Ranger vs Soulbeast vs Druid

Hi guys,

I wanted to know what specialization people picked and why. I eventually want to get to raiding but, since my character is new, I have to start from zero and have a giant list of things I need to do first (ie map completion, pof, hot).

I'm pretty torn between druid and soulbeast. I do love having my pet run around everywhere with me so I would be slightly sad to have them disappear. I also enjoy playing support (love supporting in LoL). I feel like support roles are very macro heavy and require a lot of awareness which I love. On the other hand, I love being a melee dps. I love running d/d on my ele (despite it being not optimal). You can't go wrong w wanting to see your character hit big numbers.

With the new expansion coming up, I want to be careful w spending skill points. I am currently hoarding them so I wanted to see what people felt about their specialization before making a decision. You can also suggest to have me save them for the new specialization that will come out, because I've thought about that too.

@Nickle.3291 said:With the new expansion coming up, I want to be careful w spending skill points. I am currently hoarding them so I wanted to see what people felt about their specialization before making a decision. You can also suggest to have me save them for the new specialization that will come out, because I've thought about that too.

There is no point being careful with spending. Everyone just gets ALL the specialisations. You can change between them any time out of combat. And there are a lot of leftover points even after buying everything.

Just to note, neither Core Ranger or Soulbeast are less supportive than Druid.

Ranger is one of the few classes with support baked into its design through pet skills, Commands, Spirits, Healing Spring, etc. In fact most features like having your pet heal allies is built into the Core traitlines, and the only thing that taking Druid really brings you is powerful burst healing from Celestial Avatar, which is meant to sustain entire parties like in raids.

Furthermore Soulbeast doesn't always stay merged with their pet, just merge-cast a few skills-unmerge, and some of those skills are also supportive, and their Stance skills that they get are supportive as well once you take a certain trait to share them.

The only reason to stay merged is when you're expecting to get downed, because it can heal you instead.

Recommendations:

• Core Ranger if you just like brawling.
• Druid if you want to be a dedicated healer, and bring exclusively damage increases for the group.
• Soulbeast if you want brawl and support at the same time, with more but weaker utility for the group compared to Druid.

@Hannelore.8153 said:Just to note, neither Core Ranger or Soulbeast are less supportive than Druid.

Ranger is one of the few classes with support baked into its design through pet skills, Commands, Spirits, Healing Spring, etc. In fact most features like having your pet heal allies is built into the Core traitlines, and the only thing that taking Druid really brings you is powerful burst healing from Celestial Avatar, which is meant to sustain entire parties like in raids.

Furthermore Soulbeast doesn't always stay merged with their pet, just merge-cast a few skills-unmerge, and some of those skills are also supportive, and their Stance skills that they get are supportive as well once you take a certain trait to share them.

The only reason to stay merged is when you're expecting to get downed, because it can heal you instead.

Recommendations:

• Core Ranger if you just like brawling.
• Druid if you want to be a dedicated healer, and bring exclusively damage increases for the group.
• Soulbeast if you want brawl and support at the same time, with more but weaker utility for the group compared to Druid.

Thank you! This was really helpful. Of course I want to unlock everything eventually but I'm sure it will take a little while with all this catching up I have to do. This will make my decision easier to pick which specialization I want to try out first.

I very much prefer Soulbeast over the other two for exactly two reasons:1)I like dual daggers.2) I can suck in my pet, so I don't have to bother with its AI in combat.

@Fueki.4753 That's a good point too! And I do love daggers lol. Something about fighting in close quarters makes me enjoy the experience more.

I use sword/dagger as my main weapon set on my core ranger. Along with the tiger for a pet, the synergy is fun for me as a melee fighter. Probably not so META though as I'm very casual and pretty much play what I enjoy.

Just an update - I went with soulbeast, and although I am not 100% sure on what I'm doing/what the rotation is, I am loving it, so thanks for the replies. I was originally going to be a druid so I'm glad I asked.

Cool! Next up: unlock Druid :lol:

I play in WvW, and I play soulbest for the additional damage and skills in relation to the soulbeast pet merge. Wasn't to happy about the pet swap nerf. My build was specifically made to take advantage of being able to swap pets during combat. My build was destroyed when pet swapping was no longer allowed in Combat. So now i have to make sure I use specific pets BEFORE engaging in battle in large groups or solo roaming. Jacarda in groups. and Smokescale for roam.

Currently playing on my non-trap condi soulbeast at wvw or condi trapper soulbeast in pvp whenever I pvp which is rare these days. Core just doesn’t cut it and Druid, I just cannot get into it, I just get wreaked every time I try it and change back to condi soulbeast ahhaAs for raids, I’m pretty lazy and don’t really want to learn rotations so condi soulbeast is perfect for me having a simple rotation with just shortbow, think I get 20-22k dps which isn’t benchmark but allows me to do raids in some casual groups. I do however do fractals as a power soulbeast ahha

I hate rotations. It's like jumping jacks. Up, down, up down. Repeated infinite.

Ranger can hold its own, not the best but it works..Soulbeast is Meta pretty much for rangersDruid is useless outside of the odd raid type scenario, maybe support PvP.

Soulbeast is pretty cool because you can just slurp up your pet and pretend you're playing a class with better flavor

I use x/warhorn Staff Harriers Druid and a Sword/Axe Longbow Greatsword Berserker's Soulbeast. If you can afford two sets of armour, weapons and trinkets, I think it's worth gearing up at least two builds in case your party needs support, condition damage or burst damage - especially since you can just plug the builds into your build slots.

Bearbow ranger for ever