PvP- Sb vs Core Ranger (LB)

Recently, a Ranger Streamer I follow hit Plat3 1711, Rank 40 (shout out to Bik E Z).He did this with a Core Ranger Build.Which has me wondering,for a longbow Ranger build, what are the advantages and disadvantages of a Core LB Ranger buildvsSoulBeast

Please, discuss.

this guy has managed to make soulbeast work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gZVMpN-F0I&t=356s he has other videos showing it off in pvp

Yeah, that's bik/balouga, the guy I was talking about.

Apart the fact that the Gw2 pvp scene has been dead in the last months so anyone with a bit of effort can get to plat3 / legend with off-meta builds, i think that the difference beetween core ranger and soulbeast is not that big in my opinion.The mentioned streamer, Bik, is playing two different builds atm, which are longbow-s/d core ranger and longbow-s/d soulbeast. Both are running the same weapons, which means that the role is the same with both builds.Longbow primary role is damage and cc, while the secondary set is used for mobility and evades. Utilities are survival-shouts on core and survival-stances on soulbeast if i remember right. The core ranger build is designed to swap pets more often than the soulbeast one, which benefits more on camping beastmode for the added stats/health regen/beastmode skills. Almost anything you can do with soulbeast can be done with a core ranger, in a pvp perspective.Have you ever seen 1 soulbeast in monthly AT finals or in UGO tourneys? Sadly there is no place for the spec atm, you know why? Because soulbeast have the same role that ranger has, and core ranger has never been meta in pvp. Sure you can play it for fun and get to platinum or legendary or whatsoever, but for now druid is the only really viable choice in a competitive teamplay.

To answer the topic:

SOULBEAST longbow build

• You have more available skills in general but you will lose the pet dps
• Better evade/mobility potential
• Better "burst"
• If pet dies, you can reset him by going into beastmode

CORE RANGER longbow build

• Less burst but more sustained damage
• Better boon-stacking on your pet
• More group utilities if you take the nature magic traitline instead of soulbeast

Personally i prefer soulbeast just because there is a lot of AoE damage around which kills your pet very quickly. If you are running core, that's a huge dps loss. With soulbeast you can just go into beastmode and reset the pet. Also some beast skills are nice. But that's pretty much it. Nothing special really, for now. BUFF SOULBEAST ANET PLZ :)

Advantages of a soulbeast build.

Higher burst potential with less stat investment.For a base ranger to hit the same damage it needs to invest more in stats and traits.Access to more "oh shit" style recovery outside of specific traitlines. For example alot of base ranger builds need WK. Soulbeast does not. (merged jacaranda, bear stance, and dolyak stance do alot to keep conditions at bay).More control over your pet. With merging you can affectively eliminate the pet respawn timer as a soulbeast. Which is very nice if you are using beast mastery. This means you can be alot more aggressive with your pet. Intentionaly sending it into lethal situations to try and finish off a low foe you cant quite reach for example. With soulbeast you are not nearly as "punished" when your pet detonates. Good rangers can mitigate the risk of there pet dieing. But never eliminate it entirely. With soulbeast that risk is almost nonexistant. Not only that in cases where your pet might be a disadvantage (giving a necro a free target to transfer conditions to for example, or when bouncing projectiles are starting to hurt a bit) you can combine with it and then bring it back out when its useful again. Infact this on the fly swapping becomes part of the core gameplay of soulbeast.Soulbeast also has more crowd control from its merged pets. And access to unique effects base ranger cant duplicate (aoe resistance for example, solid ranged aoe pressure)

Cons; Very reliant on synergy with other traitlines for your specific goal. The traits you pick in soulbeast need to work atleast partially with what else your taking I have a very hard time taking anything other than NM BM SB. The reason being the synergy between those three traitlines is extremely high. I run a boon focused build however. For other build styles they would likely feel like they NEED to take other traitlines to get soulbeast to feel worthwhile.

Due to how a soulbeast plays its very easy for one to "trap" himself with a bad merge. Effectively crippling himself at a bad time. When I merge with smokescale when I need jaccaranda or vice versa. Its often game over. Soulbeast is filled with small traps for the player. I feel those traps are necessary however and should remain. Soulbeasts potential is way to high if you take those "traps" out. And you can learn not to fall for them and they cease to exist.

Base ranger often relies on WK for its condi clear. Which has alot of upsides to it. Faster endurance regen, solid access to condi clear, good regen, amazing protection uptime. It offers alot of defensive abilities.Freeing up your other two traitlines to augment your offense or utility as you choose. Base ranger is less rigid with its synergy.

Base ranger also offers the risky choice of going (full ham) and a highly aggressive ranger can absolutely SHRED people but this build style comes with very high risk. And when negated its negated almost completely.

Cons relative to soulbeast, Lower damage potential without much higher trait/gear investment (which base ranger CAN afford to make)MUCH higher risk of being pinned into close combat and being stuck off cooldowns,Cooldown gaps (periods of time where you are forced to play super defensively when your burst fails or you begin to be counter pressured, heavily reliant on kiting or rolling evade weapon skills until you can counter attack using your pet to break up the enemies attack rotations)Higher risk of being "negated" back when seasons first started longbow rangers in general were hard countered by aura eles and bunker chronos. At the time I had to begin running very high risk builds in order to compete. It worked. But there were also games where I could look at the enemy comp and KNOW FOR A FACT that I was going to have no impact on the overall course of the match. I had to play at 100% to simply not be a drain on my team. Soulbeast does not have this issue. In the same meta a soulbeast could continue to be a solid threat to the enemy team. With very high spike damage and the necessary long term pressure to wear down the enemy. And EASY access to unblockable to crack through otherwise solid defenses. Hit an ele for a 10k worldy impact followed by a maul and it is probably going to die.

Edit: Note the above is my opinion as I see it. Others are going to have different ideas on this what is a "con" to one player might be a feature to another. And vice versa. And my ideas of a "pro" may seem completely irrelevant to another. So take what I and anyone else says with a grain of salt. Ultimately the best way to find an awnser is to play a significant degree of performance with both builds and make your own conclusions

You guys gave well detailed answers.

For me the biggest difference is that Core Ranger is more pet centric and SoulBeast more about yourself (BeastMode). Core Pet Swap flows better than BeastMode + Pet Swap. You have more tools with SoulBeast, yes, but also more chances of errors (as Shadelang said, you risk being stuck with a bad merge).

For traits, Core Ranger can get more aggressive trait lines (MM, Skirmishing) without feeling pushed in a direction. Soulbeast, you feel the need to use BeastMastery.

At the end of the day, it all depends of your gamestyle. I believe both LBow ''setup'' are good and even Druid can be worked around.

Core Ranger has better trait synergy that adds up to more condition cleanse in the meta, barring the use of Bear Stance on Soulbeast, which by using you're crippling your build by not taking a heal that's good at actually healing.

Soulbeast is a damage modifier and a few extra skills.

Ultimately, while Soulbeast is better at doing damage and that could potentially give it a niche it's good at, core Ranger built properly has the toolset it needs to go toe to toe with the common builds in the metagame. The only problem there is that Druid exists and performs most of the same roles a core Ranger build would be expected to excel at, but better.

Great answers