Guild Wars 2

The wildly differing damage for the spider vs the cats seems weird to me – I thought all pets were supposed to do ~50% of Ranger total damage, and spider already has a built-in disadvantage of being a ranged glass cannon.

Levelling is fine once you pick up a reasonable selection of pets (including a brown bear) and a few basic tricks like in-combat pet swaps and pet control. Most of the time me and my bear can take on 4-5 mobs at equal level, which is 32 atm.

WvW rangers seem to be ok with the right build, from what I’ve read. It’s a question of getting enough survivability, and you’ll probably end up carrying different weapon sets for different situations – I level with Short Bow / Axe & Warhorn, where the bow is great for normal kiting and I can go to the Warhorn for group events, while for pvp you might want to major axe & Warhorn and carry a Greatsword as a defensive second.

Dungeons seem to be where the problems start, you need to be good at pet control even at the start, and some encounters will instakill your pet, causing a drop in damage. There are a few posts on the forums about it.