Soulbeast, A important move in the right direction

Ive seen many posts/threads about the soulbeast. Many seem discontempt and dissappointed, but i want to ask you people, what the hell did you want?

Look at what we have asked for, FOR YEARS.A mode without a petGroup support that isnt "just regen and swiftness"A special roleMore build flexibility

Well, we did get that. Oh boy did we get that. We got Druid spec, with its extremely strong group healing support. It allowed our power builds to be more sustainable, greatly broadening our build variety. But the pet, the damn pet was still there. Still being used as "ezmode" epidemic targets in PvP and WvW, or (to a lesser degree) aggroing mobs/triggering traps in PvE.Druid gave us flexibility and a special role. It didnt get us that good group support. It gave us a ROLE, as a healer/spike condi cleanser, but it didnt allow for reliable support.So we still had the damn pet, we still didnt get good "broad" support (Niche support with Spotter, shout cleansing, spike healing etc, but not broad support).

Enter Soulbeast.We got the ability to merge with the pet. However, unlike before when we just asked for "a stat increase to retain the DPS" or "some aura buff", we got SO MUCH MORE.We got support through healing, AOE CC, RESISTANCE BOON (huge thing), CC, EASY low CD blasts (Drake Beastmode 2 is on 15 sec CD... that is REALLY good)... all while rangers has the abundance of fields at their disposal (Poison x2, fire x3, water x1(2, but one is druid only), smoke x1) We get all these benefits from JUST the pet.... JUST the damn pet. but Anet didnt stop there.

Enter - BEAST ability. Look at your traitlines, so many traits affect BEAST skills. Obviously we got the Taunt effect from Beastmastery, but we also get the Fury + Quickness from Soulbeast, but from Nature Magic you can get a 2.5k+ AOE HEAL.... think about that for a moment. You can heal everyone around you, by just using a skill, regardless what pet you have. That is strong (personally i think the taunt one should be in Nature Magic and the healing one should be in Beastmaster to promote better trait choices, but that might be too strong)

But we also got stances, and boy did they deliver some gold nuggets there. The Dolyak and Moa stance is obviously good, but so is the healing stance. For WvW, a ranger can now sub out a guardian in smaller groups (10-15 man teams) without the team being hurt. Think about how big that is. 5 years into the game, FIVE YEARS, nothing has been able to sub out a guardian in ANY capacity. Its always something that makes the guardian just that much better. But now, with stability, protection, condi cleansing, resistance etc... soulbeast can slot in for a guardian. for 5 years, ranger has been shunned from all but ONE role in WvW (Roaming/scouting), but we can now work in GvG without there being a HUGE " * " behind the "Ranger" slot... That is fundamentally META changing.Of course, stances werent perfect, i think the might and poison one is weak. It could use a different type of condition and perhaps a different mechanic. Maybe "for X seconds, you gain might and apply torment/slow/chilled/confusion etc on hit"... i dont know, Anet should look at reworking that one a bit.And some of the Soulbeast traits could use some work, but otherwise its a really really strong start, and anyone thinking we got a bad specialization need to look at the history of the ranger not just in "Solo play" but in group play.

From the perspective of a PvE player:

Is the soulbeast a new exciting experience that will keep people playing this class for another 2 years?This is the only important question and sadly for many people SB is a neat idea that feels rushed, unfinished and unpolished, like the devs decided to give up in the middle of the development. How else would you explain skills like (cat) "Bite". A skill whose existence can't be explained by anyone in the current form and there are so many things like that with this spec.

Beastmode:The merging mechanic doesn't only break the game flow far too often it simply doesn't offer too much new during a fight because with most pets you get like 2 new useful skills and one skill, the F2 gets removed in BM. The other beast skills are gated behind a 10-12 sec timer and are not at all easily accessible during a fight.The Beastmode with its pet- swapping-restriction limits you to button-smashing all available skills every 10 seconds before leaving it instantly again, then trying to remember all the cooldowns of the beast skills you can't see before entering it again. Entering it for too long does not only feel like a punishment, it is one. The stats you gain make in no way up for the loss of your pet dmg and your meat shield that usually would pull aggro in PvE. Most pets are still completely useless and Beastmode is only useful for very few pets. The fact that you get kicked out of Beastmode whenever you go into water or get on your mount makes everything worse (by quite a bit).

Stances:The stances are the most boring skills that are possible to create within this game. Seriously, imagine a skill that is more boring than "Gives you might", "gives you endurance recovery", "Increase duration of boons". Give us skills with new exciting and unique mechanics. We are talking about new traps, portals, spawning your second pet for a short time, Transforming in a brutal beast depending on current activated archetype as an elite skill for example. Something like that! Give us something that keeps us interested in playing your game with this class!

Dagger:The dagger is underwhelming and doesn't offer any exciting skills. Also, the ranger simply isn't a meele class. In most PvE content (as a ranger) you will get far better results in hectic fights with ranged weapons because in meele you simply eat too much dmg and can't sustain your dmg/health. The dagger doesn't provide any more meele sustain and the new stances don't help either with that.

Overall Style and feeling:Overall the entire spec lacks "soul". It doesn't feel like a complete spec at all. If I wouldn't know it better I would say that Anet has finally given up any hope of ever fixing pet AI and therefore decided to build a workaround so we would get more control over the pet. It feels like something that was given to us rangers during an interim patch. I can't believe that they worked 2 years on this. A spec where the utility skills are as useless as boring, where the dagger feels like a failed attempt to replace the axe with a meele weapon, where you feel punished for staying in your new class mechanic, a mechanic you get constantly get kicked out by the game itself, it's almost like the game itself wants to tell you that you shouldn't spec this way.

The SB is right now a core ranger with 2 more skills (Because you lose one) that has lost survivability. It doesn't feel unique, exciting. It doesn't feel like something that you want to play for 2 more years.

Edit: I forgot to talk about the traits, because they are so meaningless and have so few synergies in their current form that I was in no way excited during unlocking the spec.

I agree with you here, in concept it is a great spec and it is capable of doing a lot of damage and it does have good utility, it's just there are a lot of things that are bugged and need to be fixed or don't feel good to use (according to others opinions).

The no pet swapping in beastmode is huge as it makes some of our best traits next to useless, combine that with the 10s CD on re-entry, jumping in/out is counter-intuitive, Pet F1s deal less damage than AAs (except the Pig which is probably the best pet in the game now for roaming) Taunt proccing at the end of the cast of the F3 which also have long casts, the only two "on entering beastmode" traits are in the same tier, Fresh Reinforcement is next to pointless without Nature Magic and/or WHaO/RT and even then jumping in/out is still counter-intuitive. Essence of Speed, Second Skin and Predator's Cunning are weak unless you heavily invest in them, Twice as Vicious is completely forgettable, Leader of the Pack has a 50% duration reduction for no apparent reason, the CD on Eternal Bond is too long for such a small heal/Prot duration and Oppressive Superiority is pretty weak too really. The only two traits that have any synergy with each other are Essence of Speed and Live Fast, neither of them are needed for raiding (along with the other two traits in that tier, in fact only Furious Strength and Oppressive Superiority have any noticeable effect at all for that game mode) and more boons are likely to be a hindrance in PvP/WvW with all the boon hate (I don't know that, it's speculation). The dagger changes were nice, it is pretty good now, for straight DPS but it has little utility outside of the leaps.

To me, it could be an amazing spec, but it needs a LOT of polish.

The class is fun and has a lot of potential, but right now it has a few very critical problems that just make it frustrating to play. Like the "bug" of being knocked out of beastmode everytime you mount/swim/etc. And not being able to switch pets while merged is pretty frustrating as well. Yes we have some veriety with builds, but building anything but condi is just wasted cause power scaling is so terrible. Stances aren't so bad but I really wish they had a longer duration. When I first heard of stances I was expecting them to be part of soulbeasts' core mechanic (kinda similar to how firebrand works). But without changing skills, just passives, and made a completely separate set of utility skills.

I love the class, and Ranger has been my main since I first started playing. But even despite that the issues are still very hindering.

@Adenin.5973 said:From the perspective of a PvE player:

Is the soulbeast a new exciting experience that will keep people playing this class for another 2 years?This is the only important question and sadly for many people SB is a neat idea that feels rushed, unfinished and unpolished, like the devs decided to give up in the middle of the development. How else would you explain skills like (cat) "Bite". A skill whose existence can't be explained by anyone in the current form and there are so many things like that with this spec.

Beastmode:The merging mechanic doesn't only break the game flow far too often it simply doesn't offer too much new during a fight because with most pets you get like 2 new useful skills and one skill, the F2 gets removed in BM. The other beast skills are gated behind a 10-12 sec timer and are not at all easily accessible during a fight.The Beastmode with its pet- swapping-restriction limits you to button-smashing all available skills every 10 seconds before leaving it instantly again, then trying to remember all the cooldowns of the beast skills you can't see before entering it again. Entering it for too long does not only feel like a punishment, it is one. The stats you gain make in no way up for the loss of your pet dmg and your meat shield that usually would pull aggro in PvE. Most pets are still completely useless and Beastmode is only useful for very few pets. The fact that you get kicked out of Beastmode whenever you go into water or get on your mount makes everything worse (by quite a bit).

Stances:The stances are the most boring skills that are possible to create within this game. Seriously, imagine a skill that is more boring than "Gives you might", "gives you endurance recovery", "Increase duration of boons". Give us skills with new exciting and unique mechanics. We are talking about new traps, portals, spawning your second pet for a short time, Transforming in a brutal beast depending on current activated archetype as an elite skill for example. Something like that! Give us something that keeps us interested in playing your game with this class!

Dagger:The dagger is underwhelming and doesn't offer any exciting skills. Also, the ranger simply isn't a meele class. In most PvE content (as a ranger) you will get far better results in hectic fights with ranged weapons because in meele you simply eat too much dmg and can't sustain your dmg/health. The dagger doesn't provide any more meele sustain and the new stances don't help either with that.

Overall Style and feeling:Overall the entire spec lacks "soul". It doesn't feel like a complete spec at all. If I wouldn't know it better I would say that Anet has finally given up any hope of ever fixing pet AI and therefore decided to build a workaround so we would get more control over the pet. It feels like something that was given to us rangers during an interim patch. I can't believe that they worked 2 years on this. A spec where the utility skills are as useless as boring, where the dagger feels like a failed attempt to replace the axe with a meele weapon, where you feel punished for staying in your new class mechanic, a mechanic you get constantly get kicked out by the game itself, it's almost like the game itself wants to tell you that you shouldn't spec this way.

The SB is right now a core ranger with 2 more skills (Because you lose one) that has lost survivability. It doesn't feel unique, exciting. It doesn't feel like something that you want to play for 2 more years.

Edit: I forgot to talk about the traits, because they are so meaningless and have so few synergies in their current form that I was in no way excited during unlocking the spec.

I almost agree with everything you said except for a couple things:

• I actually think Dagger 3 is a relatively good skill. It is mainly the auto and especially 2 that need looking at.
• I disagree with your assertion that Ranger is not a melee class. Imo, Ranger is versatile. It is nearly just as deadly at ranged as it is in melee for alternating periods of time.

Hey OP I'm right there with ya soulbeast is pretty amazing,

However there's probably 1 good reason and 3 stupid reasons why people are upset.

1 good one - as been stated theres quite a few inactive traits and a general "clunkiness" to certain skills and there's quite a bit that could be cool but feels very underwelming 'looking at you dagger 2, and loud wistle)

2 dumb ones

People like to complain and not try new things

Druid mains have forgotten how much druid qol carries.

I like the potential. Unless Anet takes 3 months to rebalance/fix things, I'm liking the direction. But there's plenty to improve upon, I just dont want to wait 3-6 months for Anets long waiting changes.

A mode without a pet.The issues that came with the Pet being active could have been resolved without an Elite spec by having the Stow function work during combat rather than automatically activating a stowed Pet. Not saying I'm against the Soulbeast's premise of melding with the Pet and inheriting its abilities, mind you.Group support that isnt "just regen and swiftness"The shout update to provide better group support was one of the more important steps in the right direction. The constant regeneration and swiftness from them while traited with Resounding Timbre could have been altered so Resounding Timbre had each shout provide a unique boon.A special roleDruid pretty much delivered on this, and to be fair, Soulbeast also provides additional roles.More build flexibilityNo argument here. Soulbeast brought a heck of a lot of flexibility when it comes to builds. As others have stated, it still needs polish.

To all of you, i totally agree that there is a level of clunkyness that needs solving. I have my gripes with SB, like everyone else. But i also respect the fact that we just launched the specialization. I understand why Anet may be hesitant to flesh out other pets abilities. Personally i only find 5 pets "useful" in BM. Those would be Bristleback (epic bleed spam), Jacaranda (great heal support, also neat that you get a long ranged AOE. Not to mention the Jacaranda pet is strong as fuck), The bears (for Defy pain and healing), Smokescale (for dat evade) and drakes (for low CD blast finisher)

But i also understand why Anet may have been reluctant or had technical limitations (its a DX9 engine that wasnt very modern when it launched either) preventing them from allowing "pet swap" under beastmode. Can you imagine how hard it must be to merge the pet and ranger, get stats and power levels to hit the right marks (remember, DPS calculations pet use 3000 weapon damage. Ranger uses the damage listed on the weapon.... which at most is 1.1k.... imagine a bug that gave ranger 3k weapon damage scaling... we would instakill everything)... Not to mention hitboxes, destroying and creating objects on the fly. Yes, i understand it was hard. we are talking about 5 years of bandaided code, ontop of a outdated engine suddenly having to be forced to split and merge at the whim of the player... that isnt easy, and i bet you it took far too long to make it work.

However. Yes the stances are lackluster, atleast 2 of them. Vulture and Griffon stance is completely idiotic. Yes i understand where they are going with Vulture stance. Stack might, once target drop, if used with leaching venoms trait, it would do lots of damage + heal you... however its too hard to use. SB, LB, Sword and GS has too long auto rotations to make it worthwhile. And dagger requires you to glue down the target due to the short attack range.

The variety in pet skills etc... we can always fix that later. It isnt a "major issue". For the next few weeks, people will spend time theorycrafting over stat sets, tactics, rotations etc in various game modes, and how one class counters or loses to another. It isn't urgent to have a perfect release, it is more urgent to have a WORKABLE release. And, the soulbeast is workable. It isnt shoehorned into a pointless corner (like Deadeye)

@Adenin.5973 said:Dagger:Also, the ranger simply isn't a meele class. In most PvE content (as a ranger) you will get far better results in hectic fights with ranged weapons because in meele you simply eat too much dmg and can't sustain your dmg/health. The dagger doesn't provide any more meele sustain and the new stances don't help either with that.

You don't, and you never did. This is oversimplifying at its best.

And as one ranger to another, I wonder how you haven't figured out to abuse your pet to tank the damage where that "tanking" is even relevant. It isnt' relevant in group content, so what gives.

I've run two builds in wvw roaming the last few months. Full zerk yolo longbow build (both core and druid variations), and a full melee build (mostly druid, but core works, soulbeast works better than core even with its flaws). To say the ranger isn't a capable melee class is bullshit.

@Lazze.9870 said:

@Adenin.5973 said:

Dagger:

Also, the ranger simply isn't a meele class. In most PvE content (as a ranger) you will get far better results in hectic fights with ranged weapons because in meele you simply eat too much dmg and can't sustain your dmg/health. The dagger doesn't provide any more meele sustain and the new stances don't help either with that.

I said from a PvE perspective. I don't care about WvW and never made any comment on PvP, so what is your point?

Edit: "I wonder how you haven't figured out to abuse your pet to tank the damage where that "tanking" is even relevant."I don't understand this sentence...