Hall of Monuments: Pets!

After I’d already gone to visit the Hall of Monuments for my armor pieces, I figured I could also go and charm the HoM pets with my ranger. Charming pets in Guild Wars 2 is really easy. You just hit “F” when you’re near a “juvenile animal” that you haven’t charmed before and it gets added to your collection.

The pets that you get through your Hall of Monument can be found walking around there. The Jellyfish is found in the water.

If you don’t have the required Hall of Monument points, don’t worry, though. All you are missing out on are the looks of the pets. As the wiki page says, there is always a regular pet to be charmed in Guild Wars 2 which has the same skills than one of the HoM pets. So there is no need to grind those HoM points… unless you want the look, of course. But even then, there are similar skins available.

The black moa is exclusive to the Hall of Monuments reward. But what about a pink, blue, white or a red one instead? Those you can get in Guild Wars 2 without having HoM points! The black widow spider is exclusive, but there’s also a cave spider, a forest spider and a jungle spider. Seriously… 4 spiders, was that really necessary? Bah! I very much prefer moas, thank you very much. Although the rainbow jellyfish isn’t any better, if you ask me. The only good thing about that one are the colours! The ones you can get without Hall of Monument points are blue or red. If you love the white raven, on the other hand, your alternatives are less. Well, to be exact, there is exactly one. And of course, the white raven requires 25 points in the Hall of Monuments. Then again, why worry about having such a tiny little bird if you can have a huge big moa instead? ;)

By the way, one thing I didn’t know until after I jumped into the water with my ranger for the first time, is that some pets are amphibious, meaning that you can have them with you above and below the water. The Juvenile Brown Bear and the Juvenile Jungle Stalker are both amphibious, for example.

Hall of Monuments Black Moa

Hall of Monuments Black Moa

Hall of Monuments White Raven

Hall of Monuments White Raven

Hall of Monuments Black Widow Spider

Hall of Monuments Black Widow Spider

Hall of Monuments Rainbow Jellyfish

Hall of Monuments Rainbow Jellyfish

Now that the mesmer’s out: Which class do you want to play?

Guild Wars 2 has finally revealed its 8th class which, I’m sure, most of you already know by now. :) In case you missed it, here’s the mesmer on the official GW2 website (and they also posted a link roundup for the mesmer to see all the reactions and interviews they did!).

Now we know that Guild Wars 2 will allow us to play the engineer, thief, guardian, warrior, elementalist, necromancer, ranger and mesmer.

Did the reveal of the mesmer change your mind about which class you want to play first? Were you hoping for another class or is the mesmer all you ever wanted? Or are you now hoping your favourite class will make a return in an expansion? ;) In my case, I’d at some point hoped that the dervish will be introduced again but I knew this wouldn’t happen because the scythe wasn’t listed as weapon in the game (we did know which weapons will be in the game before we knew about all of the classes).

But my favourite class in Guild Wars is the warrior and there’s always some kind of warrior in games like these. ;) Besides, warrior was one of the first classes that were announced. By now, I’m just not sure anymore this is the class I actually want to play. My main concern is that the class is “too easy”. They did say that it’s the least complex class to play and since there are no tanks in this game, I guess its primary role is DPS.

I know that I don’t like the sneaky classes that first have to get into the back of the enemy before they attack – I definitely lack the patience for such a playstyle. And I get bored when all a class can do is deal damage. *yawn* I want to be useful to the group besides having a high DPS. I want to have some kind of support. I don’t, however, like the guardian too much. Don’t ask me why! ;)

Maybe a ranger would be nice as well? I tend to prefer ranged classes for having a better overview of the battle, especially in PvP. Then again, having a pet that needs to be micromanaged can get quite distracting. I’ll have to see how it works here in Guild Wars 2. Pet pathing is always an issue as well. I hope they can do it well. So far, I’ve been the least annoyed with it in WoW (well, once they made them able to jump down cliffs with my hunter instead of slowly and happily running down the paths we’d just tried to avoid… helloooo, Wailing Caverns). Warhammer was… ugh. Not too well. But I played an engineer and her turrets never moved, so I didn’t have a problem with that there. ;) I deleted my first loremaster in Lotro pretty quickly when after running around in the meadow and frolicking, my bear was gone. There had been no obstacles, nothing. It hadn’t been stuck. I now know that when your character gets a movement bonus (passively on items, so it’s always there), your pet apparently doesn’t get it. So after a while, it’s so far behind you that the game ‘puts it away’. And ArenaNet did write that you need your pet (That was in the Q&A on Reddit – which you can see in a nice-to-read-version here).
I quote:
Q: I it possible to play a ranger without the pet and manage on par with other classes?
A: No, as soon as you enter combat your pet comes out. Trust me, you will want them. :)

So I have to see for myself whether they did a good job with the pets or not. ;) But the part about “your pet comes out” when you enter combat sounds like it’s usually not there? Or maybe you can, if you want, put it away but never during combat. Either way, if it works automatically, then there’s no need to worry about your pet following you around all the time. On the other hand, not having it out is also a bit sad. I know I was sad when WoW changed it because I loved having my troll hunter on her raptor mount with her raptor pet next to her and now you can’t have your pet out anymore when you’re mounted. Anyway, WoW was also when I tried PvP with such a pet class and I had so much fun in Warsong! The crowd control and micromanagement – despite disliking it during PvE settings – was great in PvP.

The third class that’s now on my list is the mesmer. I like what I’ve seen so far and the utility this class brings sounds like fun. The teleporting from place A to B especially. Being able to play aggro ping-pong with yourself? Yes, please! ^^