Guild Wars 2

An honest question here: Why do so many people use Brown Bears?

I could understand the PVT armor, I could understand the “tank” pet, but WHY Brown Bear even in situations without conditions? Where Black Bear would be superior for applying AoE weakness and actually, y’know… Support?

I mean, just… Of ALL the Bears they use, why, why, WHY, WHY, WHY, WHYYYYY does it have to be the Brown Bear?

Not only that, but they INSIST only to use Brown Bear, even when I’m hosting a level 40+ FoTM group. I mean, I usually don’t kick, but I can’t say it doesn’t annoy me when Rangers use the same weapon and pet the entire dungeon, even while we’re fighting Old Tom when we need 1h Sword + Panther DPS.

Is there something people just aesthetically like about Brown Bears? Not just ingame, but in general… Do so many people really just love the aesthetics of the Brown Bear THAT much?

I don’t understand the psychology of it… Any other class, they swap weapons according to the situation, but for some reason, Ranger PUGs I meet don’t pull their weight… Why?

Well there are bad players of every class, but brown bear + bow ranger is so iconic that maybe that’s just the ones you’re noticing more readily. Confirmation bias or something.

This is why.

Don’t ask why when the answer is so obvious: new rangers. Everyone needs an excuse to clear conditions, they are playing around with the traits and utilities which they yet don’t fully understand. Remember that the learning curve from pve to wvw for the ranger is the highest of all professions. I personally think using bear is pretty stupid, since in WvW pets just die like flies in large scale combat, however all pets work well when the ranger uses them the right way. Now if you see a bear bow ranger, just kindly tell them to use signet of renewal instead, or to trait for empathic bond, or just let them die and get to doing the real ranger job. It’s stupid yeah but don’t go crazy over it.

I have a hard time believing someone with 7.5k Achievement Points is “new”.

So… I just be an kitten leader and kick people 1/3 through the run?

LOL.. yea really…! Rangers have awesome condition removal, why would they want more? Silly rangers.

(personally i use eb, but would be tempted otherwise)

My theory is that Brown Bears are so common because ghey’re easy to tame. Many players start with a human base brown bear, others are more uncommon imo since they are in less populated leveling areas… But that’s just pure theory ;p

Cause when you start your ranger you get to pick a bear pet as one of the choices it then works really kittening well to level your first levels with because bloody nothing at that level will kill it so they keep it plus it looks much better than all other bears and the cleansing probably sounds like a good group bonus when you are new, that is my guess but I have to admit I have not met a ranger in a dungeon group with a bear for many months.

Grizzly Adams. ’Nuff said.