Guild Wars 2

Since Season 2 is close at hand, let’s discuss which pet contributes the most in WvW Zerg v Zerg fights. I know that many of you will chime in with how pointless this is because “ranger’s shouldn’t be in zergs,” “pets melt in 2 seconds,” “pets are useless near walls,” and “pets can’t hit anything,” but we’re doing it anyway!

Which Pet Contributes the Most?*

1. A damage pet that struggles to land decent hits while melting very fast.
2. A control/support pet that has useful effects, but struggles to land average hits while melting almost as fast.
3. A tanky pet that struggles to land weak hits while melting at a slow rate.
4. A ranged pet that flings projectiles into the blob, often hitting something until the blob moves over it and it melts pretty fast.
5. A pet kept on passive and only used occasionally for F2s, Heals, Search and Rescue, Vigorous Training, Empathic Bond, Protect Me, Mighty Swap, Zephyr’s Speed, or Signet of Renewal.
6. A tanky pet with high uptime of retaliation.
7. Other.

Facts to Consider:

• Because of the AoE cap, having an extra body in a player-originated red circle is a good thing. Your pet occasionally takes hits that would have otherwise hit a player.
• The pet’s damage is balanced as a portion of our own… the pet’s health is in addition to our own.
• Melee pets (except birds) have range 130 auto-attacks, which can easily miss moving targets.
• Most pet skills do not work up to or down from walls.
• When you swap targets, melee pets need time to reach the new target.
• It is next to impossible to see where your pet is at all times during a huge fight.
• With the amount of friendly AoE around, some pets can cross-profession combo with projectiles, leaps, blasts, or fields.
• Empathic Bond is considered by some a must-have trait, which directly hinders and damages the pet.
• Double Retaliation – Whenever a ranger with Fortifying Bond receives any amount of Retal, his pet gains 5s+ of Retal.
• Dead pets stop contributing.

* “contributes the most” does not necessarily have to indicate a meaningful amount.

Depends on the setting/commander/who’s in front.

In general:
I like bears on walls to send them ahead and pop marks and other AoE’s
I like ranged pets cause they stay alive long enough for the swap, most of the time
I don’t use buffing pets because we get enough buffs by other means…

In a WvW zerg you want a pet that can do CC. Wolf is nice for the fear, when encountering the enemy pop that when your running through them and your able to interrupt and help your team.

Might have one wolf and one spider, one for AOE CC and the other for single target ranged CC. So if you are fighting someone on a wall, and your not using entangle, or its on CD then pop your spider’s f2. Root them and fire away, vs your in a ground fight, get your Wolf out, and while driving through pop your fear CC and watch 5 of them scatter.

What I run, and its probably not the best but I use Wolf for fear in zerg fights, and bird for bleed damage in single target fights. The added DPS and bleed affect can help in a fight. But its not really ment for zerg use, just what I have with me while I am on a WvW map.

I would say Spider. Ranged, AoE poison field, immobilize. There aren’t a lot of situations where this isn’t useful. I prefer Jungle because it has an extra immobilize in F2.

Yeah Black Widow + Jungle Spider is alot of fun with Malicious Training.

Idk though I still take DPS pets no matter what, pets just seem to melt regardless so I figure the more damage I deal before it dies, the better. Though I do see merits in AoE Immob from Drakehound, or fear from Wolf.

Krytan hound and wolf are standards.
Brown Bear if I run with Protect Me! or I need some extra condi remove.
Marsh Drake for guilded missiles and blast finisher for eg. at gates.
Jungle Stalker in 3-5 small groups.
Jungle Spider if I need a ranged option. In melee it never lands anything.

In zergs I keep my pet on passive and switch for “attack” when the numbers are more manageable.

In a zerg, I find that the boon pets are the best. A good mighty roar.
I also find that group CC is quite helpful making hound and wolf popular.

Depending on your spec, the Fern Hound can be extremely helpful.

One set that is often forgotten is porcine. If your pet isn’t going to be rushing in fighting, it might as well create items that can be very situationally powerful. Lots of AE fields, stealth, heals etc.

I usually keep a pet around with high vitality at least for empathic bond. Sometimes spider is enough but usually upgrade to a bear (liking polar bear lately – chill is hard for us to get… but murrelow has more f2 uptime)

I usually run wolf/drakehound-jungle spider.

Having a ranged pets helps when you need to burn a cannons or oil and when you can’t melee pvd a door down.

Drakehound has a better aoe on a shorter cooldown than wolf, but the wolf is the only pet that will save you from a stomp in a mode where lick wounds is mostly useless so it’s really up to how you end up playing that night.

Just be aware, that not even devourers or bears can cut it in a true zerg fight. You have to keep your pets on passive and look for people away from the group to use them on. Nothing short of stone signet will keep a pet alive when the hammertrain touches it. The protection on dodge trait might as well not exist in those situations.

I’ve also had some luck with birds. They’re crap when roaming, but in a zerg they hit fairly well and they are about the only pet that can hit for 4 digits (canines’ two special abilities also can) against a heavy in pvt gear.

wolves only, if you time them well so they dont melt. aoe fear and immobilize are pretty much the only way to go.

Any pet that gives an AoE Boon, or an AoE condition would best suit you in a Zerg. However most of those Boons and/or Conditions only effect a limited amount of enemies. The idea is to sow as much confusion in the enemy ranks as possible, instead of having a pet doing 1 on 1 during a large scale enemy cluster jelly schmuck.

The one standing by your side out of harms way that can provide you with buffs..

Which ever kind of pet you can keep alive for 19 seconds.

I play melee ranger, so pretty much all pets die on inc, so i either use any pet and a wolf so i can swap to the wolf and use f2 straight away some times get a fear off. Or i use duel drakes so I’ve got a potential extra blast finisher on a 60s timer (dead pet recharge) when i drop my water field mid fight.

Bombsaway.7198:

In a zerg, I find that the boon pets are the best. A good mighty roar.
I also find that group CC is quite helpful making hound and wolf popular.

Depending on your spec, the Fern Hound can be extremely helpful.

One set that is often forgotten is porcine. If your pet isn’t going to be rushing in fighting, it might as well create items that can be very situationally powerful. Lots of AE fields, stealth, heals etc.

Those are what I run, when on walls I run fern hound and porcine (each pig has different forrage skills, so use them accordingly….took me a while to realize that) and in fights wolf and porcine. Those pigs are pretty resilient and occasionally you’ll get lucky when you unleash them and they will open with their charge/kd skill. None of the pets are really appropriate if you’re running in the meleetrain though maybe if you run sig of stone and a reeeaally tanky pet like a bear or something you might get one to survive a push.

Best thing I’ve found to do for meleetraining is drakes, prefferably marsh or river because their f2’s land more reliably and faster. Just f2 them before going in, and let them die. Leave them dead until you finish your push or two, then swap or just leave them dead. Unless you need a buff from the other pet, swapping it in is pointless. You could maybe throw in a moa like the blue, use the f2 for a quick prot, then send it in to attack. Sometimes you get lucky and it does the healing screech right away. After that it has lived it’s usefulness and you can let it die. Repeat. Honestly though, I just can’t enjoy a melee train as a ranger. That’s what snorefest warriors and guardians are for. I’ll go grab one of those if I wanna smash around in melee blobs.

For the first 15-30 seconds of a zerg clash my pet is on passive.

Once the initial keyboard mashing drop every AoE you have is over. I will send a spider after an Ele or mesmer i have isolated. If the enemy zerg trys to regroup i send the wolf into fear them; break up the restack before they can get might and healing going.

DeadlySynz.3471:

The one standing by your side out of harms way that can provide you with buffs..

wrong. fury, few seconds of protection, few stacks of might contribute minimally to your success against zergs.

The secret to keeping your pets alive through the most massive scorched earth mapblob v mapblob fights is to be an absolutely terrible ranger. Horrible. Bears. Bark Skin. Heal as One (between swaps and a Heal as One, your pet really only has to last 10s before you help it.) Using Guard not for its ability to grant regen and swiftness, but using it to grant perma protection and assign your pet a radius that it will not leave (you can keep it out of the heaviest part of the fight). 1400 Healing Power, Fortifying Bond, and Sigil of Luck all help immensely as well.

Will it ever be worth it to go to such extreme lengths to keep tanky pets alive? Probably not. Fun though when retalbear starts doing better dps than damage pets.

Wolf is nice in EOTM if you can line up fears off of bridges

misterdevious.6482:

The secret to keeping your pets alive through the most massive scorched earth mapblob v mapblob fights is to be an absolutely terrible ranger. Horrible. Bears. Bark Skin. Heal as One (between swaps and a Heal as One, your pet really only has to last 10s before you help it.) Using Guard not for its ability to grant regen and swiftness, but using it to grant perma protection and assign your pet a radius that it will not leave (you can keep it out of the heaviest part of the fight). 1400 Healing Power, Fortifying Bond, and Sigil of Luck all help immensely as well.

Will it ever be worth it to go to such extreme lengths to keep tanky pets alive? Probably not. Fun though when retalbear starts doing better dps than damage pets.

You realize you created a completely useless build for actually killing anyone just to keep the pet alive right?

It actually helps illustrate how bad the situation is that it requires so much just to keep the pet alive, never mind using it in any offensive capacity (which won’t be much with a bear)

It would be a good idea to not be in the middle of a zerg if you see enemies incoming. When your zerg engages hang on the outer rim and pick off people on low health that are fleeing the “danger zone.”
I find that avoiding the aoe cloud and killing people that fan out too far or that are on low health works. It serves to keep your pet alive a lot longer.

Drake for sturdiness, cleave auto and blast finisher, spiders and devourer for the range and snares respectively. Drakehound is almost a given when roaming.

Several different comps, depending on the situation.

Although my special two cents go for active and frentic usage of Attack, return and swap with an ocasional “Guard” (with double ranged devour/spider, it’s like having a mobile turret). Perma passive is just lazy workaround.

I have 30 beastmastery. Usually i dont care about my pet in WvW.
i use heal as one, greatsword/longbow, blue moa and reef drake

The one that sits by your side and buffs you while throwing in the occasional CC when enemies get close.

misterdevious.6482:

The secret to keeping your pets alive through the most massive scorched earth mapblob v mapblob fights is to be an absolutely terrible ranger. Horrible. Bears. Bark Skin. Heal as One (between swaps and a Heal as One, your pet really only has to last 10s before you help it.) Using Guard not for its ability to grant regen and swiftness, but using it to grant perma protection and assign your pet a radius that it will not leave (you can keep it out of the heaviest part of the fight). 1400 Healing Power, Fortifying Bond, and Sigil of Luck all help immensely as well.

Will it ever be worth it to go to such extreme lengths to keep tanky pets alive? Probably not. Fun though when retalbear starts doing better dps than damage pets.

Post a link to your build I’d like to compare.

Buff pets and wolf. I also have a soft spot for pocines but not sure its justified. I do enjoy seeing an aoe charge hit, hambow style

I like pets that grant fields. In a WvW zerg you are guaranteed to get some finishers and the field will never go to waste.