It seems that with every new dlc coming out, a specific mount is getting an upgrade (skyscale, warclaw, skimmer). What’s the next mount you would want to see upgraded, and why? Personally (although springer probably needs it more) I want the raptor to get something new, maybe like a roar that scares enemies away, considering it is a big fuck off dinosaur.
Exactly what the title says. I’m looking into legendary weapons and possibly armor because I love flipping between builds, especially on Ranger (that double dagger moveset scratches my brain), but, as y’all probably know, holy shit are legendary requirements long, tedious, and expensive.
My main two issues are that I am extremely broke in game (I have like 29 gold) and I don’t want to just spend money to do a gem exchange. The second issue is I have the attention span of a dementia addled goldfish, I’ve tried to do the simpler legendaries (the fractal gloves) and I completely lost interest within like two days. I’m still using mostly exotic gear, which I know is fine, but I feel like I should have better stuff by now.
Do yall have any tips on how I can get myself out of this proverbial hole?
This is a fun list, criteria is essentially how cool I think the pet is based on its model, animations, concept, and how its abilities suit it. THIS IS NOT A NUMBERS LIST, IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR OBJECTIVE STATS, LOOK ELSEWHERE.
Rankings are from S to F, as always, going in alphabetical order. They will be organized predominantly by family, although Swiftwing Raptor will not be ranked, as I do not have the DLC and as such can’t give an accurate rating.
Aether Hunter (S): It’s an interdimensional shark. I feel like that concept alone gets it pretty damn high. My bias is on full display here, I love sharks, I love weird portal hopping bullshit, this is the best of both worlds! Spinning the sand sharks tornado into key line energy is pretty creative, even if it is just kind of a copy paste with a condition thrown on top, and its beast skill is sick as hell. Its basic attack animations are a little lacking, but that’s more a limit of the sand shark model itself, not the pet specifically. The weird glowing stuff covering it does make it look like it’s perpetually dusty, but in the Hunter’s case it works.
Armor Fish (D): It’s an armored fish. That’s its whole shtick. All purely aquatic pets are going to be ranked low, primarily because I don’t think any of them are particularly stand out or super interesting. Fun fact, there has not been a single aquatic pet added with any dlc. I feel like that alone pretty much sums up my opinion on them.
Avians, swiftwing (B): I have a soft spot for the avians, and I’m not entirely sure why. They all just kind of scratch an itch on my brain. Instead of being some big powerful animal, it’s just a bird, and that’s kind of charming. The Phoenix is a bit of an oddball, since it’s built more like a wyvern than a bird. It has very nice animations, even though it steals a few from the wyverns. It has one of the coolest beast skills on paper, but in execution its a bit underwhelming.
Bristleback (S): The bristleback is one of the few pets that is both objectively ugly and strangely cute at the same time. I have no idea why its species evolved such an oddly flat face, but it looks like it would sound like a pug when it eats. Its animations are smooth, especially the animation for its beast skill just before it begins firing, when it flares all its spikes at once.
Canines (C): the canines are another group that I feel was wrongfully excluded from the list of dlc pets. The cats stole all the slots for cool new members I guess. They have cool animations, and what used to be the only plant based pet in the game, but now they’re kind of just icons to be filled out in the pet selection screen.
Chak (A): Holy fuck this thing is loud when it walks. Seriously it sounds like someone wearing clogs is walking with you everytime this guy so much as shuffles his feet. Other than that, it’s a pretty good pet. Unique, interesting animations, one of which is a good splatter with such a comically massive vfx it looks like you turn the game into splatoon for half a second. The biggest issue here is the weird magic dust that it’s covered in. The dust works for the Aether Hunter because the Hunter itself is a solid blue color that the dust breaks up and contrasts with, but the Chak actually has color variety on it, which the dust completely covers.
Demon (S): The Spinegazer is the king of unique when it comes to ranger pets. A floating mass of eyes and spikes, and one of, if not the only pet with boon strip. Fantastic effects, model, and animations. I also love the little stubby arms it has (you can see them best when it does its beam attack). Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m realizing I don’t know if this guy makes any noise. Like at all.
Devourer (B): does it bother anyone else that the pets are ranged, but the devourer enemies are melee? As dumb as it is that’s my biggest gripe, for both devourer and spiders. You know what spiders are going here to fuck it.
Spiders (B)
Drakes (A): Drakes are ol’ reliable. Need CC? Drake can do that. Big damage? Covered. A status effect? Yup. Need a pet that can tank and sustain? Got that too. They’re a jack of all trades, master of none type pet, and I really like that. Animations are weighty and feel powerful, and they’re all look decent, the prettiest one being easily the reef drake, while the marsh and salamander drakes kind of lag behind. My biggest complaint is WHY DIDNT WE GET THE FIREBREATHING CROCODILE DRAKE FROM POF AS A TAME A-NET?!
Felines (F): This is not a numbers list. This is purely an aesthetic one, and subjective at that. With that in mind, fuck these guys. The largest tame family by far, with nine members. And they dominate the meta. I am so sick of seeing the lynx and tiger yall, I don’t care if it’s suboptimal I’m running my favorite pets in every build, even if it tanks the numbers, just to not use these guys. Aside from that, animations are fine, sound design is distinctive. But why does the cheetah look like that? Their enemy variant is called the aqua stalker, so why is the cheetah a cheetah?
Iboga (A): The iboga is probably the closest we’ll ever get to having some kind of snake like pet. Unique model, animations, and cool attacks. I really like this angry slithering shroom trip.
Jacaranda (B): The southeast pet. I hardly ever actually see this thing in action cause everyone I know who uses it is constantly merged with it. I do know a few people who run condi Druid and apparently that turns this thing into a monster. Build rant aside, from an aesthetic point it’s kind of just a floating onion that can summon lightning for some reason. Which makes it all the funnier that’s its basic attack is just floating into shit really hard.
Bee (S): This thing is a chud and I love her. From her ability descriptions, it almost sounds like she doesn’t hurt, her bite isn’t a bite, it’s a “nibble”. She doesn’t even have visible mandibles. Then you watch her beat the shit out of something all on her own and become kind of what’s essentially a giant wasp floating next to you.
Jellyfish (D): these guys are so uninteresting I’m not even gonna explain why they’re in D tier.
Moa (B): actually not bad. I like them quite a bit, they’re cool, even if the red one has a weird hobby (Iykyk). Kind of wish this family was expanded on more, but the ones we have aren’t bad at all.
Porcine (S): throw rocks at shit, let a farm animal dig up a deadly weapon for you. Or have a ball of spikes and armor plates hurl itself at your enemy like a vengeful leather boulder. Why is the wallow in this group? Better question, why is this group actually really good? Why is the best member just a Normal Pig?
Rock Gazelle (S): Cool design, breaks blue bars by glancing at them, and canonically eats rocks. They put my best friend in the game.
Shark (B): It’s a shark. I like sharks. Not much else to it.
Siege Turtle (S): S because I headcanon that this little guy is the child of your siege turtle mount. They gave their child a gun, that’s parenting I can get behind.
Smokescale (A): I remember when this guy was the king of ranger pets. Cool design, cool abilities, don’t really understand why this guy has pseudo-mandibles on his face but it looks cool.
Ursine (A): The pet. My partner, who knows next to nothing about GW2, identifies it as “the game with the starter bear”. All of them, the brown bear especially, are iconic in a sleeper kind of way. For some reason they remind me of bulbasaur. It may not be the first thing you think of when you hear the word Pokemon, but you instantly recognize it, just like you instantly recognize gw2’s brown bear. Then fact that they have arctodus, an extinct species of bear that existed in the real world, is kind of funny to me, especially since its more commonly known as the “short faced bear” and the arctodus in gw2 has probably the longest snout of the ursine’s.
Wyvern’s (A-S): This one is difficult, to the point where I actually considered how useful they are stats wise to determine where they should fall. It didn’t help, really at all, only securing them a place in the high A tier at minimum. The electric wyvern is endlessly useful, on par with the almighty stun god rock gazelle for breaking blue bars, while the fire wyvern just has that sauce to it. Watching it circled an enemy while blasting it with fire is always a treat. Electric wyvern, in spite of its usefulness, has the lamest beast skill so far. The model just slides forward, there’s an aoe circle around it, and that’s it. It has massive wings, have it barrel roll into the enemy or something. They also, as far as I can tell, don’t have idle animations. I don’t know if I just got unlucky or what, but I spent a solid ten minutes staring at my stupid chud fire wyvern waiting for him to do something, and he just stared at the floor for the entire time.
In conclusion, I hate the felines. But jokes aside all of the pets are pretty well done, there aren’t any real stinkers, and while they aren’t all equal when it comes to which families get DLC members, the ones that don’t get DLC tend to be pretty solid. I do hope however, that A-Net goes back and retroactively adds more tames to past DLC. There is a ton of potential in things like sand eels, vultures, or maybe something like a pocket raptor swarm, bone breaker, or arrowhead.
Looking through the list of Castoran mobs, there are so many prime saurian tames just waiting to happen, if we don’t get a tiny tyrannus or something I’m gonna be pissed, I would buy the DLC just for that.
My oldest character (almost 12 years old if I remember correctly) is my very first character ever, a charr ranger that I poured my heart and soul into customizing. I absolutely adore her, but good lord, making fashion for her sucks, none of the armor that looks especially good on the more humanoid races works for her, and she looks goofy as hell on her mounts. I know it doesn’t actually impact anything, but seeing humans and sylvari dwarfed by their skyscales and having their pets up to their waists adds to the whimsy of the world for me, where as poor Glaeder looks like she’s about to fall off of her raptor half the time. Not really a complaint, I don’t think Charr should be smaller, it’s just something that irks me just enough for me to post about it.
Tried to go for a kind of Vampiric Rose look, thinking of swapping the black for white to more closely emulate albino plants, which can also be parasitic (yes the jackal is necessary, the skin fits too closely with the aesthetic to not be used)
Edit: the images I tried to put in here just are not, I love my computer
Editing the edit: fixed, I think, hopefully maybe
