Guild Wars 2

Whale.

I love Rangers. Definitely my favorite class, even if they might be a wee-bit underpowered. I love the longbow and the pets.

However, something has irked me for ages.

The juvenile siamoth is my favorite pet appearance wise, but the pig family as a whole is laughable. It lacks the vitality and toughness to be a tank, and the damage or precision to be a damage dealer. It has no support abilities, and the specials take too long to ever be used.

And yet, more and more people are using warthogs.

Why is this? I now see more people with boars then bears. I love boars, so if you guys can tell me what i’m missing, that would be great!

Also, minor question, is a spider or a devourer better for a ranged pet.

Thank you.

their lulzy. and the item drops are also really nice. Boar gives you hard CC, warthog gives you very very powerful condition damage.

I often use semi-random pets for low level PvE, things like getting a daily. It’s good to use a pet a lot so you get used to when it will be useful. I bet most rangers don’t fully know what most of the pets do. I cognitively knew hawks had a fast bleeding special attack, but until I took it out for a daily the other day it didn’t really hit me that it has a 1275 damage bleed every six seconds. Was fun to play around with.

Spiders are significantly better than devourers in most people’s opinions.

Porcine are great in groups that know how to use the random items. It is much harder to make work solo.

We should be able to use the porcis F2 like a thief’s steal ability if we want so.

because of the lols I think.

Been playing a ranger since launch and I have never used a pig …

As for spiders vs devourers for a ranged pet, devourers win hands down. I tried both and really wanted to like spiders, but always ended up replacing them with a devourer (carrion and/or lashtail).

Devourers are tough, have a reasonably good evade AI, have both a knockdown and AoE attacks. They are one of the very few pets that can make it though most dungeons.

I’ve never used pigs either since launch.

I think spiders have better potential that devourers though. Spiders benefit a lot from Malicious Training. Jungle and Cave spiders benefit a lot from Intimidation Training. Jungle Spider is good on its own in PvP with its dual immobilize. The only problem I have with spiders is their poison field attack. It misses 99 out of 100 times and it only keeps them from using their other skills (which both immobilize or cripple if traited). If I could disable that skill, spiders would be the best pet in PvP hands down. It would also be the most reliable pet. Now it’s pretty rubbish because it’s unreliable. It’ll randomly stand still for a few seconds to use a worthless skill that adds nothing to the fight.

In PvE without traits, devourers might be better. Lashtail devourer has the multi-hit skill that works well for the Ranger with Rampage as One. Lashtail Devourer is also really good underwater with it’s dual stun.

I haven’t used the porcines even once (other than to laugh at their ridiculous activated skill).
I either use :
wolf/dog (CC) WVW
spiders (CC/ranged dmg) when using bows WVW
moas (they self heal…most reliable pve pets i’ve tested) PVE

Well, the charge of the porcis is very nice, also the effect of the F2, but it’s a pain in the kitten that you have to pick it up to use it.

The pick up this is kinda annoying and hard to handle…In a spvp enviroment where your screen oftenly fills with colors, big explosions and AI creatures its very hard to say “hey my pig dropped something, go pick it up guys”.

Also, more and more people are using rangers in melee range, which makes using the foraged item that much easier.

I actually prefer drakes in all parts of the game.

In PvP: You can basically ignore a drake’s f2 skill in PvP if you’re not underwater, but it’s respectable everywhere else. They’re tough enough to take more than three hits before dying, their basic attacks, while mediocre on damage, are the only pet attacks that can cleave, and the tail spin has a wide enough range that it will usually hit in PvP, and it’s a very strongly damaging attack.

in PvE, Drakes are quite powerful. The cleave ability allows it to basically triple it’s damage if you can bunch monsters up, the f2 skill is surprisingly useful if you can hold a monster stationary for a while, and they can tank even champion level enemies without too much worry – they require a bit of healing support, but by and large, very few things will manage to kill them if you’ve invested anything into Beast Mastery.

In Dungeons, it’s much the same as PvE, though somewhat more lethal. A drake isn’t going to stop being a kitten tank that can deal out more damage than a bear can just because you went into a dungeon. I’ve seen my Salamander Drake tank legendary opponents long enough for my team to take it down, followed by them commenting on how impressive my pet is.

WvW is a bit more odd. You need control effects to take enemies down, and drakes simply don’t provide that. I’d recommend canines there, but you’re not in too much danger if you don’t swap to them

I use mine for LOLs. My ranger is named ‘Charrlock Holmes’ and love it when people do a double take and send me tells over my pig named Lestrade… (But I rarely break it out unless I’m just mucking around)

I don’t use piggies often but they are unique in their way… not always practical way, hehe.

As an aside, I have arachnophobia so it’s a constant sadness to me how useful I hear the spider is. I can manage the devourer so at least I have a ranged option!

bri.2359:

As for spiders vs devourers for a ranged pet, devourers win hands down. I tried both and really wanted to like spiders, but always ended up replacing them with a devourer (carrion and/or lashtail).

Devourers are tough, have a reasonably good evade AI, have both a knockdown and AoE attacks. They are one of the very few pets that can make it though most dungeons.

That used to be true earlier in the year. The attribute ratios for the devourers were 8 toughness 4 vit, while spiders were 4 toughess, 8 vit. That meant:

• both could tank 32 units of direct damage
• heals on devourers were 2x as effective against direct damage
• spiders could tank 2x as much condition damage (8 vs 4)

So spiders were better defensively, unless you were healing your pet, which almost never happens because it’s preferable to swap.

Devourers used to have about 10% better DPS than spiders, 20% with the lashtail’s F2.

The damage difference meant devourers were better offensively, spiders better defensively (assuming mixed direct and condition damage). Most people prioritize offense over defense, making the devourers the better pet.

The pet changes this year have swung things the other way (too far IMHO). The defensive changes actually favored devourers slightly. Devourers are now 8 toughness 6 vit, spiders are now 4 toughness 10 vit.

• devourers can tank 20% more direct damage – 48 units vs 40 units for spiders
• heals on devourers are 2x as effective against direct damage
• Spiders can tank 67% more condition damage – 10 units vs 6 for the devourers

So spiders are still a bit better defensively. But they nerfed devourer attack speed. The spiders now do 25% more DPS than the devourers, 10% more than the lashtail if using F2.

So now we have a situation where spiders are better both offensively and defensively, and there’s no reason to ever use a devourer (well, maybe if you’re doing a PvE encounter with no condition damage, if that even exists).

Devourer attack speed underwater was missed in the nerf, so they continue to be one of the better if not best underwater pets.

I use Spiders. :o

When I am just roaming in random pve zergs or soloing things I honestly just pull out a pet that I like the look of and use them for the fun of it. Of course then I have to deal with the names being overwritten so all my pets are “juvenile blah blah blah”

Porcine family takes teamwork (like raising a real pig).
You basically have a heal, stealth, CC, and poison porcine that each has another really interesting skill (invul, all boons, etc).
It helps when you can forage early and have a player go back and grab the goodies when you need them.

Wrote up thoughts on pets in general in another post.

Solandri.9640:

So now we have a situation where spiders are better both offensively and defensively, and there’s no reason to ever use a devourer (well, maybe if you’re doing a PvE encounter with no condition damage, if that even exists).

Wow, did not realise this .. Thanks!

I stopped using devourers back in Feb/March when I switched to cats. I mostly run sword/xx in PvE now, so not much need for a ranged pet anymore. Will try spiders again if the need arises.

Actually, if you timed it right, a boar in to wolf could be powerful. I’ve never done it, but I can see people using it.

Also it’s worth mentioning the invulnerability is a big deal for the dredge fractal. Rangers have insanely high uptime for invulnerability, so they excel at standing on buttons for that fractal at high levels.

Well.

Thanks for the insight guys!

I’ve decided I’m going to work on a build that centers around pigs, making them tankier and maximizing their knockdowns and bleeds. If anyone has suggestions, let me know.

Porcine pets are REALLY strong if your build has a lot of snares, their charge is an AoE like 3 second knock down that was fairly recently stealth buffed ( I posted when I noticed it, but no one commented so it faded away in a few hours under the constant QQ threads)

Not to mention their items are very strong, pig gives you a lesser healing spring, 6s invuln ( tooltip is wrong), or a ~2k heal, warthog gives you a condi bomb, a poison field and a mini chaos storm (also an ethereal field), boar gives a ranged daze, a Melee ranged long kitten stun and an AoE fear (closer you are longer it lasts), and the siamoth gives you the least RNG with a 2/3 chance to gain an AoE blind + stealth on yourself or every boon in the game (essentially fight or flight pig).

They don’t do the most damage, and aren’t as tanky as bears, but they do a decent amount of damage and have REALLY good survivability.

I fear the day when rangers start paying attention to their pets and start immobing or hard CCing (hint hint, knock back shot) when the pig is getting ready to go man mode with his charge…

I use them to troll my guildies in dungeons. They still wonder where the “tufts of hair” came from on the fractal we did.

Disagree with Solandri. A lashtail devourer can be much better than a spider. . . in some cases.

The F2 of the lashtail does 7 rapid attacks. When using RAO, that is a quick set of might stacks for the ranger. No other pet has an F2 skill that provides so many rapid attacks for might stacking.

Ryan.9387:

I use them to troll my guildies in dungeons. They still wonder where the “tufts of hair” came from on the fractal we did.

lol i told some pugs that the Seed Pods and Eggs spawn in the swamp fractal if you kill all the champions in there xD