Guild Wars 2

and why?

Since there are tons of conditions being placed on them and they can’t be crit or knocked down, etc., curious to see what others use.

I’ve always suspected drakes were the best since they have high power. I would be interested if someone had actually run the numbers.

Dead ones cause ANet.

YEp drakes would be the best. Highest power along with dogs, but more vitality and more damage on their F2.

It’s not just a matter of power. Attack speed is also important. Here are the raw golem kill times I’ve measured, and adjusted to remove the effect of crits.

2061 precision pets (59% crit chance)
bird = 46.6 sec => 60.3 sec
cat = 34.0 sec => 44.1 sec

1374 precision pets (26% crit chance)
bear = 92.0 sec => 104.1 sec
devourer = 78.9 sec => 89.3 sec
dog = 57.6 sec => 65.2 sec
drake= 59.8 sec => 67.7 sec
moa = 61.8 sec => 70.0 sec
spider = 62.7 sec => 71.0 sec

1030 precision pets (10% crit chance)
pig = 64.5 sec => 67.7 sec

Cats still win, just by a smaller margin than against regular targets. Course this doesn’t take into account conditions being ineffective. Cats get part of their damage from bleeds. But they’re just so far ahead of the other pets I have to think they’re still #1 against world bosses even without the bleed.

I run cat primary (jungle stalker for the F2 buff on melee players), drake secondary against most world bosses. I swap out the cat for a spider against bosses which are particularly tough on melee (e.g. Karka Queen, though it’s mobile so can be crit). Occasionally I’ll throw in a bird or dog to spice things up.

… did you take into account that most if not all world bosses a crit_immune?

… Dead ones.
/15deadpet

AdziH.2360:

… did you take into account that most if not all world bosses a crit_immune?

^This

For the crit immune bosses I use drakes (reef + river), then I change the reef drake for a jaguar when a boss isn’t crit immune.

The Drakes for the HP + raw power, and the jaguar because that is the pet I use in the rest of PvE anyway …

I tend to use my pets a little differently than most people, I bring a Fern Hound for it’s fairly decent damage but more importantly it’s AOE Heal + Regen, which both help me and other players. Also due to my traits, I share boons with pets. My Fern Hound gets a double dose of the Regen and actually stays up longer due to constant heal (Perma Regen Basically thanks to skill + traits). But should I have to swap pets, I either bring the Red Moa or Blue Moa. Both again feature a nice AOE Heal, they’re fairly tanky and can apply AOE Boons such as Fury and Protection accordingly. And the Fury from the Red Moa can be timed to generate perma fury. So…That’s how I like to handle things personally.

Welp my turn, I use cats, regen hound and drake.

Cats cause one of my rangers is pretty much perma-setup as an Apoth/Condi ranger from my old wvw days, a build I still use in pvp. Regen hound cause it helps the melee and at times me, when I am on my dps ranger and don’t have the healing my Apoth ranger has. And drakes.

Rarely do I have dead pets. Dead pets are a clear sign of a lazy player playing a ranger.

Atherakhia.4086:

Dead ones cause ANet.

Spiders – Ranged attacks and they tend to stay out of the melee mess.

devourer for reason named above. They also tend to flee red circles with devourer retreat from time to time.

Other then that there are the “buff me pets” which are useful, but need a swapout if they get too close and are mauled viciously.

Drakes also play a role, but mostly it was because i wanted a blast finisher on 4 legs, and it happened to get involved with far-away boss.

AdziH.2360:

… did you take into account that most if not all world bosses a crit_immune?

As I said:

Here are the raw golem kill times I’ve measured, and adjusted to remove the effect of crits.

The first time is what I measured against the test heavy golem. The second time is how long it would’ve taken if the pet hadn’t made any crits (assuming an average crit rate in the first time).

t2 = t1 * (1 + 0.5*crit_rate)

t2 is a bit off for pets which do some condition damage (like the cats). But the cats are so far ahead I don’t think it makes a difference.

I use moa/spider and occasionally a drake. The former offers me protection, and is mostly just swapped in— I don’t let it attack mostly. Usually I let the spider range and stay out of trouble.

Solandri.9640:

The first time is what I measured against the test heavy golem. The second time is how long it would’ve taken if the pet hadn’t made any crits (assuming an average crit rate in the first time).

t2 = t1 * (1 + 0.5*crit_rate)

t2 is a bit off for pets which do some condition damage (like the cats). But the cats are so far ahead I don’t think it makes a difference.

That’s really interesting. Cats get that double swipe which put some doubt in my mind about drakes power. I usually ran cats out of laziness. I’ll be keeping the cats up full time now and not feeling bad about it.

I would love to know what exactly the devs were thinking when they made each pet type. Some are so ridiculously good compared to others. Cats are at least contenders in every possible game mode (open world, dungeons, fractals, WvW, PvP) if not the best in a particular mode. Wolf is almost universally taken in competitive. Whatever…