Guild Wars 2

With Soulbeast in PoF, and the interaction of Maul while in beastmode, it is very annoying for Opening Strikes to trigger on auto attack chains.

Can we have Opening Strikes not be consumed on Auto attack chains please? I Personally dislike turning auto attack off when I’m in Open World..

Tomes are fine.
You can always play an Engineer if you want instant kits…

The best way to make firebrand better, and the only thing it needs, is a slight boost to the cone ranges, other than that Firebrand is pretty good.
I don’t think tomes are a problem at all, I think they achieve what they are meant to do very well.

You can’t really compare tomes to attunements, attunements are a basic concept of the Elementalist, and is the reason they only have 1 weapon set.
With tombes you as a Firebrand have access to 2 weapon sets and 15 tomes spell, I’d say that is a very big kitten nal.

You can also boost tomes abilities with other trait lines making them even stronger (you can have every spell cast in defensive tome apply Aegis, I mean with 8 pages up, that is 8 instances of Aegis!! I mean, that is so strong.

A lot of people like yourself just need to spend more time on the Firebrand to realise its full potential.

Pifil.5193:

FogLeg.9354:

I could see Firebrand with Tomes and Mantras supporting allies from behind. Only then, the Axe is pointless. If you however, stick with Axe, you probably need to avoid Mantras (and Tomes).

They can support allies easily so long as the firebrand moves to behind the enemy that they’re fighting. You don’t all have to on the same side of the mob, after all. Close range, melee support.

Not only that but what people seem to forget is that there is no harm in just facing away for split second (maybe missing 1 sec on your chain) to get your mantra off, or better yet, ever tryed not standing dead center on a mob and attacking? works perfectly fine, cleave attacks are a cone themselves so there is no need to stand in the middle of a mob facing the mob directly

All this comparing Mantra’s to shouts in terms of reach (cone vs radius) has to be getting old… They are 2 different type of skills, stop comparing them like that. Mantra effects can be applied more frequently and are generally stronger.

I agree, and much will with you that the range of the cone could do with a buff, but it should never ever become anywhere close to the radius of shouts (in their current power level).

InsaneQR.7412:

My topic is basically the same. I made about 27 points to improve the spec. Beastmode swap is always first.
In the main game forum is a beta weekend feedback and pretty much every soulbeast improvement is “allow petswap in beastmode”. Pretty much the whole ranger community is on the same page here. So all i can say is i can agree with you.

Let’s hope Anet pays attention to all our feedback! Here is hoping for the best!

Little off topic maybe, but at least we can be happy that we get a ’ DPS’ Elite spec, I myself never could get into Druid, all I use druid for in open world is the 33% movement speed really

You seem to mix things up… In the last bit I was talking about the Cone effects… which in itself has nothing to do about the Mantra pre-casting.

“The devs themselves said that you would have to move back every time you wanted to cast the mantras”
Well yea, to CAST the mantra, you’d better not try that in the midst of combat, good luck trying to cast a 2.5sec spell… The mantra usage itself when it is already cast can be done in the mits of combat,
- Ooh 2 guys on my right need healing, I turn my camera some degrees and use my CONE spell..
Seriously, how hard is it to understand this type of play style… and why am I even trying to help you understand.

And if you think a heavy armored class with aegis, protection, stability, and retaliation at its disposal should be on the same power level “healing wise” as a ranged medium armor class that can heal, quickness, fury (more offensive instead of defensive boons) then you sir, need to re-evaluate.

Applying Aegis is like healing someone for 5-10k, yes Aegis is that strong, think about that next time you want to compare them with Druids.

Honestly, the effects themselves are more than fine if not even on the strong side.

Levetty.1279:

I didn’t buy it so no. Didn’t see a need to rush out and buy it especially as they announced the demo weekends.

Now other classes have specs I like and there is other good stuff in the expansion but the Mirage is so poorly thought out it has killed my interest in the expansion. If Anet is going to give me a middle finger I don’t see why I should give them money.

Anet still gives you 10 Thumbs up for playing Chrono though, so that 1 middle finger.. doesn’t seem all that bad

Darknicrofia.2604:

If you want to reward player skill, then how about also require aiming for every single skill in the game and turn this into a FPS?

There’s a difference between player skill and bad design. Tell me what exactly is the skill in standing behind your allies within sword auto attack range to use your elite mantra to break stun vs standing slightly in front of them?

If your allies happens to have moved half a second to the side before you? Well I guess I wasn’t effing skilled enough to predict when he would move and to what side?

Sigh..
They designed FB with the mindset of them having to be in the middle of the fight to support their allies, hence why they went with cone skills, which works exactly the same way as almost all weapon attacks with a cleave componend do.. How can none of you see their design philosophy about this cone based playstyle…

You really can’t expect FB to play like a druid or any other basic support class that uses ground AoE’s or other circular AoE’s, the sooner you lot get over that the better for the sake of this whiny sub-forum.

Sure the cone might be a bit too short/not wide enough, you don’t hear me disagreeing on that I even advocate them increasing this a bit, but it being a cone is actually what got me excited about FB (having played Holy Pala in WoW where the cone healing spell was a big part of its playstyle, yes that cone was a bit wider and a lot longer but still, it required you to anticipate ally movement and position yourself to get the most out of your spell).

Carighan.6758:

Mesmers have been saying for 5 years that Mantras need urgent fixes, never happened. I wouldn’t get your hopes up

Anet’s fix for the Mantra’s is including the ammunition system, which honestly is a big improvement

RabbitUp.8294:

jief.2509:

InsaneQR.7412:

Put the range on 750. This should be enough to be behind your teammates buffing them without being to far away to hop back in.
I need some clarification on mantras. I understand that correctly that mantras refill the charges over time if you do nout use the last charge?

And on mantras, they even stated on the stream that they have a long cast time but more charges and the charges come back quicker, so you aren’t meant to necessarily blow them all at once and wait for the cooldown. I think the idea is that with the third charge being more powerful, it comes with a drawback when using it.

The final charge comes with a triple drawback, you lose the steady supply of charges, you have to wait a significant cooldown and you have to channel the mantra again for 2.75s.

It’s too much and just not worth it all with the current itteration. The cooldowns should be shorter, at least the healing mantra should be 20s, as the real heal is tied to the final charge. As it is, it’s only there to be used for the quickness traits.

Guess what happens if you channel the mantra again, you have all charges back up!!
You actually gain time by going through all 3 at once at the cost of having to cast the mantra again.
Healing Mantra as example:
30sec cooldown 2.5sec cast time = 32.5sec
3x 12sec recharge = 36sec
If you spend the 3th charge you would have gained 3.5seconds at the only drawback of having to cast the mantra again.

In PvP you will most likely not use your 3rd charge, like ever, but in PvE you can get away with longer casts if you stand safe so using the 3th empowered one becomes alot more attractive to use.

With all the above you have to keep in mind that it is only a netto gain if you use all 3 charges in quick succession since if for example you use your 2nd charge 6sec after the first and your 3th 5sec after your 2nd you basically lost 11 seconds (since 1 second longer would have gained you a charge back).

The usage of Mantra’s is a player skill based thing, not only the timing as I have talked about, but also the limited range that everyone else has addressed (I agree that the range is abit short and/or not wide enought, but I actually like that it is a cone effect, which further more rewards player skill

I can get by the cones being just a little bit wider and work on small elevation.
But please for the love of god, stop complaining about the mantra’s as a whole, they are designed to be this preparation spell that you can use multiple times, there is no reason for you to spam all 3, just stick to using 2 charges max and you will never ever have to recast that mantra…
And if you do want to use the 3rd charge, then you actually get cooldown reduction at the cost of having to recast it, let me clarify:
The healing mantra has a 12sec recharge on it’s charges meaning in total you would need 36sec to fully recharge 3, the cooldown on the healing mantra itself is only 30sec and the cast time 2.5sec, meaning you actually GAINED 3.5seconds of cooldown, since when you recast the mantra all 3 charges will be up again.

Also, just live with the fact that a Chrono is the master of Quickness and Alacrity, you know what FB can do as one of the only classes/specs? Give a kitten-ton of Aegis and other defensive buffs. Really, the amount of Aegis you can pump out with the right traits is insane.

No doubt will you guys have some suggestions, so lets share them.

Here are mine:
1) Remove Beastmode’s cooldown, all the pet swap traits in other specializations are just useless because of the 10sec cooldown, either that and/or make pet swapping usable when in Beastmode

2) To increase build/pet diversity we should be able to gain access to all our pet skills when in Beastmode (shared cooldown with our pets to avoid being able to use them back-to-back), Perhaps when you do this you should put an internal cooldown on Live Fast of about 6 seconds

3) Leader of the Pack needs recharge reduction on stances honestly, sharing them alone is not enough to warrant a Grandmaster trait

4) All abilities, traits and skills that would apply things to our pet should be applied to us when in Beastmode, this is not consistent enough (some things work some don’t.. it’s just messy)

5) One Wolf Pack needs some love, it just does hardly anything, reduce the intervals should do enough honestly, perhaps a very minor damage boost.

6) Dagger skills feel too weak/slow

Overall Soulbeast is very enjoyable and has potential for a lot of build diversity, it just feels a bit clunky because of the cooldown on Soulbeast and other mechanics/interactions with other specializations that don’t seem to work at all.

gin.7158:

I just wanna add up. Power ranger as of now is sitting at 20/21k. To be viable for raid, soulbeast needs to make up 7k+ more damage.

Well, Sic’ Em (33% uptime on 40% dmg = 13.3% dmg increase) Quickness passives from soulbeast will give you that 7k easy.

Ooh wait, you are all still stuck in PvP land.. talking about looking at things from a wider perspective.

If you think Mirage does not include unique things then perhaps thats where things have gone bad for you guys, i’m not judging, i’m just saying.

Also about the clones thing.. Mirage can have 3 clones up after a shatter within 1-2 seconds.

Ranger using Longbow in 2017? I thought rangers were melee/mid-range classes, and thieves/revenant the long ranged class

The good old Refund topics because they feel disappointed…
PoF is not all about the Elite specs.. The amount of content PoF brings is insane.

And if you don’t care as much about PvE content then PvP wise, Mirage is actually a very strong PvP spec.

As the title sais:
Don’t expect Mirage or any other new Elite spec to be better than Chronomancer, you will feel dissapointed because of your high expectations almost certainly.

Chronomancer is by far the strongest Elite spec in the entire game, it has been this case since it’s release in HoT.
People expect every new spec to be on par or stronger than their previous Elite spec, just live with the fact that this should never be a designer’s goal. The goal for the new Elite spec’s is simply to unlock new ways to play your class, which in this case Mirage captures very well.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I have a question regarding stances as i was unable to join the spec testing weekend.
So the two things that itch me about stances but can’t answer them myself:

1. Do they affect my pet by default as well? So both me and pet get stance effects, or just me, if it’s baseline untraited stance?

2. When affecting allies with grandmaster trait on – whose stats does it use where applicaple? Mine or their own? For example if they got my vulture stance on against low health enemy – is it my condi damage & expertise or theirs that decide the damage of poison stacks their blows blows now inflict?

1. They don’t affect our pets by default sadly, you need the trait for it.
2. I tested this with Moa Stance on my pet, my pet does not gain additional duration on Boons that I myself apply, so this makes me believe to think it acts as though the Stance effect takes its host as baseline (if you know what i mean). So it would not use your own condition damage stats on them with Vulture for instance.

This actually makes the most sence anyway, our Elite Stance skill has a power based damage bonus, meaning if this stance gets applied on an allie that has a power build, their additional strikes would do more damage. Same goes for Vulture stance being applied on condi allies.

Holland.9351:

How about this instead:
Second Skin Conditions inflect 33% less damage while in beastmode.
Essense of Speed 33% movement speed while in beastmode.
Predator’s Cunning Steal health from opponent while in beastmode.

Voila, done. Pack it up. Everyone happy.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to stay in Beastmode very long.. there is literally no benefit in staying in beastmode after you have done all the abilities, better off going out of beastmode, swap pets, and go in again

Quarktastic.1027:

With as much of a condi spec anet seems to want soulbeast to be, I think you would get more mileage out of a condi build and the fanged iboga pet.

Also, that’s a lot of work for some average DPS numbers.

Thats the thing though, there is no clear emphasis on SoulBeast having to be a Condi spec, sure there are some traits that work well with Conditions and Dagger applies conditions, but you don’t ’ need’ to use Dagger and there are other good Traits to choose from.
Since there are no dps meters in this demo I could not check the dps, but there were some seriously high numbers (in exotic gear, testing in a pvp environment).

Anyway, just wanted to share the idea, something else than your standard condi meta
build atleast right

Intro:
Note that this build is more for solo PvE play, it can be tuned abit for groups (see bottom of page)

This is a Power build (as the name suggests) which can maintain a 100% uptime of the following boons:

• Quickness
• 25 stacks of Might
• Retaliation
• Fury (giving you a 100% crit hit chance)
• Regeneration
• Swiftness

As well as having a high uptime on Protection and Vigor
The only downside of this build is that you are locked into using 3 fixed utility skills and a fixed healing skill which is part of your rotation (so no on demand healing)
However, this build rocks alot of defensive boons as well as alot of evades to keep you alive, and you don’t have a fixed pet, so you can always opt for a pet with healing skills

Traits:
Soulbeast: 1/2/2
Notable traits:

• Fresh Reinforcement (Grants you boons from your pet upon Beastmode)
• Essence of Speed (increases boon duration by 2sec every time you gain Quickness)
• Leader of the Pack (Stances apply to allies/pets for 50% duration)

Nature Magic: 1/3/2
Notable traits:

• Fortifying Bond (Share boons with your pet)
• Lingering Magic (Gives Concentration, which is Boon duration)

Skirmishing: 2/2/2
Notable traits:

• Strider’s Defense (Gain Quickness upon evading attacks when sword is equipped)
• Light on your Feet (+10% damage upon dodging)
  This gives the highest uptime on all boons when you can successfully dodge and evade attacks

Skills:

• We Heal as One
• Moa Stance
• Dolyak Stance
• Quickening Zephyr
• One Wolf pack (nothing better…)

Preferred pet:
Smokescale

• Smokescale has a Knockdown, Smoke Assault which does alot of damage as well as evade, and the Beast skill Wordly Impact

Gear:

• Sword/Axe (Force/Air Sigils, DPS set)
• Dagger/Warhorn (Force/Air Sigils, Buff set)
• Zerker Armor (Scholar runes)
• Commander’s Jewelry (For additional Concentration, which should put you at around ~30-33% Boon Duration)

Playstyle:

1. You start out in your Buff weapon set outside of Beastmode
2. You start your buff rotation:
   Moa Stance -> Call of the Wild (Warhorn 5) -> Dolyak Stance -> Quickening Zephyr (once every 2 rotations) -> use Instinctive Engage -> " We Heal As One" -> Beastmode
3. Use Instinctive Engage (Dagger 3)
4. When in beastmode use your pet’s abilities as fast as you can, Exit beastmode as soon as possible afterward (beastmode is a dps loss)
5. Use Hunter’s Call (warhorn 4)
6. Weapon Swap
7. Use Whirling Defence -> Path of Scars (this is your big burst, thanks to the Hunter’s Call cast earlier)
8. Alternate Sword 2 and 3 skills as needed, try to successfully Evade (you can use Sword 2 twice and Sword 3 once in this rotation)
9. Weapon Swap back when Dolyak Stance has 2 seconds left on its cooldown, or if you want to play it without having to mind cooldowns to much just weapon swap when Moa Stance is ready, and repeat the above steps afterward

And that is it basically.

A few notes:

• Quickening Zephyr might not be needed if you get enough Evades and Dodges and can be replaced for another Utility skills (probably)
• The reason you want to use the buffs in the order I put them in is as followed:
  Moa Stance gives Moa Stance for 4 seconds to your pet, meaning the boons from Call of the Wild, Dolyak Stance and Quickening Zephyr and Instinctive Engage get increased duration on your pet.
  The later you cast your Quickening Boons the better, since not only do you lose the least amount of time wasting it during buff-up but applying Quickening also increases the duration of Boons already on you.
• Although you can probably do without too much Boon Duration stacking getting to around ~33% on your hero stats means with Moa Stance you will have the cap of 100% increase duration
• This build can be changed to work better in groups, given that in groups you probably won’t have to be the one giving retaliation and might to yourself, this frees up
  Dolyak Stance and basically the whole Warhorn weapon. I’d say dagger and Moa Stance+Quickening Zephyr will probably still be required, though one can go nuts into changing this build around, can even make it a Condi build!
  The foundations of this build are the Traits: Fresh Reinforcement, Leader of the Pack and Fortifying Bond, together with Moa Stance+We Heal As One and Beastmode, meaning you have 1 free Trait line to choose from and basically all weapons (though dagger 3 is really nice if you want Quickening)

Feel free to try this out and let me know what you think.
This build can also be transformed to a Condi spec, though since retaliation and fury scale with Power, Power seemed like the obvious choice

Easy fix:
Make keep/tower lords invulnable, unless an inner gate/inner wall is down.

All i can ask is that guild who want to win WvWvW on Gandara need to step up and start contacting one-another.

TBH has already teamed up with DBS to get a greater pressence, but we sure can use more who are up for it.
We’ve had a nice evening last night, which you can read all about on our front-page (http://tbh.org.uit.no/).

If you are a guild leader/alliance leader or even just a single individual that wants to join the battle, feel free to contact me in-game.
I am realy up for getting more guilds together, so don’t hesitate!

TBH and DBS have had quite some succes past weekend. Saterday we took Bluebriar by keeping them off of supplies for long enought, and held it for a good 2 hours.

Then yesterday, we took Garrison on Blacktide Borderlands a few times, held it for couple of hours aswell.

But there is only so much 2 10-15man teams can do. If only we had an active community forum to get some alliances, and contacts from other guilds.
It just seems there are alot of small skirmisher groups going, and even though it might be for the best if people followed directions, you can’t realy force anyone into this. It is in the end, a game they themself want to play as they want.

But i think this is the main problem on Gandara, to much small guilds, no unity.
And then there is this mass amount of AFK-ers.. guildies even had 30+ min queue’s yesterday, with some not even getting in at all. Kinda makes it hard to have an impact if half are in a queue (but i guess thats an issue alot of servers have lately, like increase the number of players on your server, but not increase the WvWvW player cap..)