Questions about rangers and pets

What exactly is the process needed to charm pets?

I charmed a Melanderu's stalker during the last BWE, it attacked me while i was charming it but other than that i had no problems. On the other hand I've read about not being able to charm bears because they "break the charm" what does that mean?

Another question:
I've read that pets gain experience and levels just as you do. Would there be any difference between for example:

- a wolfthat you had since it was level 1 and had leveled to level 5

- taming a new wolf that is level 5

No difference between taming any animals. The bears you tried to charm were un-charmable, for some reason. I guess A.Net didn't want anyone with a bear so they made it so you couldn't charm that animal and it still making sense by giving it that skill (since it says Charm animal and bear is... an animal).

Pets gain experience when you do. All that really does is increase their health - to my knowledge. That's all it does for us anyway.

There's no difference between taming a level 1 Stalker and a level 10 lynx whatsoever.

I'm looking forward to running around looking for new pets to charm... gotta love having a pet do your bidding

that is not necessarily true. if you refer to Ensign's Treatise on Game Mechanics, you would see that your character's level has a direct effect on the amount of damage you can do. there is no hard evidence concerning pets since the testability is so difficult, but i believe that something similar occurs. a level 10 lynx will tear through a level 3 mob much more quickly than a level 1 stalker.

as for the original question, the exact process is as follows:
you target an unsuspecting critter. you try to use the "charm animal" skill. if you already have a pet, you will get an error indicating so. you will also get an error if the target is invalid, or if the target is not considered an animal. to my knowledge, creatures considered animals for the purpose of "charm animal" are melandru's stalkers, striders, wolves, black bears, moa birds, snow wolves, lynx, and warthogs. if your target is valid and you receive no further errors, you will move into range and begin the "charm" animation. a green bar will appear that will grow until the 10 second casting is complete. during this time, the animal will become aggressive towards you and start attacking you. wolves and black bears in the pre-searing region have a skill called "Break Charm" that they use to interrupt your "charm animal" skill -- this makes them nearly impossible to charm. if you die or the animal dies before the 10 seconds elapse, you will fail to charm the animal. if you are not interrupted and both you and the animal are alive when you complete the cast, the animal will become your pet and be added to your party list. it will gain experience and level, although it is not known whether there is a difference in a raised pet or a pet that was just charmed at that level.

Thanks Bgnome, those were the answers i was looking for...

Another question. As I said, i only had experience with having the Melanderu Stalker as a pet, and i think it did pretty good in damage and killing enemies wise and stuff

What about the other pets, anyone have had experience with them? I'm assuming wolves and such would be lethal pets, but am really curious about pets such as the Moa Birds and the STriders. I think it would be very cool to have those as pets, but other than coolness and cuteness are these pets effective? can they actually kill stuff? I mean i would very much like to go around with a pet Moa Bird, but on the other hand if its gonna die a lot and not do much damage, why would people charm them?

the pet had undergo some big changes betweem march -> april BWE...

I think Anet probably had add some more pet contents that we don't know about by now... Perhaps a pet equip..? (not likely) Different stat increase for each level??

If the pet would stay as april bwe, the pet would be pretty much useless especially in PvP... in PvE, yea ok... but that depend on which pet...

My warthog with no def buff was able to take 4+ hits from those evil minotaurs in the underworld... highest armor for pet =/ If for PvE purpose, I would choose warthog again no doubt... just for an extra tank. (unless they buff the offense capability of the pets)

Then again, you might have to play differently using each pet... example, the stalker do some of the highest damage out of all the pets... that means if you want the pet to actually do some damage with the pet skills, then stalker is it... but if one only want to bring charm animal, I think warthog is the best deal to use it as tank.... just some examples

my level 11 moa was great! you could really tell the difference when it was dead; took much longer to kill monsters. Of course it would still die very easily if it was the target of a group of monsters but yes, moas and striders are definately very viable pets.

Choccy (my moa) would often take out a full Charr Blade Warrior on his own.

this thread has a preliminary list of pet statistics. this data may be outdated, but it will give you an idea on how the different pets compare:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showthread.php?t=239