly ~15% or so in Spider’s favor by my math. Spotter + Fury or Signet of the Wild are mechanics that favor Lashtail and shrinks the gap to around ~13%, but that’s about the best you can hope for.

Lashtails are pretty rewarding…for where they are on the skill curve and the neigh non-existent micromanagement level they require.

Personally, I use them both.
Double spiders has come back to bite me in the behind defensively, and honestly things like sic’ em and signet of the wild are beyond awkward with a spider. There’s always this sense of having to ‘get the AI out of the way’. It’s pretty aggravating gameplay.