21 replies to this topic

[Aeon_Rex]

So with the shortbow change being as it is, even though it has not completely wrecked the build, it made me go try out other builds because I am now getting more used to how the ranger profession plays and combos I can do etc..

I haven't found many builds I liked yet, but I did find one I really enjoyed, that worked quite well. It happened to be a Pet Focused Build that Worked. Quite shocking, I know.

I'm still playing around with the finer details, but the main points are using jaguar and flying bird (of your preference) combined with QZ, sic em, Rampage as one, and horn buff. One good thing I found is they don't all have to be active to be effective (which would cause periods of downtime where you would be ineffective) because of the naturally high crit rate of these two pets.

By now people are probably like "Pets can't even find their target in PvP, much less hit it." which is what I thought at the beginning too..

However, using the swiftness buffs from various things (warhorn, rampage AO, longbow vuln shot) combined with a slow for even just a few seconds (chill on axe, cripple on sword auto attack, or freezing trap) your pet can keep up with enemies quite well, especially if they are ranged and have to circle strafe, or melee and you are kiting them.

I'm still working to figure out whether sword or axe main hand is better, and whether to use longbow or shortbow on weapon swap. This might come down to personal preference/playstyle however.

The actual downsides of this build are:

• You need QZ if you want your pet to do fast burst.
  
• "Sick 'em" is almost a requirement (still testing this to see how much dmg it actually provides)
  
• If you have QZ and sick em, if you take lightning reflexes you need healing spring for condition removal, if you take the condition removal signet you don't have a reliable stun break.
  
• Troll unguent is the best heal for this build hands down because your pet usually doesn't get bursted like you would, however some people don't like this heal.

One last sidenote, the good thing about pet builds is that they can be adapted, perhaps you want to make this a support build, but still have some actual damage input, just a thought.

Current Build: http://www.guildhead...070M7kIn70V7owX

Edited by Aeon_Rex, 10 October 2012 - 01:59 AM.

[PsycoPsymon]

what shocks me is how sooo many ranger refuse to trait into the profession mechanic. i always see thieves using steal warriors using they F! burt and mesmers using they shatters and such but so few rangers fully get that they pet is suppose to do the same if not more damage than them as that is what they are made for. the longbow is supposed to be used with a high damagig pet even more so if you think about the skills it has. a kb to get them out your face and back to your pet a hunters shot to make you pet run faster even if the arow misses. Barrage to keep them there a little longer while ya pet rips them to shreds. an auto attack meant foryou to fight them from far away as your pet owns them with 1k damage and 2-3k damage on crits (nothing more funny than seeing a warrior or guardian get hit for 3.5 k as a longbow ranger and then seeing them get rupted from a wolfs kd when they try to heal and they suppose to be a bunker). imo this is what our longbow is for and short bow is our mega mobile get around and own in the middle of combat bow. i love how u tried different builds and saw the different mega stuff we have as a ranger. and i will tell you sick em and qz can bring a smile on ur face against a class cannon thief even more so if the pet is set to gain 3 stacks of might on swap and with qz a wolf will kd them fast or a lyx with its leap will hurt them and then watch the damage as u use sick em and qz along with hunters shot and rapid fire.

[Krey]

Iam not playing that Build because i don´t like to be to dependent on my pet but in this pet the pets movements are just off. Here are the two things that do realy bother me.

-The Pet can´t jump from even small cliffs without me jumping first wich often means giving up a good positon in order for the Pet not having to take the stairs.

- I once sent it after the moving golem in the mist and it seemed to me that a lot of damage of the pet can be avoided by just strafing left or right.

[Dahk]

I just wish we had better talents in the Beastmastery tree.

[PsycoPsymon]

only thing i would change in the pet tree would be the pet racial skills.

as far as the pet cliff jumping thing lol just use F! to send the pet down there and after them the pet will get there and while ur up there barrage them so they dont dodge roll away from your pet .

as for the moving golem i was having problems too until i started attacking it hit it with hunters shot and pb shot and saw my pet catch up and own it while i used barrage

basically u need a snare and a pet to be quick imo.

[Lokist]

I think you have a valid argument, and I consider it a viable build in solo PvE content. To an extent, it will work in sPvP but in tournaments I think it would fail. Here's why.

• No matter if your pet is fast or not, it still cannot attack while running. Every time it hits a target, it stands still. This means a large portion of DPS time is wasted running after opponents that will always be on the move. As mentioned, the movement of pets is kind of hard to control, they are easy to kite.
  
• Investing a lot of traits and skills in pet damage makes your hero a lot less survivable. I found that even if I can get my pet on the target, I cannot withstand the damage of a shortbow/longbow focused ranger and I die before they are out of cooldowns to avoid damage from my pet.
  
• Pets have skills that are often good, but you cannot control them. Activateable skills don't work for me half the time I click them, or they activate (literally!) 5 seconds later.
  
• Nearly everyone in tPvP has condition removal skills that negate bleeding damage from pets.
  
• If they notice you are using a squishy pet like the birds, they can kill them very quickly.

It works in some scenarios where people don't know what they are doing and you can sit at the back and let your pet do the work. Otherwise, I don't really think it works very well.

For solo PvE content I think it would work great. For dungeons, most of the above points are not an issue either. The problem I have in dungeons with a pet build is that anything except tanky low-damage pets can get one shotted by bosses, leaving me quite useless.

[DataPhreak]

For the most part, I see pets as an extra skill. It's a whole new set of utilities that you get to choose from. Cave spider's weakening venom, Jungle stalker's mighty roar, Ice drakes frost breath, (Come on, 5 second chill on a 25 second cooldown? Broken!) These are all great skills that anybody would slot for utility. The extra damage and other status effects are just a bonus. What's more, you get two! Seriously, these are some of the strongest skills in the game. (Some really are crap though.) Also, some pets automatically generate combo fields. (At least spiders do.) At any rate, I don't rely on pet damage so much as I do the utility that they provide, And specing into Commanding Voice (V) and Speed Training (I) i don't see as a bad idea. Building around pets I don't believe will be viable until the pet attacking AI is improved. Most of the other points presented by Lokist are not really problems exclusive to pets, they're just part of game mechanics. Pets can still provide a lot of control with immobilizes and stuns. It's not AOE control, but it can be used to peel or lock down a healer.

[Garethh]

Near anything works in pug PvP if you play well.

Good luck!!

[jeddahwe]

Pets in GW2 are not like other MMOs such as WoW, they are not meant to be a DoT!  Intentionally the pet is made the way it is so depending on it in PvP is not an option.

[Ezendor]

jeddahwe, on 11 October 2012 - 07:15 AM, said:

Pets in GW2 are not like other MMOs such as WoW, they are not meant to be a DoT!  Intentionally the pet is made the way it is so depending on it in PvP is not an option.

But yet so much of our damage comes from our pet.  All our weapons are lacklustre, made up in damage by the pet which gets 3 shot..

[Umie]

i thoroughly tested Sick Em and decided to replace it with lightning reflexes to increase survivability. pet damage and utility is great. no argument there. unfortunately, pets fail me much too often due to poor pathfinding and survivability.

[Aeon_Rex]

Lokist, on 10 October 2012 - 02:41 PM, said:

I think you have a valid argument, and I consider it a viable build in solo PvE content. To an extent, it will work in sPvP but in tournaments I think it would fail. Here's why.

• No matter if your pet is fast or not, it still cannot attack while running. Every time it hits a target, it stands still. This means a large portion of DPS time is wasted running after opponents that will always be on the move. As mentioned, the movement of pets is kind of hard to control, they are easy to kite.
  
• Investing a lot of traits and skills in pet damage makes your hero a lot less survivable. I found that even if I can get my pet on the target, I cannot withstand the damage of a shortbow/longbow focused ranger and I die before they are out of cooldowns to avoid damage from my pet.
  
• Pets have skills that are often good, but you cannot control them. Activateable skills don't work for me half the time I click them, or they activate (literally!) 5 seconds later.
  
• Nearly everyone in tPvP has condition removal skills that negate bleeding damage from pets.
  
• If they notice you are using a squishy pet like the birds, they can kill them very quickly.

It works in some scenarios where people don't know what they are doing and you can sit at the back and let your pet do the work. Otherwise, I don't really think it works very well.

For solo PvE content I think it would work great. For dungeons, most of the above points are not an issue either. The problem I have in dungeons with a pet build is that anything except tanky low-damage pets can get one shotted by bosses, leaving me quite useless.

This build actually helped me secure points in tournaments by taking out the defender, even vs organized guilds.

In the build are slows for the enemy and swiftness for your pet, it is hard to kite when you are chained crippled or frozen, even pets. Also, the pet should have swiftness on most of the time from RAO, horn buff, and perhaps longbow (if you use it.)

Also, many people forget that the pet tree is also the tree associated with healing, and with many of the good pet talents being in the wilderness survival (toughness/condition) tree, you are quite hard to take down, as long as you play well.

The way the build is set up, you are still doing decent dmg, so if they start focusing your pet, you can dps them without needing to worry about kiting etc, then switch pets when the pet is almost dead, and repeat, also, you can kite with your pet by bringing it back, then sending it out again if need be.

Also, the pets used in the build don't have much cond dmg, so that isn't a concern anyway.

The pet skills of these 2 pets are really easy to use, you have to click the button a few times I find, but if you are using correct keybindings, that shouldn't be a problem.

[DataPhreak]

I tried finding beastmaster ranger videos on youtube, but no luck. can you at least post some video of this build in action? Doesn't necessarily have to be good video, just illustrate the style.

[jeddahwe]

Pet Move 30% faster trait, it sounds like that would solve most of the pet AI issues?

[Dahk]

jeddahwe, on 15 October 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:

Pet Move 30% faster trait, it sounds like that would solve most of the pet AI issues?

It helps, but not as much as you'd think.  Go to the mists, send your pet after the moving Golem and time how long it takes to kill it on its own a few times, then do the same when you've taken this trait.  Since the biggest reason for pet attacks missing has to do with how they stand in one place and wind up an attack before it hits, their movement often doesn't matter as much as you'd think.

[Garethh]

Dahk, on 15 October 2012 - 12:27 PM, said:

It helps, but not as much as you'd think.  Go to the mists, send your pet after the moving Golem and time how long it takes to kill it on its own a few times, then do the same when you've taken this trait.  Since the biggest reason for pet attacks missing has to do with how they stand in one place and wind up an attack before it hits, their movement often doesn't matter as much as you'd think.

Felines have a 1/2 second 'cast time' on attacks where they have to stand still and whatnot, it makes allot of stuff miss to people running away, unsnared.
The bonus speed is just nice because of all the gap closer/leaps in the game so that they can get to the target a lil quicker, and of course make up the distance that they lose in the 1/2 second for a lil dps gain.

Edited by Garethh, 15 October 2012 - 06:26 PM.

[Dahk]

Garethh, on 15 October 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

Felines have a 1/2 second 'cast time' on attacks where they have to stand still and whatnot, it makes allot of stuff miss to people running away, unsnared.
The bonus speed is just nice because of all the gap closer/leaps in the game so that they can get to the target a lil quicker, and of course make up the distance that they lose in the 1/2 second for a lil dps gain.

In theory, sure, but the difference is so negligible, even on a target that has no snare/root put on them that there's really no reason to take this talent over other options.  I wanted to like this trait, I really did, but the more I tested the ability, the more I realized that there's just no negligible difference with it.

[Ezendor]

Cos pets are also affected by movement speed decreasing while in combat.  So that 30% extra movement speed is more like 15% in practice.

[Garethh]

Ezendor, on 16 October 2012 - 02:31 AM, said:

Cos pets are also affected by movement speed decreasing while in combat.  So that 30% extra movement speed is more like 15% in practice.

Double check my math but...
30% more of a pet's speed no matter what the base speed is, is still 30% more?
So then compared to out of combat, 30% more of a pet's in combat speed is a smaller gain in meters or feet per second, but still the same percent faster, 30%...

Edited by Garethh, 19 October 2012 - 06:44 PM.

[JROH]

Garethh, on 19 October 2012 - 06:40 PM, said:

Double check my math but...
30% more of a pet's speed no matter what the base speed is, is still 30% more?
So then compared to out of combat, 30% more of a pet's in combat speed is a smaller gain in meters or feet per second, but still the same percent faster, 30%...

Good catch, I thought they were getting at something different. That being that 30% against a moving foe, while making the pet able to catch up to whatever it is attacking easier, is still not doing the most optimal job at attacking it.
Let's assume 60 is the base running speed (the actual number and measurements aren't important, I just want to use numbers that are easily converted into time measurements), so 30% faster is about 80. But, if the pet isn't running right next to whatever it is attacking to be able to outspeed it at all times, then you could be as far as 20 (units don't matter in this example) away, meaning that it takes a full second for the pet to reach a moving target. The pet then stops and performs a 1/2 second attack. So, theoretically, another player can continuously kite the pet to a very large degree of effectiveness.

[Garethh]

JROH, on 19 October 2012 - 08:40 PM, said:

The pet then stops and performs a 1/2 second attack. So, theoretically, another player can continuously kite the pet to a very large degree of effectiveness.

Some pets its a 1/4s though, but yeah they tend to be very kitable (against unsared enemies) with or without the buff.
At least a wee bit of experimenting and what that other guy said led me to think that.

[Ravnodaus]

I did some searching, and only found Dogs and Moas with 1/4 sec attack. Which other ones do? I know cat/bird/bear are all 1/2.... I'm away from the game atm or I'd check.