Guild Wars 2

Re-Posting Here. Posted originaly in the wrong forum.

Alrighty. I said id make one and hear it is.

The build I was using. Smokescale Lightning Wyvern Commander/Marauders gear or Paladins amulet. Soldier runes. Longbow Gs.

NM 112 BM 322 SB 123 Full shouts No S&R

For those of you that know me you probably know that I am largely a PvPer and WvWlder. I run mostly solo in PvP and as part of a decent guild in WvW so that should give you an idae of where I am coming from.

In General: I like soulbeast but not as an archetypal playstyle. What I mean by that is soulbeast worked EXTREMELY WELL FOR ME. Better than druid ever did. But where as druid had its own playtsyle that you could attach ranger onto to make dps druid builds. Soulbeast is the opposite.

It did not feel that soulbeast had a SET playstyle. Or if it did (With the daggers) it did not feel effective enough to have its own identity. Soulbeast feels like something used to augment the various ranger playstyles. And it does that vary well. Ranger is a jack of all trades. Soulbeast lets you pick one or two aspects to further specialize in for periods of itme as you need them.

Want a bit more support? Theres a pet for that. Want to enhance your control capabilities? there are pets for that. Same with power/condi damage as well as sheer ability to soak damage.

At first I attempted to force myself to use soulbeast as a soulbeast. I immediately fealt it was clunky and weak like many others do. But once I started using it naturally as a part of my already existing build. It became alot more effective for me

. I could roll skills much more naturally for example, rapid fire as I close into gs3 while pet CCs into meld into maul into hilt bash into maul into melded cc into worldy impact then seperating swapping pets and starting a completely different cycle.

Where as ranger had significant gaps in its pressure with access to the soulbeast I was able to maintain that pressure and keep myself from having to go completely on the defensive. Which I feel is super important if someone wants to play an aggressive build.

In other words. I love beast mode. I love how it interacts with the player. I love how SKILLS swap function. (Sic Em and WHAO affecting the player for example…as well as interesting adaptations from protect me and SoTP. I do NOT want guard to function in beastmode people hahaha. It generating might on us when were struck is enough)

There are parts of the elite spec im not so much a fond of.

Dagger felt off to me. But I am not experienced enough with condi weapons to put it down. If condi ranger remains meta in PvE and takes the dagger I will likely finally cave and make the armor set for it just for raids and the like. But I was hoping dagger would feel a bit less sluggish. Or a bit more feral I suppose.

Like others I was hoping this would be a hybrid weapon. But it doesnt seem to quite have the punch to warrant it. Unless there is an interaction I am not getting.

Some of the traits felt a bit weak. Like the grandmasters xx1 and xx2. XX3 felt decent for me. Though I was hoping it would be something that would require a bit more thought to use if that makes sense. Its just a mindless dps increase. Which is something im not a major fan of.

Onto the stances.

Bear felt like it could last longer and I would enjoy it. Though I used 1xx so I feel that WHaO would still be my core preference.

Vulture had nothing I desired.

Dolyak was bugged. It seems cool. I would probably use this in WvW if it worked.

Gryphons cooldown felt too long. I understand ranger has really annoying evasion/regen builds in it. And I understand why you wouldn’t want to make those stronger. But while gryphon stance is strong I felt better served taking something I could use more reliably. Even if the effects were a little less impactful.

Moa stance is an interesting skill. But much like gryphon stance I felt like taking something a bit more reliable felt better for me. The boon duration on it is NICE but required to many things in the flow of the fight to go right. There are ALOT of things it could synergise with. But if your using a build with great synergy. Theres the question of how much you actually need it.

IF I MAY MAKE A SUGGESTION ON MOA STANCE.

Moa Stance: Grants you a set of boons, Prevents boons from being corrupted or stripped from you.

This would make it good as a method of combating the spellbreaker boon strip elite and traits. As well as giving your zerg short term protection from the plethora of corrupts in the game.

One Wolf Pack. Again felt like a cool idea. But just not enough at the moment to be worth sacrificing.

Again a Suggestion

One Wolf Pack: You begin hunting with unmatched focus. Strikes against a target are followed by a secondary strike shortly after. Upon landing the secondary strike gain a stack of stability (2 seconds) and two seconds of resistance.

The idea is to encourage and reward you for playing aggressively for the duration of that stance. Making the best of it offers you the most protection and damage. As it is trying to go aggressive with this skill just opens you up to being locked down.

The new pets.

Cheetah SHADOWSTEPPING PETS ARE COOOOOOOOOOOOL. I wish the attack portion was faster though. It should be coming out of that shadowstep with the claws coming down.

Jaccaranda Nice… Love the lightning. Wish its aoe was slightly bigger. The heals are very nice to have. Could use a lunge on its auto attack.

Sand Lion. Decent. I don’t really feel excited by this pet one way or the other but I can see how others may like it. Maybe a larger radius on the F2 would make this more popular with me.

Rock Gazelle. Very interesting design. The charge we know is going to have its damage fixed. When it does i hope they increase the speed of the charge. This needs to be a bit more reliable seeing as how it will probably be capped at around 6-7k damage buffed eventually if our previous interactions are any sign. The F2 also needs to be faster.

Power reaper is a key sign that slow skills that hit hard while cool inevitably end up useless if they can’t land.

Ibolga. Very interesting design. Probably going to be meta in PvE.

Edit: Fixed a few of the more outstanding grammatical errors. Im honestly not sure why my grammar seems to be getting WORSE the more I work to improve it.

Good read. The thing that soulbeasts seem to have the most trouble with is all the condi bombs, especially scourge. How you holding up against them?

Wulf.5431:

Good read. The thing that soulbeasts seem to have the most trouble with is all the condi bombs, especially scourge. How you holding up against them?

With my playstyle its largely counter CC or just not being in the area for them I do have longbow. I can pet swap Whao then combine with the pet to hyberboon myself. Use sic em and then rapid fire whoevers coming at me because condi builds are TYPICALLY slow. (Scourge has good burst mobility but they’re more vulnerable than reaper was to i individual projecitle attacks unless they take CPC.)

I will say condi is by greatest weakness. Part of why I run soldier runes and evasive purity. But I havn’t fealt it be a critical weakness so far.

Once I can use the rock gazelle in wvw ill have more mobility with the copied charge. So itl be harder to lock me down cause if they start to get close turn and charge off turn around and go back to shooting.

If its something that can be ccd its largely a CC war. If I can kill them before I run out of lockdown im golden. If not im vulnerable.

Jaccaranda will definitely be pve meta pet.

Highest aoe burst on a pet with heal and cleanse.
The CD is not half bad too!

Hope they don’t tone down.

Great post, Shadelang. I’m starting to think of Soulbeast in a similar way. Like that it is there to further augment a build, and it’s very poweful and versatile for that. I find now I’m playing half and half, in and out of beast mode, and it’s pretty cool that way. Plus having two pets with very different specializations allows you to carry both a support and dps augmentation for different situations.

Good thing to see your view on it. The first name I recognize that has a proper position on it, not the “we need petswap in beastmode” whiners or “soulbeast is just bad” type of people. Enjoyed reading and I think you have some good criticism.

Your version of One Wolf Pack would be too strong if shared btw. Imagine that in WvW zergs.

Ranys.4028:

Your version of One Wolf Pack would be too strong if shared btw. Imagine that in WvW zergs.

The thing is in WvW there is alot more boon strip than ever before. Especially with the spellbreaker in affect. And it would be fairly balanced I feel due to the very short shared duration. 4 seconds of resistance ot CC and it only works if they are also attacking. Due to it being conditonal AND slightly delayed AND on a short duration I feel it merits being quite strong when it does work. But of course im not a balanced expert. This is just what I personally would like to see and what would have me honestly considering its use over what I currently have.

Edit; if you still feel its too strong however. What would you recommend?

I had a question for you Shadelang. I know from first hand experience you can dish out a considerable amount of damage in a short span but I was wondering if you thought the soulbeast would be as attractive if things like the sic ‘em buff affecting rangers or maul consuming its own AOO are removed from play. I like the concept of the soulbeast. ( I really do, I like how it could potentially allow build diversity and playstyle enhancements to players who like core ranger through pet synergies) but I feel the current execution of the spec is exceedingly weak. In short I feel I’d have more flexibility in builds if I drop soulbeast for, say wilderness survival, which would free up rune choices to allocate more stat points then soulbeast provides.

I’m trying to get a feel for players who have had success with the spec to fully understand how its working for their builds and playstyles. Mainly because I haven’t found a sweet spot for playing aggressively. I always feel like I’m missing… something. Although I’m primarily in WvW and the loss of the new pets and the fact some stances aren’t working as intended right now may be coloring my perceptions a bit. That and all the new icons and tells is a bit much to digest in a weekend.

Mr Pin.6728:

I had a question for you Shadelang. I know from first hand experience you can dish out a considerable amount of damage in a short span but I was wondering if you thought the soulbeast would be as attractive if things like the sic ‘em buff affecting rangers or maul consuming its own AOO are removed from play. I like the concept of the soulbeast. ( I really do, I like how it could potentially allow build diversity and playstyle enhancements to players who like core ranger through pet synergies) but I feel the current execution of the spec is exceedingly weak. In short I feel I’d have more flexibility in builds if I drop soulbeast for, say wilderness survival, which would free up rune choices to allocate more stat points then soulbeast provides.

I’m trying to get a feel for players who have had success with the spec to fully understand how its working for their builds and playstyles. Mainly because I haven’t found a sweet spot for playing aggressively. I always feel like I’m missing… something. Although I’m primarily in WvW and the loss of the new pets and the fact some stances aren’t working as intended right now may be coloring my perceptions a bit. That and all the new icons and tells is a bit much to digest in a weekend.

Mmm I sort of understand what you were saying. Thats how it was for me before I started playing my normal build just with soulbeast.

Its true that the sic em damage buff and maul consuming its own AOO are very attractive. And losing those would DEFINITELY hurt. But I feel that the biggest thing for me is having access to that additional CC. and the increased flow of boons.

My playstyle with base ranger and druid is very much about punishment. I bait someone into attacking and sort of roll with them into a burst/cc combo the problem I had was down time. When I was simply out of high impact skills and I was just sort of dodging/runnign around trying to wait for it to come back.. or attempting to get them to over commit into a CA#3 CA#5 combo to try and finish them off.

Soubleast offers me things like separate take down and wing buffet ccsc on relatively low cooldowns that I can access very quickly. So I can roll from a damage combo almost seamlessly into a cc conbo between me and my pet. Gathering boons to recopy into a pet burst combo while im ccing them. The individual skills have less impact than say a full on CA5. But it prevents me from reaching that “Dead Zone” in my cycle I often experienced.

So in a sense soulbeast is great for me just due to covering that gap. But it is true that if thats not what your looking for it can seem a bit hollow. And I flat out agree with others that some of the traits can feel flavorless and the stances themselves can seem….meh…

Im hoping they buff the aspects of soulbeast that are lacking. So it does a better job of opening up those multiple playstyles.

But for me in my current build with my current playstyle. I enjoy it. Even if druid might still be a little bit stronger.

Edit: I realize after rereading I rambled a bit. My apologies. If I didn’t answer your question let me know and ill try to be more specific.

Nope. I see where you are coming from.

As to your play I find it refreshing to see your thoughts on engagements. Its exactly what you did to me a while back, some months ago. I was defending Hills with my guild, I burst you to 5 ish % you buffed smokescale, burst me while I was in skill deficit and I screwed up by portal dancing at north gate while you reset. You kept pressure on me and pet swapped to put your pet outside and forced me in or out. The result didn’t work out in my favor.

The reason I remember it other then checking your name afterwards was that I examined what you did and used the same strategy on someone else a few weeks later. So I’ve always remembered simply because you taught me a different way to approach an encounter. I like getting views from people who think sideways from me.

Remember only one stack of stability can be stripped every .75 seconds. It was implemented to stop the Pirateship Meta in WvW.
That basically meas with your suggested version of OWP with the current interval of .5 seconds a group of 5 with one Soulbeast can go in and wreck, as long as they survive the initial CC they will now have constant stability and resistance for the next 4 seconds on the joining players and the next 8 seconds on the soulbeast, all they need to do is hit stuff, and there are plenty of targets in a zerg fight.

I like your concept, but with the way stabi works currently you’d have people roll into your group unless the first CC they get hit with strips more stacks then what’s currently on the group.
And if that happens there is still Dolly stance(If it would work)
So let’s say the opposing side actually has a CC that blasts through the stacks, the Soulbeast only has to open up with dolly stance. You basically get a safe engage through Dolly Stance + OWP. I think 2 Soulbeasts could turn zergfights in their favor with these 2 skills if used right.

There needs to be a way for the enemies to break through that constant stabi application, otherwise they’re kittened.

Ranys.4028:

Remember only one stack of stability can be stripped every .75 seconds. It was implemented to stop the Pirateship Meta in WvW.
That basically meas with your suggested version of OWP with the current interval of .5 seconds a group of 5 with one Soulbeast can go in and wreck, as long as they survive the initial CC they will now have constant stability and resistance for the next 4 seconds on the joining players and the next 8 seconds on the soulbeast, all they need to do is hit stuff, and there are plenty of targets in a zerg fight.

I like your concept, but with the way stabi works currently you’d have people roll into your group unless the first CC they get hit with strips more stacks then what’s currently on the group.
And if that happens there is still Dolly stance(If it would work)
So let’s say the opposing side actually has a CC that blasts through the stacks, the Soulbeast only has to open up with dolly stance. You basically get a safe engage through Dolly Stance + OWP. I think 2 Soulbeasts could turn zergfights in their favor with these 2 skills if used right.

There needs to be a way for the enemies to break through that constant stabi application, otherwise they’re kittened.

Hmm. The main thing for me was the 1 stack of stab means that it takes time for it to build up to that safe value. I was trying to take into account boonstrips and corrupts as well. Though your probably right in that I underestimated the delay on stab loss. But that re applicability on strike is what kept it thematic with playing aggressively.

The One Wolf Pack was an idea similar to my Idea for Moa Stance. Where as Moa Stance provides short immunity to being corrupted/stolen. Wolf Stance makes you resistant to the random CCs being thrown around.

A single stack of stab Can be blown through in a heartbeat. And all following CCs can land. Its one of the reasons why I didn’t go for the standard minimum of 2. The rapid reaplication is what would make it strong enough to be considered a stab source but it doesnt make you immune to CC on its own.

My hope was to provide synergy between the stances. Dolyak Stance+ the reworked Moa stance provides reliable freedom of movement for a short time. The Oh kitten buttons when your being caught in an enemies burst or an enemy zergs bomb.

One Wolf Pack is that engage skill when your chasing or enaging. As a shared elite it would be the Opener. Wanted to get through the initial random CCs . But it might be a bit much in ideal circumstances. Ill consider it and try to think of a better method. I feel like the concept itself is sound however. Thank you for your input.

Mr Pin.6728:

Nope. I see where you are coming from.

As to your play I find it refreshing to see your thoughts on engagements. Its exactly what you did to me a while back, some months ago. I was defending Hills with my guild, I burst you to 5 ish % you buffed smokescale, burst me while I was in skill deficit and I screwed up by portal dancing at north gate while you reset. You kept pressure on me and pet swapped to put your pet outside and forced me in or out. The result didn’t work out in my favor.

The reason I remember it other then checking your name afterwards was that I examined what you did and used the same strategy on someone else a few weeks later. So I’ve always remembered simply because you taught me a different way to approach an encounter. I like getting views from people who think sideways from me.

:O Well im glad I was able to help you in a way even if in I imagine a rather annoying fashion. And kitten 5% Thats one HELL of an opening burst you got on me o.o Nice! Im not exactly glass.

I tend to agree with a lot of what you’ve said. I played Soulbeast initially and didn’t care for it, trying to play it as it’s own thing. But once I inserted it into existing builds I started to like it a lot more.

It enhanced my trapper build by giving me more options to keep people in my traps and more tools to keep up pressure when the traps are on cooldown.

It enhanced my longbow build with more control options and more burst.

I also made a pretty nice power axe build that can stack 25 might in a few seconds and get me to 900 condi damage with the right beast mode pet. I think that was my most successful build overall. Still unsure if the condi pet investment is worth it just for a stronger splitblades though, even if it’s just a choice in pet.

Finally, rational posts taking into account what beastmode really is (a temporary cc/damage/healing boost) and speculating on how to make it work best for the player, instead of irrational whiney posts based on what players thought beastmode was going to be (perma petless mode) and a list of demands about how anet should achieve that.
With hindsight, anet should probably have managed player expectations a little more clearly as most of the whining and gnashing of teeth resulted from the considerable difference between the expectation and reality of this elite spec. The way I played this spec on Friday and the way I did on Sunday was completely different. Once you start stance dancing with soulbeast it becomes a helluva lot of fun

I’m not going to lie, figuring out what weapons to run and getting comfortable with core Ranger weapons again was at least half the issue I had. Druid Staff is a good weapon, and having to go back to LB as the only ranged option worth taking felt like a considerable downgrade in pressure/output.

All the frustrating bugs aside, I did enjoy myself. I just didn’t feel what I was doing was all that “special.” What I mean is that role/gameplay wise, I just ended up feeling like a Berserker, kiting in and out of fights, trying to land my big burst.

Realistically, Soulbeast was performing well mostly due to bugs increasing the power of it. Granted, all specs will have to be toned down that were doing damage like that, but other than “class flavor,” there really doesn’t seem to be a reason to run Soulbeast over Holosmith or Spellbreaker.

Now, that could change. I started off the weekend trying to use my swap pet from smokescale as the Jacaranda to get that sustain/utility I felt like I was lacking. But it was incredibly clunky and inefficient to swap between the pets and their respective Beastmode, to the point that it limited my ability to utilize this playstyle effectively.

I ended up just going with Smokescale and Gazelle for being able to swap into a burst from either pet and playing heavy positioning games.

I don’t mean to be down about it because I can tell you enjoyed it and it’s probably a lot more people’s playstyle than Druid (it’s basically an apples to oranges comparison) is, but wow did I not feel like it would compete for a role in a team comp in PvP.

Now, WvW, I am the most hyped I can possibly be for stance sharing. Soulbeast actually brings the utility it needs in team comps to compete with frontline Guardian, a role that until now has remained unchallenged.

In PvP, I just don’t see this competing with Druid. Especially with the level of power creep, it made Druid utility feel almost more mandatory.

I think that Soulbeast just needs a lot of improvement to compete with the other elite specs, especially since half of them are DPS oriented. I hope that they remove the cooldown in Beastmode, and I hope the traits, utilities, and dagger see the bug fixes and improvements they need.

@jcbroe sorry for not quoting but I don’t want clock the page too much and I just woke up and don’t trust my ability to mess with the commands atm.

Aye. I can agree with alot of what you said. I don’t know if soulbeast will become meta. Its vulnerable to being locked down in a big way without dolyak stance due to us losing druidic clarity. And the loss of celestial shadow HURTS our survival.

Soulbeast needs some buffs. Just not quite in the ways alot of people are demanding IMO.

One thing I do agree with others about though is a reduced cooldown on beastmode or the ability to swap pets in it would help ALOT. Especially if your taking a support off pet.

The jaccaranda feels great for pvp to me. (But its auto attack NEEDS a lunge to it…or maybe have it be a 500 range thing where it streches its roots out at people) But getting access to its beastmode skills when you need them can suck. Its almost chained to a reactionary roll. (Oh I got bursted let me disengage THEN swap pets THEN heal) which if your condi loaded isn’t that great. The cast time on those heal skills also needs to be toned down…alot… Soulbeast gets so much quickness and there is so much corrupt going around that your almost guaranteed to get slow on you when you try to cast those. And they take a LONG time to go off.

Its things like that which cause me to worry about soulbeasts future in PvP. Some key aspects just take too long to get too. Or they don’t have enough impact.

Id like dagger to get buffed significantly. A cast time reduction at LEAST. And many of the traits ARE lackluster.

I liked some of them. But many of them are just downright boring from a playstyle standpoint. Like..I was able to look at them and think (Yeah that makes sense) I understood why they were the way they were, I understood the numbers, and I understood the mechanics, but i had zero urge to CHANGE how I play to work with them. Except for the 1xx which I just switched how I rolled my boons to make the most of it and went on with my day.

The way the stances work its like it wants to be a brawler spec. But the cooldowns are either too long or the affects aren’t reliable enough to quite nail it.

Im really hoping it gets its own identity by launch. But if not ill just use it as an augment to my own.

Id like to be able to master playing as a soulbeast however. And not just as “A ranger” or “A Ranger just happening to take druid” seeing as how I never played healer >.<.

JohnnyJHB.7360:

Finally, rational posts taking into account what beastmode really is (a temporary cc/damage/healing boost) and speculating on how to make it work best for the player, instead of irrational whiney posts based on what players thought beastmode was going to be (perma petless mode) and a list of demands about how anet should achieve that.
With hindsight, anet should probably have managed player expectations a little more clearly as most of the whining and gnashing of teeth resulted from the considerable difference between the expectation and reality of this elite spec. The way I played this spec on Friday and the way I did on Sunday was completely different. Once you start stance dancing with soulbeast it becomes a helluva lot of fun

I really did enjoy soulbeast alot. But it definitely needs atleast SOME more work before I can really call it an elite spec. Keep in mind the things like the rock gazelles charge is almost guaranteed to get fixed. Im not sure how well it will do in PvP once people get used to everythings capabilities. Soulbeast fills alot of gaps for me. Which is why I will definitely be using it. But as it is its likely many will still stick with druid. Since it seems just a little bit more reliable if that makes sense.

Soulbeast is absolutely fun. But it lacks a few things.

We’re very much on the same page.

Like, I made that thread a few days before the beta weekend annoyed that Fresh Reinforcements isn’t a minor trait.

After playing it? Just give me some Stability and Quickness going into Beastmode.

Give me some condi cleanse for entering/leaving Beastmode.

But yeah, I could go on and on. You understand lol.

jcbroe.4329:

We’re very much on the same page.

Like, I made that thread a few days before the beta weekend annoyed that Fresh Reinforcements isn’t a minor trait.

After playing it? Just give me some Stability and Quickness going into Beastmode.

Give me some condi cleanse for entering/leaving Beastmode.

But yeah, I could go on and on. You understand lol.

I definitely do hahaha