Guild Wars 2

Earlier today I was looking over the pets on the wiki, mainly because I was interested in the Porcine family (pig) abilities, in particular forage-siamoth. There is a 2/3 chance you will receive a stealth item, which can be used to refresh opening strike as well as providing self-defense.

So far I have this incomplete build that I don’t know what I should put in to finish atm. But I’ll give a simple breakdown of how it should play out:

Weapons – Longbow is pretty easy to explain. Skill 3 will put you into stealth and skill 4 to knockback an enemy, preferably against a wall or an obstacle. From there you ckittene jaguar’s ability and signet of the hunt to blow them up.
Sword/Warhorn – This is combo has both offense and defense. AA is straight up dps. Skill 2 for evading or escaping. Skill 3 is more important due to the poison it applies. It always feels good to screw someone’s heal up. Skill 4 is straight up dps and skill 5 for emergency water blasting.
The alternate set (and probably worth considering) is Sword/Axe. With axe you chain skill 4 on the longbow with path of scars and whirling defense for a heavy cc combo.

Pets – _Siamoth_’s forage ability has a 2/3 chance to drop a stealth item, which will be used for refreshing opening strike. It also has a knockdown and enough tankiness to make “Protect Me” useful.
Jaguar is the perfect dps pet for this build. It gains opening strike on stealth in which it receives a crit dmg boost. Pet’s Prowess further increases it damage and toss in Signet of the Hunt for another 50% damage boost.

Gear – Cavalier or maybe Valkyrie amulet. Runes I don’t know. For sigils, I was thinking and energy sigil on both sets for dodging and the 10% damage boost. For the other sigil not sure what I should use.

As for the empty slots in the utilities and traits… I don’t know what to really put in. My thoughts for what the last utility and the elite should be were Quickening Zephyr and Rampage as One. If I ever rolled Consume Plasma I’d pop RaO and QZ and go on an all out attack. Traits? I don’t know at all.

There are issues though:
- low hp (can be somewhat mitigated by steath and cc)
- reliance on siamoth rng (consume plasma)
- healing spring is the only condition removal (conditions suck as usual)
- potential boon corruption/epidemic bomb…

I’ll say now this is all mostly theoretical and I need some help filling in the gaps. I’m also hoping that this can spark some ideas and fan the flames of creativity, as well as be a light in the darkness to all the rangers out there. Not setting my expectations to high am I?

In the past i ran this build using full zerker amulet in pvp, with Traits set up for 6,0,2,6,0

Sotf (the last time i used this build in pvp)
Natures bounty and Spirit to strenght.
it ended up being a Thief with A lot of Burst sigil of intelligence Sigil of battle (for more Crits on swap)
used Sword+horn (for A burst rotaion of hunters call swap again)

Burst>hide>pick up items>burst>hide> stack regen using Healing spring as a Decoy( kite around the edge of the healing spring while the pig/pigs knock them down, i used the Samoith+wolf/Fern wolf for a little healing boost and a Regen (if unable to plant HP properly.

it gives enough hp , lots of Burst power on each weapon set.
generaly using only Qz+SoR and Protect me/guard so your pig stealths too.

i havn’t done the build in a long time now but it really kittened some people in pvp, though making this build , suffers the same cap problems semi to full stealths can cause problems for yourself.

i did some tweeked Varients without the Sotf and added 4 into Skirmishing (for lower cooldowns and more Fury uptime/ a little Burst of swiftness and burst on longbow 2.

it added a bit more damage at the cost of Solo cap Survival, though When I Ran this build with Guildies in Tpvp, it Reaped the Rewards of being able to Stealth(repostion Multipul times) and with 6 in NM the boon Duration on plasma Lasts a Amazing amount of time and gives you or a team mate a huge Survival bonus.

hope my thoughts help with the goal your after.

I made a build like this myself before knowing how the forage skill works. Oh my… it was a bad mistake.
The skill should work like it works for other classes (like thiefs) and put it on your hand, not in the ground. I don’t see myself picking up stuff in the middle of a wvw fight or battle, and I don’t know why somebody will do this on a pvp fight. Do it and you’re done.

The only use, IMO, is to enter keeps unnoticed and then change the pet for something else.

Also, we don’t have enough stealth mechanics to bring enough dps in builds like this. You could make like what, 3-4 crits (if you’re running superior runes of infiltration and WS)… you could have 75% or more crit chance on each attack with a 6-2-0-0-6 build and free Zephyrs each time you activate the pet or switch it.

its not much of a WvW build , there is better builds for WvW rangers.

the problem with Pet forage you have to chain it with hunter shot for that 3secs , to prepair to pick up the foraged item, and don’t make a B-line for it , that is just too Preditable .

fake the pvp player out drop your f2 item from a warthog for a Venom sack > huntershot > swap pet (get it to charge don’t use f2 yet) > point blank shot while kiting towards said foraged item use the venom sack to block / control there area movement) > then f2 the Sammoith for stealth > huntershot > walk into Vemon sack field pick up feathers to ether escape or proceed to Sword+Dagger them in the back/flank. then repeat.

its difficult to pull off and Unreliable because hunter shot don’t always stealth and its needed for the Unpredictable Element that these pigs/forage items need for them to work.

though it does seem to work pretty well with muddy terrain+f2 vemon sack (if the Positioning and item placement is done with great percision)

By the sounds of it, you’re looking at spotter. This is a pet/crit-dependent build and you’re going to need to give it extra crit chance, since I don’t think a lot is going to die on just OS from the jaguar. You’re definitely going to need RoA for this build, for each of the eight attacks from RF will apply might to your pet, which you’re absolutely going to need for that OS. I would also consider using LR for the extra evade/reposition/stunbreak which if you get hit in stealth or don’t make it to where the item is, can help you get there much easier.

Fill the BM open trait with Vigorous training. Since you’re dependent on the pet skill for the engage/damage, and you’re running Steady Focus and will likely need a dodge or two when trying to get to the bundle, getting vigor pretty much assists your whole flow in every regard.

I also don’t even know if you want or need the porcine. OS applies when entering combat for 5, drop HS for another 5, and RF to 18 with the pet engaging for OS for 23. That much investment and weird repositioning/being dependent on luck for a combo to work for only 2 vuln seems crazy. This is especially the case if you engage with a jaguar for OS and then F2 for stealth to re-apply OS on the jaguar capping you at 25 vuln anyways on the next hit (you’ll need to F3 in between for damage modifiers on the following hit). And even then I think getting the jaguar’s first ability off on 23 stacks is substantially better than trying to combo for 2% more damage with all that risk, or even relying on its second attack for damage. Now you can even go as far as using a different pet for more utility.

I think you’d also find more success by removing “protect me” and replacing it with SotW, too, since you’ll also already have the stunbreak and dodge from LR. It also makes your pet’s OS combo more reliable, since it won’t be taking damage/run the risk of dying, and stealth + stability is pretty much a guaranteed successful engage.

This would put your pet’s engage with the enemy at around 13-23 vuln, autocrit, 30% crit damage, +25% more damage,8-10 stacks of might, 8s stability for consistency, and if you really wanted to, SotH for another 50%. This might put the pet burst just over the edge to kill someone, for the jaguar would be at nearly a 270% damage modifier with the vuln stacks applied (150 base crit modifier).

Only slightly off topic are the forge spawned environmental weapons still usable by opponents I kind of remember that and porcine pets having bad stats being the major drawback of using them anywhere outside of PvE (and even there it is questionable).

Thanks for the input, I’ll consider making changes if this doesn’t work out as planned and yes I wish it did work like thief’s steal, where the porcine would forage and immediately deliver the item to you.

no they can’t pick up your items, just like a foes Firey greatsword they can’t use it.
Pet pigs/warthogs/samoiths are generaly i Treat them like Flesh golems they hit hard and high with very slow attacks plus mainly for the Utlity of forage + its charge skill on pet swap.