Guild Wars 2

There’s a few that are in Cities, like the Krytan Drakehound, Fern Hound, Pink Moa, and others. You’re kind of out of luck for other ones though, as Chrispy said.

I’m fairly certain the Zaishen order got wiped out when Orr rose, and the waning interest in Balthazar among humans contributes. That said, a menagerie ground done well would be very welcome. This also looks to be a fairly solid way to introduce rare pets that you theoretically shouldn’t be able to tame out in the wild for various reasons. They wouldn’t all be eggs, though – “puppy”, “Cub” and similar would also have to exist.

However, I don’t feel increasing the stats of pets directly this way is in the spirit of the game. It’d be nice to have them be more effective, but I don’t see it as being in the cards.

New pet skins though? I’m all for that.

The only other problem I’m seeing is that while Ranger is popular certainly, this’d be a guild section just dedicated to rangers. What would other classes get out of it?

Really, the big thing that Rangers lacked was a solid AoE and CC weapon, and given the grasping roots that’s what this appears to be.

rpfohr.7048:

A BM would focus on CC to help pets hit.
Can anyone say Bunner thumper hammer?

Or perhaps main hand mace?

if we’re going with CC, I could see a main hand pistol (mimicking the #4 pistol skill at the least) or a main hand mace. This’d potentially leave the off-hand free for things like a warhorn or torch, both of which in the right circumstances can provide considerable buffs.

So, we know for certain that druids are coming, no question, because Colin himself said so and we saw a druid in the trailer there. But due to the discussions happening and picking apart Colin’s words, I believe we’ll be getting multiple specializations for each class (otherwise it wouldn’t be a “customization” or a “choice” like Colin said it’d be. It’d just be an addition.)

Here’s a bit of trivia a lot of people don’t know about Rangers; During development for the Ranger class, it was originally broken down into three distinct classes – The Warden, an nature magic user, The Marksman, a shaprshooter and trapper, and The Beast Master, which should be obvious – and immediately you can see parallels. The class was eventually brought back together into a cohesive whole now known as the ranger, but they may be using that whole deal as inspiration for the specializations. As such, these are my proposed speculations.

Druid is pretty obvious – nature magic in particular, utilizing a staff (probably for CC, based on the roots). Specialization in the utility of spirits and basically being in tune with the natural world in order to protect it and use it.

The Marksman would be something I know quite a few of us want; a ranger with a rifle. The idea is to set up a “nest” of sorts and snipe people, using traps to delay the approach of enemies and potentially stealth to set up proper shots. This would be a weird sort of burst setup all about preparation and using your pet for clean escapes.

And the third would be the Beast Master. the gist of this one is pretty obvious, as it’d primarily be a PvE specialization focused on using your pet as a powerhouse while you sit in the back, contribute some damage, and buff the pet and your party as necessary. Notably, this Spec would allow for oversized pets, such as drake broodmothers or siege devourers, which would just be all kinds of awesome. the only problem with the idea is that I’m having trouble coming up with an additional weapon they could – one thought is the pistol, potentially for off and main hand.

As the individual who long ago wrote the guide to pet types that’s still in use to this day, I think you can probably guess at the spec I’d choose from out of the above. I’d like to know your thoughts on the idea, and what one you’d prefer. Possibly also ideas for the Beast Master’s weapon.

Truly “flying” pets at all would be fantastic. Currently the small birds are technically landlocked – it’s just their animations that make them rise off the ground, but they’re mechanically still walking from place to place, which is part of why I can’t stand them at all. We know that flight is an actual thing in the game, so this seems like a bad shortcut.

So, with the increased number of locations we’ll be able to visit and a general expansion to content, we may have the chance for something we’ve been waiting for since launch – the introduction of more tamable pet types!

Let’s hear your ideas on what you’d like to see as tamable! Try to keep them at least slightly sensible please (so no “I want a charr cub” or the like :P) but feel free to speculate on new types we’d find out in Maguuma.

My personal wishlist is for Rock Dogs, Raptors, and Siege Devourers. Rock Dogs and Raptors are both tamable pets of the ogres, so it’s always somewhat irked me that we couldn’t have any of our own. As for the Siege Devourer… well, I’ve always wanted a bigger pet.

What do you want?

on the idea of specializations modifying existing unique mechanics, I could see a ranger spec that supports beast mastery fairly heavily. For all we know, Druids might do that, but i feel like that’d preferably be its own spec – The choice between Marksmanship, Beast Mastery, and Druidism seems like it’d be fairly compelli- I just realized that’s hunters in WoW.

sandman.9850:

Yuk, just a staff? No other weapon?

We don’t know how many specializations each class is getting. I could see us choosing between a sniper or a druid. Rifle OR staff, as it were.

Even in PvP, I’ve found that the Marsh Drake and River Drake are the most reliable pets I’ve got. the marsh drake does awesome damage with its poison breath, and the tail slap is a burst finisher. Drakes, it you’re a beast master like I am, can also tank legendary opponents for you in dungeons and such. It’s great.

You’re missing my point: How would you make it work? Would you decrease the damage multiplier for the siege damage? Take it out entirely? Adjust the idea, don’t simply complain about it.

Fair enough. Then what would you recommend to make the suggestion more viable? All you offered here so far is criticism of the idea, but not provided any constructive feedback.

Fluffball.8307:

or being vulnerable to the typical tower defense.

Actually, it would, in fact, be easier to take down most ranger pets than normal, simply because the AI is stupid and doesn’t move out of AoEs. Burning oil would suddenly be actually useful to have above gates, and that’d be one of the only serious changes to keep defense, rather than just having everybody spam arrow carts and cannons.

So, an idea for a potential trait occurred to me. It’s that of a Grandmaster Beastmastery trait. The numbers themselves would have to be balanced, but offhand I’m thinking something along the lines your pet growing in size (to about the size of the signet of the wild buff’s size increase; large enough to be big, but not enough to truly cause clutter unless there’s, like four of them), the pet gains an additional 10% of your ranger’s stats, and deals x10 damage to siege objects in WvW, such as doors or ballistae. possibly add cleaving as well, though that may be excessive.

The siege object damage portion of this isn’t huge. where a pet may deal about 100 damage if they’re a DPS pet to a gate, a flame ram or similar will deal something along the lines of 8000 damage. players are the same, and that’s a huge gulf. x10 damage would change that to being closer to 1000 damage; a large increase, but if you want to bust down a gate, you’re still looking at needing a lot of time or a flame ram.

The 10% of stats part of the trait is to allow beast masters to have their pets keep up with their increasing gear level; as I recall, pets were balanced with exotic equipment in mind, rather than ascended, and if the gear level increases any further pets will continue to fall further behind the curve. this is also a boon to individuals who prefer a playstyle along the lines of commanding a huge warbeast; yes, they can contribute quite effectively themselves, but the real scary part of this is the fire breathing lizard the size of a horse who thinks you might be tasty.

The final consideration, the size, is essentially for cosmetic purposes. A lot of players feel their pets are simply too small; the only option for any pets we have that are larger than a human are drakes and bears, and given the effects of a fantasy setting, this feels… unreal. We fight absolutely huge beasts, and we have in-world examples of rangers who’ve tamed massive animals, from the ogres in Ascalon (there’s a quest chain where you help an ogre tame a siege devourer), to Eir’s Dire Wolf Garm, to a Sylvari in Maguuma (He has a drake broodmother! She’s huge!). It always bugged me very deeply that we couldn’t achieve anything to that effect.

What are your thoughts? Are the numbers I presented realistic, or would they need to be adjusted?

WereDragon.6083:

Lore wise I believe it was due to Granth we are able to rez undead without bringing the god of deaths wrath on us, the rule being we have to raise amalgamations and not straight corpses, but my lore may be off. I for one would kill (snickers) for some traditional zombies, skeletons and wraiths, being a big d&d player. I would even dump a 1000 gems on the skins off the gem store.

My lore may need to be checked by someone more knowledageable but since granth is no longer with us zombies and skeles should be doable. Perhaps zombies and skeles come in as different spells, like mesmers illusions sort of a combat summon that crumple to dust after combat.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Grenth allows the use of all undead, not just golems. the trick here is that humanoid shapes are, frankly, not the best for fighting – a lower center of gravity would work wonders for that, as well as natural weapons. Necromancers in Tyria don’t raise basic zombies because they’re not as effective as handcrafted golems, not because they’re not allowed.

By and large, a lot of people don’t realize how effective MMs can be. My necromancer does monstrous damage because of this, and oftentimes in PvP the enemy player ignores my minions long enough to get gangbanged by my swarm of minions because they don’t perceive them as a threat. It’s not that different in Dungeons and other PvE settings.

As a side note, the Flesh Golem charge attack? Beautiful. It’ll even toss most bosses, especially if you can get them against a wall

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

ItIsFinished was more referring to the fact that you basically can’t understand what Krantoss was trying to say without some explanation. You already knew what he was talking about because you noticed the same thing Krantoss did, but for the rest of us, it’s entirely unclear.

Anyways, it should come as no surprise by this point. Ranger pets have been the target of nerfs for quite a while now, but also a few buffs.

That said, I encourage you to test out your pet DPS in the mists. My pets consistently strike for the same damage as they did before, even though their tooltip numbers have changed.

actually made a suggestion to this effect a while back
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Oversized-Pet-Grandmaster-Trait/first#post2704594

It’d be bumping an old thread, but if it interests you, show some support.

The fact of the matter is that we know devourers like this are tamable – the one in the image is tamed by charr, and there’s an event chain where you help an ogre chieftain tame one. So why can’t we get anything bigger than a terrier?

I main a ranger and I endorse this message. Might be better served to put this into the Suggestions subforum though; we have confirmation they at least look at everything there.

Wryog.5073:

Are we done with the pointless GW1 comments now? Good. Time for a constructive discussion.
IMO simply adding the option to have 20 people per team and using PvE gear+WvW balance would be enough for now. Not that hard to do.
Also, please, only deathmatch. No more conquest. I think people already have enough of that in sPvP and WvW. We don’t want more respawn spam rush modes(or at least I don’t but I’m sure that there’s more people that share my opinion). Making it round-based makes more sense.

While I agree, I’d like to point out that round based gameplay will force people into positions where there will be something like two or four people fighting left and everybody has to wait while they finish their duel. Not exactly exciting and fast paced.

Kasama.8941:

Maybe if you actually told us what your problems were, we could help you. I’ve never felt useless in any content as a Ranger, and we do have specific roles.

I have to agree. There’s times when I’ve felt like a different class would be better – such as an elementalist spamming AoEs in a zerg or in a dungeon – but I’ve never felt useless.

(you missed the number 3 in your post, jumped straight from 2 to 4)

Very nice. I was never a fan of the molten weaponry, but the armor and setup is quite nice. That said, Rox’s Quiver and the fused shortbow feel a bit out of place when compared to the rest of your armor.

8.3/10

Here’s mine:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

And change the skill name from “Entre”…

Given the “Exeunt” part of the correlating skill, “Entre” is appropriate.
“Portal Open” and “Portal Appear” sound like bad saturday morning cartoon lines.

Oddly enough, this suggestions is the same reason why Free to play MMOs are doing so well, and the reason Guild Wars 2 is such a blockbuster. The number of people that buy gem-store items is dwarfed by the community that simply doesn’t, but a large level of that would shift over in favor of purchasing if we could have our skins on demand rather than buy once and then have to pay again. I daresay I’d probably buy every form of armor skin on the trading post if the option to have them permanently was enabled, but as it stands I’ve bought all of one suit off there.

In Conclusion
I’m having trouble seeing how this would adversely affect gameplay. By making it part of a Grandmaster trait, only players that are already specializing in the overall ability of their pets have access to this, and even then if they don’t want to deal with the penalty of having a very powerful pet at their own expense, they don’t have to – there’s a reason there’s more than one grandmaster trait in every line. That reason is so that people have a choice, rather than getting shoehorned into a specific setup for going after the bonuses provided by a trait line.

If anybody has (constructive) criticisms, the ability to point out flaws in my reasoning, and similar, I’d love to hear them, and will edit accordingly if I’m proven wrong on points.

WvW
The increased size of a pet on the battlefield would add distraction to a fight, a valuable commodity in the chaos of a zerg vs zerg encounter. At current, it’s largely agreed that the most valuable pets in WvW are the dogs; the sylvan hound for its ability to grant regeneration and the wolf for its fear howl in particular. This belies a certain fact – pets don’t matter enough in WvW to even really be considered a threat. I’ve been running WvW heavily recently to test my theory, and so far it’s been true – most players will simply ignore a pet in thew heat of battle, because it simply doesn’t matter. Even the aforementioned hounds are only considered good for a boon and a stunning condition. For a key feature of a profession that has, in a meta sense, made sure the ranger has less damage than everybody else, it makes the whole thing feel a bit hollow.

Fluff Considerations
A large part of what should be considered in building a character is the way they feel, and the idea behind their abilities. It’s the reason rangers don’t have access to elemental fire magic, or warrior banners – the ranger is a master of the wild or an extremely skilled hunter, not a tactician, and not an elemental wizard. A player can manage the tactician part, but that’s the player, not the character. Because of this, a ranger with this trait falls into one of a few categories that I can think of, though I’m sure there’s more.

• The Beast Master in question has devoted their abilities more to training and breeding than fighting. the pet has benefitted from this, having more potent genetics, better combat training, and possibly a magical infusion or two to make it stronger.
• A druidic ranger, focusing on spirits and the like, has worked with the nature spirits to strengthen their companion at the sacrifice of their own vitality.
• It takes a certain level of focus away from the battle to handle such a large and powerful pet. Without focusing as much on the combat, the ranger isn’t as effective as they might otherwise be

Another consideration is that, in the world, these type of overgrown pet are already available. A sylvari in Caledon Forest for an event in fighting the undead has a pet broodmother drake, as do a team of bandits in the Brisban Wildlands. There’s an event chain in (I believe) the Iron Marches that involves you helping an ogre chieftain tame a siege devourer in order to impress his tribe and win them back from a usurper. Garm, Eir’s pet, is a dire wolf. These aren’t impossible things, and in fact happen quite often, though infrequently, and player characters are nothing if not meant to be exceptional.

Mechanical Considerations
the introduction of this trait would be introducing a risk vs reward gameplay point; by making your player character more frail, you allow your pet to become much stronger. I don’t know what the exact numbers were that was intended – I’ve heard 70/30 split in DPS in favor of the ranger, but also 60/40 – but this would tip the balance in reverse. Correct me if I’m wrong, but at 600 stat difference this trait would incur the following changes:

For The Pet
*+28.2% Damage
*+28.56% Critical Chance
*+6,000 Health
*+28.2% Damage Mitigation

This is not inconsiderable, and it may seem like a lot. It is. But then you have to consider what the ranger in question would be losing.

While For The Ranger
*-18.8% Damage
*-19.04% Critical Chance
*-4,000 Health
*-18.8% Damage Mitigation

I know players that would rage at the mere thought of a 10% reduction in their damaging abilities, nevermind nearly 20%, especially when it negatively impacts their survivability as well. However, it’s a tradeoff – if you can keep your enemy’s focus on your pet, Then the loss of damage mitigation and health is negligible, but you need to keep their focus on the pet or you’re screwed. As I mentioned before, this favors intelligent play.

Another thing to keep in mind is that players, largely, consider there to be only one viable build for high end PvP, and that’s trapping. Beastmasters used to be acceptable before pets took a nerf to their damage, which this would serve to alleviate.

Also of note is the rampant complaint that AI individuals simply don’t move out of AoEs. By increasing the toughness and vitaility of a pet, this largely deals with the issue. Perhaps not as much as some might like, but it’s certainly a start.

It’s been a fairly consistent them from what I’ve seen that ranger players either find the pet useless, or those that actually do like the pets find them to be in various ways sub-par; visually, mechanically, and others. The biggest complaint I’ve seen is that they’re juvenile and undersized compared to what players want them to be. I’ve been considering how this could be addressed and I think I came to a reasonable conclusion about what could be done.

Many players are fine with how their pets are now. these are the trappers, berserkers, and in general the people that don’t rely on their pet as anything more than a damage sponge from time to time. They’d take a change that increases the size and power of their pets negatively, as it adversely affects their chosen form of play. But it wouldn’t be such a problem if they had a choice in the matter, which is why I decided that a trait along these lines would be the most effective choice.

Overgrown Pets as a grandmaster trait would allow those who have specialized in the development of their pet to be rewarded with their choice by making the pet a major player in a combat, rather than a neglected critter that can be ignored simply by strafing. Here’s my suggested trait:

Oversized Pet
Pets increase in size and power at the cost of its master’s strength.

The suggested difference I’m thinking of is that, based on level, Rangers with this trait take a hefty penalty to their stats in exchange for a similar or greater bonus to their pets, along with the visual change that the pet is larger – drakes becoming similar to drake broodmothers, wolves becoming like dire wolves, and devourers becoming like the massive devourers we see constantly around Ascalon. the stat change I’m thinking of currently is, at level 80, a penalty of 350 or 400 to the stats of the ranger in question, while the pet gains a buff at x1.5 that number, putting the number at 525 or 600 for the pet’s buff. The reason for this is fairly self-evident – A player is better than an AI. This is simply how it works in current technology. Thus you have to compensate for the loss of ability in the higher strength part of the equation by making the pet capable of making up for the damage lost, despite enemies moving around and cutting the DPS a pet can hold down to nill if they know what they’re doing, or go after the ranger rather than a pet (a near guarantee in PvP).

I’ll break down how this would affect play as a ranger in the various game modes

PvE
Actually, this remains relatively unaffected for a player using this. Already, most rangers make use of their pet as either ranged supplemental damage or as a distraction/tank, allowing them to turn the enemy into a pincushion with impunity. This isn’t a fact that would change; this would simply favor one pet staying on the field longer rather than swapping constantly to gain the buffs related to swapping, as that pet could hold aggro longer due to having a higher toughness and vitality.

Dungeons
As with the ranger explanation guide for ranger pets i wrote some weeks ago, I feel that dungeons deserve their own mention, rather than being lumped in with PvE. Despite this, much the same applies; a party would be able to rely on a drake being able to effectively distract and tank a boss if necessary. However, this would also have a secondary effect in making the ranger more centered around support and helping his allies; equipping a warhorn to grant fury and might to allies, using healing spring to heal them, and laying traps to prevent enemies from approaching party members unscathed, just as examples. This is something that, at current, rangers tend not to do; a recent build in the rangers forum was shot down because ranger support simply isn’t worth it. This would allow rangers to be supportive of their allies while still contributing to the fight, and in general I find that to be an excellent prospect – the more people work together, the better.

PvP
It’d make things more interesting in this mode, certainly. Ranger players would have to understand how to divert focus from themselves – for example, using the new 3 second stealth that was added to Hunter’s Shot on the longbow. enemy players have to not only hunt down the ranger, but also avoid a pet that’s actually a threat rather than simply a critter following you around that can ignore because your armor is just that high. All around, it makes the ranger a more challenging enemy to face, if they know what they’re doing, but fragile enough that if they are caught it’s the end for them. everybody has to play more intelligently, and that’s nothing but good.

I’m a particular fan of the magitech armor for women. The trick is that just the chestpiece doesn’t have all the technical bits and bobs, and instead just looks like an extremely stylish coat, which is perfect for a noble born human. The Pants… Well, the pants were chosen because awesome. Besides, you never see someone wearing the commando stuff.

I like how concerned about things she looks. Combined with the hairstyle, she looks like the serious sort of person who’s always worrying about where things are going and how they’re going to happen. Very nice! 8.5/10

Here’s my level 80 ranger. I was going for something of a natural scowl, due to the fact that she doesn’t much like people and I think I managed to pull it off.

I have a complete makeover kit sitting in my bank for when new hairstyles hit. I hope it’s soon.

I’ve got the curvy body on my elementalist, the slimmest and least curvy body I could find on my ranger, and the most muscular body on my warrior (which, interestingly, is basically the body I have on my ranger with more muscles), so I can say I’ve seen a good amount of what’s going on.

Quite frankly, I like the idea of a world of large busted women – I mean, have you seen Kiel’s hologram? Wow. What I don’t like is homogeny. It’s not so obvious in this game as it is in others, but it’s still pretty weird.

If nothing else, I am glad they added the old woman face. Now the old women of divinity’s reach don’t look like they’re 16

Another good spec is actually full minions. 20/0/30/20/0 has seen me through tons of stuff.

We’re not as kittenome people make out. Not as good either. depending on how you play, we’re high up, but by no means unbeatable in any respect.

Here’s a funny thing. If you go full minion master – 20/0/30/20/0, for training and flesh of the master, death nova, minion Master, and vampiric master and set all your skills as minions while wielding a staff – Your minions will bull straight through mines without dying. Deadeye is good enough at aiming to hit just you, but he has bigger problems among the undead eating his face, and since you aren’t the main damager, all you have to do is lay down marks, dodge kill shots, and wait him out. if he kills any of your minions, then that minion explodes, leaving him poisoned and doing some damage.

The only fights in the gauntlet i haven’t roflstomped with this build are Salazar (ring of fire murders the minions) and Liadri (Minions don’t dodge AoEs.)

Unfortunately, I have the same problem. Now, it’s not as bad as it might seem – My drake waddles straight through and while he takes damage, it doesn’t kill him, and with Dunwell’s focus on me I’m able to dodge fine. Be sure to bring a pet tough enough to take a few blasts, as well as Signet of stone to give your pet some much needed invulnerability

Mmm. there’s the ascended quivers, as well as Rox’s quiver (which was unfortunately exclusive to while Flame and Frost was still around)

I managed to get Rox’s quiver before it vanished from the sales area, so I don’t have this problem.

Also, keep in mind that basically every weapon in this game is very heavily enchanted. One potential reason for us not ever seeing our characters reload or use up ammo is that perhaps the weaponry is simply generating force effects.

Did they state a reason for that? I don’t mind, but I am curious

This is, unfortunately, true. Against Subdirector NULL, I had to quit the party so others could join in because my pet kept setting off mines and getting i or another player killed, even with the firm control i was placing on it. The simple fact of the matter is that unless a pet learns how to path around this sort of thing, We’re losing our ability to fight appropriately in fights that include such things. yes, we as ranger players can dodge, but our pets simply can’t.

I’m against permanent stowing. I play my ranger as a beastmaster because it’s why I play the profession in the first place, and that’s what you’re signing up for when you choose to play a ranger. Pets are fine in normal content – Citadel of Flame, Crucible of Eternity, Ascalonian Catacombs, and numerous world based events are all doable, possibly even easy if you know what you’re doing. The problem here is that these simply aren’t designed the same way, and that causes serious problems to anybody who can’t think, whether it be player or AI.

Excessive changes to pet mechanics are something I’m against – there’d be too many problems with a widespread change. But giving their AI an awareness of target zones would be a good way to make them more capable in combat without introducing a large change to their mechanics. Unfortunately, I don’t know how hard that’d be to implement, but it’s still something to consider.

On another note, to Holland: Avoid insulting Anet. First off, they designed the game we enjoy in the first place, so give them points for that. Second, They can’t officially reply to everything – doing so is the purview of designers for things like tabletop RPGs and similar. Every time they respond they need to get permission for the response or there’s a good chance they’ll reveal something that they’re not supposed to. And finally, Keep in mind that changes have to be in the works for a bare minimum of two months before they’re seen. Charr armor, for example, we likely won’t be seeing for quite a while; not because the Devs aren’t working on it, but because what’s been requested is an insane overhaul that’ll probably take months to accomplish.

Insulting them just makes you look like an ingrate, and I know you’re better than that.

the main reason for this is because pets tend to not get out of range of things that could murder them. because of this, everybody felt they were extremely squishy. they’ve hit a “Just right” sort of point right now where it feels like they’re average even though they’re tanky for pets.

yeah, i know. Deinonychus and Velociraptors used their feathers to stablize themselves as they were doing jump attacks at prey. Very cool. I just said they were ‘basically’ dinosaurs because they don’t fit the exact body structure.

Although, admittedly, I’m no biology major, so I’m just doing this from observation.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I’m in college, majoring in biology. And I want mustelids.

Two words: Honey Badger.

I personally want my rainbow phoenix from guild wars 1 though. I worked pretty kitten hard for that thing.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I’m in college, majoring in biology. And I want mustelids.

I am no college major in biology, but I also want to have mustelids…
As it looks I am not the only one who wants a “smaller” animal ripping appart larger ones

Wolverines, Badgers, hell even minks and weasels are nasty critters ;-)
pound for pound the nastiest out there

So go A-Net
Give us mustelids… you even could make a nice story about it (Norn Wolverine Spirit nudge nudge )

I personally prefer pets that look like they’d be capable in their given niche. For example, raptors, given they’re basically dinosaurs. Mustelids as well would be amazing, because those things scare near everything on earth.

But, like I said, I’d forgo everything like that for the sake of having Beaky back. I really miss having a rainbow phoenix. Especially with how they got larger as you leveled.

Someone else who knows of biological ties? Good show. I initially chose to play a ranger because I know a lot of trivia about animals; it’s always fun to meet someone else who knows about them.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Rangers also now have a blast finisher on offhand horn in addition to drakes, may want to reword it to something like it is our only blast finishing pet.

Will do, and thanks for pointing that out. I rarely use warhorns because I prefer greatsword as my melee weapon.

Missed this one when it was first posted. It’s much more concise than my pet guide, and that’s something people that don’t want to read wall of texts would appreciate

I’ll add it to the compilation thread now

:D

Edited the Feline and Bird entries to reflect things in the thread. They’re now recognized as a sustained damage pet type and a burst pet type respectively

It’s interesting that a lot of people decry pets as useless in dungeons. I’ve found it to be quite frankly untrue. You need to be able to choose the right pet, and I even wrote a guide on it to help people do that.

The long and short of it is that most people don’t understand how to utilize pets because they’re an AI based NPC. In the hands of a skilled player who thinks about what pets to bring to a battlefield, they can be a game changer. I typically run with drakes because of their cleave ability and the fact that my drakes can tank legendary opponents, and even keep bosses occupied in high level fractals, things that no player rightly wants to stand in front of for fear of taking a dirtnap.

Just choose the right pet and you’re fine, and try not to sweat it. You’re a lot more powerful than you think you are, particularly if you make good use of pet movement.

I find this unlikely. Engineers can only use guns.

I tend to play characters based on myself. Given I’m rather flat and skinny… Well, yeah.

Just to contribute my own thoughts to this thread, I’ve found the addition of stealth to be very useful. See, I mostly do solo PvE, and rarely I do dungeons and fractals. Regularly, I get my party to back off in dungeons so that Kavu, my drake, can tank whatever boss we’re fighting (Seriously; Kavu has been declared the most kitten member of the party on two separate occassions)

The problem in solo play is that I’m consistently doing more damage to the enemy than my pet is, and this can be a very bad thing if it chooses to come after me rather than continue to be distracted by my fire-breathing mutant alligator. The Stealth has already saved me numerous times from that sort of thing – and believe me, simply being at long range sometimes isn’t enough, particularly if you’re fighting a champion with ranged attacks.

I don’t care about a minor loss of DPS. This is most certainly a net gain in terms of survivability, which lets you churn out my DPS because you have longer to survive.

Hey fellow soldiers. I got my Total Makeover kit from my 5k Achievement chest, and I’m wondering whether I should wait to use it. Are any new charr hairstyles coming? If so, do we have visuals on them?

On a slightly related note, My Charr warrior is Faeros Fireblade, and while I have the makeover kit, I’d like to make him female. Do you think the name is too masculine?

I appreciate the responses. I’ll be going into Fractals without (too much) worry.