Guild Wars 2

Seeing Eboka really makes me wonder why Bear even exist.

Anet has been ignoring useless pets for way too long and only introduce the new flashy toy and ignore the old ones.

Probably will be my go-to pet in expansion cuz I always find Ranger lack cleanse in their utility (Unless you grab WS, which you pretty much is pigeon hole in it if you wanna go in WvW)

Oh, also, your build shows yet again that we’re pretty much kittened with our LB even when go Soulbeast cuz now we can’t even grab the pierce trait for LB…

This build will only be mildly useful in 1 v 1 small roaming scenario. (For zerg, I don’t think this one really qualifies for frontline with the GS cuz no invulnerable and no party support at all)

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Aomine.5012:

Substance E.4852:

NemesiS.6749:

I wish i could use my ranger in wvw, i mean technically i can no one stops me lol but lets be honest, its in a bad state. Soulbeast wont do much to make rangers viable in wvw, sad. Well anet never cared for rangers, never will. My Advice to anyone that have a ranger and wvw, reroll honestly. Must suck to hear commanders and guild yelling at you for bringing a ranger, seriously you are just a wasted slot in the raid.

Soulbeast might be just barely useful but it will depend very heavily on whether buffed maul and sic em stick around as well as how strong they keep scourge and spellbreaker.

Sharing dolyak stance is useful and buffed maul actually hits for a lot in a zerg but playing frontline and sharing boons on a 30s cooldown wasn’t very effective during the beta when necros and warriors were completely stripping all boons.

I could barely get off a handful of worldly impacts just from how quickly your stab evaporates.

The warrior bubble also blocks projectiles which will make longbow even less practical.

Doyak Stance is like a simple Guardian shout: Stand your Ground but lasts alot shorter.
(3 seconds for your party)

Negating chill/cripple is not a big deal in zerg fight, especially when enemies have lots of Guardians and Revenants.

Even the CD is the same, except we don’t have a stance cd reduction trait, and we need to grab a grandmaster trait to even share this with the party. Guardian’s shout can even trait it for them to remove conditions for the party.

Way to go Anet! We’re an inferior Guardian now!

I think the GM trait should be 100% stance duration share to allies and is currently weak.

That being said, you are missing a prediction of how the meta will go and some decent “unintended effects”. Reapers/Necros are already pretty freaking good at aoe boon stripping. And soon there will be spell breakers, which will be used a LOT in WvW too. If your organized guild group relies predominantly on resistance instead of evolving with the meta, they will be slaughtered. Sure, while pirate shipping, resistance can kind of make due but if you try to melee ball, guardian boons won’t be enough.

Bear and dolyak stance, especially if it was 100% duration shared, would actually be awesome here. An unstrippable stance that clears 2 condi and heals per second helps a lot. What makes it even better is dolyak stance preventing 3 non-damaging conditions from being applied. That means that condi clears are much more likely to actually clear the conditions that are killing your team because they won’t be wasted on cripple, chill and immob. It should in theory prevent deathly chill from applying 3 bleeds/vuln (reaper) and the rev chill to torment trait. In and of itself, it won’t keep a zerg alive but those are a lot better than a shout that only provides boons that can instantly be ripped.

Really just need that 100% duration share to allies for it to hit a point which it could be meta to bring 1-2 soul beasts per melee ball group

In the end a skill that only lasts 3 seconds, can’t be buffed by boon duration, with a wooping 30 second CD won’t change anything in WvW.

Also you’re talking as if Doyak Stance won’t be boon corrupted too.
It actually will because it pulses stability and retaliation when cast, so they do get affected by all the boon denial kitten.

Don’t expect Anet to be generous and fix this trait for at least 2 more months cuz they’re ALWAYS very stingy when it comes to Ranger.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Aomine.5012:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Now that there is more of a PvP/WvW/PvE split, there is no reason whatsoever that they cannot buff Ranger power damage significantly for PvE without making it OP in PvP/WvW.

They could make Fortifying Bond baseline, make all (DPS) pets work with Quickness, increase Predator’s Instinct to 20%, Steady Focus to 15%, Loud Whistle to 20% and then increase the power scaling to 1.0/1.0/1.2 for Sword AA chain and it would make a pretty huge difference for power viability.

They should stop buffing traits and just start reworking the inherit damage coefficient of Axe, GS, Sword, and Longbow. (And make LB piercing baseline at least so it’s not such a garbage weapon aside of picking off lone wolf in WvW)

We shouldn’t be all dependent on key traits to even do functional damage.

I agree with fortify bond baseline too because of boon target cap (5) and priority issue of boons distribution (boons always go on players first, so our pet may not even get the boons if 5 random guy is standing near me)

Seriously, introducing OP spec/ traits is NOT the way to go, and it only polarize and further pigeon-hole our build diversity.

Changing the power coefficient of our power weapon, making LB pierce baseline, and have fortify bond baseline is the only way to really save the power ranger.

PS: I really want to post this on Reddit because developers never read forum anymore. They only read and respond to Reddit now. But Reddit is such kittenous place that abuse the downvote system whenever you show them data that’d make them upset. (Even though is truth). The only post that’d get praised in that cancerous place are those pointless comedy posts that have no benefit for improving game at all.

You can’t make the weapons deal top DPS without also modifying the traits or you’ll end up with something absurd. The weapons themselves need the co-efficients increased (like I stated) but the traits also need a bigger increase, so that to deal the maximum damage from a build, you do need certain “key” traits. Why do you think tempest is at the top of the power list? Bolt to the Heart & Tempest Defense are +20% damage each. Harmonious Conduit, Pyromancer’s Training & Burning Rage are +10% each, Ferocious Winds & Empowering Flame for additional stats. On top of decent power scaling.

Did you read my post?

I said stop buffing the trait and fix from the core, so then when you grab traits, you should have respectable damage. Currently it’s like you grab all the traits and you still do pathetic damage, that’s why people have been shouting that Soulbeast need to be OP or something, but in fact they shouldn’t let SBeast be OP and start fixing the power coefficient from the get go.

I can accept Maul bug fixed and Sick em nerf as long as the base damage and the power coefficient of those weapons are fixed first.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Now that there is more of a PvP/WvW/PvE split, there is no reason whatsoever that they cannot buff Ranger power damage significantly for PvE without making it OP in PvP/WvW.

They could make Fortifying Bond baseline, make all (DPS) pets work with Quickness, increase Predator’s Instinct to 20%, Steady Focus to 15%, Loud Whistle to 20% and then increase the power scaling to 1.0/1.0/1.2 for Sword AA chain and it would make a pretty huge difference for power viability.

They should stop buffing traits and just start reworking the inherit damage coefficient of Axe, GS, Sword, and Longbow. (And make LB piercing baseline at least so it’s not such a garbage weapon aside of picking off lone wolf in WvW)

We shouldn’t be all dependent on key traits to even do functional damage.

I agree with fortify bond baseline too because of boon target cap (5) and priority issue of boons distribution (boons always go on players first, so our pet may not even get the boons if 5 random guy is standing near me)

Seriously, introducing OP spec/ traits is NOT the way to go, and it only polarize and further pigeon-hole our build diversity.

Changing the power coefficient of our power weapon, making LB pierce baseline, and have fortify bond baseline is the only way to really save the power ranger.

PS: I really want to post this on Reddit because developers never read forum anymore. They only read and respond to Reddit now. But Reddit is such kittenous place that abuse the downvote system whenever you show them data that’d make them upset. (Even though is truth). The only post that’d get praised in that cancerous place are those pointless comedy posts that have no benefit for improving game at all.

I hope after you done with the PoF contents, you can take a close look of new specialization optimization and balance.

Some of them are way under-performed.

I doubt you guys can fix it by the time PoF launch, but I do hope you guys look into it right now and ready a patch to fix them in the near future..

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Aomine.5012:

~snip~

I’m confused as to why you even play Ranger at all.

Cuz I played Ranger since GW1, cleared all the hardmode maps , achievements, all the elite dungeon, with just ranger and heroes back then. (I almost never party up)

Ranger in GW1 is very unique range class with some powerful preparation skills and triple arrow, etc, as well as interesting build diversity through expertise.

Also I don’t only play ranger, I have every single classes fully geared, so ofc I can compare them directly when it comes to performance.

I did these testing because I care about ranger, and I want it to be good. Sure I can always go Druid if I want to beg for a spot, but druid is not really ranger to me honestly.
Classes like Chrono, Daredevil, Herald, Tempest, DH , Berserker, are all like a direct UPGRADE of their original class, only Druid feels like a different class that disguise as ranger.

DeceiverX.8361:

Substance E.4852:

There’s some extreme context denial on display in this thread.

DeceiverX.8361:

You can’t compare petless core ranger to SB with a selfish build. Rangers are taken as it is for their party-wide damage augmentation which is massive such that it makes up for their lower-than-thief-level damage.

Ya on druid, and that’s only when playing a healer role or condi spec.

Plain frost spotter is not enough to justify power ranger anymore. People will just insist you go cranger instead and do ~30% more damage.

And how many top-tier builds are there for most other professions?

It’s stupid to talk about optimization in the game for competitive speed clears when there’s only ever going to be only one optimum. Anything else is just downright wrong when you get technical.

OP’s testing methods and logic are still flawed at the end of the day, and when evaluating outgoing damage as far as DPS goes, you need to include any modifiers given party-wide to said profession.

Optimized group PvE is in fact a group effort where everyone partakes in a comp to complete the content… optimally. You don’t need an optimal comp to clear the content as people have proven time and time again.

Ranger is king in open-world, a strong pick in the PvE scene, and is one of the best small-scale PvP classes in all of GW2, with an emerging zerg presence via SB as well. You can’t say the class is overly-weak because it has low personal DPS. Every profession can argue something similar in some other context. Don’t like it? Either play a new profession in the role you like or don’t do the content if you don’t enjoy doing it in such a way.

To fix some of the issues with the ranger would require (like many professions) sweeping reworks of major systems, skills, and design principles. ANet is only willing to do shoddy balance patches three times a year as it is, so don’t get your hopes up.

Buffing the ranger to be so competitive as a selfish DPS option would invalidate the entire purpose of various other professions in their entirety in nearly all scenarios. SB as it is will help a lot more than people are recognizing.

Aomine.5012:

DeceiverX.8361:

Aomine.5012:

Or rather Anet can take this data and buff the coefficient of core ranger weapons so Soulbeast doesn’t has to be OP to bring us on par?

This is sort of a reminder post for Anet’s dev. It’s not like power ranger is OP in PVP anyway, so buffing the coefficient shouldn’t be a problem.

You just tested without using the pet’s damage for one, the other being that a loss of pet does also reduce available utility in a lot of encounters. If you make petless core ranger deal the same amount of damage from itself kitten you end up nullifying the purpose of SB.

Like every other spec, there is only going to be one or maybe two viable builds for any kind of content when optimized. Until ANet starts constantly changing balance and reworking things, it’s going to be this way. This is the same thing about the “berserker amulet OP” complaints which did nothing but shift the meta and give people to complain and hone in more on profession/build comps etc.

That’s a fact you just need to face when looking at optimization problems like raids. The problems lie more with higher-level problems than numerical balance.

Pet dps is like 3~3.5k max when grab nature magic (boon share), and 2~2.5k~ without nature magic (cuz boon application priority issue), so adding that doesn’t change much honestly.

Also, a serious note, Power ranger is NEVER strong in any of the game mode, be it open world, wvw, pvp, raid, anything, so abit dps buff really isn’t a big issue here.

I’m sorry, are you not just assuming your might is capped from other players like it should be when in environments where DPS matters?

The only time DPS matters is raids. Everything else is about burst and sustain presence, which the ranger comes close to topping the charts at in both for any given gear combination compared to a similarly-geared other class.

Power ranger is a strong small-scale/roaming option if you’re good. Not with full PvE berserker gear running all offensive utilities, but it can pump serious damage building just a little bit tanky and can sustain a lot better than a majority of builds as a consequence.

Power ranger is a strong roaming option? You mean PVE or WvW?
For PVE ANY classes can roam easily, so nothing to see here.

WvW? Are you kidding me? Condition Daredevil and Chrono are the king in that area because of high mobility, stealth, lots of escape method and teleportation, etc.
Heck , Chronomancer even has extremely good cleanse and clone distractions.

dchsknight.3042:

Aomine.5012:

dchsknight.3042:

Ahlen.7591:

dchsknight.3042:

CutesySylveon.8290:

Kahrgan.7401:

dchsknight.3042:

I feel like all the Renegade hate. The look flipping epic. AND I feel people who say it is unfinished just went into a map and pressed 1. I feel it is one of the most finished of the classes.

Found the revenant player.

The overwhelming majority of rev players I spoke to called it trash as well. If you think Renegade is ‘one of the most finished’ then have to call BS.

I am a pve player not a pvp. So I could care less what PVP players think of a class.

Renegade still needs PVE buffs most likely. The weapon is too weak and costs too much energy.

Costs to much energy… You know that when a herald goes full buffed they have 0 energy right? and I am not talking about the f2 or the elite.

IF you do 3 facets for fury, swiftness, and Might, You have 1 upkeep tick which means you gen energy at an abysmal rate. Renegade does not have the kind of upkeep cost. You can still gen energy way faster as a Renegade.

When one skill drain your initial 50 energy on get got, it cost too much energy.

For Glint, you can press 3~4 skills and you still have full 50 energy and it takes a few dozen seconds until it hits zero.

Funny how you bring Glint Up because it has perfect energy management if you play it smart.

You must not actually play the Revenant…

Herald has NO ENERGY Gen, when fully buffed. YOU DO NOT get energy back.

You cast 3 skills and you are out of energy completely.

You have to shut off 1 of your facets. the only one worth shutting off in a fight is Facet of Elements which leaves you with only 1 tick of upkeep which means you are getting 1 energy a second. That means you have to wait at least 5-10 seconds before you can fire off another skill. Which means if you are using Sword, that is precision strike, which is nice but not that great. And for axe, that is Frigid blast which is also nice and hits synergies well. But now you are back to 0. Now if your a condi rev it is better because mace has lower cost abilities but not by much. you are still in the same boat as power shiro, just a better position on the boat.

NO herald is not good energy management. It is Garbage to 0. And the fact that people think it is better just shows that they don’t know what they are talking about.

As for renegade ONLY 1 Skill has an upkeep and that is Soulcleave Summit and that costs 10 with an upkeep of 9. The skill with the MOST energy cost Citadel Bombardment at 40. Which is NOT a skill you should using all the time. IT is a strong aoe but NOT a major damage dealing skillI it helps spread burn, but the burn it puts out is weak. And besides burning is not what your skills put out. It is a secondary condi. All the rest of the skills are less energy Which as long as you dont pop soulcleave you will will have enough energy to fire off CB by the time it comes off CD, with some to spare. IF you have full energy you can fire off all spirits at the same time and still have energy.

So I really do not understand the energy cost whining. It is just not true.

Lmao, I have every classes fully geared, started Revenant as soon as HoT hits, and it’s my main wvw go-to right now with full ascended set.

Because you’re so full of yourself, I guess it’s pointless to talk to you anymore.

Saying Herald has energy management issue itself shows that you don’t know much about Revenant anyway. (Camping in a legend much I guess? Or try to upkeep all the facet without using it like a newbie?)

dchsknight.3042:

Ahlen.7591:

dchsknight.3042:

CutesySylveon.8290:

Kahrgan.7401:

dchsknight.3042:

I feel like all the Renegade hate. The look flipping epic. AND I feel people who say it is unfinished just went into a map and pressed 1. I feel it is one of the most finished of the classes.

Found the revenant player.

The overwhelming majority of rev players I spoke to called it trash as well. If you think Renegade is ‘one of the most finished’ then have to call BS.

I am a pve player not a pvp. So I could care less what PVP players think of a class.

Renegade still needs PVE buffs most likely. The weapon is too weak and costs too much energy.

Costs to much energy… You know that when a herald goes full buffed they have 0 energy right? and I am not talking about the f2 or the elite.

IF you do 3 facets for fury, swiftness, and Might, You have 1 upkeep tick which means you gen energy at an abysmal rate. Renegade does not have the kind of upkeep cost. You can still gen energy way faster as a Renegade.

When one skill drain your initial 50 energy on get got, it cost too much energy.

For Glint, you can press 3~4 skills and you still have full 50 energy and it takes a few dozen seconds until it hits zero.

Funny how you bring Glint Up because it has perfect energy management if you play it smart.

Skuzz.6580:

People just see 300k numbers and go like " woaw, OP!" while in fact that big number does not mean anything.. Usually the bigger the number gets, the faster yoou simply stack damage in a timeframe, nothing more.
a 300k number that took you 15seconds to build up is still only 20k dps

No, when I say 30k dps, it means it’s static 100% uptime 30k.
Ironically usually the first sample of the number has the highest number, so need to take 5 sample numbers and take the average to get the more accurate result.

This is why I don’t care about people saying how Sick em increase our dps by insane degree, but ignore that it has long CD. Sick em will at best increase our dps by around 15% even if you use it on the big cool down skills.

This should make you decide which one is better instantly.

https://youtu.be/1UDHWv_VRfM

Bolt projectile effect is ruined by Anet, making it one of the worst projectile effects in the game.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Bratec.7136:

Thief ranged (!) 1 button spam outdps all tests and builds in this topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ1XFTnh8Ek

21.813 dps

The S/A build did 20254 dps without the pet which would take it above that build and uses less button presses. No weapon swapping, no spamming #3, you just AA.

I’d rotate between S + A and A + WH for better boons uptime while doing almost identical dps.

PS: Don’t compare melee rotation to range rotation.
Thief Staff build can reach 30k dps without ever swapping the weapon.
The rotation is abit overly difficult with the current benchmark rotation (try to positioning for 2 to lands all hits), but there’s an easier rotation that does like 1~2k lower dps but is much easier to perform. (Involves AA spam, dodge roll and Vault only)

Vayne.8563:

I think the OP is highly underestimating soul beast. There were some very high DPS builds in evidence over the demo weekend. So I would imagine they’ll have to be nerfed.

High dps doesn’t mean much against open-world champion/legendary though, especially when you solo or do it with less than 4 people with an unorganized set-up

You can use a raid build and instantly get killed by Champion in open world, so they’re completely different situation.

Notable strong legendary monsters with very few people doing them including all the Bloodstone Beasts.

HoT specialization is pretty kitten strong, and pretty much a straight upgrade for many classes. So yes, you would be outclassed by people if you play some profession.

For example, DH, Daredevil, Tempest, Chrono, , Berserker, Reaper, Revenant, Scrapper, all of them are straight upgrade of the original class and are highly desirable in end-game contents.

This is inevitable in every MMO.

Come to think of it, PoF specialization looks like an alternative way to play a class instead of a straight upgrade of the class, so some of them might not be as strong as HoT classes. This is only my feeling base on the beta though.

Alin.2468:

It does not really matter how we rate it. If a profession can play condition damage, then it will be top, if not… well… we know where it will be. Condition damage is all that matters nowadays.

With exception of Power Guardian which has easy rotation, good aoe damage, and one of the highest power damage of any classes.

Rain.9213:

I’m pretty sure the devs got the idea for Kalla Scorchrazor and the Renegade as a whole from me…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/revenant/Choose-the-Next-Rev-Legend/first#post5308934

That was the first ever suggestion for Kalla Scorchrazor on these forums as far as my searches suggest.

Except I suggested we get a Greatsword instead of a lame Pew Pew Shortbow. In my head, Kalla would have been designed to be a hybrid Condi brawler akin to Warrior instead of a summoner but oh well at least we know the devs do listen to the community from time to time!

I do understand why they add Shortbow though cuz so few class cna use those lolz.

And Revenant lacks range condi weapon so they a range condi weapon. (Not as good as hammer though…)

As GW1 headstart player I don’t even recognize this Kalla at all lolz..

Nowhere in the story talked about Kalla as well.

Picking some npc most players don’t even know is not a smart move, despite it may have key role in Charr history lesson.

Kerivek.5740:

I think the issue here is you are assuming that sword 2+3 are meant to be DPS oriented abilities and they are not. Both of these abilities were clearly designed with defensive utility in mind more than DPS…and in that regard they serve their purpose very well. I do agree that DPSing with a sword is very boring because it is auto spam, but in situations where you actually need the evades, like PvP…these abilities are great.

My dream would be Sword 2 becomes a forward forward leap skill -3-. (1st leap gives brief evade)

Backward leap really is awkward, especially with such slow animation before the backward roll. If it’s as fast as thief’s backroll I may not be to annoyed by it, but it’s like it takes half second before it starts backrolling, which is very clunky..

For sword 3 I would rather it be like dagger’s evade, just a quick stab with evasive frame instead of this slow animation..

Ranger’s sword really need to be upgraded to like Thief’s staff.
Every evasive frame and animation are responsive and fast with all the staff’s evasive frame. Both staff 3 and staff 5 are awesome on demand evade and position control unlike our clunky sword.

DeceiverX.8361:

Aomine.5012:

Or rather Anet can take this data and buff the coefficient of core ranger weapons so Soulbeast doesn’t has to be OP to bring us on par?

This is sort of a reminder post for Anet’s dev. It’s not like power ranger is OP in PVP anyway, so buffing the coefficient shouldn’t be a problem.

You just tested without using the pet’s damage for one, the other being that a loss of pet does also reduce available utility in a lot of encounters. If you make petless core ranger deal the same amount of damage from itself kitten you end up nullifying the purpose of SB.

Like every other spec, there is only going to be one or maybe two viable builds for any kind of content when optimized. Until ANet starts constantly changing balance and reworking things, it’s going to be this way. This is the same thing about the “berserker amulet OP” complaints which did nothing but shift the meta and give people to complain and hone in more on profession/build comps etc.

That’s a fact you just need to face when looking at optimization problems like raids. The problems lie more with higher-level problems than numerical balance.

Pet dps is like 3~3.5k max when grab nature magic (boon share), and 2~2.5k~ without nature magic (cuz boon application priority issue), so adding that doesn’t change much honestly.

Also, a serious note, Power ranger is NEVER strong in any of the game mode, be it open world, wvw, pvp, raid, anything, so abit dps buff really isn’t a big issue here.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Odd choice using Sigil of Fire instead of Air.

Lack of budget :P (Currently not intending to do raid with power ranger anyway so didn’t bother to put on air. I use fire for general tagging in PVE :P)

You can add a few hundred dps on top of the current one :P

Or rather Anet can take this data and buff the coefficient of core ranger weapons so Soulbeast doesn’t has to be OP to bring us on par?

This is sort of a reminder post for Anet’s dev. It’s not like power ranger is OP in PVP anyway, so buffing the coefficient shouldn’t be a problem.

DeceiverX.8361:

Substance E.4852:

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

A: Wanting to be able to not be completely shutdown by perpetual walls of reflection and feedback bubbles is not the same thing as “always unblockable”.

B: Go look at what kind of damage a frontline ele can crank out while being tanked up in minstrals. Hell, go see what a Rev can do in full zerk spamming CoR which isn’t a projectile.

Literally the only thing that will earn Soulbeast a slot is stab share and even that probably won’t be worth much with Scourge and Spellbreaker obliterating boons left and right.

I don’t want to be able to blow up people with no way for them to deal with it but I also don’t want ALL our ranged to be projectiles when classes that put out massively more damage than we do aren’t held back by this mechanic.

It’s why our damage is bottom tier in a zerg (probably only above mesmer) and nothing is going to change until the issue is addressed.

Do you not realize that unblockable attacks ignore reflects? You can do 13s of unblockable attacks with massive damage and have 6s of all power damage negated with two solid condition removal skills every 40s or less, or split it 9/9 which is insane compared to what most other classes can do.

Comparing ranger to Guardian is ridiculous because the Guard is designed for this kind of play with a substantially lower viability in anything small-scale.

Aomine.5012:

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

Yep, the reason why Guardian and Revenants are meta in wvw right now is cuz they can tank AND spam high damage aoe at the same time.

CoR ignores all reflective walls and do high BURST damage, while having anti-burst in forms of Glint and Resistance spam in terms of Mallyx.

Revenant can also keep up perma fury and swiftness and high stack of might to their party members before even engaging too, which is a big help to many classes that lack those boons.

Guardian has more cleanse/ block and invulnerable too in frontline too while doing abnormal aoe damage.

Oh, and they’re both heavy armor.

Guard can’t tank/block and attack against a ranger at the same time if it’s built like the above. Again, unblockable everything for many seconds is insane. The only true invuln they have would then be RF, but guard loses all ability to cast when doing so, so what you said just isn’t true.

Comparing ranger to power hammer rev is stupid because power hammer rev over-performs in WvW zergs. This isn’t anything new. Getting rangers on that level will immediately get them gutted because the rest of the ranger is way more robust on its own. Rev is a broken class in design made good in a few environments with a few blatantly overtuned abilties lke CoR in ZvZ’s. You don’t want ranger to be that way.

Guardian runs 2/3 of the base health of ranger and is tied for lowest in the game, which justifies the heavy armor. You have baseline 50% better condition durability than a guard. Ranger has better potential sustained mitigation and heals than guardian has as well, and reaches better time-based damage mitigation when it tries via GS than what Guard can do. In Druid, a ranger also has way better resilience against condi bombs than guards since it can remove all 13 at a time.

Outside of hammer, most of rev in terms of its zreg build is absolute trash, and even still, it lacks unblockable attacks, and this can only CoR through reflects, which while still overpowered, is completely different than being able to ignore all blocks and all reflects. Forcing a panic block early from an enemy commander into a response invuln which makes the blob unable to push can single-handedly win a fight.

Guard AoE damage isn’t abnormal. In WvW frontline builds it’s abysmally bad, actually. There’s a reason necromancers and eles have been brought historically in large raids.

Most boonsharing is done from replication effects on defensive boons from other classes like the mesmer, anyways. Nobody really cares too much about sustained fury/might/swiftness when it’s super easy to cap from a ton of different professions. The shared resistance from Mallyx was what made the boonshare meta OP and is what made boonsharing what it is even still.

Everything you’re arguing is either irrelevant or just downright untrue. Ranger’s in a way better spot than you think.

Sure, keep thinking ranger is good in WvW.

Sure you can sustain, but you’re still a selfish leech class standing afar trying to self sustain yourself, which is all ranger can do in WvW. Worst case scenario many rangers are killing their own teammates by shooting their rapid fire against the 124125 reflective walls enemies throw at you.

Heck, Revenant can even help blocking projectiles and removing conditions from allies.

Substance E.4852:

NemesiS.6749:

I wish i could use my ranger in wvw, i mean technically i can no one stops me lol but lets be honest, its in a bad state. Soulbeast wont do much to make rangers viable in wvw, sad. Well anet never cared for rangers, never will. My Advice to anyone that have a ranger and wvw, reroll honestly. Must suck to hear commanders and guild yelling at you for bringing a ranger, seriously you are just a wasted slot in the raid.

Soulbeast might be just barely useful but it will depend very heavily on whether buffed maul and sic em stick around as well as how strong they keep scourge and spellbreaker.

Sharing dolyak stance is useful and buffed maul actually hits for a lot in a zerg but playing frontline and sharing boons on a 30s cooldown wasn’t very effective during the beta when necros and warriors were completely stripping all boons.

I could barely get off a handful of worldly impacts just from how quickly your stab evaporates.

The warrior bubble also blocks projectiles which will make longbow even less practical.

Doyak Stance is like a simple Guardian shout: Stand your Ground but lasts alot shorter.
(3 seconds for your party)

Negating chill/cripple is not a big deal in zerg fight, especially when enemies have lots of Guardians and Revenants.

Even the CD is the same, except we don’t have a stance cd reduction trait, and we need to grab a grandmaster trait to even share this with the party. Guardian’s shout can even trait it for them to remove conditions for the party.

Way to go Anet! We’re an inferior Guardian now!

Conclusion:

Unless Soulbeast can magically doubled the dps through the Sword Axe + GS combination (Assuming Maul bug is still a thing), it is unlikely that power Soulbeast will get a spot in high level contents.

Another thing to consider is:
Marksmanship has 10% and 15% damage modifier
Skirmishing has 150 precision on 5 members and 10% additional crit rate + 250 ferocity
Beastmaster has extra bonus stat when merged, 5% damage for GS and 250 ferocity and cd reduction on sword+ axe combo and shout cd reduction

You have to choose one to give up and take Soulbeast.

stone cold.8609:

Here are my admittedly biased opinions, from a PvE only perspective after playing the demo specs:

Holosmisth: 8/10. Great concept that completely changes the feel of the Engie in a very good way. Liked it so much it got me to level up an Engie just to play this spec. Would be 10/10 if heat mechanic was applied to other weapons.

Weaver: 6/10. Again great concept, but global cool down on attunement switching makes this spec feel clunky and overly complex. It may work better for me with Dagger mainhand since sword seemed underpowered and had issues with attack chain resetting with attunement swap. I’d like to run this over DX Tempest, but probably won’t because of the current length of the cool downs. Looking forward to trying it in PvE to see what it is really capable of.

Spell Breaker: 6/10. Another great concept, but really seems to be focused on PvP/WvW. I don’t see this spec being more effective in PvE than the current condi Beserker or power Core builds, which is really too bad because I’d love to switch to something other than those. Looking forward to trying it out in PvE to see what it is really capable of.

Firebrand: 2/10. Not a big fan of the direction this takes the Guardian. Locks up the hard hitting skills behind a Engie like kit mechanic (tomes) with long cool downs. Not a big fan of the kit concept in general. Very short range cone based skills are extremely unwieldy to use. I don’t foresee playing it.

Dead Eye: 0/10. Don’t like sniper play style and didn’t really want this in the game. I don’t WvW, but I can already see the hate this will generate which will probably lead to more nerfs to the thief class that will likely screw up non sniper builds. I’ll stick to my current Daredevil and hope that it doesn’t get nerfed to oblivion because of Dead Eye.

Soul Beast: 1/10. Great concept. I was excited to try this spec since I don’t like pet AI in this game, but for some reason it seemed underwhelming when demoed. Also, the aura was very unappealing visually to me. Don’t foresee me playing.

Renegade: 1/10. Kala who? I kept wondering if she was so worth of a legend, then why didn’t I hear about her before? Would not have been my choice lore wise. It doesn’t really matter because the spec was so underperforming when I briefly demoed it. Don’t foresee playing.

I didn’t have a chance to demo Scourge or Mirage.

Agree with Renegade.

Out of all the iconic characters Anet can choose, they choose someone that I never heard of, despite playing GW series since 10 years ago.

This is a dps testing for Petless Ranger in preparation for Soulbeast

Marksmanship: Steady Aim, Predator

Skirmishing: Sharpened Edge, Spotter, Vicious

Beastmaster: Two Hand Training, Honed Axe

Gears: Full Berzerker
Ascended Weapon with Sigil of Fire and Sigil of Force
Ascended Trinkets
Exotic Armors with Rune of Scholar

Utility: Signet of Wild (Not bringing Sharpened Edge because rangers will most likely bring spirits)

This test is assumed I have all boons and all class exclusive buffs/ banners/ spirits/ glyph/ alacrity

This test uses 6% + 3% power utility and 100 power 70 precision food. (No ferocity)

All Golems have 25 stacks of Vulnerability and Cripple

The test is taking 5 dps numbers from Raid Golem and take the average of that number

GS: 14864

Sword Axe + GS: 17612

Sword Axe: 20254

Sword Axe + Axe Warhorn: 20298

Axe Warhorn: 15217

Axe Axe: 18355

Longbow (1000+ range + Predator): 16779

Longbow (1000+ range + LtW): 14911

Longbow (melee range + Predator): 14797

Sword Axe + LB (Quick Draw): 17206

Sword Axe + LB (Vicious Quarry): 19379

DeceiverX.8361:

So you want to be able to tank and nuke and hit through blocks at the same time?

There’s barely any real investment away from durability compared to most professions when taking these options. This is especially going to be true with Soulbeast which will have 500+ more baseline armor/vit and can spec into another invuln effect as well to compensate.

Yep, the reason why Guardian and Revenants are meta in wvw right now is cuz they can tank AND spam high damage aoe at the same time.

CoR ignores all reflective walls and do high BURST damage, while having anti-burst in forms of Glint and Resistance spam in terms of Mallyx.

Revenant can also keep up perma fury and swiftness and high stack of might to their party members before even engaging too, which is a big help to many classes that lack those boons.

Guardian has more cleanse/ block and invulnerable too in frontline too while doing abnormal aoe damage.

Oh, and they’re both heavy armor.

Eleazar.9478:

Gotta say it’s pretty funny when someone’s being all reasonable and someone else is freaking like they kicked their dog or something. Longarm makes some solid points, would be cool if you see power soul beast, core cranger and healing druid all in one comp.

I’m just tired of people SPECULATING we have good dps without actually do the testing themselves. Ranger power build dps is low even with all the appropriate triats, and Soulbeast is not going to magically doubled our power build damage.

Soulbeast is not a straight upgrade of our class, it’s an alternative way of playing ranger without pet, that’s all.

LughLongArm.5460:

Aomine.5012:

LughLongArm.5460:

I’m not lecturing anyone(why getting so defensive) and I cant go golem cus SB is not out yet, and that’s why I do need to theory crafting and that’s exactly what you do when you talk about SB position in raids before we really tried to raid with SB, so just relax m8.

So do you think Soulbeast will magically make a 14k dps weapon (because we have no pet anymore) goes to 36k dps?
That’s the real question.

You give up your pet, you giveup either Marksmanship/ Skirmishing or BM, losing alot of dps from get go.

You got some other dps traits to compensate with your original dps lost.

You got a Maul 50% damage bonus, but you still have to wait 3.5 cd per cast.

You got some bonus stat from merging.

You got a F4 called Wordly impact.

You got sick-em, which lasts for 8 sec with 32 sec cd, meaning the 40% dps increase is actually 10% in the long-run.

With all this being considered, do you think our 14k dps GS is going to reach 34k dps?

My answer is clearly a big no. I’d be happy if it reaches 20k dps at least, but that’s still nowhere near the raid dps requirement. (minimum 32k dps)

What I said is that I’m not sure if you got your numbers(14k+3k -dps) before or after the big AUG balance patch. If it was before, the patch itself added power ranger a lot of dps boost which scales amazingly with the SB traits and skills(beast skills and weapon skills). Damage modifiers scales exponentially with high ferocity bonus, and we got extra 530 ferocity+10% crit chance+200 power + extra 22% dmg boost from SB traits. With the boost Given by maul, Sicem, SB(F1-F3) etc… I think we can more than double our power build dps compared to pre AUG power builds.

I do think some of the SB traits/skills could use a boost. Twice as Vicious is weak, the master traits are weak, the GM traits could sue some improvements, but the potential for dps power build is there.

It also opens up room for druid build going NM/BM/DRUID with spirits, and SB going MM/Skrimish/Soulbeast with Spotter.

These numbers are AFTER the buff, meaning before it’s even worse.

LughLongArm.5460:

I’m not lecturing anyone(why getting so defensive) and I cant go golem cus SB is not out yet, and that’s why I do need to theory crafting and that’s exactly what you do when you talk about SB position in raids before we really tried to raid with SB, so just relax m8.

So do you think Soulbeast will magically make a 14k dps weapon (because we have no pet anymore) goes to 36k dps?
That’s the real question.

You give up your pet, you giveup either Marksmanship/ Skirmishing or BM, losing alot of dps from get go.

You got some other dps traits to compensate with your original dps lost.

You got a Maul 50% damage bonus, but you still have to wait 3.5 cd per cast.

You got some bonus stat from merging.

You got a F4 called Wordly impact.

You got sick-em, which lasts for 8 sec with 32 sec cd, meaning the 40% dps increase is actually 10% in the long-run.

With all this being considered, do you think our 14k dps GS is going to reach 34k dps?

My answer is clearly a big no. I’d be happy if it reaches 20k dps at least, but that’s still nowhere near the raid dps requirement. (minimum 32k dps)

LughLongArm.5460:

Aomine.5012:

Just don’t.

Ranger weapon power coefficient is way too low compare to other power class.

Our highest dps rotation of sword+axe is about 24k dps, which pet is contribute 3k dps within that 24k, meaning our power build dps is around 21k alone. (Because you’re losing pet in beastmode!)

On top of that, greatsword dps is as low as 17k with pet, and 14k without pet (beastmode has no pet), less than half of what Guardian’s greatsword can do.

Soulbeast is not going to magically double your dps even with Maul bug, and Sick-em only have 1/4 of the uptime compare to its CD.

Guardian can easily hit 34k dps with their greatsword power build rotation.
Soulbeast has to deduct 3k dps from your pet and gain some minor dps increase.
Soulbeast is not going to magically turn Ranger’s 14k greatsword into 34k that’s for sure.

Not sure when did you get the 14k results, but with last balance patch we get 180 ferocity from SOTW, 250 ferocity from vicious quarry(10% crit chance), 200 power100 ferocity from Ferocious. The ferocity bonus alone is ~ 30% extra damage on crits(getting close to 100% in pve raids) which we didn’t have before and will scale with all the new extra dmg bonuses . Now add SB minors(ya, they should buff Twice as Vicious)SB GM(Oppressive Superiority, also could be buffed)SB beast skills+Sicem and maul while in SB. Ya, your 2H dps should be more than doubled, compared to pre AUG patch, DPS checks.

How about you try it on Raid Golem yourself instead of theory crafting and lecturing me?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Petless-Power-Ranger-dps-testing/first#post6745477

14K is about camping in GS not swapping. (17k when add in pet)
Camping in Sword + Axe is around 23k dps after the update. (20k without the pet)

For reference, Guardian can reach 34k dps with just camping in GS and spam traps.

This is all base on actual testing on Golem, not throw in some tool tip and imagine the number.

This is DPS testing, so big numbers doesn’t mean much, consistent high damage is the key. Sick em has an up-time of 1/4 of its CD, and merging into SB loses 3k dps from pet.

Do note grabbing Soulbeast means you need to give-up something else too.
Marksmanship, Skirmishing, and BM are all our most important dps traitline. By sacrificing any of them and go for Soulbeast inherently lowers the expected dps by a large margin from the get go. So unless Soulbeast can boost our power damage by 100% CONSISTANTLY with 100% uptime, there’s no-way Soulbeast going to take over the dps spot in raid. (Guardian and Tempest brenchmark is 35~36k dps)

Refia Montes.3205:

Go go Power Ranger dream is dead? ;-;

You can still go condition build though.
I heard it’s a minor dps upgrade with Soulbeast merge mode when it comes to condition build.

You lose 3k dps from pet but gain 3k+ more dps from the traits.

You literally function exactly the same as vanilla condition ranger as Soulbeast, using the exact same weapons/ slot skills/ traits (except Soulbeast trait), just slightly better dps, and that’s about it. Nothing new to see here, sadly.

Just don’t.

Ranger weapon power coefficient is way too low compare to other power class.

Our highest dps rotation of sword+axe is about 24k dps, which pet is contribute 3k dps within that 24k, meaning our power build dps is around 21k alone. (Because you’re losing pet in beastmode!)

On top of that, greatsword dps is as low as 17k with pet, and 14k without pet (beastmode has no pet), less than half of what Guardian’s greatsword can do.

Soulbeast is not going to magically double your dps even with Maul bug, and Sick-em only have 1/4 of the uptime compare to its CD.

Guardian can easily hit 34k dps with their greatsword power build rotation.
Soulbeast has to deduct 3k dps from your pet and gain some minor dps increase.
Soulbeast is not going to magically turn Ranger’s 14k greatsword into 34k that’s for sure.

Meaning PoF has no new legendary whatsoever?
It’d be GS or LB or dagger for sure.

Skuzz.6580:

Aomine.5012:

If you actually try the weapon, there’s no way you can claim dagger 4 hit speed is same as sword 3 hit. It’s definitely slower.
You’re just theory crafting numbers instead of doing the field test when it’s available.

I played Soulbeast all demo’s and stress tests, I did my fair share of testing in the ’ field’ .

You don’t need to “Theorycraft” anything, all it takes is looking at the numbers.
Dagger=1/4+1/2+1/2+1/4
Sword=1/2+1/4+3/4
Exactly the same 1.5sec for both.
Dagger might look slower because the middle 2 swings both take half a second, but they really are not

How’s number matters when you don’t count the aftercast of each action?

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ricochet

So Axe 1 cast time is 1/4, so can I hit 4 times per second?
This is clearly false because after-cast exist.

Dagger has a long after-cast on 3rd and 4th hit, that’s why it’s slower.

Tool tips are just for reference, field test is most important.
Dagger has worse dps than Axe, people had already tested it.

You seem to not understand the issue here.

Pet is part of our entity, especially when I grab Nature magic of boon share.
So why is my pet not benefit from the skill effect first and my boons should all go to random stranger first?

Imagine if you do fractal with npcs support (Like Molten fractal), and npcs are prioritize and absorb all the boons people trying to stack.

This is exactly the same issue with our Call of the Wild. Our pets are being ignored because of target cap, and boons passed on to random stranger.

My pets are losing fury, might, swiftness, regeneration, on top of me myself losing addition stacks of might when I try to boon share through We Heal as One.

Tell me, how is this complaining when Anet’s system literally kitten up pets in general?

Skuzz.6580:

There is no condition scaling lol.. all conditions deal exactly the same damage all the time, its the duration and stacks that make some numbers apear so big compared to others.

Here a very simple example:
Dagger attack-chain#2 applies 1 stack of bleed for 3 seconds = 66 damage(3sec worth of bleed)
Dagger attack #2 applies 4 stacks of bleed for 6 seconds = 528 damage(24sec worth of bleed)
needless to say dividing 528 by the difference in seconds (24/3 =8) you get to 66.
You can do this for all conditions skills in the game.

now power does scale, and while it is lower on the dagger attack chain, dagger chain vs sword chain is only a difference of 0.5 over the whole chain (same duration chain), and that is not even counting the 4 vul stacks you can keep up with the chain and the condi damage it adds.
And this is why I said, dagger is a strong hybrid weapon, which it is.
Don’t even mention the range lol.. all daggers have a range of 130… which is the same as swords..
It’s attack chain is the same duration of that of sword, but doing 4 attacks instead of 3, so fast (hard math.. i know).
Funny that you mention gap closers.. sword only has one if you evade backwards first.. while dagger 3 is actually a gap closer (however small), and sure, it does not have evade’s, but you get quickness instead.

Moa Stance:
You obviously missed the 66% boon duration increase on Moa Stance… which is why I said it is probably the strongest boon skill in the game.

Doyak Stance:
If you even bothered to test the demo and stress test you would’ve figured out it is actually very easy to get this to work.. I guess you never tried out nature Magic (its 2nd minor).

You also mention 80% of the F2 and F3 skills being terrible. I am not sure we tried out the same demo here.. Or have you not even bothered to try out the gazelle, any bird or tiger? just to name a few.

And I hope you are aware that the biggest thing about soulbeast’s power actually comes from the passive stat increases you get when merged..

1st, my main build is Nature Magic + We Heal as One, that’s why I say Soulbeast is not good at all.

2nd , I’d take Revenant constant 33% boon duration increase for the WHOLE PARTY over 66% increase for 1/4 of the uptime on yourself only. (Or 3 second for party member) Hitting boon duration cap is not hard at all anyway if I grab Nature Magic and Leadership Rune and food. In fractal you also get 15% more boon duration. (I can reach 80% boon duration without outside help already, why do I need Moa stance again?)

That’s why I say you make it sounds like a big deal, but I would rather grab Protect me for roaming and Spirits/ glyph for party contents, NOT moa stance.

3rd, Dagger dps is terrible and the slow auto-attack chain mess up the rotation.
Most likely you won’t get that 4th main hit because it’s better to cast something else on CD instead of waiting for the 4th hit to land. If you actually try the weapon, there’s no way you can claim dagger 4 hit speed is same as sword 3 hit. It’s definitely slower.
You’re just theory crafting numbers instead of doing the field test when it’s available.

I said 80% of them are terrible exactly because I try them all.
Gauzzalla is that 20% sure, but doesn’t automatically make 80% of the other pets better.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Skuzz.6580:

…Also, people really haven’t looked at the dagger close enough. The power scaling on dagger skills is the same as sword, sword chain is same duration as full chain of dagger.
Dagger is a very nice hybrid weapon, applying vul, bleed and poison, aswell as having the same power scaling as our strongest power main hand we have access to atm (Sword).

The power scaling on the Dagger is nowhere near the Sword; On the sword, Slash and Crippling Thrust scale at 0.7 and Precision Swipe scales at 0.8, while on the Dagger you have Groundwork Gouge, Leading Swipe and Serpent Stab all with a 0.4 scale and Deadly Delivery is just 0.5.

Let’s do the math for a power build, no precision or crits.

Sword – 1050*2550 * 0.7 / 2500 (armor) * 2 + 1050*2550 * 0.8 / 2500 = 2356 for the whole chain.

Dagger – 981*2550 * 0.4 / 2500 * 3 + 981*2550 * 0.5 / 2500 = 1701 for the whole chain.

Ok, so it’s 28% less power damage, what about adding condi damage? Let’s use Viper gear instead.

Sword – 1050*2057 * 0.7 / 2500 (armor) * 2 + 1050*2057 * 0.8 / 2500 = 1900 for the whole chain.

Dagger – 981*2057 * 0.4 / 2500 * 3 + 981*2057 * 0.5 / 2500 = 1372 for the whole chain.

Now the condis – 6s Poison, 6s Bleed * 1.42 = 8.52 ticks per bleed and poison. Bleed damage = 93 per tick, Poison = 105. Total condi damage = 1772.16

Dagger total in Vipers = 3144.16

Now we take crits into account and the sword in zerker with the dagger in viper. I’ll use the chain x 100 for ease of calculation.

Sword – 1050*2550 * 0.7 / 2500 (armor) * 2 + 1050*2550 * 0.8 / 2500 = 2356 for the whole chain.
50% crit chance.
220% crit damage.
50 AA chains = 117800
50 AA chains @ 220% crit = 259160
Total = 376,960

Dagger – Dagger – 981*2057 * 0.4 / 2500 * 3 + 981*2057 * 0.5 / 2500 = 1372 for the whole chain.
35% crit chance
150% crit damage
65 AA chains = 89180
35 AA chains @ 150% crit = 72030
100 AA chains worth of condi = 177216 (That’s going to take 10+ minutes to deal it’s damage)
Total = 338,426.

So, it’s only about 12% better with sword/berzerker over dagger/viper but the more ferocity you add the better the sword will become due to higher crit chance and base values. SO when you add in traits like Vicious Quarry, Honed Axes and SotW, sword starts looking very much better.

Although, if you drop the Expertise and run the grievers set, the damage will be worse off for the dagger as you will be dropping 42% of the condi damage away for 42% more critical damage, keep in mind the lower crit chance though. Although, for most things I doubt it will be an issue, if dagger gets a few tweaks then it may be fun to play at least and while a hybrid may not be top DPS, it may be enjoyable.

I may actually calculate the damage of the grievers set with a hybrid dagger build later on.

I don’t know how you calculate it, but dagger 4 hit combo is way slower than sword 3 hit combo, so the dps difference should be way bigger than your theoretical number.

You have to factor the time/ aftercast of each weapon.
You can’t just look at the tool tip and cast time of each attack and do the math, it’s not accurate at all.

You also have to factor in not finishing the 4 hit slow combo and have to use an alternative skill mid-way for better rotation, meaning you may lose the damage from that last hit because you have to use other skills first for better dps.

Dagger damage is worse than Axe.

Skuzz.6580:

BadSanta.6527:

Skuzz.6580:

I have to disagree with most things the 2 people above me posted.

Soulbeast offers the ranger more than any other elite spec currently in the game does.
It gives you so many options, it’s a jack of all spec basically.

- For PvE condi and hybrid dps specs will use Soulbeast over Core ranger
- Power ranger could be a thing, but I honestly think Soulbeast was made with the new hybrid damage set in mind.

- I don’t know why you would think soulbeast is weak in roaming, if you think that you obviously haven’t looked close enought to the Beastmaster trait line and how it benefits Soulbeast greatly. Or how the shouts benefit you when in Beastmode.

- For WvW and PvP Bear stance has to be the best thing that could happen for rangers, you have an equal stun break trait as Druid’s CA has, stances and its mastery are actually very potent in WvW.

In general Soulbeast gives you a lot of options. How all that is going to play out in the end is just a guessing game, but you can’t look at soulbeast and think it is worse then a core spec, because it is not.

i really have to disagree with you , itried play power soul beast and in the end beside F3 and smock scale F2 its not good, no reasone to take stance
and as for condi no reason to take dagger … and stance

You are probably one of those people that stay in Beastmode all the time, thats where you went wrong.
Dagger has nothing to do with Soulbeast, it is not what defines Soulbeast, sure its the weapon you can use when picking Soulbeast but it does not mean you have to use it.
Also, people really haven’t looked at the dagger close enough. The power scaling on dagger skills is the same as sword, sword chain is same duration as full chain of dagger.
Dagger is a very nice hybrid weapon, applying vul, bleed and poison, aswell as having the same power scaling as our strongest power main hand we have access to atm (Sword).
Also don’t forget Ambidexterity (Wilderness Survival top trait) also states " Dagger", where normally we only had the choice of dagger offhand, we can now use a mainhand dagger and still gain this bonus, so you can have x/Torch on 1 weapon set and dagger/x on another (axe comes to mind for both x’s with Honed Axes traited)

Moa stance is one of the strongest boon skills in the game (probably the strongest actually)
Bear Stance is some much needed condi cleanse that ranger lacked on their heal skills.
Dolyak stance (when fixed) combined with the stance mastery is very powerfull in WvW.

Stances are Utility skills, you don’t need to use everything, or anything at that, they give you a lot of build options. And this is the same for the traits of soulbeast and the countless of pet/merge options.

So I think it’s best to agree to disagree because as you see I have my own thoughts on the effectivness of Soulbeast.

Dagger nice hybrid?
More like inferior power scaling AND condition scaling at the same time with very short range and slow attack speed.
It’s literally the worse version of axe with less power damage and less condition damage, no cc, no evade, no gap closer, no aoe, no nothing.

Mao Stance strongest buff in the game?
Sure, granting short duration of protection and and fury is the strongest buff in the game…. Ok then… (Chrono and Druid look at you sympathetically)
If you want protection, I’d grab Protect me instead cuz it’s instant cast and break stun, and can use mid-way while I cast We Heal as One and grant double duration of protection instantly without breaking the flow.

Bear stance is pretty nice on paper, but when you factor in the CD (25 seconds), it’s not as good as you expected. 16 secs CD boon sharing We Heal as One is still miles better than this.

Doyak Stance is bugged so you can’t say anything about it yet, it’s all your speculation.

Rest of the stances are just terrible/ mediocre at best.

Do I need to mention 80% of the pet f2 and f3 skills are down right terrible?
They conveniently scale down all the f2 and f3 coefficient to make sure they do no damage whatsoever.

So when 80% of the package of that new E-spekittenerally suck, and their main new weapon does not appeal to the user one bit, how can I get excited about this specialization?

Amityel.5324:

scourge 9/10
holosmith 10/10
firebrand 5/10
soulbeast 3/10
renegade 0.5/10 (for actually making any elite and not forgetting revenant class)
spellbreaker 7/10
deadeye 6/10
weawer 8/10
mirage 3/10 actually big dissapointment for me I expected way better elite with this cool mechanics

Your score is almost the same as mine XD..

So recently I’m testing Call of the Wild boon application, and notice that this skill prioritize random strangers not even in my party over my precious pet.

This really causes me great deal of trouble while roaming because I’m running nature magic, and I wish to copy as many boons as possible from my pet.

With boon share, Call of the Wild will grant my pet 6 stacks of might, so using we heal as one will makes me get 6 extra stacks of might -> 9 stacks of might total.

But because of the coding, when I stand near with more than 5 other random strangers which I have no intention of helping, I’d instead get 3 stacks of might only from my pet.
This also makes my pet gets less boon uptime in general, further decreasing my dps.

Anet really should change the target priority from team mates > pets > npcs > anyone not in your party. Why should I care about the well being of people standing near me?

Diak Atoli.2085:

Knuckle Joe.7408:

Every time one of these posts come out, people (I assume avid condi players) always say stuff like “you don’t have condi cleanse?” as if the stupidly imbalanced condi classes can’t reapply the them isntantly.

The problem with condi is that you got stupid shutdown capabilities WHILE also doing stupid high damage, which is easy to apply/reapply. Most of the cleanse skills take away 2-3 condis at max, while the ones that remove all of them are under long-ass cooldowns. How are you suppossed to remove cripple, chill, burn, poison, bleed, torment etc, with your modest condi cleansing?

You don’t have to worry about that with power built enemies. You just dodge, dodge, dodge, (you can literally pull out vigor out your ass at this point of the game) a few blocks here and there and that’s it. Stuns are rare tbh and most of the time hard to apply.

5-7 stacks of bleed alone and you are already doing damage equivalent to some bread and butter power skills, each second.

Condi classes should not have so many crippling condis, they should have only damage ones.

I’d like to address several things. Disclaimer: This is merely a set of examples and observations. Interpret as you will.

1. The same skills and tactics used to avoid power-based damage also avoid the majority of condition-based applicators. Without those applicators, condition builds don’t do direct damage, nor apply damaging conditions.

2a. A Condition Druid; running full Sinister’s, Runes of the Krait, a Sigil of Malice, and food; has +33% bleeding damage on top of 1,817 condition damage.
- A single stack of bleeding does 174.25 damage-per-second.
- Five to seven stacks deal 871.25 to 1,219.25 damage-per-second.

2b. A Power Ranger; running full Berserker’s, Runes of the Ranger, a Sigil of Force, and food; has 2614 power, 58% critical chance, and 225.33% critical damage.
- Rapid Fire deals a minimum of 3,734.75 to 9,440.98 damage.
- Rapid Fire is a 2.5 second channel, so damage-per-second is 1,493.9 to 3,776.39
Note: This damage is against 2500 Armor. Soldier Professions using Berserker’s, Viper’s, Sinister’s, etc have a Armor rating of 2271.

3. There are no condition professions. Power-based builds have access to the same inhibiting conditions as condition-based builds.
- Afore-mentioned Power Ranger has access to Immobilize, Cripple, and Slow; the same conditions the Condition Druid has.

Now to be a cheeky fellow.

The afore-mentioned Power Ranger also has condition cleansing on a 20s CD (4 conditions), a 20s CD (2 conditions), a 32s CD (2 conditions), a 40s CD (2 conditions), and a 48s CD (2 conditions). These also apply Immobilize, Cripple, and Slow while being stun breaks and evades.

Your build can’t do that?

Lolz, as if Rapid Fire could ever land on anyone with all the projectile hate or simply dodge it.

Do you really pvp? You should give example better than Ranger’s garbage Longbow.

Honestly, Ranger that uses Shortbow is way harder to deal with than Ranger who uses LB even in WvW.

For LB you only need to watch for ONE skill every 10 seconds.
Also protection is so abundant among EVERY classes nowadays. Not to mention toughness is a thing too.

For SB you need to watch for every single attack they spam on you because all of them build up pressure to you.

Krispera.5087:

Ranger have it real bad with AoE. Mesmer is bad too, without Chronomancer wells.

You know what’s better ? A year ago, they removed one bounce from Axe, then gave another bounce to Thief SBow and buffed Choking Gas damage. A long time ago, they removed throwing traps, our only way to do AoE damage at range.

Splitblade damage is still unsplit and does more damage in PvP (Still don’t understand that move).

The Jacaranda and the Iboga will be our saviours… Even then, I don’t want to rely on them.

They remove throwing traps but release Shade which is like a stronger throwing traps?

This is the Anet we know too well!

Einlanzer.1627:

I actually think Ranger longbow is nearly perfect where it is. I don’t think it needs pierce – it’s already better than pretty much every other ranged weapon in the game, in most cases by a significant margin.

If you want to do ranged badly – try a rifle warrior.

Revenant hammer is laughing at you literally.
A good high damage weapon with utilities and ignores projectile block.

Guardian Scepter very very high damage, much higher than LB.

Thief P/P higher damage than LB.

Necro Scepter very high long lasting condition damage, main dps for condition Necro rotation. (Way higher dps than power LB ranger rotation)

Warrior LB condition Berserker: Very high condition damage, way higher than that LB of ranger.

Ele Scepter: A much better PVP weapon than LB that’s for sure, with utility and ignore projectile reflection.

All of them are better weapons than LB by a large margin in PVE or PVP .
Ranger LB is only a selfish tagging weapon and nothing more.

PS: Without piercing the dps is even worse and it doesn’t even function as it’s primary goal: A selfish tagging weapon.

Let’s see…

For Raid/ Fractal, it seems that it’s far from a good dps spec, so not a dps spec.

For support, most stances last for like 6 sec, so even if you share it , it’s only 3 seconds max, and their functionality is worse than boons and shout. (Bear Stance is ok I guess?)
Not a support class like Druid for sure.

For PVE roaming, vanilla ranger has higher survivability in general, but if the enemies are very weak, then you can merge it 24/7 and spam GS I guess? Hard to judge this one cuz open world is not hard to begin with.

For WvW, I guess it works cuz ranger generally suck in WvW, but still, it’s nowhere compare to other WvW meta class yet. Roaming wise it’s worse than Druid that’s for sure. Maul burst can caught some clueless newbie off guard though.

For PVP it’s worse than Druid too it seems because it lack sustains in general.
Maul burst can caught some newbies off guard too though.

Ragnarox.9601:

Kahrgan.7401:

So general consensus is renegade is lowest rated, clunky af, and poorly designed.

Good job devs

Firebrand is not far away from him too

Except Firebrand can enjoy their new crazy burning in PVE :P
(Tested, can reach 40+ stacks of burning with Tome F1 + scepter torch if traited correctly)

I already posted the exact same video in my “What’s wrong with dagger” post.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/This-is-what-s-wrong-with-dagger-condi-SB/first#post6734028

As topic stated, according to all the testing you’ve down, rate each of the new Specialization from 0 to 10, in terms of strength and your personal preference.

Here’s my score:

Spellbreaker: 7
The animation is very good and the class itself is quite unique, but I like dps spec more, so despite it’s unique role it may not be my favorite.

Soulbeast: 4
In theory it is a pretty good specialization, but in practice it just lacks alot of things, that I suspect core ranger is doing better than this one. There’s alot of tweaking needed for their main hand weapon: dagger, that has no utility, no damage, and no survivability. Many of the merged pet skills need complete rework too. Overall feel like a rushed class. The new pets are very good though.

Firebrand: 7 Many of the tomes need polish, but personally I like how they reward long cast time with big effect. Thematically is pretty great, just need abit polishing for the cone mantra.

Weaver: ?
Haven’t test this one much so can’t judge it fairly.

Holosmith: 10
Both thematically and practically works great. Heat mechenic is very interesting yet rewarding. The graphic is top noch, the synergy is very fun. Some utilities need a bug fix, but overall I really like this spec.

Scourge: 8
Very interesting new mechanic for Necro. Most of the Shades has great synergy with the core Necro traits, which is fascinating. You can cast one shade skill and does burning, boon removal, condition clear, weakness all in one bottom. Can fulfill some interesting role in WvW.

Mirage: ?
Havent’ test this one much but the theme and animation is pretty cool .

Deadeye: 7
The burst and the Deadeye mechnic is pretty cool. Kneel mechanic is slightly annoying for me though because I really like the feel and slippery of Daredevil. Also while rifle does nice damage, it feels abit boring playing it honestly. The new F1 is very interesting and I like it alot though.

Renegade: 3
This spec looks unpolished and incomplete. Energy cost of most skills are unreasonable. Bow 1 is pretty bad aside from the piercing trait. Bow 2 barely hit anything and it’s redundant. Bow 3 barely hit anything too. Bow 4 is decent and bow 5 is pretty good. Overall this weapon lacks functionality as a package compare to hammer. The utlities need alot of rework too cuz energy cost is way too high for a killable spirit. F2~F4 all need a rework too. Overall feels like a class that only has good animation and that’s about it.

What are your thought?
You don’t have to give reasoning, just a number of each class.

Captain Obvious.6951:

And now the new specialization, Holosmith, is MORE melee! Added a sword, and a bunch of new attacks that require melee range while in holoforge. GREAT!

I just feel if I wanted so much melee I’d play the warrior or guardian instead.

This is the part where you’re incorrect.
I think Holosmith is a good spec that can fulfill both range and melee need.

By grabbing Crystal Configuration: Storm, you effectively get a new range AA attack that actually hit in a radius that does good damage.

Phanton Forge 4 is also a good range burst.
Phanton Forge 5 is a huge aoe skill.

I tried Holosmith in PoF map during stress test and really really like the playstyle, a mix of range and melee hypbrid.