Getting good newbie Ranger pets

I did some research for a friend who was playing Ranger during BWE2 or 3 who had issues with his starter pet dying really fast. So what I did was spend a little time finding a variety of pets that lowbie Rangers can get really quickly. I think you can get all of these pets in about 30 minutes. After I sent this to him I thought "maybe other people could make use of this" - so here it is. Enjoy!

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One of the key elements of the Ranger is the pet you use. A good pet makes your life easier, while a bad pet makes your life worse. This is especially true at low levels, when you don't have the traits to make your pet tougher.

If you know where to go, it's easy to get a bunch of good (and not so good...) pets right off the bat.

1. Make a Ranger - pick whatever pet you want
2. Run to your home city. Port to Lion's Arch
3. (optional) in Lion's Arch, run SE across the bridge to Mariner's Waypoint. E to Farshore Waypoint. Run east then north up the path to the top of Farshore Ward and pick up a Juvenile Pig
4. Run back to where you ported into Lion's Arch, then port to Hoelbrak. At the Raven Lodge get a Raven, at the Wolf Lodge get an Alpine Wolf, at the Snow Leopard Lodge get a Snow Leopard. At Mourn Lake get a Polar Bear. Play a game of Keg Brawl for fun!
5. Exit to the East to Wayfarer Foothills. Go to the Bear shrine (follow the road to the SE, you will see it). Get a Brown Bear. Follow the stream to the SW. Get an Ice Drake. If you missed the Raven or Snow Leopard they are available at their respective shrines.
6. Run back to Hoelbrak. Port to Lion's Arch. Port to Divinity's Reach. Run to the east side of the city, to Rurikton. At Minister Wi's Mansion (that's a named point of interest so it should be easy to locate) get a Krytan Drakehound. Exit to Queensdale. Run west to the deep water by the dam. Get a River Drake.
7. (optional) Back to Divinity's Reach. Port to Lion's Arch. Port to The Grove. Run to just outside of the crafting area. There is a Juvenile Fernhound (thanks Lakshmi!) that hangs around there. I believe there are also some Pink Flamingos on the bottom level near Caithe's House... if not there, they're somewhere else close.

At this point you're pretty well set. Use both bears or bear+pig when soloing, the wolf or cat when grouping, 2 drakes or drake+bear for underwater. Use the bird when you want to see how fast a pet can die!

Right outside the Char city where your throwing Mortars around, you can find a Hyena. They make pretty good tanks with their ability to summon more Hyenas. Also thanks for posting this, very helpful!

Nice post. Isn't the Kryten Wolfhound the tan great dane you see a lot in human areas? You may be right that it's in the Grove too but I only noticed the Sylvari ones (Fern something, had long green and yellow fur) when I was there.

This is a great starters list. We should try and keep this up as more areas of the game open up. I'm a major pet collector in GW1. I've got them all, even the black widow spider. So this is of great interest to me, even though i wasn't enamored with the ranger in the BWE. I'll probably end up making one at some point just to get the pets.

very helpfull! ty

Hey, Great post! My ranger is going to be my third char so that polar bear is a good need to know!

My first character (and main) will be a Ranger and I'm also a shameless pet collector *grins* Thank you for the guide!

I am definitely rolling a Ranger at some point and this guide will really help when starting out. Thanks for the great info!

Ohh!! Great job! Thanks for putting this together! I plan on making a ranger just for the pets and this will be a huge help in starting out! Myk Just wanted to add that you can find the pink flamingo in the main Sylvari city, near water. Not sure the exactly spot but they are not too hard to find. I can update once the game launches.

» Edited on: 2012-08-14 13:19:31

EDIT: Cool didn't know you could swap pets like weapons.

» Edited on: 2012-08-09 08:56:35

Now I wish I had 30 in HOM. http://www.guildwars2-pets.com/species/spider_Black_Widow_Spider.html Just because a BW would be cool..

» Edited on: 2012-08-09 10:24:29

I have 22 points in HOM. I may be able to get 5 more before GW2 arrives, but it still won't be enough. So close, yet so far... :)

The leaf-wolf has a healing aura. Is it a strong enough aura to make significant difference?

According to the wiki, the Fern Hound doesn't have a healing aura per se, but its unique skill actually applies the Regeneration boon for 10 seconds (25 second cooldown), which means it's just as good as any skill that applies the same boon for the same time. So yes, it's a pretty good pet for healing support.

If you want to save yourself a little travel time you can skip to LA via the PvP lobby area. H to bring up the hero screen. Hit the crossed swords icon. Load the PvP lobby map. Run straight forward through that portal ahead of you and you're in LA. So once you pick up a pet and you're ready to head to the next city, just repeat the steps above. I believe there is no cost to using waypoints within the same city, so no need to run from the PvP portal hub in LA to the city portal hub. Just port from one to the other once you're in LA.

» Edited on: 2012-08-10 11:28:27

Thanks so much for the posts here

And if you just want to see the pets for a quick test-drive, when you go sPvP you have all the many dozens of pets in their full lvl 80 gloriousness.

First post... I'm fairly certain you can pick up a shark pet in the Great Collapse pool at Divinity's Reach. It take some climbing to jump off a wooden scaffolding next to it, but it's doable. That pool goes waaaaaay down. On a side note, if anyone wants some help in the next 2 weeks with HoM points, I can assist some in that area. Obsi

ranger will be my second or third character i work on, and this will really make starting out a lot smoother. thanks!

Here's a link to a thread that shows all the locations of pets on the maps we've viewed so far. I know you can find some in WvW as well, but this will definitely help find the others. http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/48128-pet-location-maps/