Guild Wars 2

I want to share my thoughts on Soulbeast as a pvp/wvw player.

-Dagger-
Let’s start from our new weapon.
The damage on the autoattack is too low. I was critting for about 500 while using a Marauder amulet. Considering that we actually need to be in melee range to land these attacks, I think the damage should be duplicated x 3 atleast. The condi application is fine.
Double Arc base damage is low, considering the hybrid theme of the dagger.
Instinctive Engage really needs 1/4 s evade. The leap also feels clunky without quickness, and in my opinion, it needs to be 600 range, not 400.

-Beastmode-
Everything is so clunky. The majority of the skills have low damage. Smoke Assault, 2k damage with marauder amulet on a golem, also the skill doesnt evade. Sigh. Harmonic Cry heals x3 less than the pet version. Most of the skills root you in place. Beastmode? Feels more like a drunk man trying to headbutt someone.

-Stances-
The only thing that works on Dolyak stance is the stun break effect. No boons or buffs are applied. This ruined my demo experience. One wolf pack last indefinitely on allies. Overall, stance effects are good, but cooldowns are too high in my opinion, especially Bear stance (needs to be 20sec) and Griffon Stance (this skill is so useless sigh).

-Traits-
From a pvp/wvw perspective, there is literally no reason to bring a Soulbeast in a pvp or wvw team. Leader of the Pack should grant the entire stance duration. 2-3 seconds is not enough.
Second Skin is nice, but it would be better if we can share this trait with our allies. Otherwhise, we have no support at all.
Eternal Bond is weak, you die 1 or 2 seconds later, that’s it. 90 sec cooldown for the lolz.
Minor traits have no sinergy.

Final conclusion
The spec has potential, but at the moment, it really needs an hard rework and bug fixes. Completely useless in a zerg, definitely worse than a druid in a pvp team.
Vote: 4/10

kappa.2036:

considering the hybrid theme of the dagger.

hybrid? Oo
I thought it was condi weapon? no?

I agree completely.
Speaking as a WvW player.
Dagger damage on autoattack is a joke, it crits 1.5k with full out berzerker gear. What the actual..?
The elite is a joke as well, damage of replicated attacks is too low. Either up the damage modifier or make it into a ammo system skill with 2 ammo.
Beastmode is mediocre at best. The skills are so freaking clunky and slow that it’s pointless since the enemy can dodge it with ease. Needs 1/2s cast and 600 radius.

Sigh.

I’ll be rolling something else as my main. This is just so underwhelming that it’s not worth my time.

Marks/Beast/Soul with GS, Black and Brown bears. With proper traits and utilities, you’ve got around 2 large condi removals, 3 stun breaks, 2 sources stab, 5 invulns. Soulbeast is frontline material.

kappa.2036:

considering the hybrid theme of the dagger

There is no hybrid theme of the dagger. Everything screams condition.
Why do you thing it is a hybrid weapon?

Miellyn.6847:

kappa.2036:

considering the hybrid theme of the dagger

There is no hybrid theme of the dagger. Everything screams condition.
Why do you thing it is a hybrid weapon?

Because it has power damage, but the base condi durations are not long enough for it to focus on being condition damage. Take a look at Necro Scepter for a condi weapon by comparison. Dagger needs either way more power damage or way more condi stacks at those durations.

I would actually far prefer more stacks at short duration than long duration condis, so it is more of a condi burst weapon and you need to keep attacking to gain the full benefit.

Actually dagger offhand can be used on many power builds. Dagger mainhand would be nice in a power build aswell, especially with a slightly buffed AA and #3. But yeah, right now the weapon is mostly condi damage based.

You forgot to mention the new pets.

The lion/deer seemed pretty bad. The worm thing was really nice though with its confusion stacks.

hi! to reach 15 chars

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Miellyn.6847:

kappa.2036:

considering the hybrid theme of the dagger

There is no hybrid theme of the dagger. Everything screams condition.
Why do you thing it is a hybrid weapon?

Because it has power damage, but the base condi durations are not long enough for it to focus on being condition damage. Take a look at Necro Scepter for a condi weapon by comparison. Dagger needs either way more power damage or way more condi stacks at those durations.

I would actually far prefer more stacks at short duration than long duration condis, so it is more of a condi burst weapon and you need to keep attacking to gain the full benefit.

Both of their condition off hands deal less damage than our torch. Mainhand alone doesn’t make a weapon set.

Actually dagger offhand can be used on many power builds. Dagger mainhand would be nice in a power build aswell, especially with a slightly buffed AA and #3. But yeah, right now the weapon is mostly condi damage based.

Yes for utility, not damage. Off-hand dagger scales even worse with power than mainhand dagger.

kappa.2036:

Actually dagger offhand can be used on many power builds. Dagger mainhand would be nice in a power build aswell, especially with a slightly buffed AA and #3. But yeah, right now the weapon is mostly condi damage based.

Except that you need a ton of condi damage investment for the condition damage to equal the damage from just 1000 power and zero precision, it’s definitely not 100% condition weapon. It’s trying to be hybrid, but it’s just bad at everything currently.

Strider.7849:

You forgot to mention the new pets.

The lion/deer seemed pretty bad. The worm thing was really nice though with its confusion stacks.

Yeah, 50k Gazelle attacks are pretty bad

Irenio’s team must change the gazelle, but not nerf the damage: they must add a knockback(to the sides) from that skill so the target is only hit once.

The pet skill F2 in beast mode does the same… People should try it out to check if also it does ridiculous damage.

I’m done with the soulbeast it is depressing, i went back to my very generic pewpew druid.

I disagree. I found some good synergy in the following traitlines

Skrimishing – spotter and vicous quarry
beast mastery – (I went frontline with GS and axe traits because again furry crit build) Not to mention there is a minor that grants you might every time you crit in BM (because it would have granted your pet that might)
SB minors do well with furry, going leader of pack. You may say its small but its something. The minor is awesome when you enter beastmode you get all your pets boons. So you go in right before combat after all the might stacking and buffing. You OP.

anduriell.6280:

Irenio’s team must change the gazelle, but not nerf the damage: they must add a knockback(to the sides) from that skill so the target is only hit once.

The pet skill F2 in beast mode does the same… People should try it out to check if also it does ridiculous damage.

I don’t even know how to reproduce that, I tried a lot of things (immobilize, kockdown, stun) but the target only ever suffer one hit, be it from the Gazelle or from me.

Tharne.3298:

anduriell.6280:

Irenio’s team must change the gazelle, but not nerf the damage: they must add a knockback(to the sides) from that skill so the target is only hit once.

The pet skill F2 in beast mode does the same… People should try it out to check if also it does ridiculous damage.

I don’t even know how to reproduce that, I tried a lot of things (immobilize, kockdown, stun) but the target only ever suffer one hit, be it from the Gazelle or from me.

probably if the target it locked against a wall or something. that place in wvw has like small step where you must jump over to continue walking.

because the skill doesn’t launch you get hit many times. It could be used as designed as a way to punish brainless drones which don’t use the space awareness but i’m not sure if that was the intended use or it was just lazy low effort development.

Dagger is same power damage as shortbow, but the range which is consider useless compare other ranger weapons. Also the conition damage is lower than shortbow as well in burst and slow tick situation on the golems or npcs. The attack animation is slow as beastmode skills.

I’m also not very excited for the new elite spec:

Traits have almost no synergy and have very specific requirements to use:

• protection
• quickness
• poison
• fury
• disable
• be downed

All Master and Grandmaster traits are bad because of it, except Oppressive Superiority.

Beastmode

• Doesn’t allow pet F2 skills. So F2 skills like Red Moa (Fury) still require a pet. We still don’t have any on-demand stealth skills (was hoping for 3s stealth from Jaguar).
• Can’t swap pets while in beastmode. Can’t trigger pet swap traits. Good luck picking a useful Beastmastery GM trait for beastmode.
• only F3 counts as a Beast ability to trigger traits. Some F3 skills aren’t really suited for that.
• most pets are bad in Beastmode, because their F1 and F2 skills are short range melee.

But it’s not all bad:

• Things that used to be given to the pet are now given to the Ranger in Beastmode. This is where the stength of the spec lies. Swiftness on longbow for example, and Strength of the Pack giving might to yourself on hit.
• Some of the pets are actually pretty useful in Beastmode.

Holland.9351:

Beastmode

• Doesn’t allow pet F2 skills. So F2 skills like Red Moa (Fury) still require a pet. .

I knew it, Holland still loves his Red Moa :P

https://youtu.be/GzYErBh4At0?t=2m19s

I agree with him tho, pet f2 skills should be available in beastmode.

lol nice video. Sometimes I was like: yeah ok, whatever, end it already. 2014… was that back when the longbow couldn’t even hit anything that moved? I may have been the only person that used it in WvW back then

Red Moa is my most used pet by far. Getting the F2 to hit me can be annoying however, even if he is on passive. So I was kind of hoping to get his F2 in Beastmode, but nope. Pretty sad.

Holland.9351:

Red Moa is my most used pet by far. Getting the F2 to hit me can be annoying however, even if he is on passive. So I was kind of hoping to get his F2 in Beastmode, but nope. Pretty sad.

Man, Soulbeast would be multiple steps closer to being on par with the other Elite specs if the individual pets F2 skills were included in the usable skills in Beastmode.

Holland.9351:

lol nice video. Sometimes I was like: yeah ok, whatever, end it already. 2014… was that back when the longbow couldn’t even hit anything that moved? I may have been the only person that used it in WvW back then

Red Moa is my most used pet by far. Getting the F2 to hit me can be annoying however, even if he is on passive. So I was kind of hoping to get his F2 in Beastmode, but nope. Pretty sad.

The thing I like best about that clip is that I killed your beloved Moa along with you, I forget the name of the util you used to use but the one that the pet takes your damage (been removed since those days), I think I 2 shot the pet and 2 shot you both in same burst :P That’s why I named the vid after your pet

anduriell.6280:

Tharne.3298:

anduriell.6280:

Irenio’s team must change the gazelle, but not nerf the damage: they must add a knockback(to the sides) from that skill so the target is only hit once.

The pet skill F2 in beast mode does the same… People should try it out to check if also it does ridiculous damage.

I don’t even know how to reproduce that, I tried a lot of things (immobilize, kockdown, stun) but the target only ever suffer one hit, be it from the Gazelle or from me.

probably if the target it locked against a wall or something. that place in wvw has like small step where you must jump over to continue walking.

because the skill doesn’t launch you get hit many times. It could be used as designed as a way to punish brainless drones which don’t use the space awareness but i’m not sure if that was the intended use or it was just lazy low effort development.

Note that the current skill makes it a hilarious way to punish Stability which imho is vastly missing in the game.

Vavume.8065:

The thing I like best about that clip is that I killed your beloved Moa along with you, I forget the name of the util you used to use but the one that the pet takes your damage (been removed since those days), I think I 2 shot the pet and 2 shot you both in same burst :P That’s why I named the vid after your pet

Protect Me! It’s still there, but only gives 5s protection now. I quit playing when they changed it I’m still not happy about it, but now we have a trait in Marksmanship that triggers Signet of Stone at 50% health. So that’s even better to be honest.

Black Bear in Beastmode has two more skills like that, but that’s a bit overkill.

You expect so little and you are happy with the nothing they give you.

I firmly believe you’ve all been psychologically conditioned.
#triggered

Anet hands you a piece of dog poop and you will give pros and cons.

Cons
“It’s brown, I don’t like brown. Not my favorite color”
“It smells bad”
“Flies, I hate flies.”

Upside
“It’s brown, hey some people love the color of brown!”
“It smells like poop but smell is subjective”
“I like bugs.”

Miellyn.6847:

Both of their condition off hands deal less damage than our torch. Mainhand alone doesn’t make a weapon set.

You do realize that torch is only good because PvE AI mobs just sit in it the whole fight letting you keep bonfire up in near perpetuity thanks to quick draw right? It doesn’t actually work that way in pvp.

As a returning WvW player, one who played 30 hours a week or more from launch until Hot… I love Soul Beast. I haven’t been looking at Ranger leading up to PoF, as HoT made me stop plying my ranger (which was my main for 3 years). Giving the class healing did fill a needed void, but I still don’t think ranger was the correct class to select for it.

Today I tried it with no expectations. I love this thing. This is the Spec I wanted to receive in 2015 instead of the Healer Spec I never wanted. I think I’m most looking forward to playing the Soul Beast above any other, this is the brawler spec that was needed for Ranger 2 years ago. The moment I equipped my old friend Owl and saw a second full heal with perma swiftness and a leap!; the Class mechanic of Beastmode sold me alone.

I’m not saying that it is perfect, many things need to be tweaked or rebalanced; however, the core concept is fantastic and I can appreciate the new F1-F3 skills selected. I do intent to play it more and I have no current feedback for the stance or dagger, as I’ve been testing FireBrand. I will probably play LB/GS as a scout or roamer.

Thank you Arena Net for finally giving me an Elite Spec I can appreciate.

well soul beast is much more and pvp and wve spec then a pve one …
im mostly pve and this is sad the hear , honstley for me the animation of soul beast are pieace of crap

EnderzShadow.2506:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Marks/Beast/Soul with GS, Black and Brown bears. With proper traits and utilities, you’ve got around 2 large condi removals, 3 stun breaks, 2 sources stab, 5 invulns. Soulbeast is frontline material.

You’re white knight material.

You managed to find one mediocre set of traits in one very specific form of gameplay and you’re satisfied?

Ashfiend, where are you? I found you a friend.

It will work there better than what we have currently, that is certain. Unless Leader of the Pack is made to share full durations, we’ll be on only mildy better.

Other than that tiny improvement in one area of the game, I can’t see a use for Soulbeast at all, ie, it is a downgrade over Core ranger.

BadSanta.6527:

Well, soul beast is much more of a pvp and wvw spec than a pve one.
I’m mostly pve and this is sad to hear. Honestly, the animations of soul beast are bad.

If it’s bad for you in pve, that is unfortunate.
Because it does not shine in pvp either.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Marks/Beast/Soul with GS, Black and Brown bears. With proper traits and utilities, you’ve got around 2 large condi removals, 3 stun breaks, 2 sources stab, 5 invulns. Soulbeast is frontline material.

let me say this another way,
You managed to find one mediocre set of traits in one very specific form of gameplay.

I am happy for you.

The rest of the Ranger community in pve and pvp are scratching our heads.

While I hope all the issues are fixed, even if they were, the spec is truly uninspiring.

kappa.2036:

I want to share my thoughts on Soulbeast as a pvp/wvw player.

-Dagger-
Let’s start from our new weapon.
The damage on the autoattack is too low. I was critting for about 500 while using a Marauder amulet. Considering that we actually need to be in melee range to land these attacks, I think the damage should be duplicated x 3 atleast. The condi application is fine.
Double Arc base damage is low, considering the hybrid theme of the dagger.
Instinctive Engage really needs 1/4 s evade. The leap also feels clunky without quickness, and in my opinion, it needs to be 600 range, not 400.

-Beastmode-
Everything is so clunky. The majority of the skills have low damage. Smoke Assault, 2k damage with marauder amulet on a golem, also the skill doesnt evade. Sigh. Harmonic Cry heals x3 less than the pet version. Most of the skills root you in place. Beastmode? Feels more like a drunk man trying to headbutt someone.

-Stances-
The only thing that works on Dolyak stance is the stun break effect. No boons or buffs are applied. This ruined my demo experience. One wolf pack last indefinitely on allies. Overall, stance effects are good, but cooldowns are too high in my opinion, especially Bear stance (needs to be 20sec) and Griffon Stance (this skill is so useless sigh).

-Traits-
From a pvp/wvw perspective, there is literally no reason to bring a Soulbeast in a pvp or wvw team. Leader of the Pack should grant the entire stance duration. 2-3 seconds is not enough.
Second Skin is nice, but it would be better if we can share this trait with our allies. Otherwhise, we have no support at all.
Eternal Bond is weak, you die 1 or 2 seconds later, that’s it. 90 sec cooldown for the lolz.
Minor traits have no sinergy.

Final conclusion
The spec has potential, but at the moment, it really needs an hard rework and bug fixes. Completely useless in a zerg, definitely worse than a druid in a pvp team.
Vote: 4/10

Another one hits the nail. I feel the same way. I have to agree on this one as well.

I used eternal bond once and honestly didnt even felt it was on, tought was bugged lol because i had so many conditions i didnt felt like i revived or did anything, i just died. I tried soulbeast in wvw and the only improvement is that your pet wont die now to the first aoe damage that happens in a zerg, other than that nothing new. I dont think soulbeast will be wanted in groups, doesnt bring anything new to the table. It will still be a low tier in wvw, scourges and spellbreakers are dominating tho. So much boon hate is kind of ridiculous

EnderzShadow.2506:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Marks/Beast/Soul with GS, Black and Brown bears. With proper traits and utilities, you’ve got around 2 large condi removals, 3 stun breaks, 2 sources stab, 5 invulns. Soulbeast is frontline material.

let me say this another way,
You managed to find one mediocre set of traits in one very specific form of gameplay.

I am happy for you.

The rest of the Ranger community in pve and pvp are scratching our heads.

While I hope all the issues are fixed, even if they were, the spec is truly uninspiring.

I think people just need to experiment more.

I was pretty underwhelmed by dagger and the whole condi aspect from Soulbeast (untraited shortbow immediately outperformed), but that makes it a prime target for some improvements if necessary. Pet merging is super-nice in most cases, but it does hurt to lose some traits entirely. Souldbeast will probably make its way into PvP before any meta-relevant PvE.

I heard that the intent was for us to not camp BM, that swapping in and out is the desired game play. There really is not enough incentive to hop in and out currently. If there was enough incentive to do so maybe people would be more happy with SB. I kinda felt that unstoppable union sort of achieved this but having a bonus for dropping out of BM is also needed.

Overall stances seemed pretty weak. Bear stance was not enough to survive the condi meta and it’s on a long cooldown. However, was hard to give a full opinion about stances since we could not even try dolyak stance due to it not working. Griffon and Vulture seem very lackluster with way too long of cool downs. Moa stance seemed ok for the most part. Should be a stun breaker though.

Most of the animations and cast times are too long for the BM pet skills. Cool downs seem way to long for most of the them. Kinda wish I could select which pets were what archetype. Also the archetype stat bonus should really be permanent if you are a SB. This is especially true since you can’t use two pets of the same archetype without shared cool downs on the archetype skill.

Overall I liked the player control in WvW offered by SoulBeast but would like to see major improvements for the fluidity in combat and overall effectiveness.

Ghotistyx.6942:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Marks/Beast/Soul with GS, Black and Brown bears. With proper traits and utilities, you’ve got around 2 large condi removals, 3 stun breaks, 2 sources stab, 5 invulns. Soulbeast is frontline material.

let me say this another way,
You managed to find one mediocre set of traits in one very specific form of gameplay.

I am happy for you.

The rest of the Ranger community in pve and pvp are scratching our heads.

While I hope all the issues are fixed, even if they were, the spec is truly uninspiring.

I think people just need to experiment more.

I was pretty underwhelmed by dagger and the whole condi aspect from Soulbeast (untraited shortbow immediately outperformed), but that makes it a prime target for some improvements if necessary. Pet merging is super-nice in most cases, but it does hurt to lose some traits entirely. Souldbeast will probably make its way into PvP before any meta-relevant PvE.

I have no disagreement with you. We are talking about different things.

When all classes are balanced, soulbeast will still be boring.

Have you played any of the other classes? Most of them are a blast!

Now tell me honestly, what part of soul beast was fun?

Ranger trying to be frontline with GS , you get GS maul every 4 seconds and you have to adjust for a big hit. Not realistic, and it has been tried before. Soulbeast will change nothing unto which you will survive or deal more damage in a frontline zerg spec.

Ranger belongs in the back with longbow picking out players like Necro / Thief.

Druid isn’t bad either, but to be honest , blasts in water cover this adequately to even bring a pocket druid and eles cover aoe condi cleanse.

Again, ranger has always been a backline and this will not change , soulbeast will not change that no matter what gimmick build you try to bring.

ZhouX.8742:

Ranger trying to be frontline with GS , you get GS maul every 4 seconds and you have to adjust for a big hit. Not realistic, and it has been tried before. Soulbeast will change nothing unto which you will survive or deal more damage in a frontline zerg spec.

Ranger belongs in the back with longbow picking out players like Necro / Thief.

Druid isn’t bad either, but to be honest , blasts in water cover this adequately to even bring a pocket druid and eles cover aoe condi cleanse.

Again, ranger has always been a backline and this will not change , soulbeast will not change that no matter what gimmick build you try to bring.

If stance durations with LotP were 100% it would be as good as anything frontline.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

ZhouX.8742:

Ranger trying to be frontline with GS , you get GS maul every 4 seconds and you have to adjust for a big hit. Not realistic, and it has been tried before. Soulbeast will change nothing unto which you will survive or deal more damage in a frontline zerg spec.

Ranger belongs in the back with longbow picking out players like Necro / Thief.

Druid isn’t bad either, but to be honest , blasts in water cover this adequately to even bring a pocket druid and eles cover aoe condi cleanse.

Again, ranger has always been a backline and this will not change , soulbeast will not change that no matter what gimmick build you try to bring.

If stance durations with LotP were 100% it would be as good as anything frontline.

Maybe, but what would you do for the next 35-40seconds after the 6-8 seconds is up? If they were to make it 100% you would never see a reduction in CD.

EnderzShadow.2506:

I have no disagreement with you. We are talking about different things.

When all classes are balanced, soulbeast will still be boring.

Have you played any of the other classes? Most of them are a blast!

Now tell me honestly, what part of soul beast was fun?

I’ve played all the new elite specs, and I have 3 of every class at 80 (one each for vanilla, HoT, and PoF).
Iboga is fun, though that’s not entirely soulbeast specific.
Anything I tried Power related worked quite well. Warhorn 4 with Wolf stance, Signet of the Hunt, bleed/might traits, and Mad King runes is hilarious. 200% Stephen King.
Soulbeast skills are quite nice, even if some of them had drastic changes.
Most things condi related fell flat, which is amusing. But hey, people wanted a petless Ranger, so that’s what they got. I don’t want to hear sour grapes from them.

ZhouX.8742:

Ranger trying to be frontline with GS , you get GS maul every 4 seconds and you have to adjust for a big hit. Not realistic, and it has been tried before. Soulbeast will change nothing unto which you will survive or deal more damage in a frontline zerg spec.

Ranger belongs in the back with longbow picking out players like Necro / Thief.

Druid isn’t bad either, but to be honest , blasts in water cover this adequately to even bring a pocket druid and eles cover aoe condi cleanse.

Again, ranger has always been a backline and this will not change , soulbeast will not change that no matter what gimmick build you try to bring.

I ran frontline Ranger before Remorseless existed to great affect, back when their niche was immobilize spam. Soulbeast offers even more to the frontline Ranger with better damage since the early days and with additional survivability from various pets (I like the bears best but there are a lot of options). Druid is okay in zergplay, but I’d rather take a Ventari Rev for that role. Vanilla is alright too, definitely much better in the backline with LB (especially with new Signet of the Hunt). However, as you can see all of these roles are different, and that makes Soulbeast a good addition. Additional options open up additional roles.

ZhouX.8742:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

ZhouX.8742:

Ranger trying to be frontline with GS , you get GS maul every 4 seconds and you have to adjust for a big hit. Not realistic, and it has been tried before. Soulbeast will change nothing unto which you will survive or deal more damage in a frontline zerg spec.

Ranger belongs in the back with longbow picking out players like Necro / Thief.

Druid isn’t bad either, but to be honest , blasts in water cover this adequately to even bring a pocket druid and eles cover aoe condi cleanse.

Again, ranger has always been a backline and this will not change , soulbeast will not change that no matter what gimmick build you try to bring.

If stance durations with LotP were 100% it would be as good as anything frontline.

Maybe, but what would you do for the next 35-40seconds after the 6-8 seconds is up? If they were to make it 100% you would never see a reduction in CD.

Actually instances should be designed to be group support not as one for all situations

the pet you are melted to (i like that wording better than melded) should be the one defining concept which allows you to play your way. Those are 3 new skills which could bring the differentiating brush.

For example: If bears would be to bring:
F1: For 10 seconds your attacks heal you. CD 20 seconds.
F2: Defy pain, immunity for 4 seconds. Breaks Stun. CD 40 seconds.
That could bring to the Ranger: extra surivivality and extra resistance to try to get up to the guardian or warrior level.

Carrions:
F1: 30 seconds your attacks poison the target. CD 30 seconds.
F2: Tunell retreat. Range 900. Evade while the channeling. Ranger moves to ground target location with evade.
Perfect for SB poison regen

Spiders:
F1: Ground target AoE immobilise(4s) . Range 900. CD 30s.
F2: ground target long duration AoE of posion(AoE duration 6 seconds, 1 pulse/s, 1 Posion 10s) .
Perfect for ranged SB

Cats:
F1: Stealth for 4 seconds, superspeed 4s . CD 30s.
F2: Ground target 600 leap with damage like the tiger F2. CD 20s
Perfect for melee thief like style.

Canine:
F1: Leap-knockdown range 900, 2 seconds. CD 20 secs
F2: Fear(2s) like the wolf. CD 30s
SB bruiser

Moas:
F1: AoE strong heal. Cd 20s
F2: AoE Screech apply Fury(15s), swiftness(15s) a protection(10s). CD 30s
SB support medium range.

Pig:
F1: charge. Range 600 3 seconds KD. CD 20 s.
F2: Forrage, 20 s. You get a random item. No CD linked to the item.
SB just for fun.

And so on. We don’t need another spammy skill in our bar with no actual impact in the game, for that we got the AA.

What we need in skills with a moderate CD (20-30) which have significant impact.
And the archetype skills have 60s CD with high impact in the game, like having a second elite.

For that:
Primal Cry(renamed Extreme Environment) should become an ranged ground target AoE skill with 300 radius (big area) . 5 targets, 6 seconds, 1 pulse/s and apply a bunch of pulsing damaging conditions (burning, torment, confusion and poison) and corrupt 3 boons per pulse/target.

Wordly Impact should be an skill that applies a damage similar to the warrior elite 100 blades. Damage should be around 8-10K with 2K power. It has long cast, telegraphed execution and very little range. It has to be punishing.

Spiritual Reprieve should apply protection, regen and longer resistance.

Unflinching fortitude apply fury, might and swiftness also.

Prelude Slash (renamed Primal Cry) should Taunt instead immobilise. Rooted Channelled(3s) skill which damage (1 pulse/s with moderate damage) and taunt 5 targets in 900 radius for 3 seconds. At the end of the channel Knockdown (1s) and big damage PbAoE (like the cat’s Maul). Total damage should be equivalent to Wordy impact

As the SB is melted with the pet those skills must be significant as their CD is it high.

ZhouX.8742:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

ZhouX.8742:

Ranger trying to be frontline with GS , you get GS maul every 4 seconds and you have to adjust for a big hit. Not realistic, and it has been tried before. Soulbeast will change nothing unto which you will survive or deal more damage in a frontline zerg spec.

Ranger belongs in the back with longbow picking out players like Necro / Thief.

Druid isn’t bad either, but to be honest , blasts in water cover this adequately to even bring a pocket druid and eles cover aoe condi cleanse.

Again, ranger has always been a backline and this will not change , soulbeast will not change that no matter what gimmick build you try to bring.

If stance durations with LotP were 100% it would be as good as anything frontline.

Maybe, but what would you do for the next 35-40seconds after the 6-8 seconds is up? If they were to make it 100% you would never see a reduction in CD.

You mean what would you do for the next 24s? 30s CD on Dolyak. You rely on your Guards for additional stability and condi clears, you pop SoR and then enter beast mode so you pull 65 conditions from your team with one skill.

Dolyak doesn’t need to have the CD reduced it’s already great at 30s, but it needs to share the full 6s with LotP

Ghotistyx.6942:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Marks/Beast/Soul with GS, Black and Brown bears. With proper traits and utilities, you’ve got around 2 large condi removals, 3 stun breaks, 2 sources stab, 5 invulns. Soulbeast is frontline material.

let me say this another way,
You managed to find one mediocre set of traits in one very specific form of gameplay.

I am happy for you.

The rest of the Ranger community in pve and pvp are scratching our heads.

While I hope all the issues are fixed, even if they were, the spec is truly uninspiring.

I think people just need to experiment more.

I was pretty underwhelmed by dagger and the whole condi aspect from Soulbeast (untraited shortbow immediately outperformed), but that makes it a prime target for some improvements if necessary. Pet merging is super-nice in most cases, but it does hurt to lose some traits entirely. Souldbeast will probably make its way into PvP before any meta-relevant PvE.

Honestly, it’s still pretty meh in a zerg.

Sb with self buffing Maul would have been a great thing for the ranger back when HoT came out but after seeing what Scourge and Spellbreaker can do in a zerg, it’s going to be another 2 years of “please get off the Ranger and bring a useful class”.

Our team buffing is negligible at best when Spellbreakers are obliterating boons all over the place and we still lack strong long range AoE damage and CC.

SB was better than bringing base ranger or druid, but it’s still too weak to ever see a place in a serious team comp.

We would need to see serious buffs like Dolyak having it’s cooldown chopped to 20s and leader of the pack giving full buff duration along with either a larger radius or the ability to affect 10 allies at a time.

I don’t really see either of those things happening.