Ranger (Beast Mastery) or Monk (Healing prayers)?

I'm looking into making a new character and have narrowed it down to two primary professions...the decision on the second professions is pending.

One of the characters I am considering creating is a Ranger, but one that relys on his/her pet (beast mastery). Is this type of Ranger frowned or smiled upon and have your experiences with this type of character been generally favorable?

The other character is a Healing Monk. I have but one question in regard to this type of character: what would be a good secondary profession?

Any productive response is greatly appreciated and is encouraged. Thanks in advance.

Most people frown upon pets, while EVERYONE loves a good healing monk..

I do know of some of Mo/R's that DO use pets though.

Yeah but I'll never make a monk primary =\

Too many peeps asking me to join a group x.x my friends with monk primaries complain about it all the time, not to mention are yelled at when someone dies.... people are assholes...

Pets are nice and fight to the death and keep you alive =) they never bitch when they die, you just hit a magic button and they come back to life, whats not to love about them?

I vote for beasty ranger, thats what I am making anyways right now.

Edit: On another note, make monk your SECONDARY =D, then you can use that to give your pet protection and healing then he become uber <3.

Pet + fully maxed mending = awesomeness.

Healing monk is probably a more favorable class to play. You will never find much trouble grouping up with players. A good secondary for healing monk is probably mesmer (inspiration magic).

Beast Mastery works well in PvE up through Kryta, after that the amount of pets you see around dwindle a lot. Pets get a lot of really cool spells, but it's hard to find enough skill slots for them, it's also difficult to tell just how much dmg they're doing which gets frustrating. But if you want a challenge, go for it =)

As suggested by Fox Reeveheart, it might be a good idea to be a R/Mo. You can then use healing and protection on your pet (which it will need in later stages of the game), or even function as a secondary healer on your team. Or even just bringing a resurrection-type skill can be helpful in many parties.

I wouldn't recommend being a healing Mo/R with a pet, because when your pet dies all your skills black out for 4 seconds, and again for 8 seconds when you revive it. During all this time you can't heal anyone.

I tried Mo/R with a pet last night... was convinced that using that and things like Zealots fire that it would work...

It didn't.

If I focus on the pet it got a serious case of stupid and stopped attacking.

Grr....

SO... no Mo/R beastmaster did not work. Sigh.

The pet probably stopped attacking because you weren't attacking. I can see how it wouldn't be very nice in your scenario, but for a beastmaster build like mine where I never stop attacking, it is indeed helpful. I feel the pet is far easier to control than henchmen, because I can stop it from attacking when I want to.

Though, it would be helpful if they gave you commands for the pet so that you didn't have to study how its AI works to get it to do what you want.

And so this isn't off topic:

Beast master rangers are frowned upon mostly because people like to use pets without supporting them with a nice beastmastery attribute. If you put some points into beastmastery the pet can be darned powerful. I think I figured mine does about 16-30 damage before I use the pet attack skills, which generally have half the energy cost of bow skills for the same or slightly higher output. Also, when you start adding in skills like Call of Protection, the longevity of your pet can be somewhat surprising for people who are used to dealing with beastmasters of the "Oh, it's cute! I think I'll just take Charm Animal..." variety.

ive been first interrupted and then killed by a spider beastmaster (i was a mesmer) when i tried to defend myself. they truly have some awesome skills.

i was crying for my teammates to help me kill it, but they didnt listen....we lost the match.