Guild Wars 2

Is the beta event mixed in with the live server or something?

I’ve seen a few people running around with the new pets. Are they available now to get if you have pre purchased the expansion?

I am a returning player who is looking to get back into the swing of things so a friendly casual guild to help me along would be great.
I am mainly interested in PVE content like World Bosses, Dungeons, and raids when they come out. I am also interest in WvW, but have very little knowledge of it.
Since I work a lot and my game time is very limited I would like a guild that is focused around people in the PST timezone or at least very active and have events and things going on during the last afternoon PST.

I have not played Guild Wars 2 since around release. At the time end game was lacking and I did not have the PC to handle PVP or the dragon world bosses I remember doing.
With the announcement of raids, I’m interested in playing again and I have the PC to handle it.
What has changed and what have they added?

I’m a female who only plays female characters. My two 80’s are both female sylvari. I love how the sylvari look and all my alts are sylvari too. I tried to make a male, but deleted him for another female. I just like females better, perhaps because I’m female. I don’t really have an explanation. In other MMO’s I had a male character, but they never made it to level cap.

Personally, I don’t understand why humans would have the majority or why players would want to pick a human to play. I suppose you could make it look like yourself and kinda of project yourself into the fantasy world of the game. How I see it though is I’m a human, I deal with humans all day, I don’t want to be a human in a fantasy game and I always avoid humans in MMOs unless there is no other option.

wolfyrik.2017:

Ashelotte.7195:

BroScientist.9875:

They need to look at how other games handle the ranger class. I believe in WOW the hunter class has an option to stow pet in exchange for a slight stat boost.

I don’t think hunters in WoW get a stat boost from not having their pet.

You’re right, but they had better skills and talents to make up for it. The pet could be put away, without it coming out randomly. Between player skill and builds, Hunters could do extrememly well without pets or with pets. What’s more, pets were waaaaay more configurable, with skills that could be made auto or player controlled, at will of the player. They had more behaviour modes and eventually got their own talent trees. I loved finding and using pets in WoW. I chose BM when everyone else chose Marksman.

GW2 Pets, make me wish I could go marksman.

I just try to remember that it’s a rather new game. It doesn’t have years under it’s belt like WoW. It has the potential to grow, evolve, and give us new options or abilities. I don’t really think it will happen right away, but we will get there. Just like how WoW pets eventually got their own talent trees.
Personally, I can’t wait to see how this class changes and grows throughout the time this game is running and hopefully it stays running for a very long time. I have hope and a bit of patience.

BroScientist.9875:

They need to look at how other games handle the ranger class. I believe in WOW the hunter class has an option to stow pet in exchange for a slight stat boost.

I don’t think hunters in WoW get a stat boost from not having their pet.

I’m having a bit of an dilemma picking a superior rune to place in my armor. I’m mainly a PVE ranger who focuses on power/precision/crit damage and I use to SB/LB. As of right now I have around 2,000 power and 1,300 precision. So about a 23% crit chance and 56% crit damage.

Superior Rune of the Pack gives 165 power, +20 swiftness duration, a 5% chance to grant nearby allies might, fury, and swiftness when struck, and 100 precision.
Superior Rune of the Ranger gives 165 precision, +8% crit damage, and +5% damage when you have a partner.

Which Rune do you think would be most beneficial? Both seem like really good options. Which one do you think would be best for me or is there one that’s better?

Substance E.4852:

Ashelotte.7195:

Can someone please explain this to me as I’ve seen it a lot on this thread?
I’ve seen a lot of people saying they don’t want their pet out at all and instead want increased damage, but to me pets are a part of the class that you have to learn to work around. So when people say they don’t want pets at all it kinda seems like they are trying to change the class into something that it’s not. That’s just the impression I’m getting anyway.
Rangers have both melee and ranged options so why not opt for a Warrior or Thief. They both have melee and ranged from what I’ve heard. So why play a class with a mechanic you dislike instead of going to another class that you might like better?
I’m not trying to insult anyone or start an arguement, I’m just curious as to why. I see it being said a lot and I can never understand it. I can understand stowing your pet to skip mobs or something, but it seems like most people just don’t want a pet at all.

Because some of us played a ranger for 7 years in GW1 without ever using the pet for anything more than a minion factory meatshield (before they nerfed that). It worked just fine. The problem is that they made every class viable at long range and our sole unique mechanic is so kitten buggy and hard to use that it actually slows the whole class down rather than help us like the other classes. You never hear warriors complain about issues with adrenaline skills or thieves over initiative because those work and help the class. All the pet does is cause us to share dps/utility with a really stupid npc that just loves to grab mobs like a dust mop and can’t be effective without me mashing F1 and F3 constantly.

I have no problem with the pet from a conceptual point and was even excited when they said it would be a core element of the class rather than a build option because that meant that it might be helpful but it just doesn’t work and they have shown that they either don’t care or are unable to make it work so the only real alternative is to ask for a play mode without the pet entirely.

I didn’t really think of it like that. I’m use to MMOs were playing as this type of class meant having a pet. I’ve only played one class with a ranger that didn’t have a pet, but then again no classes in that MMO had minions of any sort. I’ve never played GW1 either so I had no idea what the class was like then.
I guess I’ve become to use to pets in a majority of MMOs I’ve played other the years that I don’t really think about the possibility of not using one or that since they don’t give us that option of begin with that’s just how it’s suppose to be.
Thank you for answering my question though.

Can someone please explain this to me as I’ve seen it a lot on this thread?
I’ve seen a lot of people saying they don’t want their pet out at all and instead want increased damage, but to me pets are a part of the class that you have to learn to work around. So when people say they don’t want pets at all it kinda seems like they are trying to change the class into something that it’s not. That’s just the impression I’m getting anyway.
Rangers have both melee and ranged options so why not opt for a Warrior or Thief. They both have melee and ranged from what I’ve heard. So why play a class with a mechanic you dislike instead of going to another class that you might like better?
I’m not trying to insult anyone or start an arguement, I’m just curious as to why. I see it being said a lot and I can never understand it. I can understand stowing your pet to skip mobs or something, but it seems like most people just don’t want a pet at all.

I run with wolves at 80. I haven’t found a situation where I really needed to change up. I use Fern Hound mostly. I think his regen is helpful. He rarely dies on me either. I use Alpine Wolf when the Fern Hound dies, but I’ve been thinking of changing him up with a cat.
I just play with what I like and so far it hasn’t gotten in my way at all.

The class forums seem really unwelcoming to me. I get the impression that if I were to ask a question I’d most likely get told to quit ranger than any actual answer. I love my ranger. I completely dropped my Elementalist as my main and she hasn’t been touched since I started my ranger.
She’s only been 80 a week or two she hasn’t done too many dungeons(I don’t want to pug and there has been guild drama), but what I have done my pets haven’t died that much. At least not as much as people made me believe. In Orr, my pets and I don’t die on multiple mobs. I’ve mainly been pleasantly surprised with everything. Plus, I find the class a ton of fun.

I love pets. That’s the main reason I started playing classes like this years ago. Because of this the game play seems familiar and easy to pick up. Managing my pet is easy peasy and feels second nature. I feel like the class fits me as a player.
I say give it a shot. If it doesn’t fit you then drop it. Experiment a little.

As soon as my Ranger hit 80 she replaced my elementalist as my main. Right off the bat I noticed a huge difference. How much harder I hit, how I felt like I could handle more, and my cute Fern Hound.
I love running around Orr, I can take on multiple mobs without me or my pet dying and I enjoy dungeons more. I feel like I do great in PVE and I play exactly how I want to without following any cookie cutter builds.
Plus, I’m rarely see another ranger running around without a bear. If it’s not a bear it’s a spider. I run double wolves so I feel kinda rare. At least on my server.

Unfortunately, everyone on the forum is extremely negative. Almost every class seems to hate their class.This is probably one of the reasons I had trouble picking a class when I first started the game. I ended up leveling an elementalist to 80 first. This was after I leveled at least a couple other classes up to 30 first. However, when I got my Ranger to 80 that’s when I truly started to have fun.

And yes, leveling Ranger is amazing. I leveled her to 80 in only a week and she could handle content levels above her. At 80, I had the same fun. She hits like a kitten truck. I love running dungeons with her, I just started WvW on her and it’s fun, dynamic events and dragons are always my favorite.

And you know what? My pets are great. My pets don’t die. I’ve been fairly convinced my Fern Hound was immortal my entire 1-60 leveling experience until he died fighting Tequaltl. He dies a few times in dungeons but a majority of the time he is alive and I really don’t micro manage him.

Sure they have issues and bugs, all classes do. But if you enjoy the class and try your best to learn and work around things you can be amazing and you can have a ton of fun. Which is what playing a game is all about. It’s about having fun and loving what you do. Don’t let people dissuade you from playing a class. Find out for yourself.

I don’t think I’ll be able to get all professions to 80. I’ll be working on five at most. Engineer, Warrior, and Thief are just so boring to me.
Right now I’ve only got two 80’s, my ranger and elementalist. My next goal is Necromancer, but I’m having so much fun with ranger it’s slowing me down.
I have a ton of free time with online classes though so maybe one day I’ll get around to those I dislike, but I really don’t see myself being able to do it.

Play the class you enjoy and that you love. This is a game and it meant to be fun. You’re not going to have fun if you’re playing a class you dislike just to please others.
As a general rule, I never pug instances on any MMO I’ve ever played. As soon as I become interested in dungeons I find a nice guild.
As for ranger, I love it. I don’t use cookie cutter builds and I made my ranger how I want her to play. I do well too. She hits hard and my pets never cause me any issues. They rarely die in dungeons or cause me any grief.
If you enjoy your Necromancer then keep playing it (I plan on that being my 3rd 80), but if you want to experiment with other classes go ahead you may find something you really love!

I love my ranger. I’m halfway to 80 right now and having a blast. It’s a nice change of pace from my main. It also feels familiar to me as I’ve played many ranger type classes in MMOs through the years.
Since my ranger isn’t level 80 yet she doesn’t have a lot of experience with dungeons or PVP, but I really haven’t run into anything that puts me off. My pets, a Fern Hound and Reef Drake, do rather well. They don’t run off on their own and aggro additional mobs and they don’t die quickly.
I love both the short bow and the long bow, and despite my lack of love for melee I think the great sword is fun too.
As for Spirits, I haven’t tried any yet. I feel like other traits are more beneficial for leveling right now, but I plan on trying them out soon enough.

My elementalist is my only 80 right now, but I’m working on getting a Ranger up there. I’m mainly doing dynamic events on here. Five days in and she’s already upper 30’s so I think it’s doing rather well. My next 80 will probably be a Necromancer, but I may take my time with her.

The chain that starts at the bridge → 3 Centaurs → Overlord? If that’s the one, I’ve done it a couple times today on my alt.

Done. Some of the comparisons were a little strange to me, but I don’t really use any type of text talk so maybe I’m just out of the loop or something. I prefer to just spell everything out.

I’ve been working on a ranger alt the past few days. I’ve gotten her to level 26, I’ve begun to experiment with different pets and pet combinations.
So, I’m curious. Ignoring any issues that pets may have (like AI etc) what is your favorite pet? What makes them your favorite? If you don’t have a favorite, what pets do you use most or in certain situations?
I’m very curious as to what others are doing and why.

As for me, I love the Fern Hound. I find it adorable and the little heal he’s got keeps him alive during dynamic events with bosses or large groups.