What do you guys think will soulbeast beat druid when it comes to spvp/wvw?

As the title implies .. can I get your opinions? Thanks :3

Well....i can't go without druid...yet.. :)

I doubt it. PvP is about holding points, I just can't see the Soulbeast bringing anything of merit to the table there except for perhaps being a good +1er with burst. Losing the Druid sustain, the staff mobility, condition cleanse, stealth/Super Speed etc is pretty massive, what are you trading it for? Maybe a bit more burst damage and CC?

For roaming WvW, sure, for zergs, not really since there still is no real AoE weaponry. Even for roaming, I still think vanilla and druid will be better because of the excellent access to condition clears. Making the assumption that the traits will remain the same as the beta.

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:I doubt it. PvP is about holding points, I just can't see the Soulbeast bringing anything of merit to the table there except for perhaps being a good +1er with burst. Losing the Druid sustain, the staff mobility, condition cleanse, stealth/Super Speed etc is pretty massive, what are you trading it for? Maybe a bit more burst damage and CC?

For roaming WvW, sure, for zergs, not really since there still is no real AoE weaponry. Even for roaming, I still think vanilla and druid will be better because of the excellent access to condition clears. Making the assumption that the traits will remain the same as the beta.

yeah I agree.. I kept thinking whether soul beast could handle sudden condi bombs from necos/condi warrior/mesmers... and I think the new heal on the soul beast can't handle that or maybe i'm wrong...

is Marksmanship Traitline still used by druids in spvp?

Soulbeast : bigger DPS, resilience, good condi clear( better suited to fight rapid condi application ), aoe zerg potential ( pets finally won't insta die) , condi dmg reduction trait ( will make confusion/torment/burning specs that much less scary), resistance share, crazy boon application (live fast+ essence of speed EX), stronger pvp/wvw condi spec ( merging with iboga will give ranger access to torment and confusion on short CD)

Druid : Heal burst support - easier to disengage - better condi burst clearing potential - less dmg - most traits are pve/raid centric - offers little/nothing to zergs in wvw - more predictable, easier to interrupt ( no dolyak stance ).

Overall druid it's a great elite and nobody will take that away, but for me it's not ideal as soulbeast when it comes to power specs/zerg potential.

PvP= Stance sharing will be hard to beat, add the aoe resistance ( jacaranda merge ) and you have a strong team fighter with better aoe dmg potential ( call lightning and worldly impact using a ferocious pet merge + the maul cleave with increased stats, all that can be unblockable for 4s after merge ); the soulbeast brings more cleave to the table and a quite good self condi clear. I see soulbeast as better suited for soloq play as pugs are less likely to make good use of your heals as druid ( stealth ress is good but won't work always)

WvW= Zerg fights, hands down the soulbeast has no contest, this is what I have been asking for years ,when it comes to roaming...it's a coin toss both druid and soulbeast offer valid alternatives but in the end, soulbeast will allow me to fight headshot + AA spammers daredevil that much easier respect to druid, actually the only matchups I'd still use a druid would be , maybe : reaper/scourge, deadeye ( to match stealth spam ) and mirage power shatter ( to test this one )

Only talking from a 1v1 perspective, when it comes to group play...I will stick with druid for the easy disengage ( assuming a spellbreaker doesn't manage a magestrike on me) :)

What can I say in the end? As ranger main I love both druid and soulbeast, they complement each other well, I am a happy ranger main, I was ready to uninstall GW2 and throw it in the trash can back in 2015 when they planted the last nail in the coffin for ele but then decided to give ranger a try, it seemed fun to use ( started with condi settler axe/hawk beastmastery/WS), I immediately started to enjoy the 1vs1 potential of rangers ( that's what interest me the most, if not the only thing).

Now with soulbeast....I have everything on ranger, everything I need, I can build a ranger any way I like as I don't need to worry about base HP or armor or healing power to be efficient in what I like to play. With that said, I would have loved little bit more aoe ranged cleave on soulbeast but we can't have it all can we now =) ?.I will make soulbeast work for me when it comes to zerg fights, sure it won't be the ultimate lootbag collector..but it will be fun to use respect to druid( zerg fights) for certain.

The soul beast is just one ingredient in a dinner that has yet to be prepared.

What can the soulbeast do?+Class balance

What can EVERY other class do?+Class Balance

What can they do well together?

And finally, what will be the most powerful combination of all classes in tandem?

I know it's fun to speculate but, who knows?

Not sure if it'll beat bunker druid but on paper it seems a tank Soulbeast can still be pretty interesting

Stout and Supportive pets, all that protection synergy and rune of forge with sage amulet sounds reaaally fun, it'll be the first build I try on release

For druids, the jacaranda and gazelle look like good options for even more control and iboga looks amazing for condi builds

i think in a 1v1 on a side point a soulbeast wont beat a druid, but not many builds and classes can. i think traited stances in a team fight will have more of a positive impact then druid does. roaming in world v world will be fun and different to play then druid. think thing that there will be advantages in using SBeast in zerging with the stances.Im not sure how well we are going to go with conditions, but second skin may lessen the need to remove them.

Im going to miss staff the most i think the escape and repositioing nature is just so good

Will be interesting to see a fully min-maxed soulbeast in action in WvW melee blobs. There is certainly some potential there with some of the supportive pets, shared stances and other things. The heavy usage of boon hate we might see and the fact that soulbeasts are far less reliant on boons than some other classes need to be considered also. Whether this is enough to give them a spot when you have other monsters such as the scourge running around is up to debate.

in PVP and WVW it will depends completely on what role you want to play.

for PvP both Druid and SB will make good bunkers but the playstyles will be different. Druid brings more heals and cleanses, SB tankiness through utilities.for WvWbase ranger backline sniper still works well although they're not considered "meta"Druid tank healer works very well in zergs with almost no dps, condi lb druid, and power druid also do well without being metato me SB will fill the same roles as druid still being tanky enough to run with the zerg without providing the healing but still providing group support throughstances. hybrid, power and condi lb will still perform well although we may have to give up some traits to get make room for others.

@GodSpeedFist.8642 said:

@"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:I doubt it. PvP is about holding points, I just can't see the Soulbeast bringing anything of merit to the table there except for perhaps being a good +1er with burst. Losing the Druid sustain, the staff mobility, condition cleanse, stealth/Super Speed etc is pretty massive, what are you trading it for? Maybe a bit more burst damage and CC?

For roaming WvW, sure, for zergs, not really since there still is no real AoE weaponry. Even for roaming, I still think vanilla and druid will be better because of the excellent access to condition clears. Making the assumption that the traits will remain the same as the beta.

The problem of Soulbeast cleanse is that it's on a long cool down and it "waste" your healing skill slot.Let me explain, would you pop your heal skill when you just get hit by a long duration chill or weakness?If you don't remove it, it'd be a pain if it stick it on you for a long time.You probably have to pop your 25 CD heal skill cuz ranger doesn't have too many cleanse unless you grab WS or use Trooper rune (huge dps lost)Your sustain is severely hindered as a result.There's also another problem being Bear Stance initial heal does not cleanse Poison before the heal applies, further decreasing the healing amount.

Do you guys remember Warrior has a similar heal that remove condition and heal for a decent amount?No-one is using it cuz it trade off too much healing for the cleanse.

Soulbeast will most likely being pigeon hole to survival cleanse or shout trooper cleanse in the end again, like all vanilla ranger.

I am very reluctant to bring Bear Stance in the table even in PVE cuz We Heal as One is just so much better in every way cuz it can easily help me self stack 25 mights on myself and enhance the quickness / protection duration, and it's on a short CD and heal more. I probably would only use Bear Stance if the condition pressure is too vital in that area. But if it's PVE, I can grab Empathetic Bond + Food + Rune for -90% condition duration on myself, making Bear Stance neglect-able again.

@GodSpeedFist.8642 said:yeah I agree.. I kept thinking whether soul beast could handle sudden condi bombs from necos/condi warrior/mesmers... and I think the new heal on the soul beast can't handle that or maybe i'm wrong...

I tried it during the beta in a squad and was completely underwhelmed.

-Cooldown is too long without a trait to reduce it-Base heal is too small-Cast time just gets interrupted in large scale combat with our limited stab.

It's just better to use traited trolls which will also spawn a muddy terrain.

@Substance E.4852 said:

@GodSpeedFist.8642 said:yeah I agree.. I kept thinking whether soul beast could handle sudden condi bombs from necos/condi warrior/mesmers... and I think the new heal on the soul beast can't handle that or maybe i'm wrong...

Yep, Troll cleanse 4 condition immediately when traited in WS, grant fury, does not get impacted by poison too much cuz the first tick is small, spawn a slow/ cripple field on spot, and heal for 8496 total with a CD of 20.Heal per sec is 424.6

Bear Stance heals for 4963 with a cd as long as 25, and conditional bonus heal per condition cleanse which is very situational.Heal per sec without condition on you is 198.52 per second.

If I'm gonna grab WS anyway for the cleanse, I'd pick Troll over Bear Stance any time.

Bonus calculation:

We Heal as One (traited) heals for 6520 with 16 sec cd.Heal per sec is 407.5 + 130 (regeneration) = 537.5

I think Soulbeast will have a ton more offensive options, especially power Soulbeast for +1'ing fights. Whether it will be able to bunker as well as druid in spvp remains to be seen, but it does get access to a ton of invuln and some Resistance.

in WvW, I don't see why Soulbeast wont be able to zerg in the frontline with stance-sharing, and d/a/gs. We'll have plenty of low CD, unblockable aoe damage.

yeah... no. SBeast as the beta is simply bad. Even the concept behind the new traits and skills seemed unfinished.It needs so much more:

• better stats increase when melded, so the sad damage from core is overcome.
• Better stances skills. The charges\ammo would be good, and some stances made better and simpler. All stances should be instant cast.
• Pets skills should be better. We don't need more spammy short cd skill, ranger itself has many of those. Give me 20-30 sec cd skills which are impactful. For example the damage from smoke assault could be the same as the revenant at 30 secs cd. And useful skills like knockdowns could have increased range in exchange for more CD. Stun warrior is not fun to fight against.
• Dagger is simply terribly bad and extremely boring. As i suggested: with sword offhand the work would have been so much easier and also people would have been so much happier. Imagine sword 4 the leap from dagger #3 and sword 5 some sort of "maul" alike. Other option for the dagger would be to give the same multipliers as the sword and remove cast time to be equal to thief.
• We need skills (by instance or pet skill) which allow the ranger to apply conditions consistently if we want condi SBeast to be a thing. Bristle to have an skill which apply bleed to every attack for the next 30 seconds would be fantastic. Same for carrions but with poison. Heck fire wyvern to do the same with burning and still we wouldn't be too dangerous (at 3 secs burning )

• If Sbeast mode is not meant to be camped give the pets meaningful F2 but don't try to force the players giving them absolute crap skills and hinder the gameplay with awful mechanics. Swap pets while melded, boon share baseline those enhance the gameplay and make the class more fun.

  I think Anet has the perfect opportunity to make the ranger what it should have been from the beginning. A class which the pet you choose matters because the utility they bring take to closer to other classes play style.

• There is an overall loss of condition clear and stealth for Soulbeast while possibly higher damage, based on the concept of the pet not connecting (which happens with any melee pet including smokescale after smoke assault). Comparatively, the Druid is proven and survived the last nerfs in the nature magic and beastmastery lines.
• Many players don't want to give up the versatility of the staff for Druid compared to the underwhelming Soulbeast dagger (not to say you have to use either though).
• The fast-paced style of pvp/wvw works better with Druid given the only cooldown you are waiting on is the 15 sec. celestial avatar. With Soulbeast, so many more variables are involved if you want to actually use 2 pets. I can see it work with 1 pet, but definitely not 2. Access to skills are gated behind 2 cooldowns, your petswap (15 or 20 sec.) and beastmode (10 sec.). After the first petswap rotation, I would be lost during gameplay trying to calculate the combination of when they both will align again in order to access the 2nd pets beastmode abilities.

So in my opinion, I think Soulbeast might be good for zerg play in wvw. Pet dps is significant but pets often die in zerg fights even when managed with the sudden directional changes of zerg swarms. Having the extra dps on your person would be nice in addition to utilizing stances for your zerg. In roaming however, Druid wins for the additional stealth mechanic, healing and condi-bomb negation. For solo roaming or small group, Druid seems superior to me at this point.

As it relates to pvp, Druid wins again. As stated above/before by other posters, it's all about holding points, and Soulbeast seems like it would be more apt at performing the role of a thief. The blocks, evades, and condi removal are not there, as least not enough to hold points; though I am impressed with black bear meld, there is significant damage negation when paired with traited marksmanship and signet of stone.

I believe in a way, there is a competition to see which elite is better, and to me at this point from only sampling the current rendition of Soulbeast from the preview weekend, the victor is Druid. People want to use the most effective and efficient builds in pvp/wvw and Druid is solid in its current state. This is based on my playstlye, others might benefit more from Soulbeast, I cannot argue opinions or tell people what their playstyle is. I'm basing my opinion on the minimal experience w/ the new elite and the above points. Regardless, of whether you choose Soulbeast or Druid one positive aspect of it all for the ranger is that we will have access to the 5 new pets for either spec.

Soulbeast will have an option to run with the melee train with Stout pets, GS, Signets, and Stances. That's all I'll comment on as I'm not too big on pvp or roaming.

listen. druids might still be better for bunking in spvp. that said.. soulbeast will destroy druids in 1v1. druid will just be doing his best to "stay alive". maybe druid can survive sure... but then he won't be able to do much else. soulbeast has too many options. too many counters. bear stance can cleanse.. what.. 6 condis? that's 8 condis with WS traitline. sure it's not 13, but cmon. we can easily solve that by using for example sigil of cleansing etc. plus we have more offense.. meaning in wvw roaming it'll be harder for enemies to hit you with condi. unless you're ALREADY outnumbered. but like I said.. 8 condis after casting heal is still quite good.

Soulbeast will not beat a druid in a 1v1, I would be very surprised if any class beat druid that isnt a variation of necro post patch.

HOWEVER

The purpose is not to beat something 1v1, it is to enable a snowball by killing your 1v1 opponent (for example with the help of a thief).

Soulbeast will be better than druid if:

it can sustain the same set of 1v1s for a long time (likely, most of the sustain comes from core traits)it can lockdown a target better than druid (possible)it can dps spike better than druid (100% true)it has similar matchups to druid in 2v2/3v3 etc (possible)

@Pvt Frosty.6973 said:Soulbeast will not beat a druid in a 1v1, I would be very surprised if any class beat druid that isnt a variation of necro post patch.

HOWEVER

The purpose is not to beat something 1v1, it is to enable a snowball by killing your 1v1 opponent (for example with the help of a thief).

Soulbeast will be better than druid if:

it can sustain the same set of 1v1s for a long time (likely, most of the sustain comes from core traits)it can lockdown a target better than druid (possible)it can dps spike better than druid (100% true)it has similar matchups to druid in 2v2/3v3 etc (possible)

Actually is not that hard to kill the current Druid one on one unless they build on a complete bunker.Numerous pet nerf, much longer CA CD , much longer CD for staff, alot of nerf in We Heal as One solely for PVP diminish the capability of Druid nowadays in PVP.Back in season 1 and season 2, Druid is still killable 1 v 1 without all the nerfs mentioned.Now after the nerf, it's not as invincible in 1 v 1 as people make it be.

Not to mention Druid is very vulnerable in any +1 situation due to lack of stability.

@Aomine.5012 said:Actually is not that hard to kill the current Druid one on one unless they build on a complete bunker.Numerous pet nerf, much longer CA CD , much longer CD for staff, alot of nerf in We Heal as One solely for PVP diminish the capability of Druid nowadays in PVP.Back in season 1 and season 2, Druid is still killable 1 v 1 without all the nerfs mentioned.Now after the nerf, it's not as invincible in 1 v 1 as people make it be.

Not to mention Druid is very vulnerable in any +1 situation due to lack of stability.i agree here. Druid may seem hard to kill because if they start running with staff + gs is very difficult to keep up. And as soon as they drop the ultra bunker build they are quite soft because of the lacks of blocks\immunity\stability which make them very vulnerable to any focused attack from any class.

But they lack the pressure or overall sustain to be very dangerous in combat. Only if they go as pewpew +1 are something to be worried about otherwise they might be as well be ignored.

In a 1v1 duel? Probably not unless the druid is particularly bad.

SB damage relied heavily on large hit burst skills, many of which are clearly not going to stick around post PoF release. Those 19k on light golem mauls and 15k gazelle charges were either an oversight or intentionally misleading adverts for pre-purchases. (The rock gazelle looked like a bug. Maul+sicem, I'm not so sure.)

Sans the big nuke options, Sb doesn't actually put out much more damage than base ranger and doesn't have the constant sustain of druid. About the only major tactical advantage it does have is better stab uptime via Dolyak Stance. Ironically, this comes at the exchange of a large amount of CC capability.

In terms of beating out Druid for a pvp spot on a team? Again, probably not. I can't see SB having the same bunker capability and the -50% duration on pack leader means we have very limited team support.

@Aomine.5012 said:

@"Pvt Frosty.6973" said:Soulbeast will not beat a druid in a 1v1, I would be very surprised if any class beat druid that isnt a variation of necro post patch.

HOWEVER

The purpose is not to beat something 1v1, it is to enable a snowball by killing your 1v1 opponent (for example with the help of a thief).

Soulbeast will be better than druid if:

it can sustain the same set of 1v1s for a long time (likely, most of the sustain comes from core traits)it can lockdown a target better than druid (possible)it can dps spike better than druid (100% true)it has similar matchups to druid in 2v2/3v3 etc (possible)

Well what do you mean by "current" druid?

The build I run doesn't lose a single 1v1. In fact, it stalemates so well, that you don't even need to use celestial avatar in most of the duels. It stalemates all the classes designed to stalemate and beats any class thats building for offense. Basically the same it has been since approximately season 3 only 5x more tanky.

The fact that you can stalemate most duels without celestial avatar does make me hopeful that soulbeast offers enough in terms of utility that facilitates pressure (cc/burst etc) that soulbeast can be a relevant option