Guild Wars 2

Gave my ranger a new face and a few new colors…

jaif.3518:

For WvW zerging I plan to get an owl. A leap, swiftness, and a heal, and no pet to manage – absolutely perfect.

So from 8 skills you could use, you plan on using 3.
Using 37% of your potential is hardly “absolutely perfect”.

Don’t get me wrong. Atm I am also only really using one pet, but I don’t think this is a good state we’re in right now.

What gamemode are we talking about?

If you want to play condi PvE, the dagger is not a good choice, not mh not oh.

As condi you take the bristleback as pet with SB and A/T and never enter beastmode unless oyu can immediately aactivate all 3 F skills in it (which is a somewhat decent way of putting out AoE condi burst). After that you go back to playing core ranger until the F skills are ready again.

Btw: I wouldn’t get hyped about the power burst that you achieve with a broken pet, with a 40% dmg buff on yourself (or the pet) and a Maul on GS that uses its own AoO atm. All these things are very likely to be nerfed.

The questions people ask themselves are:

Is this new elite spec better at something I could do with the core specs?
Is this new elite spec better or different enough from the Hot elite spec?

If none of this is the case then why wouldn’t you go in this semi-beta phase of PoF to the forums and complain?

At least the people in the class forums have a very specific concern. What is the goal of this thread here?

Lickage.7318:

Man… the combo’s u can make with you’re pets and beastmode are amazing and fun. And try a different off-hand next to the dagger like an axe.

I must agree the new Utility skills are boring and lazy.

First of all you don’t mean your pets you mean combos with your pet.
Because you have no way to switch your pet F skills in an adequate time to do any combo.

Second, the combos might be fun, especially the bugged gazelle that hits all 5 targets in one hitbox, but other than using this broken pet your combos are not really effective. (also for the gazelle pet you need no soulbeast)

Third. Axe offhand? Seriously? You run around with dagger/axe? And you’re telling me it’s amazing, fun and effective?

Soulbeast has an slightly higher overall dps than what we had previously. but only if you never enter Beastmode, unless you immediately use all 3 F skills in it and immediately leave it.
So we now have a clunky core ranger, with a new completely useless new weapon and a annoying new mechanic, that adds extra work and gives you not much reward for using it. A new mechanic that makes the pet AI upon spawning/despawning the pets everytime you enter/leave Beastmode even more useless and clueless.

The one good thing Soulbeast has atm, I admit it, is good(but not insane) burst dmg. While the power burst dmg will get almost certainly nerfed, the condi burst will probably stay or get even better.

If anet hadn’t added the new green glow around my ranger I wouldn’t believe for a moment that this is a new elite spec.

Edit: I forgot to talk about the stances. Because at least 3 out of 5 are not even worth mentioning.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

If Soulbeast can swap pets while in Beastmode I want to be able to enter Photon Forge with Holosmith without the visual tells.

You see how that could be a problem? It’s a good thing you guys don’t have any actual say in balance beyond slinging your shxt at walls and calling it art.

No one said that there would be no indication whatsoever at the moment you change your pet. Your aura could light up for a moment.

But your argument is really ridiculous. If I play pvp I have no clue what my opponent has in his utility slots. I have to wait and see what skills he uses. Same thing for soulbeast. An opponent has to see what beast skills I use and adapt after gaining that knowledge.

This happens everywhere in the game and you are trying to make it look like the soulbeast would be completely op if an opponent had to react and adapt to my merged pet, like he has to every other utility skill that exists in the game.

Hawken.7932:

This is absolutely incorrect. It makes me think that you haven’t even tried playing it. The damage – particularly burst damage – in beastmode is completely INSANE. It so good in fact that I just don’t see how it can last too long without getting nerfed.

And this makes me think you haven’t played anything else but soulbeast because you don’t seem to have any clue what “insane” dmg means for the PoF elite specs.

There is power burst which largely revolves around the 40% dmg shout and also there is currently a broken gazelle bet. Both are one trick ponies that won’t really help you in PvE content and that won’t work in anything but low rank spvp. Also gazelle and Sick ’Em! are very likely to get nerfed.

Then there is condi burst which is quite good, especially if you use Bristleback as pet. The overall sustainable soulbeast dmg is not that bad but not so great either. High burst and then you’re pretty helpless and pray to god you don’t need your second pet for an invuln/heal etc because you have no way to switch your pets in time to get those F skills.
The sustainable dps over a longer period of time is better than what we had before. But only slightly higher and that higher dps needs now much more work and doesn’t feel as fluid as with what we had previously.

Also the new spec was supposed to give the class a new/fresh feeling. There is really nothing we either couldn’t do before or something another class couldn’t do way better with less effort.

Right now we are stuck with a clunky core ranger with 3 extra skills.

And I am not even talking about the dagger, which is at this point nothing anyone should choose.
If you want to use both, the new elite spec and the new dagger, you have now less survivability, less dmg and more work than you would’ve had with a core ranger.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I don’t actually know what you are saying here.

Does your beastmode aura visually change when you merge with another pet? Is it red, blue, whatever?
No.

The devs thought that visual representation of what pet you merged with does not matter. And now there are suddenly people that tell us that we can’t have a petswap in beastmode because people need to know what pet you’ve equipped, which they didn’t knew before either.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I don’t know how anyone can see anything with the amount of visual clutter and auras and flashes, effects and explosions etc etc going off continuously, I don’t think there is a real need for a tell to let people know what pet is being used.

Also, remember that it were the devs themselves that decided that they would only give you one single aura for all the pets and archetypes. If they thought that your merged pet does not matter it can’t be brought up now as an argument against pet swapping.

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.

Miellyn.6847:

How many times does it need to be repeated? You are not supposed to stay permanent in beastmode.
It is not a petless ranger. Get over it.

Look this is what you’re saying:
-Beastmode is a complete dmg loss, unless you use an F skill in it.
This means: NEVER go into beastmode, unless you want to immediately use an F skill.
This means: 90% of the time, play vanilla core Ranger, with an additional annoying mechanic that makes the pet AI now even more clueless and useless when spawned/despawned .

Imo that is just bad game design.

rdfaye.4368:

Side note, can other rangers access the PoF pets in WvW? I went into WvW, and all the new pets are grayed out.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Sad.

InsaneQR.7412:

Thats why i didnt put it on the list. Everything reasonable will be up there.
The stances work fine as they are (except dolyak which is bugged) and they are an interesting support tool for soulbeast. Changes on the behaviour wouldnt give them any benefit, especially when you think about Moa stance-Dolyak stance or Vulture stance-One wolf Pack synergies.

I completely disagree with that.
Imagine it works like this:
-One stance at a time, stance lasts permanently.
-Stance pulsates and gives you one charge every X seconds.
-Charges can stack up to Y amount..
-As long as you have at least one charge of the stance, the stance gives you a passive.
-You can activate your stance a second time and use all of your current charges of the stance to get a buffed version of the stances effect.
-After consuming all of your stances you have a cd.

It’s basically like the ammunition mechanic, only that the stance has also a permanent passive function to it.

But I would rather see completely different skills and not waste utility slots for skills that look like something that should be in a traitline. More active and interesting skills that actually change the way you play your class!

Yeah, that’s what I thought first too when I heard “soulbeast”. A ranger that transforms in a beast. Would’ve been so much fun. But they decided that they want it the other way around. And now we have the core ranger with a green glow and 3 extra skills when he gets rid of his pet.

Problem with the soulbeast is that they made a huge effort to adjust all the different pet skills (40+) for all the different races and genders (5races), instead of adjusting the existing weapon skills for 2-3 unique beast models. Would’ve been probably the same amount of work and would’ve been much more unique and interesting.

But that’s of course just not what we have now and the main problems of the soulbeast are imo:
-useless dagger that has an endless auto attack chain and that deals not nearly enough dmg, also the dagger has almost no synergy with other existing weapons and is also a weapon that gets you into meele combat without giving you any real advantage over a SB for example that does still far more dmg
-useless and really boring stances (at least in normal PvE content)
-clunky pet swapping
-many many useless beast skills (there are great ones too of course)
-an underwhelming visual representation of the skills and of the entire core elite spec mechanic, the “beastmode”, which is imo still a glorified pet stowing option that is not even that great because you know exactly you’re supposed to leave it but when you do, you feel punished by the long cd

Also I think another problem could be that every time we get on our mounts we will automatically get kicked out of beastmode, like it happens now, when you go into water and your pet disappears.

In PoF you want to always engage every enemy group on your mount because of your mount opening skill. I don’t want to reenter beastmode for every group I engage.

Since we’ve not seen a real beta with all new features combined I can only hope that the devs have thought of this and that we will be able to stay in beastmode on our mounts.

Stand The Wall.6987:

soulbeast gets 3 invulns, massive condi management and endurance regen, and great condi spam.

yeah theyre useless.

Most of the things soulbeast gets are only useful in pvp situations (endurance, invulnerability etc)
And the Condi Spam soulbeast gets is a burst of condis with a huge gap in between.

And when you want to quickly access your beast skill stun breakers, invulns etc. you have to leave beastmode and wait 10s where you can’t do too much and then you can access them. And if you want to start doing damage again you have to wait for beastmode again.

Right now it’s clunky, has an okay overall dps, good burst dmg (condi or power), some good new utilities for pvp but really nothing you would want for your normal pve content and overall the soulbeast still feels like a core ranger, just clunkier.

Problem with things like stances and signets and all those skills is that many of them are or at least feel like “buffed” versions of traits that you have to activate through your skill bar.

I want much more active skills. Skills that have really an impact of how the class plays. I want to see new attack skills, teleports etc.

And instead of something boring like “get might every time you hit for 6s”, I want things like:

- “Summon your pet while in beastmode, summon both pets if you’re not in beastmode” or
- “create a well of soulbound magic on the ground, which deals damage/ applies conditions/gives boons to your allies depending on your active pet archetype”

But that’s obviously too late.

But I agree, I would rather see a “permanent” stance.

Substance E.4852:

Ya actually they are good because I actually play WvW. That mode where being next to allies is the norm and having precise and powerful support skills for pushes is invaluable.

If you don’t understand how good 6s of stab every 30s + immunity to soft cc is then there’s no point to arguing with you.

I personally don’t care about WvW. I already knew and said that some stances can have a place in pvp situations.
Fine, now we have 1 skill for spvp, one additional that is also useful in WvW, still the other 3 are pretty useless.

From a PvE perspective there are far better skills you can choose than the stances.

Substance E.4852:

lol so are 90% of our skills. Are you slotting lighting reflexes or muddy terrain in pve? I doubt it.

Boon duration increase and spamable stab are fantastic group utility and not worth giving up for whatever piddly perma-buff you would rather have.

Lol, you would rather have 6s 66% increase with 30s cd than permanent 15-20% or something like that?

I wouldn’t call 6s stability on 30s cd exactly spamable (3s for your allies).

Also you only share stances at the moment you activate them and only in a 360 radius and only with 50% of the duration.

So your allies can get happy if they stand directly near you when you activate your dolyak stance once every 30 sec and then they get 3s stability.

Imo that’s bad. For open world pve completely useless and even for structured group content not that great.

So yes, I would absolutely prefer a indefinitely lasting stance. Or a stance that builds up stacks over time that then get automatically used under the right conditions, something like that. Maybe you could even activate the stance to use all the current stacks of your stance and get a nice extra buff or whatever.

Substance E.4852:

The only way this could be even remotely balanced is if every single one got nerfed heavily and we could no longer share the effects.

No thanks.

“Nerfed”? You mean they would be adjusted so they wouldn’t be completely op? That’s not nerfing. Yes anet would need to do that. Right now their pretty much useless in anything but some pvp situations.
But I get what you meant.

Also there are already many indefinitely buffs that are shared on allies.

BUT: I am not a fan of the stances though. These are such lame passive skills.
-First we got signets. They’re passive and really boring.
- Then we got glyphs. Same, boring mostly passive and useless for the most part.
- Now we get stances. Again something that is a small buff for you that doesn’t last very long and has a relatively long cd. Boring and useless and passive.

Passive buffs or buffs that activate under certain circumstances should be made available through traits, not through your skill bar.

I wanted way more active skills with this spec. I am still using only vanilla utility skills in PvE content. It’s getting boring. Idk if I want to play with the same skills another 2 years.

Ramoth.5162:

They could have done a efficient loner spec, so we didn’t have to deal with a pet at all if we were doing something that made them a liability. Screw fusing with it. Just let us do our thing without it and give us the extra damage that our pet “would” be delivering. Simple.

Exactly. I get it and I am happy for all that wanted to get “rid” of the pet. But getting rid of the pet is not an elite spec. It’s what should’ve been a fix in an interim patch years ago.

Also: soulbeast is even more underwhelming if you stay always in beastmode. You’re supposed to switch between pets now even more than before and you have to enter and leave beastmode constantly to play your class optimal.
And this is not really that easy because whenever we enter or leave beastmode the cooldowns we need to have an eye on disappear.

RedDeadFred.1256:

According to Reddit, there’s some pretty ludicrous power burst with Soulbeast since one of your shouts just gives you 40% extra damage. There’s people mauling for 26k apparently. Yup, Soulbeast useless guys!

Wow, a one trick pony, only useful in low rank spvp.
Also I am pretty sure the gazelle pet and the 40% dmg buff are not intended and will get immediately nerfed.

Granted, the soulbeast has some really nice condition and pure dmg burst but is then somewhat helpless until the cds run out.
The overall dps is okay.
Dagger MH is nothing I would choose over an axe right now. Dagger OH is as terrible as it always was for PvE and the stances are almost completely useless in PvE.

The new elite spec is playable but the dagger mh as well as managing several cooldowns of petswapping, all the F skills in and out of beast mode, the beastmode cd itself this makes everything feel so clunky and you always feel rushed to get out of or in beastmode and nothing feels really rewarding because our dmg is spread out thin over so many different skills we have to use.

Also there’s nothing new that the soulbeast brings to the table and the soulbeast feels really not that different from playing a core ranger, just more clunky.

But then, we got what we saw in the trailers. I am not really surprised by the underwhelming feeling of the spec.

- allow Petswap in beast mode
- improve dagger mh/oh
- make stances last indefinitely and only allow one
- we need indicator of cd of our pet F2 skills when we are in beastmode
- update skill descriptions. They’re terrible right now, no one has a clue what works when and how in beastmode. Fix that!
-beastmode aura should be affected by pet archetype, soulbeast is overall an visually underwhelming spec!

Substance E.4852:

Feels really solid.

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

Maybe it’s sarcasm but as far as I know Dolyak Stance doesn’t even work properly?

Wondrouswall.7169:

Kind of crazy. If your pet dies, enter Beastmode, and if you immediately exit, it’s back to full health with no cooldown swap penalty. That’s pretty sick.

This will probably be “fixed”

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.

I play the game in german and never use the german names for the specs.

Don’t even know how most of the HoT specs are called in german

With the entire megaserver and the LFG most of the times you have to write English anyways.

Justine.6351:

Okay my mount moves wayyyyy toooo fast. Think all mount speeds should be lowered to help everyone control them better. Thinking maybe a 33-50% speed reduction. I’ve talked with my guilds and people ingame and they all agree with me. Please reduce mount speed so they are more usable! If they don’t make this change myself and all the other vets will just leave the game for eso probably. Also nerf warriors.

You are unable to control the mount at the current speed? In fact your entire guild and everyone you know is not capable of dealing with this speed?

Are you serious?

Vavume.8065:

Holland.9351:

Found the Sand Lion on the east edge of the map next to the road.

Where is the pic of the actual lion tho? :P I am just as interested in that.

Levetty.1279:

Off topic but I presume this beta works like HoTs and if you use transmutation charges or appearance kits, you will still have them on your main account?

That’s how it works

Miellyn.6847:

Why do so many people complain about this? The mount is instant and can be used while running. One button to press more, don’t you have other problems?

Why shouldn’t people complain. Opening the inventory is just one button. How would you feel like every time you find a rare item your menu opens automatically? Just close it, don’t you have other problems?

The thing is there are far better ways to get rid of people that stand inside of important npcs, no need for an annoying break in your game flow upon interacting with any object in the entire game world.

LimeSamurai.9140:

Mount size is based on the height of the character, not race.

That’s how it works.

The dismount on interaction is a invitation for trolls that don’t care about NPC/object interaction and a punishment for normal players that actually want interact.

Anet should just implement that on displaying the NPC names (i think it’s on Ctrl as standard) If you do that all mounts get semi transparent or something like that.

And then they should let people talk to npcs on mounts and/or make no mount areas around very important interactive objects.
These areas are already in the game. Go into the city and watch. You get a little icon that you should leave your mount immediately in most areas of the city.

I think it’s either a bug or not implemented and I hope when they finally implement these no mount zones they get rid of auto dismounting people when talking to npcs.

Ah, I saw that too on someone. It didn’t come to my mind what was wrong with that player but now I know.

I think it’s awesome!
Anet should look at the performance and then implement it if it impacts it not too bad or make at least a toggle option to show all weapons always.

DeceiverX.8361:

I can only assume dismounting on NPC is to cull mounts to make NPC’s visible so they can be clicked when a large mass of players is next to one and using the location. Otherwise one could wall off NPC’s entirely with interactive items on the ground like feasts etc. and covering the area with mounts.

You can do this right now! You can stand with your raptor inside of an NPC.
Dismounting upon interacting is nothing a troll or griever stops it only stops normal players in accidentally blocking the interactive object.

Pls no dismounting when talking to an NPC in the open world.

Just dismount in areas around really important objects quest givers if you really have to but dismounting because of every single little interaction, even somewhere in the desert is already annoying.

Dragon.4782:

Now to find the cheetah and rock gazelle!

Unfortunately not tamable…

I personally prefer the way it is right now. Imo a mount should not be as maneuverable as a player character. Otherwise your mounts start to look like the mounts in WoW which are just visuals for a speed buff and don’t change the way you move in any other way.

Yeah, the numbers are weird. Lower dmg than an auto attack. If you don’t want the utility or condis, using purely flat dmg pet skills in beastmode would be a dmg loss.

But let’s wait for the second beta weekend….

Rong.5470:

I hope mounts will be disabled in HoT and core game!!!

We know already that mounts will be allowed in almost all maps of the game. (except WvW, sPvP)

Don’t know what your comment has to do with the issue of auto dismounting?

While I think this is a fantastic idea to solve the problem of people standing inside of NPCs and blocking them for others, I already found it annoying within the first minutes of the beta.

Is there not a way to deal with the problem of people blocking NPCs without such an annoying and immersion/gameflow- breaking way?

Thoughts?

Edit: Here’s an Idea: When other players come too close to an NPC they appear dismounted for us, with all the animations etc. But on their side nothing happened, they are still on their mount. If they move a tiny amount out of the NPC range then the other players see their mounts again.

Daerian.6523:

This thread is about you not understanding game design and trying to make a point while being wildly mistaken.

If you don’t have to say something don’t say anything.
This is a thread about how likely it is that we will ever see a shapeshifter in this game.

I can go around as well and tell people that they’ve no clue about what they’re talking and feel superior, without making any argument. What you’re doing is not discussing but making arrogant statements.

Sry but this is the most useless comment ever.

Durzlla.6295:

“Even purely visual effects affect gameplay.” no, no they don’t, if I drink an endless embigoning tonic, or turn myself into a Kodan or a watch knight via tonic I DO NOT CHANGE ANY GAMEPLAY, because it’s a purely visual effect.

What you are asking for is NOT “purely visual” if it were it not only wouldn’t be a trait, but it also wouldn’t change anything other than appearance

This entire conversation makes no sense to me in so many ways:

First:
You don’t mean visual you mean cosmetic.
The visuals of a game can be very important for gameplay reasons as stated in the examples of my previous comment.
Also:
if: cosmetic = not affecting gameplay
cosmetics = visual
visual != cosmetic

This means SOME visuals do not affect gameplay, others do.

Second:
I said explicitly that with such changes I would expect gameplay changes for the player.
What I’ve wrote in previous comments was a response to people that claimed that transformation would be “too much work”, “balance nightmare”, “rework all skills” etc. Then I replied, that the work the Anet devs had to do was “mostly visual”.

And then remember:
This entire thread is NOT about what I am asking. I do not ask to change anything about Soulbeast. The elite spec is already done. Soulbeast is not a shapeshifter and will never become one.
This entire thread is about how likely the chances are for getting a true shapeshifter in the future after getting an already very similar elite spec.
Go and read the OP. The only reason we’re having this lengthy discussion is because I gave as an example of how similar the soulbeast is to a shapeshifter the two things it would take for the soulbeast to become one.

Imo this entire discussion is off topic.

RabbitUp.8294:

It’s not a debate. Your suggestion affects gameplay, not just visuals.

Even purely visual effects affect gameplay. Just try and hide your UI and tell me it doesn’t affect gameplay. Switch ranged with meele attack animations, disable animations completely.
Affecting gameplay is nothing that distinguishes visuals from something else.

Here, copied something out of the numerous explanations I gave

If you change the animation and visuals of a skill then that’s enough.
Of course, like I’ve explained now three or four times, you have to change every attack skill to a meele attack if you’ve transformed to a meele beast, or to ranged for ranged beasts. But that’s mostly a visual thing. The SB 4 is now meele instead of ranged, the GS 1 is now a ranged attack, the LB 2 is now a meele channeled skill, the work a Anet dev has to do is creating new skill icons, choosing one of the beast animations to play when that skill is activated and then adjusting a few numbers but of course only if this skill has changed to meele/ranged.
That’s what needs to be changed. It’s almost only visually. The skills themselves still have the same effects, purpose etc.
If you say that’s now a completely new and unique skill then okay it is but I say it’s essentially the same skill and really nothing groundbreaking except the visual representation of that skill in your beastform has changed.
That’s what I mean when I am talking about visuals. Skills don’t change much.

You noticed I am talking about the work an Anet dev has to do and that work is almost only for the visuals, animations, models, skill icons.

Of course I want an effect on gameplay. If I wouldn’t want any, I would be happy with a generic green aura.

Caeledh.5437:

How many times does it have to be explained to you that this is not a visual change?

I explained this now several times in a row. If we do not come to an understanding now there’s no point in further discussing this.

RabbitUp.8294:

You realize all your skills are available to you when you go into beastmode, right? That means all utilities and weapon skills.

And most utility skills don’t even need animation changes, they’re just effects. No one would be upset if you’re activating your spirits in beastmode and you as a wolf would just use a generic “animal use animation” to summon it. And btw. that’s really the only noticeable special utility skill animation ranger really has, everything was already using animations the ranger already had or using no animation at all, just some effects (which don’t need to be changed).

RabbitUp.8294:

So, the spider you transform to would have to swing a greatsword and shoot a bow, and do the animations associated with our utility skills.

As I wrote now 5 times in this thread already. The animations need to be changed. Your weapon models would of course disappear in beastform. I already said that utility skills are no problem in Beastform.

Here’s a list of utilities. If you’re familiar with ranger you can go through everyone of them and you’ll see that most of the time there is no special animation, most of the time no animation at all, needed for them and even if there is a skill with a special animation, there is nothing that wouldn’t work in beastmode..
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Utility_skill#Ranger

Daerian.6523:

If you really don’t get it, try to imagine balancing ranged Whirling Defense.

Fantastic example for a skill that does not even need to be changed at all. Works in ranged or meele. Granted in ranged you don’t hit your enemy. But it still blocks projectiles and it can hit enemies when they come close.

Krispera.5087:

1) Being able to be ’’petless’’
2) More flexibility and choices
3) Major buff to melee ranger playstyle

MH Dagger is meh, so are Stances. Beastmode is the savior of the spec.

1)True but only in some situations. Pet is so annoying when it randomly attacks stuff and slows you down or if it just eats the damage instead of having some sense to it that it at least evades the heavy hits or if your pets pathfinding is broken.
BUT: Pets are also the most amazing tool for soloing champions and stuff like that. Also the F2 ability of your pet is something you would completely lose if you decide to stow it for all eternity.

2)Probably true.
3)I personally didn’t choose ranger because I wanted to play in meele. But with axe/torch or your SB 2 you already have to be very close to the enemy, so that a dagger is probably not that much worse for me.

MH Dagger seems actually quite good.

I will probably ignore stances completely. (in PvE)

Beastmode is essentially just stowing your pet and then get some of its abilities. The entire “your soul merged with your beast” aspect was already completely gone, when the only visible effect that can be seen is a green aura. That doesn’t sound groundbreaking, or something that keeps me interested for another 2 years in this class. Seems like something they could’ve fixed in an interim patch because they’ve finally given up on their pet AI or to please the “petless” ranger crowd . Because that’s what we get. The completely same ranger we always had, now just controlling some of the pet abilities directly.

I still don’t see the exciting thing about that spec.

RabbitUp.8294:

You: We are talking about visuals

Also you: Change all weapon skills when transformed

If you change the animation and visuals of a skill then that’s enough.
Of course, like I’ve explained now three or four times, you have to change every attack skill to a meele attack if you’ve transformed to a meele beast, or to ranged for ranged beasts. But that’s mostly a visual thing. The SB 4 is now meele instead of ranged, the GS 1 is now a ranged attack, the LB 2 is now a meele channeled skill, the work a Anet dev has to do is creating new skill icons, choosing one of the beast animations to play when that skill is activated and then adjusting a few numbers but of course only if this skill has changed to meele/ranged.

That’s what needs to be changed. It’s almost only visually. The skills themselves still have the same effects, purpose etc.
If you say that’s now a completely new and unique skill then okay it is but I say it’s essentially the same skill and really nothing groundbreaking except the visual representation of that skill in your beastform has changed.

That’s what I mean when I am talking about visuals. Skills don’t change much. I am too lazy to write everything again, I already explained everything that is to say about that topic in the comments above.

Edit: Also I originally didn’t create that topic to discuss how the soulbeast could be made into a shapeshifter. (The soulbeast is already done and wont be changed in such a massive way) I only gave two examples of what the soulbeast lacks in order to become one. I did that to point out that with an already similar class/elite spec in the game it would now probably be even more unlikely that we will ever see a shapeshifter in the game. Something I originally hoped the Soulbeast could be but then it of course turned out to be much “less”.

Durzlla.6295:

We are getting 30 skills based on the family of the pet we fusion dance with, 1 new heal, 1 new elite, 4 new utilities, 3 new weapon skills, and then a new F2 depending on the “type” of pet we fusion danced with (let’s just assume there’s 4). Oh, would you look at that, we too have gained 40+ skills for our elite spec.

But you know, the devs are too lazy ignoring the ranger class because they didn’t give us shapeshifting kits.

We’re talking mainly about visuals and there is no doubt that the class as far as we’ve seen it at this point is imo visually underwhelming.
I don’t care too much about flashy effects but to just slap a few green particle effects on every soulbeast skill feels lazy.

I think the soulbeast could offer some interesting builds and variety with all the pet families but is this something that truly alters the experience you’ll have with ranger in a way that will keep you interested in playing it for another two years? Or is the new elite spec the exact same ranger with his pet skills made more accessible to use?

I don’t know at this point if this will be true build wise and if there’s something to the soulbeast that would really alter my playstyle but I do know that from the actual visual representation of the soulbeast in the gameworld, not much has changed.

The soulbeast thing feels imo so generic in its actual representation and animation it could be just a mastery line for a new map that everyone could use to merge with the beasts in the region. Something that feels slapped on the class in a few weeks and rushed out to get it done for the next living world episode.

It doesn’t feel like something that is supposed to satisfy the need for new classes in the game, something we probably won’t ever see happening in GW2 again because, well, we have our elite specs.

BadSanta.6527:

My problem with the soul beast is the animation , it seems more like an green lantern core thief rather then merge with pet this is so sad compare to all the rest of the e specs

True. The visuals could also be for a revenant spec or a thief spec, maybe even for an elementalist spec that is earth/nature themed.

Let’s hope that at least the new pet skills in beastmode have something more to them, other than a few green magical effects.

Daerian.6523:

If you really think such change is “only” change and this is such small change… there is no need for further discussion.

Hint: It’s balance nightmare.

Why exactly is it a balance nightmare?
If you have your shortbow and you transform into a meele beast, why exactly would it be horrific if you get now every SB skill as a meele version?
If you have a Greatsword equiped and then transform into a ranged beast why exactly would it be insanely difficult to make ranged versions for the few skills of the GS that even require a “ranged conversion”. There are even right now many skills on the weapons that would alread work, regardless if you’re playing ranged in meele combat.

The “only” was in regard to that they don’t have to come up with entirely new skills. The “core mechanic”, the “style” and overall “purpose” of the skills would remain the same, they would’ve to “just” make adjustments, which could be still a good amount of work, but then again this is what we expect for a new elite spec in a game where the devs decided that those new elite specs replace the new classes that we don’t get anymore.
Adjusting skills is still far far easier and faster than coming up with different and entirely unique new skills. That’s what I meant with “only”.

Of course every new skill or change is something new to balance, of course everything is work, of course beastmode and skill conversion, attack animations etc need resources and time but that’s exactly why we buy an expansion at the end of every few years.
To give the devs the time and resources they need to make substantial and meaningful changes (that actually matter) to the core experience of the game and this includes every single class, not just one or two for each expansion.

Soulbeast will be the very first thing I’ll try during the beta but after my initial impression of the “new ranger” I doubt that this will be something that can keep me playing this class until we get another expansion.