Pet DPS (golem numbers) - outdated

[Zyreva.1078]

Did some pet dps testing against a small, weak and stationary golem with 25 stacks of vuln. Build used was Skirm/BM/Untamed (zerk gear/pack rune). Signet of the Wild slotted. All boons on the player. WHaO cast on cd. Pet skills on autocast only. Skills that lead to a dps loss where not used.

This does not result in maximum dmp numbers for the pet, due to lacking boon uptime (and sometimes pets delay skills for no apparent reason), but it is somewhat similar to what a dps untamed would run and it allowed me to get consistent and compareable outcomes. Note that these numbers don't neccessary translate well into real combat, regardless of build,  because there are a lot of factors that can increase or decrease a pet's dmg output. I did not test every single individual pet, if it was obvious that other members of the same family have the same or lower dps.

Pet                                        DPS old        DPS new         Notes

Lynx	2550	2950
Jacaranda	2600	2900
Tiger	2500	2800
Jaguar	2400	2700
Iboga (13 condi)	3050	2500
White Tiger	1900	2200		Phase Pounce is a minor dps loss if used from range, otherwise it has no noticeable impact
Hawk/Eagle	2100	2150
Bristleback (ranged)	1950	2100		Rain of Spikes is a minor DPS loss at range
Wyvern	1800	2050		Wing Buffet and Lightning Assault are a minor DPS los, Consuming Flame has no noticeable impact,
Rock Gazelle	1900	1950		Charge is a (not so minor) dps loss
River Drake	1250	1500		does not use Chomp automatically, manual activation adds ~ 20% dps
Iboga (10 condi)	2700
Bristleback (inside Hitbox)	2500			Rain of Spikes is a significant dps increase when cast inside the hitbox
Iboga (5 condi)	2150
Raven	1900
Phoenix (inside Hitbox)	1900			When cast inside the hit box, Gale Breath increases dps
Wallow	1850			Bloodthirsty Charge is a minor DPS loss
Carrion Devourer	1750
Phoenix	1600			Dash and Gale Breath result in a (single target) dps loss
Siege Turtle	1400
Forest Spider	1300			Entangling Web does not impact dps
Smokescale	1250
Moa	1200
Porcine	1150			Brutal Charge is a very minor dps loss
Canine	1150			Brutal Charge has no noticeable impact
Arctodus	800			does not use Bite automatically, manual activation results in a very minor dps increase (~50 dps)

I also did a few tests with a cele NM/BM/Untamed setup, to track the impact of perma boons on the pet.

Jacaranda	4000	4350
Lynx	3300	4200
Tiger	3250	3900
Iboga (13 condi)	4700	3550
Iboga (5 condi)	3400

As expected, Iboga ends up on top, however it shows the pet is very reliant on having not only condis on the target, but also boons on the pet (quickness in particular). If the right conditions aren't met, it can fall behind felines and jacaranda - the latter probably being the biggest surprise. Jacaranda seems to be a solid choice even now, and it shines especially for open world/solo PvE, not only thanks to decent dps with and without boons, but also good aoe burst, some vuln, immob and tankyness. Likely the main contender for the next meta pet, but some felines might be up there too, depending on the quickness changes. Other pets are not (and won't be) relevant when it comes to dps. Some can still have some situational use (eg smokescale for stealth, gazelle/wyvern for break bar dmg, ...).

Finally, please stop recommending bears to new players. They are bad. No, being tanky does not make them good. There is no need for a pet to be this tanky in 99,99% of this game's content. And the weaker the player (and the mobs), the bigger the impact of the pet's (lack of) dmg. Means, bears are even worse for new players than they are for endgame. Because a few hundred dps don't matter much if the players deals 30+k against a target with millions of health, but when it comes to killing trash mobs as weak player, pets can significantly speed up (or slow down) the process. Felines are great core pets and aviable to all races right from the start. Drakes are also worth mentioning as easy to access beginner pets, despite their rather low dps numbers in my test, because they have good aoe burst, which is more relevant for leveling than sustained dps in a prolonged fight (where they fall off due to low autoattack dmg). And they are more than tanky enough for those who struggle to keep felines alive.

I plan on repeating some testing after the patch (no i won't test all pets again, just a few relevant ones) and will post the results here again.

 

Edit: Added some post August 23 update results, also sorted the list by dps.

Edit2: Post is outdated.

Edited January 10 by Zyreva.1078

[Abyssisis.3971]

Now do mechanist jade bot for comparison lol

[Beddo.1907]

Kinda funny how low the Phoenix DPS is considering it's glassy stats.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

Honestly, Jacranda numbers shouldn't be surprising for anyone who plays the class.  Call Lightning has always done decent numbers and the immob has always been useful in competitive. 

People just stopped complaining about Jacranda because perma-merge was the way in PvE pre-Untamed, and one-shot Soulbeast became a thing.in competitive.  Jacranda also isn't used in Druid setups because the immob lacks when you have 100 other ones.  It is/was very effective in celebeast setups though.    

But we know by now that devs don't actually balance around anything but what the community is doing.  Tail Swipe gets hit on Drake because PvP, and now Iboga because Untamed in raids.  I second that Jacranda will be next because the precision buffs is going to put its DPS over the top, and additionally it is ranged DPS, so not subject to insta nuke like felines.  

[Myrdreon.7398]

Surprised by the rock gazelle actually. Considering how much more beefy it is than just about any other pet. The record 2900 tough with one of the highest healthpools at 38k hp makes it potentially the highest effective HP pet - and highest toughness also makes healing/regeneration on it a lot more valuable. You still get few vulnerability stacks to boost your own dps as well.

 

Fully agree Jacandra seems lik the most general go-to stats wise before the changes apply (decent tough/hp, good dps, good vuln to boost personal dps, condi removal) but rock gazelle could make a kitten back-up for boss/champion/big solo/storyline stuff. Places where jacandra just doesnt cut it or winning a few seconds isnt worth the comfort of all that extra tank. Also seems it'll make a great solo pet if you are doing something for the first time or want to play it safe.

 

So for solo play its rock gazelle/jacandra for tank-dps sweetspot. 

 

Group play its clearly still Iboga, but at these levels a jacandra is worth taking if you arent maxing out vuln stacks. Overall dps boost would offset the pets own dps loss. Or when ranged provides an advantage in dps uptime (stages, high movement, etc)

Notable#1 is the jungle stalker for support players. WIth 100% concenration its a permanent 5-stack of might extra. If vuln stacks are maxed and might isnt fully covered, this will do more for the group as a whole.

 

 

So imo post-patch definitly worth testing Iboga, Rock Gazelle, Jacarandra, Jungle Stalker.

[GoingMenthol.7281]

Sad to see the canines not doing too well. I made a ranger just to have the plant doggo

[Zyreva.1078]

16 hours ago, Beddo.1907 said:

Kinda funny how low the Phoenix DPS is considering it's glassy stats.

It is pretty obvious that EOD pets were mostly designed to "look cool", not with functionality in mind and as result they are all pretty lackluster. Phoenix just happens to be the worst of them, total design failure in pretty much every regard.

11 hours ago, Gotejjeken.1267 said:

Honestly, Jacranda numbers shouldn't be surprising for anyone who plays the class.  Call Lightning has always done decent numbers and the immob has always been useful in competitive.

It was always known as decent pet in PvP, yes, but i didn't really saw it mentioned for PvE (and those numbers are only relevant there - do not use those to draw any conclusions regarding any sort of PvP content). And while i did know, it is a pretty good pet in PvE too, i expected it to be slightly below cats in terms of single target dps.

Quote

Tail Swipe gets hit on Drake because PvP, and now Iboga because Untamed in raids.  I second that Jacranda will be next because the precision buffs is going to put its DPS over the top, and additionally it is ranged DPS, so not subject to insta nuke like felines.  

Well, tail swipe nerfs do not apply to PvE or WvW and drakes are still fine for PvP. Untamed isn't really meta anywhere in PvE (except golem benchmarks i guess) and Iboga was also previously used by druid, so the nerfs seem a bit random. But with a dps increase to jacaranda and felines it likely won't affect untamed or druid that much actually (except against targets that proc a lot of confusion dmg i guess, something that is not measured by golem tests). I also wouldn't classify Jacaranda as ranged pet, because it's autoattack is melee range.

Anet said they don't want to nerf based on golem benchmarks anymore, so we'll see how this plays out for ranger ...

5 hours ago, Myrdreon.7398 said:

Surprised by the rock gazelle actually.

[...]

So for solo play its rock gazelle/jacandra for tank-dps sweetspot.

Keep in mind that gazelle's charge attack drops dps quite significantly, because it often causes the pet to shoot far away from the target, so it has to spend time running back. So on specs that aren't untamed and can't controll this skill, it will perform worse dps wise (same applies to a few other pets, most notably birds). Gazelle's main benefit is the breakbar dmg it can provide, which makes it a decent secondary pet.

Quote

Or when ranged provides an advantage in dps uptime (stages, high movement, etc)

Jacaranda is actually not great against moving targets, because Call Lighting is a stationary aoe with tiny radius, so any movement will cause it to miss. Autoattack is also melee. Cats might be the best option against moving targets, but that's just a guess for now, i did not test this.

Quote

Notable#1 is the jungle stalker for support players. WIth 100% concenration its a permanent 5-stack of might extra. If vuln stacks are maxed and might isnt fully covered, this will do more for the group as a whole.

Boon duration does not affect boons from pets (as far as i know the only pet skill that is affected by players stats is Fern Hound's Regenerate). So you are looking at 17s of might every 23/28s. There are better ways to cover might uptime. I would assume, both tigers are going to see some use for support build, for fury (and decent dmg) or aegis respectively, alongside cc pets for breakbar dmg.

4 hours ago, GoingMenthol.7281 said:

Sad to see the canines not doing too well. I made a ranger just to have the plant doggo

If you value the rp facter over performance and play primarily content where it doesn't matter that much (solo/open world) - go for it. Similar to drakes, canines suffer from low autoattack dmg which tanks their dps in prolonged fights, but for killing trash in open world they aren't as terrible as my numbers might suggest. They also provide some cc, so that's at least something (still not great pets unfortunately).

Generally, this thread is intended to provide information, so players can make decisions based on facts instead of guessing, but it is not meant to tell anyone, what pets to play. Using suboptimal builds is ok, as long someone is aware about the shortcomings and willing to adapt to it - one way or another.

Edited August 20, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Axelteas.7192]

So which is the best pet for playing living season chapters where you can finds packs of elite mobs?

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

33 minutes ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

So which is the best pet for playing living season chapters where you can finds packs of elite mobs?

It's dependant on your build and what you need. This is just for DPS builds.

[Mic.1897]

35 minutes ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

So which is the best pet for playing living season chapters where you can finds packs of elite mobs?

This would be something that's both tanky and has decent aoe. Jacaranda and River Drake come to mind.

[Myrdreon.7398]

17 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

So which is the best pet for playing living season chapters where you can finds packs of elite mobs?

Considering how high Rock Gazelle sits in DPS terms despite its crazy toughness/hp and cc access, my money would go there. But you can always do a similar test, check for each pet type how long they last on a bossfight, and do a similar thread stating how long they managed to survive instead of damage numbers.

[Zyreva.1078]

3 hours ago, Myrdreon.7398 said:

But you can always do a similar test, check for each pet type how long they last on a bossfight, and do a similar thread stating how long they managed to survive instead of damage numbers.

Would be pretty pointless. A pet that survives a few seconds longer doesn't help when someone has troubles killing certain enemies. It's not like they give up and die out of boredom after a while.

Also ranger pets won't carry through harder content on their own (we aren't talking about mech here after all), so build matters more than pet choice at that point.

Edited August 22, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Zyreva.1078]

Updated the first post with post patch results.

Jacaranda and Lynx are now top dps. The former shines with better burst, aoe dmg and survivability, but in long single target fights Lynx tends to pull very slightly ahead (it should also be better against high toughness targets). Iboga got nerfed by arround 20% and while it might still be a viabe option for fights with a lot of confusion procs, it falls behind very clearly otherwise.

The dmg increase in my tests is quite inconsistent across various pets, with some only getting a very minor buff (eg. Gazelle or Hawk ~ +2,5 %) while for others it was much bigger (River Drake +20%) for some reason. Might be rng, might be more bugs, i don't know. For most pets it seems to be a dps buff of 10-15 %.

Untamed will lose a tiny little bit of dps, because pets can't quite reach old Iboga numbers now, but we are looking at a very minor loss that won't be noticeable in practise.

Edited August 26, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Duglaive.5236]

Just a shoutout of "Thanks!!" for your work on this, and the updates. Whilst I've been fairly set for pets on all the specs & builds I run for some time, some of your info has had me getting out of that rut and trying out pets like the jacaranda which I haven't used in a very long time. Still hate when targets move out of that relatively tiny AOE circle, however; but when the stars align the damage is very nice.

Anyway, again thanks for your efforts, and posting the results.

[Sandzibar.5134]

What does Paul Allen's Mecha pet do? Im betting its a kittenton more than 3k dps 😐

[Zaret.1450]

Theres a huge problem with pets, i mean not only they do very little dmg, but most are too skeasy too, also in the pet stat window the health it displays and the actual hralth pool of the pet arent the same, in fact they have less health than the stats display, maybe it is a bug caused by neastmastery traits, like it shows stat scale, but it actualy doesnt, or something like that, but its a bug nonetheless, also nature magic is awfull at giving pets boons, it should be in beastmastery in my opinion.

I mean come on, mech is stupidly strong compared to pets, and even then in wvw it isnt that relevant, what is making anet be cautious about buffing pets? or at least dont cut in half pet health when you enter wvw.

One last thing, how comes jacaranda has the same health as smokescale when its stat window sais it should have quite a bit less? i mean come on its bugged as f

[Infusion.7149]

8 hours ago, Sandzibar.5134 said:

What does Paul Allen's Mecha pet do? Im betting its a kittenton more than 3k dps 😐

It does do much more, but it also requires an entire traitline.

[Levetty.1279]

On 11/30/2022 at 6:52 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

It does do much more, but it also requires an entire traitline.

When that traitline is probably the strongest and most versatile traitline in the game, that isn't really a downside.

[Hallow.7368]

4 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

When that traitline is probably the strongest and most versatile traitline in the game, that isn't really a downside.

the literal entire class is the mech lol the player's own power level is like equivalent to a ranger pet since the mech's power is equivalent to a player so what exactly is your point it's not like engi as a class had any other direction especially in an expansion where you're in a high tech society where one of the main characters is a genius inventor who created highly advanced and specialized robots

core engi is just a mess it has 2 weapon choices because it's obnoxious kit gimmick (which along with turrets are probably the most out dated gimmicks in the entire game and are very much not user friendly) legit the only way to make a new compelling engi spec was just to make an entirely different class lol

[Levetty.1279]

4 hours ago, Hallow.7368 said:

the literal entire class is the mech lol the player's own power level is like equivalent to a ranger pet since the mech's power is equivalent to a player so what exactly is your point it's not like engi as a class had any other direction especially in an expansion where you're in a high tech society where one of the main characters is a genius inventor who created highly advanced and specialized robots

core engi is just a mess it has 2 weapon choices because it's obnoxious kit gimmick (which along with turrets are probably the most out dated gimmicks in the entire game and are very much not user friendly) legit the only way to make a new compelling engi spec was just to make an entirely different class lol

Good job, there isn't a single part of this post that is correct.

Was pretty weird to trying to get sympathy for engineer in the first place when all 3 of its elite specs are strong and one of them is Mechanist but whatever.

[Kodama.6453]

13 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

When that traitline is probably the strongest and most versatile traitline in the game, that isn't really a downside.

That is a pretty weird statement, tbh.

90% of the mechanist trait line is "mech gets these stats and this attack". The benefits for the mechanist themselves are pretty minor, there are basically just 2: alacrity on barrier application and signets keep their passives after usage.

One of the major problems I always had with the mechanist trait line is that it feels like we don't actually get any traits to play around with. The traits are just there to give us different types of mechs, which rangers get from picking from a big pool of pets with different stats and attacks.

4 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

Was pretty weird to trying to get sympathy for engineer in the first place when all 3 of its elite specs are strong and one of them is Mechanist but whatever.

Also.... aren't ranger elite specs also not all quite strong currently?

Druid is a pretty good alacrity healer. Soulbeast is a good dps option (both, hybrid and condition soulbeast, beat every engineer elite spec when it comes to dps). Untamed has the highest benchmark of all alacrity dps builds.

Seems to me like ranger e-specs are in a really good position themselves.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

2 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Seems to me like ranger e-specs are in a really good position themselves.

 

They are.  And mech is objectively bad in 2/3 modes.  

Yes, ranger has pet problems and probably always will--but now might be the most balanced time we've had.  If anyone is failing at playing ranger at the moment, they have a serious L2P issue.

[Levetty.1279]

3 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

That is a pretty weird statement, tbh.

90% of the mechanist trait line is "mech gets these stats and this attack". The benefits for the mechanist themselves are pretty minor, there are basically just 2: alacrity on barrier application and signets keep their passives after usage.

Yeah sorry guys, Mechanist is bad and and certainly isn't the most played elite spec in PvE by double digit % margins. Hopefully they can buff it. 🤣

3 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Also.... aren't ranger elite specs also not all quite strong currently?

Soulbeast is good. Druid is weird and janky because of having to deal with spirits and its heals gated behind a resource. It can do the job but a Mech can do it better and easier while providing barrier.

I'll tell you the state of the third elite spec when Anet actually adds one.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Levetty.1279

[Zaret.1450]

On 11/30/2022 at 7:52 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

It does do much more, but it also requires an entire traitline.

well for pets to be more usefull they require both beastmastery and nature magic, and still they will be like what? half of pets dmg, and a cuarter versatility? if the pet boon trait was in beastmastery it would still be worse than mec, but not THAT much worse

[Infusion.7149]

On 12/3/2022 at 12:21 PM, zaswer.5246 said:

well for pets to be more usefull they require both beastmastery and nature magic, and still they will be like what? half of pets dmg, and a cuarter versatility? if the pet boon trait was in beastmastery it would still be worse than mec, but not THAT much worse

That isn't true since you can use pet utilities and CC regardless of traitline. Beastmastery mainly helps you with the DPS output.

Power untamed doesn't use beastmastery or nature magic and is able to get a 39K bench with a hammer from what I've seen. The pet is a very small part of this.

Mech is a far worse designed spec than untamed is. If you want to see how useless it is go underwater. You'll be swapping to scrapper, holo, or even core engi in no time.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Infusion.7149