Guild Wars 2

I have been dabbling with Ranger GS ever since my return to GW2. The only reason I made my ranger was to use the GS on a non-heavy armor class, hence I have been working on making him very survivable. I.E. – Not a prime DPSer but more of a support DPSer.

I just got him to 80 and have my gear distributed in the following manner. Gems are yet to be added. Armor is exotic.

Head – Soldier – Beryl Orb
Shoulder – Soldier – Beryl Orb
Chest – Valkyrie – Beryl Orb
Hands – Knight – Beryl Orb
Legs – Valkyrie – Beryl Orb
Feet – Knight – Beryl Orb

Accessories [planned]
Back- Berserker – Ruby Orb
Amulet- Berserker – Ruby Orb
Ring- Berserker – Ruby Orb
Ring- Berserker – Ruby Orb
Accessory- Berserker – Ruby Orb
Accessory- Berserker – Ruby Orb

Weapons
Berseker GS and SB

Traits
0/25/20/25/0

Obvious weapon improvement traits, Survival skill cooldown, etc.

Utilities- Healing Spring, Lightning Reflexes, Muddy Terrain, Signet of the Hunt/Wild (Situational)

By my math, with all the gear, I should come to
Attack- 3000
Armor- 2300
HP- 20,000
Crit Chance- 40%
Crit Damage- 84%

So now I need pets to accompany this build.
Ideas-
Pair of Drakes- Blast Finishers, some micro management to keep them alive, awesome powerhouse utility skills

Brown Bear and Fern Hound- Condition wipe and regen

Hyena and Fern Hound- Lotsa knockdowns and Regen

Brown Bear and Polar Bear- Condition wipe, aoe chill, no micro management.

If you were a true ranger, the question would not be that self-centered and more like
“What build should I pick to supplement my pet?”
/thread.

Red Moas are a nice asset for dps builds due to the fury uptime… But with 20 sec cd on pet swap, I’m afraid, theres not much room to play around with.
Dogs or bears are probably your safest bet here.
I just don’t see that much space for a pet in this build, the way, you selfishly allotted all the trait points for yourself. :P Your pet must feel really unwanted.

All the trolling aside, get some dog/bear action going and swap them out when needed. You can not run around with a single type of pet all the time, get what the situation needs. Even pigs got their moments :>

naphack.9346:

All the trolling aside, get some dog/bear action going and swap them out when needed. You can not run around with a single type of pet all the time, get what the situation needs. Even pigs got their moments :>

Never pigs!!!

That’s what I do, bears for dungeons, dogs for standard PvE and WvW. I used to run with 15 in BM for quickness for spamming my autoattack with GS but after the nerf it feels lack luster. =[

Personally, I like the combo of Drake and Jaguar. I use the Jaguar for big single target damage, with their stealth ability they get off some pretty nice crits. I use the Drake when I need more tanking and AOE blast finishers. So far the combo works really well for me. If I’m in a fight with a hard hitting champion and don’t want to send a pet into melee range then I change one of them (usually the Jag) to Devourer.

My selection is based on personal preference and traits. I use a Beast Master build and I have the trait Rending Attacks that gives bleeds on crit to Drake, Feline and Devourer.

Most of my play is PVE.

If you want more survivability, add more toughness and less vit. Vit is useful only in Condition spamming fights. I run a SB and Sword/axe/GS ranger. The soldier helm and shoulder isnt helping you any since the stat increase isnt that great (helmet is better though). You can easily replace them for Knight helm and shoulder or mix with Knight helm and Zerk Shoulder. You can keep the Beryl orbs on your gear if want for the extra vit but I prefer Ruby orbs. You can easily replace the missing vit with Soldier earrings from Grenth temple karma vendor. Thats +80/80 Tough/Vit from the 2 earrings and more from a Beryl jewel.

Personal stat on my ranger, ~3200 attack, ~2500 armor and ~18,800 HP with 45% Crit chance and ~79% Crit Damage.

Back to your question, Since you want to be up close with GS, do bird and Feline for farming. Bird for swiftness and high damage and Feline for high damage.

For dungeons, use drakes for AoE Healing/Might and Fern hound for regen.

My reason behind getting some health is I enjoy WvW and it helps survive a sudden barrage of conditions, I run with a brown bear and fern mastiff, I keep my bear out at all times, clear conditions, switch to mastiff pop regeneration and troll urgent when needed.

As for the others I hate how slow Drake recharge skills are and don’t enjoy using them outside of Solo PvE which I don’t do much of anymore

Birds for burst, small bonus that he has a short cd leap wich might sometimes help since you use spring.

Drakes for aoe dmg and also minor aoe heals in spring with blast finisher.

Canine for control, decent damage, exellent survival and tanking.

When looking strictly at numbers and activated abilities, it may seem clear which pet will work best but that is not always the case.

I actually suggest trying out different pets in the same environment and see which ones make you most effective. For me, it was pigs. Though, currently, it seems their F2 forage is now just another F1 “attack” haha. So, now I use the red moa and eagle. At least until my precious piggies are fixed.

I like drakes (especially the reef drake), but their casting time is very, very difficult to use with the same efficacy as other pets, regardless of if its WvW, PvE, or S/TPvP. If you are able to work it out for yourself though, and it works with your playstyle, then it could be an excellent choice especially with their AoE.

edit: So, basically, I feel that pets are more complementary to playstyle than actual build (even though the build has impact on it). YMMV, as always.

Tuluum.9638:

When looking strictly at numbers and activated abilities, it may seem clear which pet will work best but that is not always the case.

I actually suggest trying out different pets in the same environment and see which ones make you most effective. For me, it was pigs. Though, currently, it seems their F2 forage is now just another F1 “attack” haha. So, now I use the red moa and eagle. At least until my precious piggies are fixed.

I like drakes (especially the reef drake), but their casting time is very, very difficult to use with the same efficacy as other pets, regardless of if its WvW, PvE, or S/TPvP. If you are able to work it out for yourself though, and it works with your playstyle, then it could be an excellent choice especially with their AoE.

edit: So, basically, I feel that pets are more complementary to playstyle than actual build (even though the build has impact on it). YMMV, as always.

Thanks for the reply been running dungeons and fractals with devourers now less micromanaging but doing great, getting used to pets.

I played a tanky build for levelling and never had to worry about my bears or dogs.

jpnova.4572:

As for the others I hate how slow Drake recharge skills are and don’t enjoy using them outside of Solo PvE which I don’t do much of anymore

Drakes does require a good amount of micromanagement to use well, especially in WvW. Usually go for the River drake because it’s the only drake that can “aim” its F2 ability and it bounces (likemost lightning attacks do) so its great damage and will hit 90% of the time if used right. Sometimes, gotta target the wrong person to get the right person kinda thing, lol.

I’ve tried a similar thing with my ranger. All my gear is cleric’s/sapphire stats (Healing/Toughness/Power) and equipped with runes of Altruism. I’ve experimented quite a bit with traits and eventually, after nonsense like GS/Spirits unbound, owl tank and GS/Giant Flaming Sylvari, I went with my own version of the common Beastmaster build that was gaining popularity at the time. So, 0/0/20/20/30, with the greatsword boosting traits, wilderness survival, natural healing, compassion training and the regeneration boost.

Personally and somewhat strangely, I find Jellyfish to be my favourite pets. Specifically the rainbow jellyfish. I love it so much I’ve trained two of them, Mystie and Whysp. On land though, it’s not so simple. It took a while, but I found with my ridiculous healing ability (which provides me with extra power thanks to beastmastery), I’m better off with high toughness pets to maximise the healing bonus. But also, through experimentation, drakes have respectable AoE damage, a nice self heal and a blast finisher (mostly to use with my water field). So, on land I have Rumble and Blast, my river and reef drakes.