Guild Wars 2

Alright, let’s get into it. These are my impressions after spending a few hours testing out Soulbeast and its various mechanics.
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Dagger:

• MH dagger feels very clunky.
• The autos feel very slow. Its base speed should be what it is when we use it with quickness.
• The 2 skill doesn’t have enough damage/utility. It is also relatively hard to hit and doesn’t do anything special. It feels like another auto attack.
• The 3rd skill also feels very slow. Its base speed should be what is is when we use it with quickness. It should also be an evade.
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Stances:

• They are all very lackluster. Shouts beat stances out by a wide margin. I’m sure some dedicated ranger players could come up with much better ideas on how to rework/improve them.
• Dolyak Stance seems the best out of all of them, but it doesn’t even work atm. No one has been able to test it.
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Beastmode:

• Honestly it’s pretty decent. At least with some pets, the additional combos and rotations we get access to by entering SLB to use f1-f3, and leaving it to use/swap pets feels pretty smooth.
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Traits:

• Soulbeast doesn’t offer enough in terms of survivability or damage to justify dropping one of our core traitlines/Druid for.
• There is also a lot of inconsistency in terms of what actually affects us and what doesn’t when we enter Beastmode.
• Every trait that affects the pet should affect us as well when we are in Beastmode. If some do, and some don’t, many traits won’t be taken because they will be useless every 10 seconds.
• Core is a lot more fluid to play than Soulbeast. It does more damage and has better survivability.
• Again, experienced ranger players can come up with much better ideas to improve the experience. But I don’t want to personally spend the effort if Anet isn’t going to take any suggestions into account.
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Pets:

• They are pretty meh. Nothing special here. Jacaranda and the Fanged Iboga are the best out of the 5 we got in terms of their AI and Beastmode skills.
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Conclusion:

• Core ranger and Druid are stronger than Soulbeast. Soulbeast’s Beastmode mechanic feels like it should be a part of core ranger, rather than an elite specialization.

Hi again! just to say i agree with everything here. E V E R Y T H I N G

well same as you soul beast for me was by far hugh let down , i mean comon anet no new animtaon ??
we are screaming for dps like years and we got condi ? its feels that the dev dont understand us ….
idk ididnt like durid becuse the lack of connetion the what ranger was all about , with soul beast it is not that ididnt like it , it is the animations when the rest of the class got all those cool kitten animation just go look at holosmith or scorage or whatever you like they got those intersting cool stuff while we got thief staff with is really really sad.
also iwould like to point that core pet still wont be at the same lvl as e xpac pets smok scall for example give you the assult no core pet can compite with that for example ( why jugar dont upply sthelfe) soul beast feels like the class that they put the lowest effort in and this is sad

shadowpass.4236:

Alright, let’s get into it. These are my impressions after spending a few hours testing out Soulbeast and its various mechanics.
__________________________________________________________________

Dagger:

• MH dagger feels very clunky.
• The autos feel very slow. Its base speed should be what it is when we use it with quickness.
• The 2 skill doesn’t have enough damage/utility. It is also relatively hard to hit and doesn’t do anything special. It feels like another auto attack.
• The 3rd skill also feels very slow. Its base speed should be what is is when we use it with quickness. It should also be an evade.
  _____________________________________________________________

Stances:

• They are all very lackluster. Shouts beat stances out by a wide margin. I’m sure some dedicated ranger players could come up with much better ideas on how to rework/improve them.
• Dolyak Stance seems the best out of all of them, but it doesn’t even work atm. No one has been able to test it.
  _____________________________________________________________

Beastmode:

• Honestly it’s pretty decent. At least with some pets, the additional combos and rotations we get access to by entering SLB to use f1-f3, and leaving it to use/swap pets feels pretty smooth.
  _____________________________________________________________

Traits:

• Soulbeast doesn’t offer enough in terms of survivability or damage to justify dropping one of our core traitlines/Druid for.
• There is also a lot of inconsistency in terms of what actually affects us and what doesn’t when we enter Beastmode.
• Every trait that affects the pet should affect us as well when we are in Beastmode. If some do, and some don’t, many traits won’t be taken because they will be useless every 10 seconds.
• Core is a lot more fluid to play than Soulbeast. It does more damage and has better survivability.
• Again, experienced ranger players can come up with much better ideas to improve the experience. But I don’t want to personally spend the effort if Anet isn’t going to take any suggestions into account.
  _____________________________________________________________

Pets:

• They are pretty meh. Nothing special here. Jacaranda and the Fanged Iboga are the best out of the 5 we got in terms of their AI and Beastmode skills.
  _____________________________________________________________

Conclusion:

• Core ranger and Druid are stronger than Soulbeast. Soulbeast’s Beastmode mechanic feels like it should be a part of core ranger, rather than an elite specialization.

As a vet ranger myself, I agree with you and you hit every point very well. Soulbeast is so under-powered.

shadowpass.4236:

Beastmode:

• Honestly it’s pretty decent. At least with some pets, the additional combos and rotations we get access to by entering SLB to use f1-f3, and leaving it to use/swap pets feels pretty smooth.

I disagree. Beastmode and petswap feel not smooth at all. Most of the time it’s even so bad that you completely ignore your other pet because the cd of beastmode is just ridiculous.

You have no quick way of accessing your second pet. So you can only use it in a very specific dmg rotation but never just for utility skills like invulnerability, evades, heals etc.

Also spawning/despawning/switching your pets all the time makes your pet lose the target, it always has to run back to it and it gets always interrupted when you enter beastmode.
The pet and its AI is now even more useless than before and entering beastmode is always an dps loss, except if you immediately use your F skills and get back out of it.

Overall it’s pretty disappointing if the best thing you can do with Soulbeast atm is not going into beastmode at all.

Adenin.5973:

shadowpass.4236:

Beastmode:

• Honestly it’s pretty decent. At least with some pets, the additional combos and rotations we get access to by entering SLB to use f1-f3, and leaving it to use/swap pets feels pretty smooth.

I disagree. Beastmode and petswap feel not smooth at all. Most of the time it’s even so bad that you completely ignore your other pet because the cd of beastmode is just ridiculous.

You have no quick way of accessing your second pet. So you can only use it in a very specific dmg rotation but never just for utility skills like invulnerability, evades, heals etc.

Also spawning/despawning/switching your pets all the time makes your pet lose the target, it always has to run back to it and it gets always interrupted when you enter beastmode.
The pet and its AI is now even more useless than before and entering beastmode is always an dps loss, except if you immediately use your F skills and get back out of it.

Overall it’s pretty disappointing if the best thing you can do with Soulbeast atm is not going into beastmode at all.

Iv notice that as well… all other elites seem way better than soulbeast atm… I know its only beta but the others are outperforming soulbeast/dagger.

Pets good
Traits ok
Soul Fail

Thank you ANet for once again meeting low expectations.
It’s apparent, Rangers are not a priority.

EnderzShadow.2506:

Pets good
Traits ok
Soul Fail

Thank you ANet for once again meeting low expectations.
It’s apparent, Rangers are not a priority.

Its funny cause all other classes got more stab and synergy from skills and traits while we go useless 4/5 stances which one only gives us 7 sec stab vs endless spam of boon removal. We got no evade from MH dagger, no block skills and etc. Core outperforms soulbeast atm. As a vet ranger I expected better. Guess druid got more viable now…

Kind of reminds me of Christmas morning. Only rangers didn’t get any presents, and they have to watch all the other classes open theirs.

I have to agree a lot with the assessment of shadowpass made. The dagger main hand is really lacking and I find it ironic that it feels more useful out of beast mode then in. If I remember correctly, one of the dagger abilities worked better with the pet out then in beast mode (the number two ability applies poison by you and your pet, then just in beast mode where it applies just by you?). Though maybe not a popular weapon, felt that sword gave me better chances at surviving in a melee situation then the dagger did, yet still kept the pressure on the target I was attacking. Not saying these two weapons should be the same, but at least comparable to each other. Maybe I need more time with the dagger to see it shine, but it was initial impressions after messing with it for a few hours.

I did like the variety of new abilities the ranger can have with soul beast and I can see some interesting techniques coming out of popping in and out of beast mode to fit different fighting situations. Including underwater, which I had a surprising amount of fun with in beast mode.

Stances for me were a hit or miss. It felt like they either were not working correctly (like not giving boons like it should) or under powered. The idea behind it I thought could work, maybe it just needs more adjusting to make it play smoother. It did feel a bit awkward to use at times, as if the cool downs were a bit too long for the effects i was getting out of them. That or the stances did not last long enough to be all that useful.

The elite stance did not feel that great to me and it seemed like I got more with using the shout elite instead when I was fighting in combat. This one out of all the stances i felt needed more of a rework.

There is one trait I thought was interesting to use, that if the character takes a lethal blow while in beast mode, instead of getting downed, the character and pet separate instead. It can be a saving grace but when this happens, the health is so low afterwards, that the character will get downed right after anyways. I have mixed feelings on the trait. It has saved me before while I was testing some things, but it was difficulty to recover from at times as well. Not saying it is a bad trait, just one that makes me wonder what determines the amount of health you get after you and your pet separate. Is the same amount before the lethal blow or is it something else that determines it? I should have tested this some, but with so much to try out, I did not get around to it.

Either way, it was fun and interesting to be able to try out of these new abilities of the soulbeast. I hope they work on it some more before release or even after as well, as i see the potential for some engaging game play with it.

P.S. The aura did not bother me at all and I liked it. But I also was playing a big tall norn, so maybe it needed scaled down on other races? I hope the aura does not get changed too much if it gets changed at all.

Last Warrior Lord.7248:

EnderzShadow.2506:

Pets good
Traits ok
Soul Fail

Thank you ANet for once again meeting low expectations.
It’s apparent, Rangers are not a priority.

Its funny cause all other classes got more stab and synergy from skills and traits while we go useless 4/5 stances which one only gives us 7 sec stab vs endless spam of boon removal. We got no evade from MH dagger, no block skills and etc. Core outperforms soulbeast atm. As a vet ranger I expected better. Guess druid got more viable now…

At some point, for whatever reason, Rangers were picked last.

Not mad, just disappointed.

If the xpac fixed every Ranger bug, I’m still blasé

From what I was told by a dev that raids with my guild its not that Ranger was picked last per say, its just that their original idea didn’t work. Originally I was told the rangers became their pet and you controlled the pet and their skills. The animations were too buggy and it never came together.

Soulbeast was a “crap we got to get this out the door” response as the dreaded deadline doom approached I think. Which is fine if you approach the spec with purity of purpose. If its a dps spec give it some punch. Otherwise what are they even doing.

Mr Pin.6728:

From what I was told by a dev that raids with my guild its not that Ranger was picked last per say, its just that their original idea didn’t work. Originally I was told the rangers became their pet and you controlled the pet and their skills. The animations were too buggy and it never came together.

Soulbeast was a “crap we got to get this out the door” response as the dreaded deadline doom approached I think. Which is fine if you approach the spec with purity of purpose. If its a dps spec give it some punch. Otherwise what are they even doing.

I’m pretty sure devs have to sign some form of confidentiality agreement regarding internal development knowledge and information on that level and discussing it publically.

Most likely either you’re full of kitten or it’s true and the dev is in major breaches of contract that he has most likely signed and could be fired for doing such a thing. I’m leaning more towards the former.

^^ that abandoned idea sounds pretty stupid, so it’s probably true.

The sense I get is that every elite spec was given the same time to develop. and with Ranger’s development team they spent most of their time of the “technical aspects” and programming code to get this merge with pet thing to work, that they ran out of time for animations, weapon skills and trait lines.

shadowpass.4236:

Dagger:

• MH dagger feels very clunky.
• The autos feel very slow. Its base speed should be what it is when we use it with quickness.
• The 2 skill doesn’t have enough damage/utility. It is also relatively hard to hit and doesn’t do anything special. It feels like another auto attack.
• The 3rd skill also feels very slow. Its base speed should be what is is when we use it with quickness. It should also be an evade.

I think this is the biggest upset for me right now. The spec itself is fun enough to play I can get over most of the oddities with it, but dagger feels SO slow for a spec/weapon/playstyle that seems to be revolved around such fast paced gameplay. If nothing else, this needs tweaking 100%

Honestly given their track record with Ranger in the past, I doubt much development time and QA was put into Soulbeast. Ranger has a long and storied history of not being properly balanced or tested. Bugs and core issues have remained since launch, that has been discussed on this forums ad nasueam. The fact that Soulbeast has massive glaring issues speaks to this fact. Furthermore, evidence of simple bugs making it through QA such as the Dolyak Stance being ridden with bugs furthers this point.

Mr Pin.6728:

From what I was told by a dev that raids with my guild its not that Ranger was picked last per say, its just that their original idea didn’t work. Originally I was told the rangers became their pet and you controlled the pet and their skills. The animations were too buggy and it never came together.

Soulbeast was a “crap we got to get this out the door” response as the dreaded deadline doom approached I think. Which is fine if you approach the spec with purity of purpose. If its a dps spec give it some punch. Otherwise what are they even doing.

You might be up to something here. I have to agree.

Agreed with everything Shadowpass has mentioned with Soulbeast.

I’d like to add that the specific survivability problems Soulbeast has is related to condition cleanse. I was running a Marksmanship, Beastmastery, Soulbeast setup and though I could swap out Marksmanship or Beastmastery for Wilderness Survival, it would either result in a build with lackluster burst damage or lack of movement capability. There just aren’t enough cleanse options on ranger (outside of Druid and Wilderness Survival) these days to counter the rise of many condition damage specs that have come into the game recently.

The heal stance alone on Soulbeast is not worth using in my experience due to it’s weak healing when not faced with condition damage specs. I’ve mostly found it better using no stances at all and running my original ranger utility setup as is.

I’ve found no real issues with the fluidity of the Beast Mode mechanic, however, I would like to see a “swap pet” available during its use. The cooldown can remain on exiting Beast Mode, but I feel the pet swap is necessary to enhance the playability of the spec.

So in conclusion, my thoughts:

- Improve cleansing options
- Pet Swap during Beast Mode
- Improve stances

It is a fun elite spec (and an increase in power dps), so it’ll definitely be seeing use from me in PvE (as I’ve mained Power Ranger for many years now). But as for now, it’ll sit on the sidelines for PvP.

I was dueling a friend on his Spellbreaker and he noted that Power Druid gave him a lot more trouble than Power Soulbeast, because you can juke better on Druid and the root is a great setup for bursts. On Soulbeast (Power; LB/GS) you can’t shake off a GS+D/D Spellbreaker.

Indeed Dolyak may be the only worthwhile stance to take; Bear Stance can’t really beat out TU + Lesser MT in terms of versatility, or even our bread and butter “WHaO!”, plus its heal amount makes it weak against anything outside of a condi bomb (and people will wait to interrupt you).

I think the F5 mechanic is clunky, but perhaps I just need to get good.

I agree with OP.

I don’t see a point in playing SB, unless you wanna do some zerg in wvwvw and get rid of your pet because it’s always dead; even in that scenario, you’re still useless to the zerg and you would be better off with another class or as a druid.

About the daggers I agree with everything too and I think that the range of the leap should be increased.
Also they gave us a 1200 range crippling dagger and than we still have a short bow with 900 range and a useless pointblank poison multishot. Not to mention how boring is the longbow, where you basically autoattack all day long.