Soulbeast - Flavor and distinction feedback

Hi all,To begin, I don't particularly care about numbers, since they can be tweaked easily, so this feedback post will focus on feel and flavor. An elite spec is essentially meant to be "a different way to play your class." I was excited for Soulbeast. But that excitement started to die already, just due to a lack of flavor. While some of this may be just my opinion, I feel a lot of Ranger's would back this up. Soulbeast compared to Druid, and most other elite specs, just feels bland. I'll do my best to provide honest feedback over each area of the Soulbeast (stances, traits, mechanic, and weapon).

STANCES:STATE: Stances lack. They're just buff buttons. They're boring.RECOMMENDATION: Make them more interactive. Not just press me to receive boons. While stances themselves are fine as skills, you have to take into account this is an elite spec, and people buy the expansion on this. If all our new skills are boring, it doesn't and shouldn't sit too well.

TRAITS:STATE: This has to be one of the most boring trait-lines I've ever seen. And it's not just boring. It also limits the other trait-lines you can run with it. You almost have to run BM with it for movement speed. While mounts are awesome, props where it's due; I don't want to ride one 24/7.RECOMMENDATION: Total rework. Sure, damage can be wonderful. But is it fun to just have percent numbers and more of the same boons we can already have massive up-time of? Let me tell you, it is NOT. Other Ranger trait-lines are interesting. They provide plenty of cool choices on each line. Soulbeast does not. While there are like... two... OK traits to be chosen, that's really not enough.

PET MERGE:STATE: This is fine. Just fix all the issues. Soulbeast pet swap. Soulbeast pet skills/tool-tips. Soulbeast ends when dismount. Warhorn Skill-5. All of the other traits, skills, and more that don't work because of Soulbeast Merge.

DAGGER MH:STATE: Eh... Yeah...RECOMMENDATION: Skill-2 could use some animation love.Also, just make it pure condition. It's high time for a dedicated power MH, and a dedicated condition MH weapon, wouldn't you say Arenanet? While quickness on Skill-3 is powerful and pretty cool, I'm personally tired of hybrid weapons.

SOULBEAST MERGE VISUAL EFFECTS:Please allow an option to disable all merged effects while in open-world. The continuous fart-cloud and shower of vines effects start to hurt.

KEEP IN MIND: You might try debate some of my points, but this post is a list of my own thoughts. Also just ask yourself: While Soulbeast does open up some stuff like power-burst, is it really so different from a core Ranger? In my opinion, Soulbeast lacks, and desperately needs distinction. The Ranger has been notorious as a jack-of-all-trades since launch, and I've already seen Soulbeast called 'The Jack-Of-All-Trades' elite spec. While pet-merge is certainly new, different and interesting, that's only one part of the 5 major areas that make an elite spec (Weapon, Traits, Mechanic, Skills, Theme), and certainly does not make up for all the lacks elsewhere, not to mention its own issues.

To conclude: Once more, props where it's due. PoF is awesome. But Soulbeast really needs some love, particularly in distinction and flavor.-A ranger main since launch.

Feel free to discuss.

Edit: Sorry for the bad text formatting. Fixed it up.

Just want to say : +1000

The main problem with soulbeast, for me :This class is just not interresting ... at all.

Just look at holosmith, mirage, firebrand, etc.New gameplay, new fancy and shiny effects.

Soulbeast : a green aura, when you merged ...And for my case, i don't want to merge (i just don't like to loose my pet, some burst and some survability), so it feels even worth.

Ranger really need some love ... but it's too late now.

I tried to like Soulbeast but for me it feels really clunky to play.

Not sure whether it is just me and/or something on my machine but im finding when im trying to activate skills the ones that are meant to be instant cast have a delay on them before they fire off and can easily be cancelled if you hit the skill and then attempt to fire off a weapon skill straight afterwards. It also feels like alot of the boons I put up are having very little effect to the pet skills in beast mode, either that or they just have really low damage.

A good amount of the merged skills are underwhelming and I don't understand why some of them lose alot of range, it feels like the specialization in general was designed for your ranger to be really close to the enemy. On paper the class sounded cool but in practice it is horrible to play.

Agreed. Soulbeast does not know what it wants to achieve. Is it a WvW spec or a PvE spec, support or dps? I would love to have traits or skills that reward active gameplay and different playstyles, akin to how Holosmith modifies the forge mechanic