Power soulbeast

I'm trying to make this work, but I just can't nail down a build. Using sword/axe, and switching between LB and GS when needed. I really like wilderness survival as a traitline, and I feel like the soulbeast is lacking in sustain without it. That said, if I take wilderness survival, I've only got one traitline left, and choosing between skirmishing/marksman/beast mastery is proving difficult.

Should I just give up and switch to a condi build?

Trying hard, not very enjoyable, results mediocre at best.

I am sort of frustrated about the lack of inspiration the dev's must have had with soulbeast.

@Quarktastic.1027 said:I'm trying to make this work, but I just can't nail down a build. Using sword/axe, and switching between LB and GS when needed. I really like wilderness survival as a traitline, and I feel like the soulbeast is lacking in sustain without it. That said, if I take wilderness survival, I've only got one traitline left, and choosing between skirmishing/marksman/beast mastery is proving difficult.

Should I just give up and switch to a condi build?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARRnE8CN8id8CuCCctglOBLv0uantPtgBwCzJwFAKcnw64uC-jJhRABd/IAauMQ4XBAA2fAA

This is a power based support spec for PvP. I chose not to use longbow because of the high amounts of reflects in the gamemode currently.

Anyhow, I've been using this build for the last two days and it is quite effective. It has a very high uptime of boons, including stability, fury, swiftness, protection, and regeneration. Its' dps is on the lower side. Most of your burst will come from using sic em'. The team support potential is very good, with AoE stab, protection, resistance and condi clear. In addition, you have two skills which negate all incoming damage. One of them is on the Moa, the other is on the bear. I prefer it this way because no matter what pet you have out, if you go into BM, you have an invuln.

One thing I cannot stress enough is that you have to get used to the rotation of entering BM. You do not want to camp in beastmode. Anticipate when your enemy will be doing, use you pet f2, enter BM to counter (moa counters damage, bear counter damage and condi), then head out. Keep in mind that the bear beastmode will increase your healing 25%. Try to enter it when you need to heal.

Share your stances with as many allies as possible. They are very powerful. Bear Stance works great as an anticipatory tool. It removes two conditions immediately, followed by two more conditions for the next four seconds, for a total of 10 conditions removed. Learn to abuse the evade on the greatsword auto, it will help you survive tremendously. Learn the boon durations of the Fresh Reinforcement trait. Entering BM with fresh reinforcement traited grants you static durations of the boons on your pet. This means that if your pet has 5 stacks of stab with only 1 second remaining, you gain all 5 stacks for six seconds.

It takes some time to get used to, but once you start getting it down, it becomes rewarding.

@Soilder.3607 said:

@Quarktastic.1027 said:I'm trying to make this work, but I just can't nail down a build. Using sword/axe, and switching between LB and GS when needed. I really like wilderness survival as a traitline, and I feel like the soulbeast is lacking in sustain without it. That said, if I take wilderness survival, I've only got one traitline left, and choosing between skirmishing/marksman/beast mastery is proving difficult.

Should I just give up and switch to a condi build?

I probably forgot to mention that I'm primarily a PvE player.

@Quarktastic.1027 said:I probably forgot to mention that I'm primarily a PvE player.pve: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAoX3fnEqAtCiN8CmsAUtglCBL/6udLvNdgh1L4JBEtCAjIN-jVhSABUr8jW9DhrE0L1fAY/BSBUlyI-w

you camp beastmode as much as possible.

For PVP: Problem isn't with weapons when talking about SB ... Well I guess it sort of is , dagger 3 needs an evade. It's the competition of trait synergy when dropping something FOR soul beast. If this conflict didn't appear, Soulbeast could be a viable spec. Until then, it will simply be a mediocre specialization in regards to PvP/WvW compared to Druid / Core.

@ZhouX.8742 said:For PVP: Problem isn't with weapons when talking about SB ... Well I guess it sort of is , dagger 3 needs an evade. It's the competition of trait synergy when dropping something FOR soul beast. If this conflict didn't appear, Soulbeast could be a viable spec. Until then, it will simply be a mediocre specialization in regards to PvP/WvW compared to Druid / Core.in PvE is the worst also. You lack the sustain from the druid and you get nothing in return.

It is like playing in hard mode. A very stressful experience. Yep it feels rushed and incomplete.

I was tinkering around with PvE power soulbeast yesterday (

To be honest it's still miles behind condi, but it's really fun to play and has strong burst.

@anduriell.6280 said:

@ZhouX.8742 said:For PVP: Problem isn't with weapons when talking about SB ... Well I guess it sort of is , dagger 3 needs an evade. It's the competition of trait synergy when dropping something FOR soul beast. If this conflict didn't appear, Soulbeast could be a viable spec. Until then, it will simply be a mediocre specialization in regards to PvP/WvW compared to Druid / Core.in PvE is the worst also. You lack the sustain from the druid and you get nothing in return.

I never ran druid in PvE. I found that wilderness survival had better sustain, without having to juggle celestial form.

@AnariiUK.7409 said:I was tinkering around with PvE power soulbeast yesterday (

), from my tests both longbow and greatsword are about equal. You can even just use pure melee (Sword/Axe or /Warhorn) with barely any loss. The longbow rotation is super fun and pretty much boils down to condensing your entire burst into the "Sic' Em!" window of +40% damage.

To be honest it's still miles behind condi, but it's really fun to play and has strong burst.

mind sharing the build you used?

@Quarktastic.1027 said:

@AnariiUK.7409 said:I was tinkering around with PvE power soulbeast yesterday (

), from my tests both longbow and greatsword are about equal. You can even just use pure melee (Sword/Axe or /Warhorn) with barely any loss. The longbow rotation is super fun and pretty much boils down to condensing your entire burst into the "Sic' Em!" window of +40% damage.

To be honest it's still miles behind condi, but it's really fun to play and has strong burst.

Here you go, for greatsword I'd simply swap the Natural Healing trait for Two-handed Training for that extra 5% damage on GS.

You can also change Viper's nest for anything that's useful. I took Viper's nest simply because it's likely the most damaging utility we have and acts as a minor burst heal due to the lifesteal trait.

Gsword and Lbow work fine for me with Soulbeast, Beastmastery and Skirmishing. I have a fury-based, Ferocity focused build with Zerker armor. Get fury, hit hard, repeat.

Is this viable for fractals?