Your biggest fear...

What is your biggest fear as ranger player with the release of PoF?

For me, I fear that soulbeast might be too simplistic in PvE and therefore boring to play after a short time.I don't care about competitiveness in raids or PvP or damage meters, I want to enjoy the open world and events, maybe some WvW here and there. And I think it is rewarding when you get better results by using a more skillful playstyle.

Don't get me wrong, neither vanilla ranger nor druid have been complex to play. But after playing the demos it looks like soulbeast is even less complex than those. Even with all the choices we have with pets, we are still limited to a few new skills in combat (and most of them are less than impressive). Might also be related to the clunkiness of the missing pet swap in beastmode which rather motivates me to simply stay in it than trigger all those cooldowns for unsure profit (as it just takes too long). Other new specializations feel way deeper (scourge for example, but also holosmith with the heat mechanic), I'm not sure if soulbeast can keep me playing ranger in PoF.

So what are you worried about the most?

my biggest fear already happend , soulbeast is the worst when the trailer said cripper them from range iknow it was bad and when i play it during the beta my fear was confirm, soulbeast is rely on sic em and once its going to be nerf soulbeast will offer you nothing , first stance are crap , animation is ashame from my point of view the only why that this class is going to prograss is changeing game devloper to one who actully play the class. i mean we need power spec and we got acolbo spec , when they buff rengete there will be no reasone to take soulbeast to high lvl contant since its not apower and the condi dmg will be left behing necro, rengete and maybe firebrandenjoy play druid for the next 2 years at least

My biggest fear is that with the inherent power creep PoF will bring souldbeast is not up to the task and the class will be back to where ranger wasn't wanted in any game mode.I still remember when if you were a ranger you would be automatically kicked from the party.

@anduriell.6280 said:My biggest fear is that with the inherent power creep PoF will bring souldbeast is not up to the task and the class will be back to where ranger wasn't wanted in any game mode.I still remember when if you were a ranger you would be automatically kicked from the party.

it is happining get ready for druid time

My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

@Skuzz.6580 said:My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

Can you tell me why you think Stance is such a neat idea because they're actually acting exactly like shout but this time only affect yourself unless you waste your grandmaster spot?

Press this bottom, remove some conditions. (Oh, and with cast time too)Press this bottom, grant yourself some stability.Press this bottom, oh you get some boons like fury and protection.Press this bottom, oh you get some might.Press this bottom, you do slightly more damage.

How's it any different from shouts?Don't get me started it doesn't even affect your pet in most case.

Meta condi build is still by far the best DPS for PvE and Raid.

I'm worried that we will suck at Power DPS.

However, they have no excuses this time. Baseline at launch, their excuse was that we are a pet class with strong buffs. Okay. Then we were a healer with more buffs. Whatever. Now we don't have the pet anymore, what's their excuse?

Dagger MH was looking underwhelming in beta, Dagger OH always sucked, but I guess they intend us to remain Sword/Axe and Torch/Axe instead of Dagger/Dagger.? Talk about bland.

The ONE pet with a Beastmode skill that heals allies, doesn't get the Supportive Beastmode? Instead, pets which gain outgoing healing.... don't have any heals? Is that a joke?

Seriously.. downvoting a personal opinion that is different than your own? I guess that's what this forum has turned into..

@Aomine.5012 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

As for if I can tell you why I think Stances are neat utility skills, it is simple. They give uncounterable effects (Stance effects), its a bloody STANCE why should a Stance buff everyone around you? This is why the Grandmaster trait is actually well thought out.. I guess you rather join the bandwagon and say they are crap, I understand.

Just taking Dolyak stance as an example, I hope you realise that this is now our #1 defensive utility skill we have access to? Just to name one."Don't get me started it doesn't even affect your pet in most case. ": This only confirms my assumptions that you have no clue what you are talking about.. The whole Soulbeast class was designed with the thought in mind that you AND your pet would become 1 entity. So why would stances be applied to your pet?? That goes against the design philosophy.The trait Leader of the pack is just brilliantly designed lore wise when you think about it. But i guess I'm alone on this one since all I ever get when being positive about things is negative reactions and downvotes..

@Skuzz.6580 said:Seriously.. downvoting a personal opinion that is different than your own? I guess that's what this forum has turned into..

@Aomine.5012 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

I actually took my time explaining why Stance is not neat by explaining their functionality case by case, because they're almost identical to Guardian's / Warrior/ Ranger's own shouts and Warrior's Stance.

Your original post just simply stated: "Hey, SBeast is awesome and Stances are so neat!" without explaining your reasoning to back up those claim.

You could have just explain your reasoning about why you think it's neat instead of throwing those pointless sarcasm to me, which I didn't do it to you in the first place. How do you interpreted my post as bashing your post in the first place is beyond me. All I said is if you could explain why you think it's neat.

@Skuzz.6580 said:Seriously.. downvoting a personal opinion that is different than your own? I guess that's what this forum has turned into..

@Aomine.5012 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

stance suck right now period no matter what you going to say look at the top rangers who did some "good" soulbeast videos no one use stance for reason only bear stance and that came from mercy.

Core Pets still not being updated and some of the new pets having the same fate with about a year or two before something is tweaked or addressed. Polar Bear's 45-second F2 and Jungle Stalker's F2 with a 3s cast time to name a couple. Not to mention the cooldown on Sand Lion's F2 is a bit high or could have been the perfect opportunity to justify the cooldown and offer us a pet that could provide allies with a Barrier.

Would have been sick to have a feline with defensive support AND give us access to the new mechanic.

Getting crushed by a buffed maul outside of that nothing really.

@BadSanta.6527 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:Seriously.. downvoting a personal opinion that is different than your own? I guess that's what this forum has turned into..

@Aomine.5012 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

Top rangers? Aah wait, you must be a PvP player.. I forgot that PvP is in this game.. I play PvE, so that's where I base my things on.I always like these type of comment "look at the top rangers", like we can't have our own opinions but instead have to follow the bandwagon!!! And what players are you referring to? or are you just making something up? (not that it matters what they think, I personally still think stance's give the ranger nice utility possibilities)

@Aomine.5012 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:Seriously.. downvoting a personal opinion that is different than your own? I guess that's what this forum has turned into..

@Aomine.5012 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

Sigh..Talking about reading between the lines....You did not contribute to THIS topic, you instead just replied to a SIDENOTE I posted after I contributed my "biggest fear" to this topic.Also, I am by no means being sarcastic with that sidenote.. that is legitimately how I feel about soulbeast and the stances.And this is the beauty of an oppinion, I don't have to actually explain it to anyone, it is simply what I feel.

@Skuzz.6580 said:

@BadSanta.6527 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:Seriously.. downvoting a personal opinion that is different than your own? I guess that's what this forum has turned into..

@Aomine.5012 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

Wow man are you for real? First I'm pve mostly and if you think soulbeast stance good then, goodlucky mate but want to hear the truth you want to play Druid over soul beast for pve.Spirits are way better then stance and if you play power then you better take six em and strengthe of the pac . Dagger ain't worth to talk about and the machine is gimmic bit comon. Your mad becuse you got 3 dislike, well that because you talk shit , if icome to necro form and say that reaper is an awesome as it is for dps yeah I'll get dislike as well because it is not true and that the same here want to hear the truth ? Well the truth is that ireno fucked us hard this time

If there were major issues with soulbeast, it wasn't really apparent during the beta. Yes, the dagger, visuals and stances are dull but there's nothing spec-breaking at this point. My biggest fear would be probably be the main hand dagger being boring to wield.

As for druids, it will still have a place in the upcoming meta, unless anet fixes the FB's terrible terrible healing coefficients + unreasonably long CDs. Druids will be meta becuz no other specs could fulfill the druids' role, so anet better beef up other healing/support specs so that rangers could be freed up to play as soulbeast.

@BadSanta.6527 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:

@BadSanta.6527 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:Seriously.. downvoting a personal opinion that is different than your own? I guess that's what this forum has turned into..

@Aomine.5012 said:

@Skuzz.6580 said:My biggest fear is logging in the 23th, unlocking Dolyak Stance and still see it not apply it's effect to the user..

Also a sidenote: Soulbeast is amazing and the stances are very neat utility skills

• Good is not the same as "neat"
• I never talked about dagger main-hand, I could care less about Dagger
• I will never play druid over soulbeast, because I want to play what I like, and not what the "META.."demands
• What is holding you back from using Sic'Em along side a stance skill?? ( Sic'Em + One Wolf Pack is actually the superior dps combination we will have in PoF, Strenght of the pack does literally nothing unique for us anymore, since the stability we can get easy acces to from Dolyak Stance)
• I'm not the one that is mad, it seems you are mad about soulbeast.. but hey, that's your reason as is it my opinion that I like Soulbeast and the stances.

So don't agree with me? thats fine, but no point discussing over it, it is MY opinion, as you guys have yours.Anet did something unique for us this time around which I can't wait to play more of upcoming weekend.

-Dagger gets no updates at all. Same for the craptacular offhand.-Greatsword Maul now applies "Attack of Opportunity" after skill resolution. (can't self buff)-Sic Em reduced to 10% damage bonus.-All the low "pure damage" pet skills in BM largely ignored or only buffed by 10%.-Deadeye will make Longbow look like crap. Will see a squad slot that we never got to have in WvW.-People will do proper golem testing to find that Cranger is still better than condi SoulbeastAnd finally...-All this will be apparent on Day 1 and we'll get completely frozen out while they deal with Firebrand, Spellbreaker, Weaver, and Scourge bugs and issues. Eventually, everyone will just go back to using Druid and Cranger and all forget how mediocre Soulbeast is.

Ideally, none of this will happen but I absolutely expect Sic Em to get nerfed and was only in the beta because of an oversight. Everything else was so underwhelming and the complete lack of hints from Anet on how they're buffing up the classes for release makes me doubt many of the issues will be addressed in a timely manner, if at all.

Druid was clearly made to be the healbot of Raids and got the attention it needed to fill that role. Soulbeast feels far more like a fun gimmick they came up with at the last minute with no real clear concept of what it's supposed to do or bring to a team.

Druid being solid in PvP and Raids also really kills my smile and optimism. Those are the only two places anet really cares about class balance and as long as we can fall back on 2 year old content and succeed, SB isn't going to be high priority. Much like Cranger being in #4/5 made buffing power options irrelevant.

@"Substance E.4852" said:-Dagger gets no updates at all. Same for the craptacular offhand.-Greatsword Maul now applies "Attack of Opportunity" after skill resolution. (can't self buff)-Sic Em reduced to 10% damage bonus.-All the low "pure damage" pet skills in BM largely ignored or only buffed by 10%.-Deadeye will make Longbow look like crap. Will see a squad slot that we never got to have in WvW.-People will do proper golem testing to find that Cranger is still better than condi SoulbeastAnd finally...-All this will be apparent on Day 1 and we'll get completely frozen out while they deal with Firebrand, Spellbreaker, Weaver, and Scourge bugs and issues. Eventually, everyone will just go back to using Druid and Cranger and all forget how mediocre Soulbeast is.

Ideally, none of this will happen but I absolutely expect Sic Em to get nerfed and was only in the beta because of an oversight. Everything else was so underwhelming and the complete lack of hints from Anet on how they're buffing up the classes for release makes me doubt many of the issues will be addressed in a timely manner, if at all.

Druid was clearly made to be the healbot of Raids and got the attention it needed to fill that role. Soulbeast feels far more like a fun gimmick they came up with at the last minute with no real clear concept of what it's supposed to do or bring to a team.

Druid being solid in PvP and Raids also really kills my smile and optimism. Those are the only two places anet really cares about class balance and as long as we can fall back on 2 year old content and succeed, SB isn't going to be high priority. Much like Cranger being in #4/5 made buffing power options irrelevant.

Why do I feel like this is entirely the case here..It's not like Anet have time to fix those big issues within the short time frame of Expansion releasing period.All I need to do is pop the Doyak Stance and see if Anet actually does anything for SBeast.If a bug as simple as that is not even fixed, all the other issues you mentioned would most likely be there too.

PS: According to my statistic , LB is already a pretty crappy weapon in PVE.

It doesn't need Deadeye to ruin LB's position.

Axe Warhorn: 15217Longbow (1000+ range + Predator): 16779Longbow (1000+ range + LtW): 14911Longbow (<500 range + Predator): 14797Longbow (<500 range + LtW): 12929

You'd most likely grab Lead the Wind outside of Raid for the piercing, and most of the time you'd be within 0~700 range of the enemy, so the damage would be even lower than spamming axe from range. Axe also applies might to yourself and to your pet too, and have better aoe in general if you grab Hone Axe.(Barrage cd is too long) It also lock yourself out of off-hand, which either provide good dps through axe offhand or good boons through warhorn.

@"Substance E.4852" said:-Dagger gets no updates at all. Same for the craptacular offhand.-Greatsword Maul now applies "Attack of Opportunity" after skill resolution. (can't self buff)-Sic Em reduced to 10% damage bonus.-All the low "pure damage" pet skills in BM largely ignored or only buffed by 10%.-Deadeye will make Longbow look like crap. Will see a squad slot that we never got to have in WvW.-People will do proper golem testing to find that Cranger is still better than condi SoulbeastAnd finally...-All this will be apparent on Day 1 and we'll get completely frozen out while they deal with Firebrand, Spellbreaker, Weaver, and Scourge bugs and issues. Eventually, everyone will just go back to using Druid and Cranger and all forget how mediocre Soulbeast is.

Ideally, none of this will happen but I absolutely expect Sic Em to get nerfed and was only in the beta because of an oversight. Everything else was so underwhelming and the complete lack of hints from Anet on how they're buffing up the classes for release makes me doubt many of the issues will be addressed in a timely manner, if at all.

Druid was clearly made to be the healbot of Raids and got the attention it needed to fill that role. Soulbeast feels far more like a fun gimmick they came up with at the last minute with no real clear concept of what it's supposed to do or bring to a team.

Druid being solid in PvP and Raids also really kills my smile and optimism. Those are the only two places anet really cares about class balance and as long as we can fall back on 2 year old content and succeed, SB isn't going to be high priority. Much like Cranger being in #4/5 made buffing power options irrelevant.i agree with you 100% i will also add that stance aint worth using and arenet need to think what they going to do with the elite skill second e spec that the elite aint worth using

@Aomine.5012 said:It doesn't need Deadeye to ruin LB's position.

I mostly meant that Deadeye will be an effective sniper pick class in WvW because they can combine extreme ranged damage, mobility, and glass in one build.

Glass longbow actually hits pretty hard in WvW against the right targets (not frontline) but we can't kite around the zerg to hit the backline. Going full glass is also just asking to get 2 shotted by a thief looking for soft targets and they ALWAYS go for Rangers.

We also don't have the vanilla thief's bag of tricks to avoid getting caught or ability to escape. The best a ranger can do is switch to greatsword and hope swoop and blocking can save them.

Basically, my biggest fear is they do not change much and Soulbeast remains completely irrelevant in every game mode.

@BadSanta.6527 said:

stance kitten right now period no matter what you going to say look at the top rangers who did some "good" soulbeast videos no one use stance for reason only bear stance and that came from mercy.

Dolyak Stance was bugged, you doofus. If not it would have been used.

My biggest fear is, that we have just more problems with balancing. If you enter pvp, there are:

• weak thieves that try to burst you, but are impossible to catch with permanent dodge. So they try 3 burstattacks per minute and after 20 minutes they will kill you. There is no counter, because you cant hit one arrow or maul and you're just too slow.
• Warrior have 20 seconds undying modes with mass of blocks, invulnerability, stability and resistance and have additionally nice leaps to catch you, nic knockdowns to stun you and nice burst to kill you.
• Elementalist have mass of skills to activate. For each situation there might be a skill in there rotation. If they're played passive, they will kill you just running neaby you and farting there dmg+buff skills. Massive reflects and stability, nice healburst, but weak attacks. They wont kill you if you have enough heal, but there are builds that are impossible to kill by three zerks/condis for over 20 seconds.
• Condi necros that will kill you just by moving near you. The only counterplay is to stay away for the whole fight. And this could be a long fight.
• Guardians have very nice boon shares and are top in group support. With traps they can do instant an impossible high damage. With the right skills they can kill fractal bosses within seconds, while the rest of the group need minutes to do the same damage.

And after pof there will be just more of this not-to-counter builds :( Just remember the dead eyes on the cliffs in pvp, killing you within seconds. Not as fast as the original thiefs, but high distance and protected by their camping position.