The winners for the Soulbeast Theorycrafting Contest have been decided.

Thank you all for your entries. It was difficult deciding how to grade this contest using the patch notes. Rather than count up every single stack of the boons/conditions that changed I decided to first evaluate which builds were less impacted by direct changes. If there was a tie, then I would count effects to breaks it.

Points (which you don't want) were awarded as follows.

• One point for each stance.
• One point for Leader of the Pack
• One point for We Heal as One
• One point for Entangle
• One point for Rugged Growth
• One point for Fortifying Bond
• One point for Fresh Reinforcement
• One point for each Reef Drake
• One point for each Devourer
• One point for each Spider
• One point for each Bird
• One point for each Moa
• One point for each Bear

The best build that was least affected came from @zalt.8937http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnEqAtCilsAusAs8ilEB7JAsCedNVgQwJIP6Od7ulshiA-jpxHQBA4QAwwLAwAPCAaY/BlUGIgPAAA

The worst build that was least affected came from @Professor Sprout.1560http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARTnEqAtsgN8COsActglJBzZyVBycNBgH3EIf3+bLupwasfYE-jZhRABlfEA2+SAk8DAY5yAAs/AA

Each will receive 50 gold through the in-game mailing system.

Honorable mention goes to @shadowpass.4236 who lost the tiebreaker for the best build category. And whose worst build was the only build in the entire contest to use Fresh Reinforcement. They will receive 25 gold.

No one in this community ever wants to see the sentence "For rangers, this update focused on bug fixes and improvements to soulbeast skills." To read "bug fixes" before "improvements" leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. Hopefully, in the coming weeks we can rally around the ideas put forth by @zalt.8937 @Professor Sprout.1560 and @shadowpass.4236 to present a clear and elaborate message to the developers.

Edit: the gold has been mailed.

Yay I won worst build! Can confirm gold received - thanks @Daniel Handler.4816 , this was fun!

GZ to everyone!

GZ winners, it was fun!

I too second what others have said: great and fun idea!

Congrats to the winners.