Guild Wars 2

Added to the compilation thread!

Added:

• [Guide] All My Knowledge – Pets

Hey guys,

Found this guide on reddit, I asked if I can share here and the author gave his permission.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1jnbzj/all_my_knowledge_ranger_guide_part_3_pets/

I’ll add this to the compilation thread in a bit

thefantasticg.3984:

jubskie.3152:

Guess its not for everyone. How are you using your pets btw? If you’re only looking at them as “this stupid AI that dies every fight” then you’re doing something wrong.

I suggest reading some of the pet guides on the sticky thread to help you see them in another light.

Or, you’re jaded. I want to do the most damage I can. Can you guess what that means? That’s right. I need to melee. Can you guess what that means for my pet if I am now pew-pewing from 1200-1500? That’s right. There’s no F3. So, knowing those two things, can you guess what that means for the pet if I am melee’ing? That’s right. It’s going to die no matter how much micromanagement goes into it. But, you say, you should be using a melee set and a ranged weapon set! Which, of course, I do. Sword+Horn/SB or LB. Here’s the problem Charlie Brown, by the time I swap and hit F3 my pet doesn’t react fast enough to get back to me because it is mid attack animation every-kitten -time. Then use a ranged pet you say? Talk about shi* damage. In PVE and Dungeons, DPS is king. kitten and GTFO if you think otherwise because we are talking about two different games then. And, because I want to do the most damage I can, I’m not specced 30 points deep into BM. Because of that, my pet can’t take a feather across the face in terms of AOE or more than 2-3 hits from a dungeon boss.

I would love the Ranger class so much more if I could stow my pet during combat. I really don’t care that I’d lose the DPS at this point despite what I stated above. It’s been almost a year. If they could fix the pet they would have by now. Anet Devs are too stubborn to admit they farked up and too proud of a shattastic AI that can’t dodge. Especially when the game is built around mitigating damage through dodging. The answer isn’t “dodge when I dodge” but it’s a step in the right direction. I would stop playing my alts if they let me stow while in combat. I might even stop loathing John Sharp and the balance team at that point.

Another thought: I wish they would have named this class “Beastmaster” as that is MUCH MORE FITTING.

Yep, resort to insulting me because you don’t agree with me. Classic.

Also, why bother asking me? You already have all the answers!

Lastly, if I’m Charlie Brown, you must be Lucy Van Pelt.

Prysin.8542:

dunno if it was mentioned, but pigs have different item salvages:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forage_%28boar%29
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forage_%28pig%29
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forage_%28siamoth%29
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forage_%28warthog%29

That being said, the Boar and Warthog is incredibly powerful given their F2 abilities. You often get Skull or Bone. Giving you massive CC power. The pigs also have a good knockdown ability.
Warthog drops heavy condition stuff. The “Scale” has 20 seconds of poison, in addition to weakness. It also allows you to get a “poison field on demand”. Which means you can blast it for AOE weakness.

The pigs are extremely underestimated. They are hard to use, but a great utility once you get used to them.

EDIT: it should be mentioned that ALL spiders has a CC attack by default, and that the Jungle Spider has 2x Immobilize attacks. They are extremely good against thiefs

Pig Guide: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Pet-Mini-Guide-1-Porcine-Pets/

It doesn’t really matter anyway. The longbow and warhorn do that job just fine. Rapid Fire and Hunter’s Call go through stealth and are the 2 best stealth thief killers that rangers have. Thieves just simply do not have the ability to out heal the spike damage from both skills hammering them when they’re trying to regroup in stealth.

It’s effective for tower defenses as well I’ve seen people retreat from my barrage when I did this. They must’ve thought it was an arrow cart XD

One of the few suggestion posts that I agree with. If it was affected by Shout Mastery, it would give people a reason to invest 10 in BM.

240 cd for a temporary reveal? No thanks _

cracks knuckles

Alrighty! Let’s break it down:

Shortbow’s defensive capabilities:

1. Evade on SB#3
2. Cripple on SB#4
3. Stun/Daze on SB#5

Sword’s defensive capabilities:

1. Dodge + backward leap on sword#2
2. Leap + leap finisher on sword#2 chain
3. Dodge on sword#3

Greatsword’s defensive capabilities:

1. Dodge on every third auto attack
2. 1100 range leap on GS#3
3. Block on GS#4
4. Possible cripple chain from GS#4
5. Possible knockdown while GS#4 block is up
6. Stun on GS#5

Longbow’s defensive capabilities:

1. Knockdown on LB#4
2. Cripple on LB#5 which most would argue isn’t a defensive skill at all since it roots you.

Longbows terribly needed a defensive skill and got it with the addition of stealth. Those other weapons already have atleast 3 defensive moves, while the longbow has 2, and the second one is still debatable.

And come on, if you can’t see the advantages of having stealth, you have to use your imagination more. A LOT of options suddenly opened to rangers because of it was added to our arsenal.

Atherakhia.4086:

Do you feel the patch accomplished much? It was the first sign of life from ANet in ages.
Marks is bloated.
Mud, Spike, Frost are too similar.
I was simply stating LR sucks in comparison to most other stun breaks.
Who cares if they lurk and don’t post? Nothing is getting done despite thousands of posts on the same topics for 9 months. If they’re reading the forum, there’s no proof of it.

I think I covered all your points?

I’m not trying to be intentionally obtuse. This class has a lot of problems. I’d argue more than any other class in the game. If you don’t agree, that’s fine… neither of us will convince the other of something they don’t want to believe. There was a time I would have spent hours detailing every minute issue with this class. That day has come and gone. It was attempted. Nothing has come of it.

I don’t find this class has a real functional purpose for existing in this game as it is right now. Traits would be a great way to start, but there’s so very much more wrong with it at this point. If you don’t agree, that’s fine.

Yes, I think the patch accomplished much.

First off, the main issue with the Longbow was that once the enemy has closed in on the ranger with it, he had only PBS to rely on. After it, the ranger was defenseless. Stealth solves that problem.

And then we get player controlled Blast Finisher. This alone made rangers more group friendly. Stacking might with fire fields? AoE healing? Those are possible now and everyone wants to have that.

Offhand Axe now has retaliation, a boon that rangers have no access to before. While it is still suicide when against zergs, it is much more useful now when in small skirmishes like in havoc groups because opponents have to use melee attacks because ranged attacks are refelcted (as jcbroe pointed out in the podcast).

I could go on, but my point was to contest your statement that “If only ANet remembered
they made a Ranger class
perhaps some actual progress
could be made with this
class.” Because they have made progress, but you just don’t want to see it.

Yes, muddy terrain, spike trap and frost trap are are all similar in that they are all snares, but thats where their similiarities end. Muddy terrain is area denial, Spike trap is a snare and offensive skill in that it bleeds, and frost trap is an ice field. They all serve different purposes. And whats wrong with being able to choose which snare you’d bring? Variety is the spice of life.

Anyway, it looks like this class isn’t working for you and I can understand that. But you’re making claims that I don’t agree with based on the success that I and others are having with the class.

Where did you get the 30-45% figure? Did you test and compute it?

Atherakhia.4086:

If only ANet remembered they made a Ranger class perhaps some actual progress could be made with this class.

No trait line really makes sense. Marks is beyond ridiculous. Skirmishing as you mentioned. We have skills like Spirits that aren’t even worth considering unless you trait them. We have 3 trap skills that are effectively the same thing. Comparing lightning reflexes to roll for initiative is quite bad, let alone if you even want to consider withdraw.

I mean there is probably more actually wrong with this class than there is right… and ANet has visited this forum so many times you can count them on a single hand.

There’s so many things that are questionable about this post. :/

First of all, didn’t you read the patch notes? Rangers got buffed a LOT on the july 23 patch.

Second, marks is much better now than what it was before. Yes, it could use some more work, but you’re making it look like the entire line is broken. Care to expound?

I already explained why I think traps is ok in skirmishing in a post above. Spirits, on the other I agree with. It needs to be traited to be useful.

There are 4 trap skills.

Who was comparing LR with roll for initiative? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Withdraw a heal skill?

Wrong and right seems to be a matter of perspective. I found that majority of what the ranger has makes sense, but I will admit that there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Lastly, how do you know that ANet doesn’t visit t this forum? Do you have forum stats on hand? How do you know they don’t just lurk? Sorry, baseless claims like this can’t be taken seriously.

Quite the opposite. Some of the bugs that were listed on the OP of that thread were already fixed, and wasn’t removed so it was confusing people.

This has been the general consensus of this forum for a long time now. While I agree that some traits need a rework or get merged, traps isn’t one of them.

Wilderness Survival is a defensive tree by which I mean the traits are meant to keep you alive, trap traits can be consisered offensive as they allow us to use our traps more effectively by using them as pseudo grenades. I would hate to have to choose between trap potency and empathic bond.

The sticky was removed a month or so ago when the mods did a forum clean up. It wasn’t updated anymore so tgey took it down.

There was another thread started, but it didn’t get enough gas and got buried.

Guess its not for everyone. How are you using your pets btw? If you’re only looking at them as “this stupid AI that dies every fight” then you’re doing something wrong.

I suggest reading some of the pet guides on the sticky thread to help you see them in another light.

Robert Hrouda on perma-stow:

There have been some calls for perma-stowed pets, and while I have said this in other areas I will say it again here. I don’t think we will let you perma-stow pets – the main reason being we want the player to be interacting with the pet, and the pet to be part of the identity of the player. The role of ranger is to to have a pet in our game, and with that comes a bit of extra micromanagement that comes with the package. Right now the micromanage is difficult and more tools are desired, and I honestly feel that once we make micromanaging pets easier, more responsive, and better in general that players won’t mind that they don’t have perma-stow capabilities.

Added:

• Pet Explanations

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

Two things about this trait:

1. it benefits both the pet and the ranger
2. it’s mediocre on it’s own because it doesn’t scale with Healing Power

The reason it became core on RRR or the Re-Port331 build is because it was used in conjunction with SotW, the Regen boon and regen food. If you’re not stacking those, then you’d be better off using the Quickness on swap trait.

Wow that explains quite a lot. I stopped using entangle completely because it was so unreliable. This vid just confirms it.

I hope someone at ANet can confirm if this intended behavior, as entangle is really a good elite, but has some weird quirks about it.

Quick tip for levelling:

Take Axe/Warhorn, and fire trap. It’ll make killing mobs so much faster.

Have you checked the sticky thread? Lots of guides in there already.

Karl McLain.5604:

We’re also working on a better system to display traits, so in the future they won’t be ambiguous like they currently are.

-Karl

I’ll just quote this because I’ve been waiting for this for a while now XD This would make theorycrafting so much better

Funny thing is, the build you’re looking for is in a different post. Try this link. I’d suggest looking at the Phantom Catmaster build or the hybrid beastmaster build.

The reason that power builds are really popular lately, is because BM builds dominated the ranger meta before (both in PvE and PvP). Since the pet damage was nerfed, people are moving to Power builds now, although BM/condition damage is still very much viable for rangers, just not as effective as it was before.

If you left on June, yes that would be the pet DPS nerf. July patch didn’t really do much to pet DPS, but it did do a LOT of changes to the ranger himself.

Power build guides have been popping up lately, like the 10k crit build, the 23k crit build (which is still waiting for the Precise Strikes Fix), the Critically Powerful Build and so on. If you want to read my humongous wall of text on Power Builds, read this guide.

As for weapons, GS power build has been buffed by quite a lot because of the Maul buff about 3 or so patches back. The longbow has been buffed this patch with the addition of stealth to give it some survivability when the opponent closes in on you. Arrow speed was also buffed back in June to help a tiny bit with hitting more consistently at 1000+ range.

Axe offhand saw some really good changes as well with Axe#4 is now an interrupt and got some really big damage buffs (I saw a screenshot of it hitting 12k on CoF1 final boss on the return flight :O It was fully buffed of course), and Axe#5 now has retaliation.

Things are looking good for the ranger if you’re not focused on just 1 thing, and maximizing the many small improvements that makes the ranger as a whole.

OMG! :O

I’ve been using the trait all this time with Runes of Earth so I hadn’t noticed at all!

@Karl
Thanks for confirming!

I listened to the first 15 mins of the show, and I’m sorry, Jin, but I couldn’t hear you at all.

Can we go back to the way it was recorded during the first few episodes? Those had way better sound quality than the recent ones. I found myself struggling to hear you the entire time >_< (I was doing the equivalent of squinting for my ears :P)

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Basically, the fundamental problems I see at the foundation of the pet mechanic are the following:

1. No variety. Even the most staunch advocate of pets in their current state will tell you that you need to take the right pet for the right situation. Basically, this means that anyone who likes, for example, snow leopards is pretty much out of luck in many areas.

Sorry, but this is silly. You’re saying, let’s use a screwdriver to nail things with.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

2. Lack of dodge mechanic. The entire combat system revolves around dodging and blocking as the primary means of damage mitigation, with movement and positioning also extremely important. Pets act like my GW1 dervish in Fort Aspenwood: charge into a pile of enemies and proceed to chain nasty skill combinations together until standing in a pile of corpses, find a new group of enemies, then repeat. Whenever I use melee in GW2, however, I find it necessary to move constantly and dodge regularly in order to reduce the amount of damage I take. At the very least, they need to make a PVE/PVP split in which pets are nearly invincible in PVE, so that the boss skills which humans have to dodge don’t affect rangers far more than any other profession.

Yes, I agree. I already mentioned this in my original reply to you. As for the pvp/pve split, while there looks like a need for it, ANe’t s response to it was they want to keep it as close to each other as possible to not overwork their balance team too much. I kinda see their point, but it’s hard to swallow when we get 2k leash range on pets in WvW

Unholy Pillager.3791:

As for playing GW1, it was pretty much deserted after GW2 came out. Besides, I like the combat mechanics in GW2…I just can’t find a class that fits me well.

That’s understandable, but come on dude, that’s still not a reason to spoil everyone’s fun because you can’t.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I other words, if you like the GW1 ranger but dislike the GW2 pets, they don’t give a kitten about you.

I don’t get all this animosity. I mean I understand that there’s supposed to be some precedent, them being the same class, but GW1 and GW2 are different games. If you can’t accept that, then carry on with your bitterness.

Play GW1 if you like its rangers more?

Is the downloadable version up? Can’t seem to find it

Unholy Pillager.3791:

I know this is GW2. My point was that many people who played GW1 are feeling betrayed by Anet because their favored play style was thoughtfully and deliberately removed from GW2, for no readily apparent reason. Many people like the archer archetype but dislike pets (and many people who like pets in other games dislike them in this one due to their numerous flaws). These people are left with no place to go, because Anet took that option out of the game completely. And, on top of that, the closest thing we get to the GW1 ranger still requires enormous micromanagement to get even close the the effectiveness that other professions have automatically.

I vaguely remember them saying that all playstyles from GW1 would be available in GW2. I call bullkitten.

I raise you an interview in 2010 about rangers:

Having a pet is an integral part of being a ranger in Guild Wars 2. It is possible for a ranger to fight without a pet but fighting with a pet is always more effective. If a player wants to play a ranged character without a pet then they will very likely find one of the other professions more appealing. Every profession in the game has some sort of ranged option, be it magic, a bow, or a firearm.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/07/15/new-information-on-the-guild-wars-2-ranger-massivelys-intervie/

About the possible to fight without a pet statement, its vague if he meant that pets can be stowed or just put on passive as we do now.

Point being, they intended the ranger class to be a pet class while in development.

I kinda wish they still implemented pet growth though.. :-S

I haven’t had this problem yet. Were you kiting outside his territory? Was your pet engaging him?

Regardless of stealth, if you kite him too far from his territory, enemies will regen health and disengage you.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Well it’s been 7 months since this topic was made and most will agree the pets are not only useless but a liability in both dungeons and WvW.

Dungeons: Either being 1 shot by bosses or being pulled out of combat continuously to avoid death, either way, 40% of your dps is lost (name another class with that handicap)

WvW: Self explanatory; pets cannot go into zergs, and the ranged pets continually miss (unless your target is standing still which rarely happens)

Trait into Beastmastery you say? Sure if you want to catastrophically hurt your class in WvW. No matter how good somebody is, or how much they like to solo/roam in WvW, that build’s capabilities is completely inferior to what’s available.

Hmm, yeah that’s outdated. We don’t need points in BM like we did before the April patch that buffed pet survivability anymore. I don’t know about you, but my Drake has been into a zerg, survived long enough to do it’s lightning breath, and survived long enough to be swapped out. Were you perhaps using cats that is the equivalent of a glass cannon pet and expecting it to survive?

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Of course, OP doesn’t take into account the people who want their Guild Wars 1 characters back. In GW1, there was variety with rangers. You could take a pet when it would offer an advantage (or if you just like the mechanics/aesthetics of it), or you could choose not to use it. Rangers who preferred not to use the pet have nowhere to go in GW2. My other favorite profession was the dervish…and those are gone, too. What the hell does Anet they expect me to do here?

Yes, I didn’t take that into account because, this is GW*2*, and this issue is relevant to GW*2*.

Unholy Pillager.3791:

Edit: I’m going to add that micromanaging often doesn’t work properly in my experience. If the big nasty you’re fighting targets you with AoE, recalling the pet doesn’t do anything. You can dodge the hit, whether at a distance or in melee range, but your pet can’t. The basic problem is that the combat system is entirely based around dodging and blocking, and pets cannot do either. The icing on the cake is that, despite the importance of moving while attacking, pets can’t do that, either.

Well, this has always been the issue. The pet survivability buff helped, but we’re still waiting for the pet dodge/pet invulnerability that Robert talked about. Until then, we’re just going to have to grit our teeth and do our best to micro the pet. I’m hoping it’ll come sooner rather than later.

ilr.9675:

A Pet is fine too in solo content. Everyone knows this.

Where it’s not fine, is in group content for the same reasons that a Thief who dies often is also considered terrible while a Warrior or Guardian or Mesmer (or even a Grenade Engie) who does the same thing, gets a free pass.

That is to say:
They have no Group Damage/Boon support or Reflects to fall back on.

It’s not even their personal DPS… so you could stack all the Might on them you can, and it still wouldn’t matter to the rest of the team because they CAN’T SEE the effects of it. All they can see on their screens is the stacks of boons on themselves or the stacks of blind, Vuln, Confuses & Reflects on the Boss. IE: Pets need a bunch more pure Support skills while in Heel/Passive mode. ….this was something I had been saying for a year or two on Guru before the game was even released. It was completely ignored and the whole class suffers now due to that.

I have to agree with you. Players generally don’t understand pet mechanics and mostly underestimate ranger DPS with the pet. (The QQ posts here doesn’t help alleviate that at all). It’s a good thing that Brazil/Eugene is doing those ranger vids that quell those ideas.

Also, we already have great support skills in heel/passive mode. The problem is we can’t manually trigger them. I would love to trigger my moa’s AoE heal or my bird’s AoE swiftness on demand.

Quarktastic.1027:

I honestly read the title as “Pedo ranger.”

I think I need therapy.

You could probably assume the brown bear is pedo bear. :P

On topic, this was suggested before a few months back.

Personally, I chose this class because I knew it was a pet class so it’s gonna hurt my current play style. I like having the choice of having a pet do DPS/heavy CC/light CC/support without me having to change my gear or traits.

But If they do remove it, it’s fine, I’ll adapt like I always do.

Ben Cheney.2753:

Can you explain the pet condition damage ticking? Does it just not show up or is it dealing no damage?

Based on my tests, the pet conditions still do damage, but numbers don’t show on screen. You can test it yourself

JorneMormel.9850:

jubskie.3152:

Sorry, but no it won’t :P

If you’re taking remorseless, you can’t get SotBM, meaning no SotW and SotH to buff up the first attack. At most, you can get +45% boost from traits/runes, which might be good as well, but definitely not as powerful as the 23k maul build.

That is why I called it a “fun option” and sustain rather than the burst from signets. I keep in mind that you will not be able to one shot people with it, but it would be much more interesting to focus on auto-crits with the longbow and greatsword rather than relying on precision. It also makes for fun teamplay with mesmers and thieves. I tried it before and had some fun with it but the bug really breaks the build.

Ohh team synergy! Me likey!

Can’t please everyone. Like all of the patches before, the good rangers will adapt, and the rest will complain. I’m enjoying these changes immensely and it adds so much more value to my play.

I saw a complaint about the long cooldown on the blast finisher, but here’s something that rangers have that a warrior or a guardian doesn’t: a 15 second water field. After the blast finish, rangers have the option of leaping through it (when using a sword main hand) for yet another heal.

Yeah, I think it’s working fine. At the very least, the enemies will still have to re-target you if you get unstealthed immediately. Most people will misfire skills because of this unexpected “mini-stealth”

McWolfy.5924:

show me a pet which one hit frequently mooving targets. show me a usefull pet at zerging or at tower deffense-attack.

I know the guide is old but did you even read it? o_O

Those 2 things are tackled by the guide.

JorneMormel.9850:

Miflett.3472:

Inc fix in 6 months.

I sure hope not. Is there any estimated time for the fix that is not entirely a joke?

Fixing this bug would open up some fun options for the 23k crit maul build (with auto-crits to sustain instead of signets to burst.)

Sorry, but no it won’t :P

If you’re taking remorseless, you can’t get SotBM, meaning no SotW and SotH to buff up the first attack. At most, you can get +45% boost from traits/runes, which might be good as well, but definitely not as powerful as the 23k maul build.

(seewhatididthere? :P)

After playing for nearly a week, I’ve been noticing that my stealth sometimes almost instantly disappears. At first I thought it was a bug, but now that I carefully analyzed it, i found the cause: Barrage.

When you have barrage up, and you use stealth, as soon as one of the arrows hit your target, you will be revealed.

Is it a bug? Probably not. Stealth was always dispelled when the source dealt damage to anything. It’s something to take note of when using Barrage and Hunter’s Shot. I haven’t tested yet, but this would probably also be the case for traps.

Nothing wrong with reminding people of existing issues, but posting like the class is broken to the point of being unplayable is just spreading misinformation.

I see a lot of glass half-empty people in this thread.

Been to WvW, I absolutely love ranger stealth <3

Been backstabbed by a thief. As soon as he starts spamming, I use LB#3, reposition myself then use Rapid Fire. Most of the thieves that did that to me are squishy and went down after a Rapid Fire + some auto attacks

I just love the feeling of giving stealth thieves a taste of their own medicine <3

Best patch ever!

ilr.9675:

Is this a troll thread??

What’s the point of Stealth if spirits follow you wherever you go giving away your location? Even a stealthying Minion Master necro would be more effective (b/c it’s minions follow YOU, not him)

The point of the stealth in thi
s case is to drop the enemy’s target on you. He has to click on you again, or tab-cycle through the spirits to focus you again. Either case making him lose a few seconds of damage on you.

Come on dude, think outside the box

Edit: Also, please don’t bring up AoE as a counterpoint. The enemy still has to click on you to see your hp. And even then, he still has to target you again to use his single target attacks. Not all attacks are AoE after all.

RoyalPredator.9163:

GG, put all on Damage, and die by one random hit.
Looks very viable WWW build…

GJ completely missing the point!

Bababu.3852:

-snip-
Again this is not a skill video. It just shows how much dmg we can deal vs low/high lvld and low/high armoured targets.
-snip-

*Note: This build is not very enjoyable to play especially if you miss your first hit, for whatever reason. It’s just a max dmg build. If you want to play something similar play the 10k build it has better sustained dmg, if u want to play tanky then go play tanky

Bababu.3852:

I dont care about karma at all :P I just don’t know how the system works in reddit but i thought more karma helps to get more viewers.

So everyone feel free to post it on reddit, whenever you want. I won’t do it again.

And done! Posted it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1ixi5d/23k_crits_from_a_ranger_o_o/

Karl McLain.5604:

Precise Strike looks as though it’s requiring you to get out of combat first before you can crit again. We’ll look into this and get a fix in when we can. Thanks for the report!
Also, it’s good to make sure this sort of thing is reported in the game bugs section as well.

-Karl

Woot a quick response! <3

Manekk.6981:

Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony if thieves end up complaining nonstop about ranger being OP because of stealth XD

I would absolutely love to see this. And with the way things are going, it’s not going to be far from reality <3