Guild Wars 2

I’ve already heard all of the QQ about ranger pets being bad or being killed easily. But what pets do you feel are the best for what situation. Also feel free to include some Bm builds that you are using.

Personally I like using dual Drakes when running axe/torch with Flame Trap. Lots of aoe Might popping up, helps my party in CoE quite a bit as we hug Alpha. Plus, I can’t complain with the 5k crits from the Blast Finisher. For general PvE I can’t think of a better setup, especially considering their auto attacks hit more than one foe.

As for actually useful spiking damage, dual Ravens are great. Their like felines, only their spike skill is a F2 ability. Pretty common to see 4k’s pop up twice when using it on decent might + vuln stacking. Quite a compliment to your sustained DPS in WvW or sPvP.

But to each their own. While I understand bears are a coveted pet to many rangers, I just think the ranger is losing a whole lot of possibilities running those ursine pets. Sure, they can be tanky, but you’re losing alot of your DPS. Alot. Plus, you can’t necessarily control when they use their Defy Pain. The sporadic skill use can be cumbersome.

I think, in a nutshell, your pet should compliment your build.

Jaguar is the best burst dmg pet in our disposal. With 25 stacks of might from RaO, signet of the hunt, signet of the wild and the Jaguars f2 stealth I’ve been able to reach +10k hits. Granted this was in PvE land against world bosses but it goes to show just how much dmg we can put out with a good build.

I think you might want to read this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Pet-Selection-Which-When-Where-and-Why

In PvE I almost always run jaguar and marsh drake. Jaguar specifically for Carnivorous Appetite (pets gain health on critical hits). Cats crit often thanks to their faster attack speed, and if my jag gets low on health I pop his F2 and he’ll rapidly regain his hp back.

Same applies to marsh drake but thanks to his aoe he’s almost guaranteed to at least crit once per attack in mobs and makes him even more durable (plus marsh drake’s F2 is the only drake ability that can home-in and still hit enemies no matter where they move, even directly behind the drake)

In WvW (small skirmishing) I run raven + wolf. I’ve found the F2 burst damage from the raven to be more effective than cats against players for my playstyle. In zerg warfare, it’s kinda rough. I’ll usually just run a spider + devourer and try my best to utilize them without them dying.