Pet or no pet

Heya! I have a level 2 level 20s, a R/mo and a mo/w, but as far as the game goes, I'm still quite a noob.

I LOVE THE PETS in guildwars, and wanted to ask a question;

Could somebody list all the primary proffesions that would be SUITABLE to have a ranger as their secondary WITH a pet. I know that with necromancers for example, there are only certain situations/ builds/ purposes for the necromancer in which it would be suitable to have a pet.

I know there has been some changes which are crap but I don't understand them fully... soul reaping or something?

Anyway I was fixated on having quite a few characters with pets so that I could have all my favourites Hopefully this is still possible.

I would be grateful to just know in what situations with ANY profession possible, I can have an ickle pet! ^_^

Thanks in advance xx

ranger for secondary... just for pet its not as useful as the skills you get from a sub profession like monk or something

necros usually run with monk 2nd to heal minions

for pve a pet takes 2 slots, charm animal and some sort of res for it, anybody will tell you that a couple of extra dps isnt worth 2 slots

Well, do you have heroes? Cause for your ranger, you could easily take the two ranger heroes and use a necro hero as a N/R for a B/P mini team. Makes pve easy as. Have the heroes only carry charm animal and you carry revive animal. So only one slot for the heroes and 2 for you.

As for necros, they can use healing spring to heal fiends easily. Though you don't really need it. BoTM is the only minion heal you need, and if you're really desperate to heal the MM, a few points in parasitic bond will keep your MM alive for almost anything. Necro's don't need much of a secondary, though they can play as almost any class.

As for other classes, unless you put some points into BM, all your pet will really be good for is a meat shield. Which has its uses. I guess if you don't have anything else useful, an extra body for monsters to beat on isn't too bad. Though, casters will find a /mes or /ele more useful for energy management, and melee classes will find /n (plague touch) or /w/p more useful for shouts. Plus the /p gets you a reusuable res sig if you want it.

It's not really very efficient to be using pets on anything except a ranger. Exceptions being IWAY, the n/r in DoA you mention, and HvH where the AI can't cope with pets at all so you can stick them on absolutely anything to good effect. If you want you and your heroes to be running pets because it look cool however (a team of 8 all with spiders or bears looks incredible) it will certainly work for pve. Pets require major investment and BM skills to do any damage though.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but:

Mo/R - Smiting Monk Pet Master
Rit/R - Channelling Pet Master
P/R - Leadership Pet Master
N/R - Curse Pet Master

I agree there is no effecient way to make a pet master 2ndary, but you may look at these as they can help your pet do nice damage.

I'm very experienced when it comes to pve and my main char is a Ranger so my advice is: Do not go with pets unless you are a Ranger. This is all i have to say because there's nothing else to say.

I found that N/R can be handy. I ran a build with 8 Beast, 9 Soul, 16 Curses. SS + Mark of Pain is good, so long as you know how to deal with the scatter that always ensues.

I just found it was nice for added damage. I have tried other professions with Ranger and found it just caused issues, as people mentioned.

Pets are cool and all, but unless your build calls for them they're really not worth the attribute points and skill slots. I find that instead of going ranger secondary for a few points of dps, you can go ritualist for added survivability, or elementalist for extra energy management... generally much better choices.

Thanks alot for helping me out people,

seems like i should stop being immature about pets just cause theyre cute.

I realise it isnt the most efficient thing to have a pet unless youre a ranger, but thankyou for giving me the second best alternatives if im desperate ^_^... The only other thing i want to mention is, I recall someone telling me that an Ele goes well with ranger secondary- is this true?

Just because things seem inefficient, doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. Who knows, maybe by experimentation you can make an efficient build with a x/R pet master. The main thing is that you will be having fun playing.

Anyway, E/R is good with Winter + Meteor Shower in Hellsprecipice. If you are looking at R/E, then Conjure + elemental bow.

Agree with most, I only run a pet if I am playing P/B or full BM build just for kicks...

Other than that, I could have whirling defense on troll in those 2 slots

Pets are fun so if you like them just run them, just try to find something that compliments within the build. GW isnt so hard that you can't have fun while running a 'less than cookie cutter build'. It's not at all immature to want to play *a game* to have fun, in my opinion it's far more silly to play it using 'the build'. Take your pets and go have fun.
PVE ranger since 05 and still going.

Some people will use w/r adn take pets, but unles your gonna cmmit your full build to pets, they don't do enough

Only one you really want pets is the IWAY warrior. Nothing else really uses the pet effectively to warrant two slots and disabling of skills if you're not ranger primary.

none the less my warrior has a black moa but i never use it unless for iway etc but i think all chac that have a sec prof of ranger should go out and get a pet even tho they don't use it just so its there

As much as I like the idea of the pets in GW, I've kind of been disappointed with the mechanics of the system.

Honestly, unless you're going to focus on the pet for damage as a ranger primary (As a Thumper, or using a build like the Tank Master found on wiki, both of which are quite effective), or using it as minion food for your MM, the thing is going to be more hindrance than help.

Why? It costs 2 skills just to bring it with you, and more to have it do anything special. You have to sink points into Beast Mastery to get any decent DPS out of your pet, and those points come at the expense of your other attributes.

Then, of course, the pets are ungainly in combat. There's the delay between when you attack and when your pet attacks, when you click the skills and when your pet carries them out... oh, and don't forget when your pet dies (and it will unless you're devoting several skills on your bar to keeping it up) it blacks out your entire skill bar for several seconds. It just isn't worth it unless you're a ranger primary.

On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with playing the game your way, especially if you're henching or running with friends. My first character way back when was a Mo/R and I took great pleasure in sending my pet Moa bird (Flappy) to peck my foes' eyes out. Terrible way to play a monk of course, but man, it was fun.