Ranger Pet Options and Quickness in PvP

Pets are the Rangers profession mechanic, which it relies quite heavily on for several traits and skills.Sadly Quickness doesn't affect 49/55 of our Pets. Primarily this makes executing key skills like knockdowns and stuns in certain situations very difficult, but honestly it also makes hitting a mobile target near impossible.This is especially detrimental when you have smart(for the most part :tongue:) moving targets like in PvP!This severely limits the options Rangers have for pets in a very competitive game mode.Its even more disappointing when we have multiple skills and traits that specifically give our pets quickness.

Please fix this so we can use more then 6 pets...

I would Suggest to use the quickness for yourself, to run away, get a fast heal out or bursting enemy's

I mean i dislike the fact ranger has only 4/5 viable pets (which jacaranda and smokescale are most likely the best) but buffing the pet and not ranger itself will make the community dislike it even more. The beastmastery traitline should be the only/one of the only ways to buff your pet (marksmanship helps a lot for the pet). Pets do quite literally more than half of the work in most cases and what i believe to be a better solution is not to buff pets but rather allow a lot more of them to be viable without the use of quickness (granted this is not the only reason they arent viable) but to make the class itself a bit stronger so the pet is the support/secondary damage and not the other way around.

@Kachros.4751 said:I mean i dislike the fact ranger has only 4/5 viable pets (which jacaranda and smokescale are most likely the best) but buffing the pet and not ranger itself will make the community dislike it even more. The beastmastery traitline should be the only/one of the only ways to buff your pet (marksmanship helps a lot for the pet). Pets do quite literally more than half of the work in most cases and what i believe to be a better solution is not to buff pets but rather allow a lot more of them to be viable without the use of quickness (granted this is not the only reason they arent viable) but to make the class itself a bit stronger so the pet is the support/secondary damage and not the other way around.

Fact is that Ranger was more than fine in GW1 with optional pets....then they went and made it mandatory for the class in GW2 , they have nobody to blame but themselves and now players are stuck with a mechanic that is barely usable...not really fair is it?

Fact is that Ranger was more than fine in GW1 with optional pets....then they went and made it mandatory for the class in GW2 , they have nobody to blame but themselves and now players are stuck with a mechanic that is barely usable...not really fair is it?

Barely usable? If you want damage on ranger pet does 60%+ of it. Thats why its horrible rn the ranger/druid/soulbeast on its own is genuinely quite weak. We need the actual class to get a buff while the pets recieve a slight nerf or allowed to have more variety than these: (birds/tiger/smokescale/jacaranda). Comparing gw2 right now to gw1 is quite pointless as its an entirely different game with different mechanics. Ranger before was fine there was no issue until they nerfed/buffed the wrong stuff and made it quite weak.

@Kachros.4751 said:

Fact is that Ranger was more than fine in GW1 with optional pets....then they went and made it mandatory for the class in GW2 , they have nobody to blame but themselves and now players are stuck with a mechanic that is barely usable...not really fair is it?

I thought ranger was one of if not the best side node class on average, how is it bad rn?

Barely usable? If you want damage on ranger pet does 60%+ of it. Thats why its horrible rn the ranger/druid/soulbeast on its own is genuinely quite weak. We need the actual class to get a buff while the pets recieve a slight nerf or allowed to have more variety than these: (birds/tiger/smokescale/jacaranda). Comparing gw2 right now to gw1 is quite pointless as its an entirely different game with different mechanics. Ranger before was fine there was no issue until they nerfed/buffed the wrong stuff and made it quite weak.

It's not weak in terms of damage, its weak in terms of resustain. It has its heal and only its heal (core i mean) but even then condi rev is already too strong for core ranger. It wins the 1v1 and has better teamfight and yet renegade is even better than condi rev. Regarding druid, it has really low damage and sustain is all it has so cant do much without decaps.. but yet again renegade gatekeeping it. Last being soulbeast, its only viable (barely) build is sic em but it has low value unless played perfectly and even then other classes does its job better (same with holo). Its position in high tier has been ripped down due to renegade and holo.

It's not weak in terms of damage, its weak in terms of resustain. It has its heal and only its heal (core i mean) but even then condi rev is already too strong for core ranger. It wins the 1v1 and has better teamfight and yet renegade is even better than condi rev. Regarding druid, it has really low damage and sustain is all it has so cant do much without decaps.. but yet again renegade gatekeeping it. Last being soulbeast, its only viable (barely) build is sic em but it has low value unless played perfectly and even then other classes does its job better (same with holo). Its position in high tier has been ripped down due to renegade and holo.

Granted this is a high tier, is medium or lower tier ranger might be a lot better.

@Kachros.4751 said:

It's not weak in terms of damage, its weak in terms of resustain. It has its heal and only its heal (core i mean) but even then condi rev is already too strong for core ranger. It wins the 1v1 and has better teamfight and yet renegade is even better than condi rev. Regarding druid, it has really low damage and sustain is all it has so cant do much without decaps.. but yet again renegade gatekeeping it. Last being soulbeast, its only viable (barely) build is sic em but it has low value unless played perfectly and even then other classes does its job better (same with holo). Its position in high tier has been ripped down due to renegade and holo.

I am not sure about the condi Rev take, but in general I agree, ranger overall gets highly stomped by renegade and holo, no matter what (roaming sidenoding and supporting) core ranger is atm only viable in ranked thx to jaracanda (which everyone hates for good reasons), druid for decapping and soulbeast for one shot memes.

Overall no one likes to play against either of those even if there aren't good.I would suggest to reverse the latest greatsword changes CD on gs4 back to 24 seconds and the 10% dmg reduction on maul. The main problem was at this point birds and not the greatsword.

@Johnny.1634 said:it also makes hitting a mobile target near impossible

Seeing as most rangers play some sort of permanent or semi-permanent immobilization build in pvp,I don't think rangers should get quicker pets.

If anything were to happen in that regard, those six pets should brought in line with the other 49.

Pets already deal quite minimal damage I think you'll be fine... And I don't think having to keep your opponent Immobilized/Crippled 100% of the time should be the only way your professions mechanic can work.

Regardless, like I said this is the Rangers profession mechanic, it relies on its pet to hit with its skills such as:-Crippling Shot-Winter's Bite-Double Arc

And countless traits that increase the rangers abilities based SOLELY on pet attacks:

• Go for the Eyes
• Potent Ally
• Wilting Strike
• Beastly Warden
• Invigorating Bond
• Opening Strike
• Alpha Focus
• Moment of Clarity
• Predator's Onslaught
• Sharpened Edges
• Refined Toxins
• Poison Master

We really need this fixed if Rangers want any flexibility in their choices of pets.

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Johnny.1634 said:it also makes hitting a mobile target near impossible

I believe @Chaith.8256 explained the nature of PvP in a MMO in a very succinct way. We don't need any L2P argumentation , it's really a matter of self-reflection but really@CMC has been quite clear in the podcast....: skilllevel is considered when talking about balance, otherwise things like dragon hunter would be constantly nerfed...that's all I have to say, another would be to look at the PvP meta at the Top and for AT tournaments

@Chaith.8256 said:Conquest is not a 1v1 simulator, so he's correct that there are many ways to analyse and improve upon a lost encounter involving an enemy Necro if you were a core condi Engi. The majority of the time, improving would simply be learning to force match-ups not involving the Necro, and learning to drag the Necro out of position, ie: run away properly, and clobber him with teammates if he runs out of transfers. Even in Vanilla, when Toss Elixir X was added you could Moa condi burst a Necro and prevent transfers, so for a year in 2015 you could do something about it, just a lil easter egg trivia.

What CMC is saying is that a hard Rock Paper Scissors is relationship is sometimes okay. What he's not spelling out is this: Rock paper scissors is OK as long as the person that can be easily crushed can also provide value (crush others, put up big numbers/utility?) and remain viable despite this. A class that gets dumpstered by most things and remains in the dumpster is not doable of course. What he's also not spelling out is that on a team you can have 5 of any potential rock, paper, scissors, so even if every single engagement was rock, paper, scissors, all over the map, the wins and losses are spread out and hedged.

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@"Kachros.4751" said:

Fact is that Ranger was more than fine in GW1 with optional pets....then they went and made it mandatory for the class in GW2 , they have nobody to blame but themselves and now players are stuck with a mechanic that is barely usable...not really fair is it?

It's not bad right now. It's that a couple OP things make it look like it's losing its place. Particularly Renegade's current performance is replacing anything a Ranger once did well. The Renegade can hold a side node better with spirit spam and it is by far a much much stronger team fighter. Then you have Holosmith which has Flashbang, and Flashbang alone pretty much negates almost all of the offensive pressure from Ranger GS side. If you can imagine how a Ranger's GS side works: "Maul > Hilt Bash > Maul, and even add Worldly in there for Soulbeasts after the 2nd Maul" All the damage is coming from those 4 strikes. The problem with Flashbang is that an Engi can get right in the Ranger's face and he dodge rolls to negate first Maul. Then the Flashbang makes a blind proc which the Engi puts on the Ranger when he hits with some forge auto, this will negate Hilt Bash and also negate the recharge of 2nd Maul. Even if the Ranger manages to land the Hilt Bash and refresh Maul, the next strike and the rest of the combo comes to a halt when the Ranger hits and gets CC'd by Flashbang passive proc. And then as soon as you fight through the Flashbang effects, the Engi just dodge rolls and primes them all again, continuing to completely negate Ranger GS side. It leaves the Ranger in a situation where it only has a brief opportunity to hit the Engi with those single strike important attacks, when LB#5 has been cast and is current tossing 10x strikes down on the Engi to eat through blinds & passive CC so the single strikes might hit. Outside of catching the Engi inside of a multi-strike field, it is actually next to impossible for a Ranger to deal with current Holosmith. Even the grenades cleave through walls & around LOS and hit the Ranger when the Ranger can't hit the Engi in range vs. range play. A same kind of hard counter effect happens vs. Renegade, where it negates your projectiles while hiding in the spirit fields, and neither the Ranger or its pet are able to get into those fields and survive to deal damage with melee side.

So essentially what's happening is Holosmith & Renegade are currently very obviously overperforming and they are pushing the good Ranger builds out of the game, the ones that use LB and GS. This is largely why we see so many people running strange things on Ranger right now, such as a lot of weird condi variants trying to spam immob. Most people are being forced to do this to find ways to deal with Holosmiths & Renegades. These condi immob spam builds are actually a terrible choice to use for any 1550+ play or for say ATs. It's just that most people don't possess the skill cap to be able to wield LB/GS builds against what's currently OP atm.

But with that said, Core Ranger side node play is a niche thing right now, to be used when Holos & Renegade aren't present to completely counter you. The only real viable role that Ranger has in this current patching is glass cannon high mobility Soulbeast, which fills the same role as a DP Daredevil, and actually counters Thieves hard so it works out well for the role it performs.

@"Johnny.1634"

There are a lot more pets that are "good or strong" than people realize, they just require too specific & niche of Ranger setups to ever work practically in pvp. So really what we're looking at is that a pet's viability is completely reliant on the Ranger setup that goes with it. Because this game is good at pigeonholing us into only being able to use 1 or maybe 2 setups per patching that actually work for our class, that means that a Ranger has to use particular pets that compliment those setups that they have to use.

Here are just a few examples of some particularly powerful pets that don't see play due to that effect:

• Black Bear has 2x invulns while in soulbeast merge, and 1 of them is even a stun break. Along with utilities like Dolyak Stance & Sig of Stone, and of course the right traits / amulet to go with, you can make a Soulbeast that will not die to power damage, that will decap everything with LB/GS. But again, none of that matters when a good condi Mirage pushes your node or some otherwise condi spec. An example of Black Bear never being used because the Ranger setup to go with him wont be practical to use in a real match. But you can exploit Black Bear in 1v1s vs. power builds ^^
• Hawk has the lowest CD on its F2 skill out of any pet in the game. I've always wondered if this was some kind of bug that never got fixed. But the Hawk's F2 CD is only 4s after the beast mastery 20% reduction trait. Here is its F2 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lacerating_Slash when you pair that with Wilting Strike that has NO CD https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wilting_Strike you are spamming 4s of AoE weakness every 4s with Hawk. When you pair that up with Axe/Axe setups after 20% axe reduction trait, Winter's Bite will be on an 8s CD to spam another AoE weakness for 10s every 8s https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winter%27s_Bite This setup has incredibly powerful damage mitigation vs. power, yet it is never used. Even in pve, this setup can effectively replace a dedicated healer vs. power mobs. The problem in pvp is that pets die so quickly, especially birds. But tbh in 1v1s on side nodes, the Hawk has no problem surviving power damage when the enemy has weakness on it almost 100% of the time. But again, it needs to go with Axe/Axe setups which aren't so popular so this never gets used despite how inordinately powerful AoE weakness spam is.
• Bristleback has somehow lost popularity which doesn't make sense at all. This is still by far one of the most powerful pets for several reasons. This is probably actually the most flexible pet that works well with any setup used on any Ranger build. 1) It can sit off node and avoid damage. 2) Its F2 is like Rapid Fire and it follows targets after they go into stealth, which creates a hard counter situation vs. Thieves & Mesmers. 3) Its damage is ranged in general and the animations are super tiny dull grey little pixels that you can barely see if you can see it at all. The Bristleback just hits due to to this, and ends up dealing a lot of damage over the course of time.
• And so many others to mention, but I'm going to keep the text wall to a minimum.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:

@"Kachros.4751" said:

Fact is that Ranger was more than fine in GW1 with optional pets....then they went and made it mandatory for the class in GW2 , they have nobody to blame but themselves and now players are stuck with a mechanic that is barely usable...not really fair is it?

• Black Bear has 2x invulns while in soulbeast merge, and 1 of them is even a stun break. Along with utilities like Dolyak Stance & Sig of Stone, and of course the right traits / amulet to go with, you can make a Soulbeast that will not die to power damage, that will decap everything with LB/GS. But again, none of that matters when a good condi Mirage pushes your node or some otherwise condi spec. An example of Black Bear never being used because the Ranger setup to go with him wont be practical to use in a real match. But you can exploit Black Bear in 1v1s vs. power builds ^^
• Hawk has the lowest CD on its F2 skill out of any pet in the game. I've always wondered if this was some kind of bug that never got fixed. But the Hawk's F2 CD is only 4s after the beast mastery 20% reduction trait. Here is its F2
  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Lacerating_Slash
  when you pair that with Wilting Strike that has NO CD
  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wilting_Strike
  you are spamming 4s of AoE weakness every 4s with Hawk. When you pair that up with Axe/Axe setups after 20% axe reduction trait, Winter's Bite will be on an 8s CD to spam another AoE weakness for 10s every 8s
  https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Winter%27s_Bite
  This setup has incredibly powerful damage mitigation vs. power, yet it is never used. Even in pve, this setup can effectively replace a dedicated healer vs. power mobs. The problem in pvp is that pets die so quickly, especially birds. But tbh in 1v1s on side nodes, the Hawk has no problem surviving power damage when the enemy has weakness on it almost 100% of the time. But again, it needs to go with Axe/Axe setups which aren't so popular so this never gets used despite how inordinately powerful AoE weakness spam is.
• Bristleback has somehow lost popularity which doesn't make sense at all. This is still by far one of the most powerful pets for several reasons. This is probably actually the most flexible pet that works well with any setup used on any Ranger build. 1) It can sit off node and avoid damage. 2) Its F2 is like Rapid Fire and it follows targets after they go into stealth, which creates a hard counter situation vs. Thieves & Mesmers. 3) Its damage is ranged in general and the animations are super tiny dull grey little pixels that you can barely see if you can see it at all. The Bristleback just hits due to to this, and ends up dealing a lot of damage over the course of time.
• And so many others to mention, but I'm going to keep the text wall to a minimum.

I don’t think holosmith could push ranger out of side node meta, though I do think it’s decent as well as scrapper being decent. The valkyrie ranger build however does have an incredibly similar playstyle to nades Holosmith, with the exception that ranger lacks aoe damage making it more of a duelist. Renegade is also insanely annoying, but you can always find a ranger build to match it. Again I don’t really see them outshining ranger enough to stop it from as I said being 1 of if not the best side noder on average. But you did mention that’s how it is for most ppl, so maybe I guess if you don’t know all the build variety and or how to play all those builds then I guess I can see ranger not being insanely op.

@Kachros.4751 said:I mean i dislike the fact ranger has only 4/5 viable pets

Eh, there are about 10 of them tbh. Just most people seem to have forgotten the viable purposes of some of these pets:

1. Smokescale - Overall the best pet to use for Soulbeast. Obviously Smoke Assault in merge is a powerful chase skill while going offensive while being defensive, and the Smokescale itself grants stealth fields, chases well on his own, and has his own CC.
2. Gazelle - 2nd best pet to use for power Soulbeast. The Smokescale is better for direct combat engagement, but the Gazelle offers a large increase in sheer mobility for rotations. Gazelle is the better pet to use in wvw for that reason actually. Gazelle's F2 Charge is only a 12s CD for a mobility skill after the bird's Swoop had their CDs go up significantly. The Gazelle also offers Worldly Impact with that mobility skill.
3. Jacaranda - It's strong on its own for Core Ranger or Druid. Terrible selection for Soulbeast however. The merge skills are worthless.
4. Bristleback - Worthless merge skills on Soulbeast, but this pet is still better in every aspect than Jacaranda is for Core Ranger & Druid. People have just gotten really lazy with their pet management skills and don't understand how to wield the Bristle and what it can do.
5. Tiger - This pet has the highest self sustained dps out of any pet, like if he's standing and hitting a golem as example. Worthless merge skills for Soulbeast, but this is a solid selection for Core Ranger & Druid. The Tiger F2 lunge & Fury proc is still the easiest way to land marks mod strikes while buffing that fury to trigger remorseless before the strike for both the Tiger and the Ranger.
6. White Owl - The other good selection for Core marks mod play. Terrible selection for Druids & Soulbeast however.
7. Raven - Same exact bird as Owl, but the Raven will create a blind rather than a chill. I prefer the Raven.
8. Electric Wyvern - This is a great selection for non marks mod Core Ranger & Druids. He's got a lot of CC and is very tanky, while dealing strangely high auto attack damage. His strikes actually are dual strikes. Every time he swings, he swings both claws and he hits twice. So his consistent dps is good but he has no burst.
9. Normal Wolf with F2 AoE Fear Howl - Believe it or not, this pet is strong on Core Ranger & Druid who are seeking to aim for raw decap power over dps.
10. Siamoth - It's a plasma factory for when patching allows Boonbeasty builds to be good

bruh, quickness is already hard as hell to balance as is. we certainly do not need to add ai to the list. if a particular skill is too slow, then they should tinker with the skill in question instead of allowing quickness which affects ALL pet skills.

@Johnny.1634 said:Sadly Quickness doesn't affect 49/55 of our Pets.Its even more disappointing when we have multiple skills and traits that specifically give our pets quickness.

Please fix this so we can use more then 6 pets...

Wait, what?! 49 of the pets CAN'T be affected by quickness? Why was I never told this?!

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Kachros.4751" said:I mean i dislike the fact ranger has only 4/5 viable pets

1. Smokescale - Overall the best pet to use for Soulbeast. Obviously Smoke Assault in merge is a powerful chase skill while going offensive while being defensive, and the Smokescale itself grants stealth fields, chases well on his own, and has his own CC.
2. Gazelle - 2nd best pet to use for power Soulbeast. The Smokescale is better for direct combat engagement, but the Gazelle offers a large increase in sheer mobility for rotations. Gazelle is the better pet to use in wvw for that reason actually. Gazelle's F2 Charge is only a 12s CD for a mobility skill after the bird's Swoop had their CDs go up significantly. The Gazelle also offers Worldly Impact with that mobility skill.
3. Jacaranda - It's strong on its own for Core Ranger or Druid. Terrible selection for Soulbeast however. The merge skills are worthless.
4. Bristleback - Worthless merge skills on Soulbeast, but this pet is still better in every aspect than Jacaranda is for Core Ranger & Druid. People have just gotten really lazy with their pet management skills and don't understand how to wield the Bristle and what it can do.
5. Tiger - This pet has the highest self sustained dps out of any pet, like if he's standing and hitting a golem as example. Worthless merge skills for Soulbeast, but this is a solid selection for Core Ranger & Druid. The Tiger F2 lunge & Fury proc is still the easiest way to land marks mod strikes while buffing that fury to trigger remorseless before the strike for both the Tiger and the Ranger.
6. White Owl - The other good selection for Core marks mod play. Terrible selection for Druids & Soulbeast however.
7. Raven - Same exact bird as Owl, but the Raven will create a blind rather than a chill. I prefer the Raven.
8. Electric Wyvern - This is a great selection for non marks mod Core Ranger & Druids. He's got a lot of CC and is very tanky, while dealing strangely high auto attack damage. His strikes actually are dual strikes. Every time he swings, he swings both claws and he hits twice. So his consistent dps is good but he has no burst.
9. Normal Wolf with F2 AoE Fear Howl - Believe it or not, this pet is strong on Core Ranger & Druid who are seeking to aim for raw decap power over dps.
10. Siamoth - It's a plasma factory for when patching allows Boonbeasty builds to be good

Very wrong.As stated, majority of pets are far outclassed by a select few simply because they gain no benefit from Quickness. Which is the reason of this thread, despite so many people derailing it into a mess...

1.Smokescale, 2.Gazelle, 3.Jacaranda, 4.Bristleback and 8.Wyverns are all fine. They're very strong and used often because they all do gain the effects of Quickness.

5. Felines are the highest DPS you will achieve with a stationary foe, however Lynx far out DPS any other pet. That being said once again without the effects of Quickness they fail to hit moving targets with bugged attack animations and put them lower then the first 4 pets unless your fighting a Golem Dummy.

6+7 Birds are generally the one of the worst pets you can pick, considering they waste so much so much time casting Quickening Screech, they die so quickly and have the second worst attack animation of any pet combined with gaining no effects from Quickness.

9. Wolves my favorite pets, but sadly like +70% of all pets they suffer from gaining no effects from Quickness, and this hits Wolves/Canines with their Crippling Leap and Brutal Charge hard. You wont be landing those against anyone who isn't already cc'ed, they waste them asap and they aren't exactly low CD. And sadly we have to mention that they have been cursed with a pretty bad attack animation, though still much better than Birds and Drakes thankfully.

10. Siamoth...A SLIGHT chance to gain a semi useful item every 30 seconds. No...just No.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:bruh, quickness is already hard as hell to balance as is. we certainly do not need to add ai to the list. if a particular skill is too slow, then they should tinker with the skill in question instead of allowing quickness which affects ALL pet skills.

How-so?If Quickness is hard to balance then you would think you'd like the boon as a whole removed from the game.It would CONTINUE to make it UNBALANCED that some Pets get a benefit from it while other pets don't, and bare in mind a Rangers damage is lower then other professions on account of sharing its damage with pets.It simply makes no sense to have quickness on some pets and not on others.

@Johnny.1634 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Kachros.4751" said:I mean i dislike the fact ranger has only 4/5 viable pets

1. Smokescale - Overall the best pet to use for Soulbeast. Obviously Smoke Assault in merge is a powerful chase skill while going offensive while being defensive, and the Smokescale itself grants stealth fields, chases well on his own, and has his own CC.
2. Gazelle - 2nd best pet to use for power Soulbeast. The Smokescale is better for direct combat engagement, but the Gazelle offers a large increase in sheer mobility for rotations. Gazelle is the better pet to use in wvw for that reason actually. Gazelle's F2 Charge is only a 12s CD for a mobility skill after the bird's Swoop had their CDs go up significantly. The Gazelle also offers Worldly Impact with that mobility skill.
3. Jacaranda - It's strong on its own for Core Ranger or Druid. Terrible selection for Soulbeast however. The merge skills are worthless.
4. Bristleback - Worthless merge skills on Soulbeast, but this pet is still better in every aspect than Jacaranda is for Core Ranger & Druid. People have just gotten really lazy with their pet management skills and don't understand how to wield the Bristle and what it can do.
5. Tiger - This pet has the highest self sustained dps out of any pet, like if he's standing and hitting a golem as example. Worthless merge skills for Soulbeast, but this is a solid selection for Core Ranger & Druid. The Tiger F2 lunge & Fury proc is still the easiest way to land marks mod strikes while buffing that fury to trigger remorseless before the strike for both the Tiger and the Ranger.
6. White Owl - The other good selection for Core marks mod play. Terrible selection for Druids & Soulbeast however.
7. Raven - Same exact bird as Owl, but the Raven will create a blind rather than a chill. I prefer the Raven.
8. Electric Wyvern - This is a great selection for non marks mod Core Ranger & Druids. He's got a lot of CC and is very tanky, while dealing strangely high auto attack damage. His strikes actually are dual strikes. Every time he swings, he swings both claws and he hits twice. So his consistent dps is good but he has no burst.
9. Normal Wolf with F2 AoE Fear Howl - Believe it or not, this pet is strong on Core Ranger & Druid who are seeking to aim for raw decap power over dps.
10. Siamoth - It's a plasma factory for when patching allows Boonbeasty builds to be good

5. Felines are the highest DPS you will achieve with a stationary foe, however Lynx far out DPS any other pet. That being said once again without the effects of Quickness they fail to hit moving targets with bugged attack animations and put them lower then the first 4 pets unless your fighting a Golem Dummy.

9. Wolves my favorite pets, but sadly like +70% of all pets they suffer from gaining no effects from Quickness, and this hits Wolves/Canines with their Crippling Leap and Brutal Charge hard. You wont be landing those against anyone who isn't already cc'ed, they waste them asap and they aren't exactly low CD. And sadly we have to mention that they have been cursed with a pretty bad attack animation, though still much better than Birds and Drakes thankfully.

10. Siamoth...A SLIGHT chance to gain a semi useful item every 30 seconds. No...just No.

And from what level of play are you basing these standpoints? It kind of sounds like these statements are primarily being made from some theoretical point of view that is imagining that quickness buff is a mandatory function for a pet.

I mean you've said some things here that are just completely inaccurate:

1. Your point about felines - Lynx does not out DPS Tiger in pvp. I shouldn't have to explain to you why. Also, the felines, particularly Tiger, never have a problem hitting targets in pvp. If they did, people wouldn't have been using Tiger for marks mod builds that rely completely around landing a single clutch strike on demand to win a combat.
2. You said: "Birds are generally one of the worst pets you can pick". This statement made me question if you have been active in this game's pvp at all within the last 2 years.
3. You said: "No... just no" to Siamoth. I kind of lol'd here. I wasn't sure if you quite understood the kind of defensive play that Siamoth is capable of, even on the forage fails where it gives you stealth items.

Anyway, no one is arguing with you that the quickness bug on pets should be fixed. But claiming that only 4 pets are viable is just untrue.

Ok let's forget for a moment about "balance", the fact is those traits and skills explicitly say: "you and your pet gain quickness for X seconds" but the skill is not doing what is saying it will do.

Rangers have such a short boon durations in most traits and skills because they are supposed to share it with the pet. Which hasn't been the case from the very beginning.

Once that is fixed then we can talk about if it's actually balanced to have this or not. But right now we can't know because it never worked.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Johnny.1634 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Kachros.4751" said:I mean i dislike the fact ranger has only 4/5 viable pets

1. Smokescale - Overall the best pet to use for Soulbeast. Obviously Smoke Assault in merge is a powerful chase skill while going offensive while being defensive, and the Smokescale itself grants stealth fields, chases well on his own, and has his own CC.
2. Gazelle - 2nd best pet to use for power Soulbeast. The Smokescale is better for direct combat engagement, but the Gazelle offers a large increase in sheer mobility for rotations. Gazelle is the better pet to use in wvw for that reason actually. Gazelle's F2 Charge is only a 12s CD for a mobility skill after the bird's Swoop had their CDs go up significantly. The Gazelle also offers Worldly Impact with that mobility skill.
3. Jacaranda - It's strong on its own for Core Ranger or Druid. Terrible selection for Soulbeast however. The merge skills are worthless.
4. Bristleback - Worthless merge skills on Soulbeast, but this pet is still better in every aspect than Jacaranda is for Core Ranger & Druid. People have just gotten really lazy with their pet management skills and don't understand how to wield the Bristle and what it can do.
5. Tiger - This pet has the highest self sustained dps out of any pet, like if he's standing and hitting a golem as example. Worthless merge skills for Soulbeast, but this is a solid selection for Core Ranger & Druid. The Tiger F2 lunge & Fury proc is still the easiest way to land marks mod strikes while buffing that fury to trigger remorseless before the strike for both the Tiger and the Ranger.
6. White Owl - The other good selection for Core marks mod play. Terrible selection for Druids & Soulbeast however.
7. Raven - Same exact bird as Owl, but the Raven will create a blind rather than a chill. I prefer the Raven.
8. Electric Wyvern - This is a great selection for non marks mod Core Ranger & Druids. He's got a lot of CC and is very tanky, while dealing strangely high auto attack damage. His strikes actually are dual strikes. Every time he swings, he swings both claws and he hits twice. So his consistent dps is good but he has no burst.
9. Normal Wolf with F2 AoE Fear Howl - Believe it or not, this pet is strong on Core Ranger & Druid who are seeking to aim for raw decap power over dps.
10. Siamoth - It's a plasma factory for when patching allows Boonbeasty builds to be good

5. Felines are the highest DPS you will achieve with a stationary foe, however Lynx far out DPS any other pet. That being said once again without the effects of Quickness they fail to hit moving targets with bugged attack animations and put them lower then the first 4 pets unless your fighting a Golem Dummy.

9. Wolves my favorite pets, but sadly like +70% of all pets they suffer from gaining no effects from Quickness, and this hits Wolves/Canines with their Crippling Leap and Brutal Charge hard. You wont be landing those against anyone who isn't already cc'ed, they waste them asap and they aren't exactly low CD. And sadly we have to mention that they have been cursed with a pretty bad attack animation, though still much better than Birds and Drakes thankfully.

10. Siamoth...A SLIGHT chance to gain a semi useful item every 30 seconds. No...just No.

1. Your point about felines - Lynx does not out DPS Tiger in pvp. I shouldn't have to explain to you why. Also, the felines, particularly Tiger, never have a problem hitting targets in pvp. If they did, people wouldn't have been using Tiger for marks mod builds that rely completely around landing a single clutch strike on demand to win a combat.
2. You said: "Birds are generally one of the worst pets you can pick". This statement made me question if you have been active in this game's pvp at all within the last 2 years.
3. You said: "No... just no" to Siamoth. I kind of lol'd here. I wasn't sure if you quite understood the kind of defensive play that Siamoth is capable of, even on the forage fails where it gives you stealth items.

Quickness isn't mandatory, it would be IF it worked.

49/55 pets have trouble hitting their targets. This is because all affected pet families are coded with GW1 attack animations that were bugged (They fixed it in GW1..and not GW2...yay...). This bug allows attacks made by affected pets to easily disjoint on moving targets.Weither you choose to believe it or not, its a fact. You can easily test it out on the moving golem in PvP lobby with a Drake.

This bugged attack animation also makes Quickness not increase the attack animation of these pets, meaning there is no way for a player to work around it making a Rangers profession mechanic broken if using +70% of pets.

1. Lynx beats Tiger easily, if you cant see that I really can't help you, its simple numbers. And yes as stated above they do fail to hit their target, and always have.
2. We're talking about using pets for their primary attacks and skills. While a few, especially Hawk bring some versatility with related beast skill traits they still are a terrible choice. Unless your talking about using Soulbeast, in which this thread has nothing to do with.
3. Once again, Soulbeast Siamoth great. But that's not what we're talking about. Having a useless pet that can give you a semi-decent item every once in awhile.....no

@Johnny.2681 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Johnny.1634 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Kachros.4751" said:I mean i dislike the fact ranger has only 4/5 viable pets

1. Smokescale - Overall the best pet to use for Soulbeast. Obviously Smoke Assault in merge is a powerful chase skill while going offensive while being defensive, and the Smokescale itself grants stealth fields, chases well on his own, and has his own CC.
2. Gazelle - 2nd best pet to use for power Soulbeast. The Smokescale is better for direct combat engagement, but the Gazelle offers a large increase in sheer mobility for rotations. Gazelle is the better pet to use in wvw for that reason actually. Gazelle's F2 Charge is only a 12s CD for a mobility skill after the bird's Swoop had their CDs go up significantly. The Gazelle also offers Worldly Impact with that mobility skill.
3. Jacaranda - It's strong on its own for Core Ranger or Druid. Terrible selection for Soulbeast however. The merge skills are worthless.
4. Bristleback - Worthless merge skills on Soulbeast, but this pet is still better in every aspect than Jacaranda is for Core Ranger & Druid. People have just gotten really lazy with their pet management skills and don't understand how to wield the Bristle and what it can do.
5. Tiger - This pet has the highest self sustained dps out of any pet, like if he's standing and hitting a golem as example. Worthless merge skills for Soulbeast, but this is a solid selection for Core Ranger & Druid. The Tiger F2 lunge & Fury proc is still the easiest way to land marks mod strikes while buffing that fury to trigger remorseless before the strike for both the Tiger and the Ranger.
6. White Owl - The other good selection for Core marks mod play. Terrible selection for Druids & Soulbeast however.
7. Raven - Same exact bird as Owl, but the Raven will create a blind rather than a chill. I prefer the Raven.
8. Electric Wyvern - This is a great selection for non marks mod Core Ranger & Druids. He's got a lot of CC and is very tanky, while dealing strangely high auto attack damage. His strikes actually are dual strikes. Every time he swings, he swings both claws and he hits twice. So his consistent dps is good but he has no burst.
9. Normal Wolf with F2 AoE Fear Howl - Believe it or not, this pet is strong on Core Ranger & Druid who are seeking to aim for raw decap power over dps.
10. Siamoth - It's a plasma factory for when patching allows Boonbeasty builds to be good

5. Felines are the highest DPS you will achieve with a stationary foe, however Lynx far out DPS any other pet. That being said once again without the effects of Quickness they fail to hit moving targets with bugged attack animations and put them lower then the first 4 pets unless your fighting a Golem Dummy.

9. Wolves my favorite pets, but sadly like +70% of all pets they suffer from gaining no effects from Quickness, and this hits Wolves/Canines with their Crippling Leap and Brutal Charge hard. You wont be landing those against anyone who isn't already cc'ed, they waste them asap and they aren't exactly low CD. And sadly we have to mention that they have been cursed with a pretty bad attack animation, though still much better than Birds and Drakes thankfully.

10. Siamoth...A SLIGHT chance to gain a semi useful item every 30 seconds. No...just No.

1. Your point about felines - Lynx does not out DPS Tiger in pvp. I shouldn't have to explain to you why. Also, the felines, particularly Tiger, never have a problem hitting targets in pvp. If they did, people wouldn't have been using Tiger for marks mod builds that rely completely around landing a single clutch strike on demand to win a combat.
2. You said: "Birds are generally one of the worst pets you can pick". This statement made me question if you have been active in this game's pvp at all within the last 2 years.
3. You said: "No... just no" to Siamoth. I kind of lol'd here. I wasn't sure if you quite understood the kind of defensive play that Siamoth is capable of, even on the forage fails where it gives you stealth items.

1. Lynx beats Tiger easily, if you cant see that I really can't help you, its simple numbers. And yes as stated above they do fail to hit their target, and always have.
2. We're talking about using pets for their primary attacks and skills. While a few, especially Hawk bring some versatility with related beast skill traits they still are a terrible choice. Unless your talking about using Soulbeast, in which this thread has nothing to do with.
3. Once again, Soulbeast Siamoth great. But that's not what we're talking about. Having a useless pet that can give you a semi-decent item every once in awhile.....no

Tiger and Lynx have the exact same stats and attacks:

1. Tiger https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Tiger
2. Lynx https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Lynx

The only difference is the F2 skills. Both of the F2 skills do the same exact thing, same power/condi damage coefficients, but the Tiger's additional effect is a 10s AoE Fury buff, and his F2 skill is only on a 10s CD, where the Lynx additional effect is a relatively low damage 4 stack of bleed and his F2 is on a 30s CD. The fury buff from the Tiger raises his own critical hit rate for the power side of his attacks, which ends up by far outweighing the small bleed damage on the Lynx 30s CD F2. The Tiger's Fury buff is 10s and ends up with a CD of only 8s after beast mastery trait. The Tiger permanently has +20% critical hit rate due to this. As icing on the cake, this also permanently grants the Ranger fury as well, and allows access to remorseless on demand without the ranger needing to use any utility skills to do it. Also keep in mind that player's clear condis.

The Tiger deals a lot more damage than the Lynx, not only on his own as an individual entity, but also as a synergy for the ranger's attacks.

This is what I meant when I said I shouldn't have to explain this to you, given you have played the game enough to recognize this.

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Johnny.2681 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Johnny.1634 said:

@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@"Kachros.4751" said:I mean i dislike the fact ranger has only 4/5 viable pets

1. Smokescale - Overall the best pet to use for Soulbeast. Obviously Smoke Assault in merge is a powerful chase skill while going offensive while being defensive, and the Smokescale itself grants stealth fields, chases well on his own, and has his own CC.
2. Gazelle - 2nd best pet to use for power Soulbeast. The Smokescale is better for direct combat engagement, but the Gazelle offers a large increase in sheer mobility for rotations. Gazelle is the better pet to use in wvw for that reason actually. Gazelle's F2 Charge is only a 12s CD for a mobility skill after the bird's Swoop had their CDs go up significantly. The Gazelle also offers Worldly Impact with that mobility skill.
3. Jacaranda - It's strong on its own for Core Ranger or Druid. Terrible selection for Soulbeast however. The merge skills are worthless.
4. Bristleback - Worthless merge skills on Soulbeast, but this pet is still better in every aspect than Jacaranda is for Core Ranger & Druid. People have just gotten really lazy with their pet management skills and don't understand how to wield the Bristle and what it can do.
5. Tiger - This pet has the highest self sustained dps out of any pet, like if he's standing and hitting a golem as example. Worthless merge skills for Soulbeast, but this is a solid selection for Core Ranger & Druid. The Tiger F2 lunge & Fury proc is still the easiest way to land marks mod strikes while buffing that fury to trigger remorseless before the strike for both the Tiger and the Ranger.
6. White Owl - The other good selection for Core marks mod play. Terrible selection for Druids & Soulbeast however.
7. Raven - Same exact bird as Owl, but the Raven will create a blind rather than a chill. I prefer the Raven.
8. Electric Wyvern - This is a great selection for non marks mod Core Ranger & Druids. He's got a lot of CC and is very tanky, while dealing strangely high auto attack damage. His strikes actually are dual strikes. Every time he swings, he swings both claws and he hits twice. So his consistent dps is good but he has no burst.
9. Normal Wolf with F2 AoE Fear Howl - Believe it or not, this pet is strong on Core Ranger & Druid who are seeking to aim for raw decap power over dps.
10. Siamoth - It's a plasma factory for when patching allows Boonbeasty builds to be good

5. Felines are the highest DPS you will achieve with a stationary foe, however Lynx far out DPS any other pet. That being said once again without the effects of Quickness they fail to hit moving targets with bugged attack animations and put them lower then the first 4 pets unless your fighting a Golem Dummy.

9. Wolves my favorite pets, but sadly like +70% of all pets they suffer from gaining no effects from Quickness, and this hits Wolves/Canines with their Crippling Leap and Brutal Charge hard. You wont be landing those against anyone who isn't already cc'ed, they waste them asap and they aren't exactly low CD. And sadly we have to mention that they have been cursed with a pretty bad attack animation, though still much better than Birds and Drakes thankfully.

10. Siamoth...A SLIGHT chance to gain a semi useful item every 30 seconds. No...just No.

1. Your point about felines - Lynx does not out DPS Tiger in pvp. I shouldn't have to explain to you why. Also, the felines, particularly Tiger, never have a problem hitting targets in pvp. If they did, people wouldn't have been using Tiger for marks mod builds that rely completely around landing a single clutch strike on demand to win a combat.
2. You said: "Birds are generally one of the worst pets you can pick". This statement made me question if you have been active in this game's pvp at all within the last 2 years.
3. You said: "No... just no" to Siamoth. I kind of lol'd here. I wasn't sure if you quite understood the kind of defensive play that Siamoth is capable of, even on the forage fails where it gives you stealth items.

1. Lynx beats Tiger easily, if you cant see that I really can't help you, its simple numbers. And yes as stated above they do fail to hit their target, and always have.
2. We're talking about using pets for their primary attacks and skills. While a few, especially Hawk bring some versatility with related beast skill traits they still are a terrible choice. Unless your talking about using Soulbeast, in which this thread has nothing to do with.
3. Once again, Soulbeast Siamoth great. But that's not what we're talking about. Having a useless pet that can give you a semi-decent item every once in awhile.....no

1. Tiger
   https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Tiger
2. Lynx
   https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Juvenile_Lynx

Why do things need to be spelt out to people like babies on here...

The Numbers

Unspecced:

TigerFurious Pounce - Damage: 1,689 - 10 Second CDFury (10s)

LynxRending Pounce - Damage (2x): 1,688 - 30 Second CD4 x Bleeding (10s): 3280 Damage

• Leap Finisher

Verdict: Lynx has the strongest damage, and does so in very quick bursts. Both pet are without a single trait here (most importantly "Pack Alpha") Tiger will do a TINY bit more damage at the 30 second mark for 1 and a half seconds, and then Lynx's skills is off CD and is top dog again....

Specced

TigerFurious Pounce - Damage: 1,855 - 8 Second CDFury (10s)

LynxRending Pounce - Damage (2x): 1854 - 24 Second CD4 x Bleeding (11s): 4014 Damage

• Leap Finisher

Verdict: Do I really need to say anything? Lynx wins by a landslide

Conclusion:While Tiger brings constant Fury to himself/you and your teammates, they deal much less damage. However, while more Fury is always nice, Ranger has so many other ways to pump it out to himself and his pet lessening its usefulness.Lynx deals much more damage with just these numbers alone! Lynx gains more benefit from might because he has more bleeds. Rending Pounce is also a Leap Finisher. Rending Pounce is also a double hit attack, which pairs better with "Sharpened Edges" and "Potent Ally".

So yes, Lynx is a stronger pet than Tiger.That being said! And I hate to say it cause I love them both...they suck, simply because they have a bugged attack animations that severely reduces their effectiveness.

Actually my numbers are wrong. Here are the actual numbers:

Unspecced:

TigerFurious Pounce - Damage: 1,266 - 10 Second CDFury (10s)

LynxRending Pounce - Damage (2x): 1,688 - 30 Second CD4 x Bleeding (10s): 3280 Damage

Specced

TigerFurious Pounce - Damage: 1,391 - 8 Second CDFury (10s)

LynxRending Pounce - Damage (2x): 1,854 - 24 Second CD4 x Bleeding (11s): 4014 Damage

Even more of a landslide.And I assure you, you don't need to explain Rangers or Pets to me.