Guild Wars 2

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Soulbeast.

Good idea to make a thread so we don’t have everything all over the place.

Also please bring constructive criticism/input and not “ANET hates ranger omgg” if there’s something you don’t like

Will it be during this weekend?

Bumping this because we need a universal place to discuss it.

Also if anybody records anything or is going to stream it anywhere, this is a good place to put that information (I intend to stream but I don’t have specifics so I’ll post those when I have them).

really hope for a good surpriase

I will be doing a big stream on Sunday trying to figure out soulbeast and the new meta

www.twitch.tv/BowmanFrosty

What I took away from the stream is that they haven’t really balanced the specs yet. At least, not completely. They made the specs and play tested them a bit and now they are releasing them.

So expect nerfs and skills changes between now and release and post release. Expect some people to figure out something completely overpowered. Especially Weaver might have some hidden OP-ness. Which they may or may not fix within a year.

But maybe just Ranger will get nerfed into the ground within a week again while the other classes won’t get nerfed until the next major balance update.

So, don’t be too vocal about the OP-ness of the spec. Maybe other classes are more OP anyway. Be more vocal about its weaknesses, bugs and inconsistencies.

soulbeast is reaaallly fun to play at the moment, I’m trying to think of the ridiculous amount of builds possible.. dagger 3 feels a bit clunky though, precast shouldn’t be this long

How do the things that affect your pet affect you? I read sic em affects you. What else?

Incredibly boring and underwhelming, coarse I’m not surprised knew it was gonna be a disappointment the moment i saw “Beastmode”.

Condi weapon with power traits. lol

AND FART EFFECTS ALL AROUND YOU.

It’s hard to test anything honestly, but I’m loving GS w/ Rock Gazelle and Smokescale.

Tested with 4 games so far. I feel like swapping in BeastMode will make it more fluid. The on and off and swap, then on really breaks the fluidity.

Some skills are clunky. So far, Jacaranda is really a good pet.

Dolyak stance is bugged. Doesn’t work.

The utility provided by the beast skills is great. Knockdown on F2 and pull+immob on F3 on some canines is going to be lots of fun combined with the canines themselves and abused with LB and off-hand axe for more knockback/pull lulz.

Very happy, can’t say about numbers, but as a gameplay I really liked it

My feedback… Soulbeast is a solo pve spec. Don’t see any teams needing this elite. It will be a spvp point holder that will get outshined. Average roaming capabilities in wvw. Brings nothing to zerg play. We will see more soulbeast duelists stand on the side of SMC. This spec doesn’t bring anything great to the table.

Main hand dagger is meh. Off hand dagger is awful still. Melding skills are cool, and obviously a lot of work went into it, but they don’t compensate for how mediocre our actual dagger weapons are currently. Please do something really awesome with daggers… like make them give us a lot of mobility skills, target tracking and change attacks to be some “nature magically” infused melee AoE and condi powerhouses… or something… If you don’t do some anet magic on these weapons, then both daggers will not be used in any meta play across the game.

There is honestly nothing I found with soulbeast that makes this spec shine compared to the other elite specs I tested briefly… And if this is supposed to be the condi spec enhancer, then I won’t even come close to what I was easily pumping out on the scourge.

The jacaranda ranged AoE DoT skill is pretty sweet.

Damage seems a little low for dagger autos, but spec has a lot of gameplay. Lots of new CC damage combos. Smokescale feild lasts even when u BM so u can blast stealth with your f3, but smoke assults damage is a little low, esp compared to rev. Also beast mastery traits seems bugged. BM always adds 80 stats to everything. Also the added ferocity doesn’t seem to be working. Doyak stance is also bugged

Overall the spec/mechanics all feel really clunky.

Without having daggers equipped and trying to find traits to help balance out other weapon sets, off my initial impression it feels like there is very poor synergy (at least taking power based weapons/traits into account).

Most beast abilities are suited for melee

Cast delays need tweaking across several beast mode abilities; very little fluidity when using most of them.

Some stances would feel better with the ammunition system; goes for other classes as well, and would promote more active gameplay.

*Forgot to add pet swapping within beastmode would go a long way to improve the spec as you’re losing a lot of potential swap traits with beast mastery that could be very useful.

Overall it’s probably my time to indefinitely shelf my ranger, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand anets hard-on for condi specs.

The number of beastmode skills is kind of staggering. It’s going to take ages to sort through all that and figure out what I like. That’s a good thing though, assuming some of these are good skills. Edit: NM, these are just copies of the pet skills. Oops. Wasn’t familiar with the new pets to recognize that.

The bird beastmode skill Swoop moves a much shorter distance than the 1,200 range that is listed on the tool-tip.

A request from playing for a bit.

Can you add a 25% movement speed buff when in Beastmode? It feels much too slow to play with the close combat abilities unless you run a shout build or run with signet of the hunt. It’s a shame to have so many cool new abilities to not be able to use them because you need to use 1-2 slots for movement speed.

(Or, just make the +25% baseline for all classes because it’s so slow without it.)

It has 25% movement speed if you take beastmastery.

Miellyn.6847:

It has 25% movement speed if you take beastmastery.

Had beastmastery running and saw no movement speed buff?

Edit: Just checked, you’re right. I must have changed trait lines before testing it.

Oh the Beastmaster…always loved my ranger…but to best describe the elite spec., we have to recall what was said during preview yesterday. They put alot of time and effort to making the flowing of the pet spirit into and out of the player to feel fluid. Unfortunately. That’s where all the effort went.

Stances. Entering a stance should be a permanent thing. This duration is a joke and literally makes the skills not worth taking. Instead, make them permanent but only allow one stance at a time…two with grandmaster trait.

Daggers…people don’t like them. I agree, but only in their current iteration. Warriors got access to both dagger main and off hand. They should have changed the offhand dagger to reflect. With the soulbeast we are essentially taking the essence of our pet into ourselves. We fight with tooth and claw. The dagger/dagger combo needs to reflect that.

Another thing I would love to see, which I am totally aware of how much work it would require, is to partially change my appearance to reflect what kind of pet I am merged with.

psizone.8437:

Miellyn.6847:

It has 25% movement speed if you take beastmastery.

Had beastmastery running and saw no movement speed buff?

The grandmaster minor trait is supposed to give you 25% movement speed and some ferocity in beastmode.

Miellyn.6847:

The grandmaster minor trait is supposed to give you 25% movement speed and some ferocity in beastmode.

Just edited my post, you’re right.

Seems like if you run Signet of the Hunt with BM traitline and in beastmode, you run slightly slower than if you run without it. I’m assuming Pets Prowess is giving you 30% rather than 25%.

ok so I kept on playing soulbeast and kitten it really is more fluid than I would have expected at first, I love it. However, some beastmode skills feel a bit undertuned, and primal roar should apply more condies imo… however the spec as a whole is really fun to play and increases the skill cap on ranger

bite (the bear soulbeast f1 skill) is terribly weak and needs a buff, liek giving you direct health or something. ATM bear soulbeast f skills feel weak. And this is not good, bear etc. pets are already underwhelming in pvp content

EDIT: and defy pain should break stuns

So far, I can’t get over the main-hand auto chain and 2nd skill. That chain needs to be cut down to 3 hits by removing and distributing the damage from the first attack to the others. It’s so slow for a main-hand dagger that it comes off clunky.

Crippling Shot and Dagger 2 apply the additional condi to you if you are in Beastmode. Maul has only giving me the aditional damage once, I can’t seem to get it to work.

Only elite spec I like. It needs tuning but I enjoy using pet skills! Time to level my Ranger.

Two of the three minor in beastmastery affect the ranger in beastmode, so should the last one. Loud Whistle should reduce beastmode ability cooldowns and give the ranger the equivalent to a rune of scholar bonus. Other than that, most traits that in theory wouldn’t have an effect on the ranger in beastmode seem to affect the ranger instead. Like might on crit from Potent Ally – which is good. Same goes for weapon effects that would normaly apply to pets. Attack of opportunity from GS and bleeds from shortbow #4 affect the ranger. Didn’t pay attention to warhorn #5 or might from sword’s auto.

Some of the pet family skills in beastmode are extremely underpowered and wonky, mostly the F1 skills. To the point where they are pointless to use.

The dagger leap feels wonky. In general I don’t like how the traits favor power damage, but we’re given a condi weapon. As expected it doesn’t do any noteworthy power damage. It needs to be streamlined, or better yet, the damage modifiers should all be both for power and condition (as for now I had far better results playing power builds than condi builds, and that makes me question the dagger even more). I don’t like the autochain on dagger either. Just cut out the first attack and buff the others. Three attacks are enough, four feels – again – wonky. Honestly, I would have just made this into a power weapon. It works way better with soulbeast in general.

There is a lot of potential here. Needs more consistency with traits, number tweaks and cast time and/or cooldown tweaks. The dagger doesn’t make the cut if you ask me. I also REALLY want petswap while in beastmode. It would all feel so much more fluid, and F4 is still available. But for all I know the tech doesn’t allow that..

As for bugs, the leap from birds in beastmode are not 1200 as listed, and Dolyak Stance doesn’t grant you boons. Can’t remember anything else from the top of my head..

Oddly enough I found soul beast better for power specs then condi specs. Its REALLY hard to tell right now though. I wish I could bring the beta character into the raid golem testing area to really test numbers and interactions with other professions. It got some flexibility but also the potential for going off the rails. I’m not sure it will be meta in any wvw or pve raid as it seems pretty under tuned to some of the other specs I tested. Dagger was… odd. lots of low damage hits that may add up to ok damage. felt clunky though and I don’t really see it having a place.

Basically right now the soul beast is the perma stow spec with potential but not much else.

Not impressed with Soul Beast, but it’s not really my playstyle. Will stick with Druid. On a side note, I like that tree pet. Hope it’s easy to find in the expansion.

That fart cloud makes me feel like I should be an undead ready to explode. I think it could really do without the gassy effect and leave the swirls and leaves.

Everything else seems nice.

I love the gassy effects tbh but you should get the option to turn them down if you want

Refined Toxins nets 2 stacks of poison in Beastmode, Potent Ally grants yourself might on crit, and Pounce on sword nets you might as well.

Might have to focus on just bleed and poison for a condi spec to be competitive, as burn Firebrand is crazy strong from my testing.

Dagger auto attack feels very weak.
Just compared axe mainhand vs dagger mainhand and in general (all 3 skills) axe feels better, you dont have to be so close and axe does more damage (condition).

Other dagger skills are kinda meh. Nothing special. Don’t know if I will use dagger in PvE.

Pet swapping and beastmode is far far too much micromanaging. Most of the time you don’t have a clue if your F2 on one of the pets is now ready, if your pet swap cd is ready and if you get out if beastmode you have another cd you need to have an eye on.
Allow pet swap in Beastmode.
Feels very clunky, very hectic. It is playable though and somewhat fun but it really needs more tuning. Gameflow is not there yet by constantly swapping pets, using F2 and several other pet skills and then go in and out of beastmode.

The stances. ughh Idk who thought that those skills could be useful in anything else than spvp maybe.
Make them indefinitely and allow one stance only. 95% of players won’t use them in the current form.

Healskill is nothing special.
Elite is kinda useless

Visual representation of the elite spec is underwhelming.

Also the class does not really feel that incredibly different from a standard core ranger. Have to say that I dont know if I can play the same core ranger with 3 extra skills for another 2 years.

Imo the soulbeast is a wasted chance. Had huge potential, now the best we can hope is a mediocre spec after Anet fixes some of the skills and improves gameflow with beastmode/petskills/petswap.

Some pets are really cool, but the soulbeast skills are often very bad.
- the feline bite do as much damage as auto attack on just a single target
- bird swoop is just 400 distance leap instead of 1200 and when the hit landed on no target, the soulbeast rotates.
- griffon stance is just … meh. 45 cooldowan for a bit endurance and a little bit endurance regeneration. The only cool thing is getting might while evading, thats all.
- There is no trait with cooldownreduction for stances
- one wolf pack has a 3/4 casttime…its too long to activate it in fight
- you lose beastmode when entering water.
- instinctive engage need more distance or need to be much smoother. Sometimes you’re slower with engage instead of just running.

I really like the fact that pet traits across the other specs have all become beast traits with effects in Beast Mode. That is spectacular. The beast mastery line, wilderness survival and nature magic are all especially more interesting. There’s a lot of experimenting ahead. The poison based sustain looks extremely promising but could be seriously ruined if not balanced well, like the life steal in the blood magic line on Necro. Anet, you guys have done areally good job here. Seriously, grats, Irenio.

The pet merge feels really fluid. The new pets are very interesting, beast mode skills are varied, this aspct is brilliant because it could mean we see a broader range of pets in play than we’ve ever seen.

Concerned about damage numbers, the lack of petswap in beast mode and the fact that beast mode doesn’t proc pet swap. To me it seems like exiting beast mode, should be like bringing your pet from the temp stow, ie it procs the swap traits. I could see why you wouln’t want it to work on merge, kind of, but the ability to effectively launch our pet at the enemy from beast mode, gaining procs, could be seriously fun. Please consider that if you can.

Will have to try it in PvE to be really sure but so far, you’ve got my hopes up.

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

- you lose beastmode when entering water.

Seriously?

Doesn’t anyone else feel, that Beastmode not need CD at all or much lower, like 3-5 seconds? And for balance purposes nothing buffing like swap sigils activations or buffs on entering.

It’s not Shrouds, which give massive buff itself, a massive health pool, or power healing in Celestial Avatar – we lose our pet complitely and in a compensate have some nishe 3 abilities with some having really long CD.

Like for example, simple rotation:
“Damage with pet – enter beastmode, use beastmode skills, exit beastmode in next 5 seconds”
– …and you have to wait 10s to next beast mode, to enter your existing pet or that you will swap. It’s feels very unnatural to me, but i assume it’s just first impressions.

But i realy like idea of much lower cd. We trade our pet, not giving at return something really more powerful for compensate above lack of pet.

Right now it’s clear that you must timing entering beastmode, it dosn’t feels free.
Some f3 skills very impactful and you want save their long CD for later.
And if you go out too soon you must again wait whole 10s, even if you don’t want.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Aleksander Suburb.4287:

- you lose beastmode when entering water.

Seriously?

Well, that was to be expected since when you enter the water your set of 2 pet changes.

Was playing full glass LB + GS with Smokescale and Brown Bear.

Won multiple 1v2/3, landed a couple 17k Mauls.

I enjoyed winning the 1vX’s more than I did playing the spec, if that makes sense. 2 more skills and a little more damage didn’t feel very exciting to me.

Also, you can’t combo F4 with Smokescales F2. The field remains after you meld but it doesn’t seem like you can combo with it.

And I’m noticing that I get knocked out of Beastmode sometimes. I may be fat-fingering the F5 but it seems to happen when I’m low health. Willing to accept it may be just me, but just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this as well.

Well, some shouts work in Beastmode, others don’t.

Sic ’Em applies the buff to you, WHaO copies boons on yourself, SotP grants yourself might when you strike a foe, and Protect Me taunts the next foe that strikes you.

Search & Rescue and Guard do nothing at the moment.

Oh my goodness. Gazelle does 10k hits with the charge!

Meh spec, average at best. It’s a neat addition for sure. But just as I said in previous posts, it’s more of a PvE spec and mayyybe a WvW zerg build sharing stances. Doesn’t hold a candle to Druid in PvP and WvW roaming.

If you want mobility, meld with the Rock Gazelle and use F2.

Feels really solid.

Gonna enjoy WvW reset tonight. Dolyak Stance is incredibly good.

Substance E.4852:

Feels really solid.

Gonna enjoy WvW reset tonight. Dolyak Stance is incredibly good.

IT WORKS for you?