Soulbeast runes & sigils

I've recenlty come into the soulbeast spec, and have filled out my set of viper's exotic gear. Now I'm wondering what upgrades to apply. I've seen a lot of guides giving flat recommendations, but little discussion of why. Having looked over all the options myself, these are the ones I see fitting a soulbeast condition damage hyperspecialization:

Weapon Sigils

• Corruption - Up to +250 condition damage as you rack up to 25 kills. The generally recommended one. Requires farming your condition damage boost up, which seems better for world PVE than instances, and maybe PvP?
• Geomancy - AE bleed for 10sec on swap to weapon. It's like having an extra weapon attack skill in your bar!
• Malice - A flat +10% to condition duration, for all types of damage. Seems like a really good choice, but outside of this thread, I haven't seen it recommended much.
• Bursting - A flat +6% to all condition damage. A problem here is that it's good for trash mobs (short fights), but not so good for bosses, which is where you want your hyperspecialization to really apply. For those, longer duration is better, hence Agony or Malice.
• Agony - +25% bleeding duration. Most of soulbeast DPS is bleeding, so this is a pretty good fit, and quite possibly better than Malice.

There are a few other interesting/fun sigils (I am particularly interested in playing with a sigil of demon summoning on a side weapon for grins), but these seem to be the top contenders in terms of pure min/maxing.

Armor Runes

• Nightmare - General pluses to condition damage and duration. The 6-set feature applies blindness & transfers a condition on use of elite skill. Pretty clearly the top contender. Requires farming a particular dungeon to get.
• Sunless - The "survivability" version of Nightmare, which rather than increasing outgoing condition damage duration, decreases incoming, therefore a more defensive balance. I suspect that's just not generally as useful, as it's burst damage or very high condition damage taking me out very quickly, but it doesn't suck. The 6-set applies fear when you use your elite skill, which may not be what you want.
• Antitoxin - Like Sunless, but balanced to more outgoing condition damage and less reduction of incoming condition damage duration. The 6-set also grants might on incoming poison/torment. This rune really appeals to me, as something obtainable quickly.
• Afflicted - Adds bonuses to condition damage, and large duration bonuses but only for bleed/poison (and neither both at each tier). These are most of your condition damage sources as a soulbeast, so it still seems like a good fit. The 6-set death nova effect when downed is nice for vengeance, I guess, but I'd rather not be downed.
• Firebrand - Pluses to condition damage and boon duration. Best if you regularly work in organized groups, I expect—I haven't seen much in the way of organized groups in my GW2 experience so far. :-) The 6-set feature increases quickness duration and does an AE fire blas, which is best if you are in melee range a lot. I frequently dive in to apply some melee DPS while my shortbow is on cooldown, but I certainly use my elite skill while at range too.
• Trapper - A PvP rune, but worth mentioning. Pluses to condition damage and duration, plus bonuses on use of trap skills. Seems like if you are doing PvP, this is a solid choice over any of the above.

I've read that you don't want to use the full 6-set of most runes (often 4 of one, 2 of another), but again without much explanation why. I've tried to include some commentary on that here.

Well those are my thoughts based on what I've been able to research so far. Let me know what you think of these gear upgrades, or if I've left any out that you would recommend.

I dont run a condition build with my soulbeast, but if I did, I would run Sigil of Bursting, and rune of the renegade just to get the condition damage as high as possible. I do not raid, but occasionally do fractals and in my experience, mobs dont last long enough to invest in condition duration. If I had to include an alternate rune, because I heavily favor bow use, it would be Superior rune of thorns from the itzel vendor, which boosts poison duration.

You want 4 Nightmare + 2 Trapper on the runes and either Malice or Agony on the weapons and ALWAYS geomancy. That setup gives u the most condition duration to maximize your DPS. You always want bleeding 100% and dont overcap, since it´s your most damaging condition, with poison after. Malice vs Agony is a matter if u play more solo or group. Group would go agony and take the trait that let´s you share out your vulture and wolf stance, since thats more dps than oppressive superiority. In soloplay you´d want malice + oppressive superiority to boost yourself as high as possible, tho that stance trait also works fine for solo aswell, since it increases stance-duration on yourself.If your are running double shortbow instead of shotbow + d/t, you take krait runes (45% bleeding duration) and geomancy+earth sigils always, with the share trait.I hope this helps you out.

I'll add on some more clarification, if I may.First, if you're playing open world, absolutely go with what looks like fun. I personally get a lot of enjoyment making builds on a theme, even if they aren't going to win any dps races.As to your specific questions.If you're min-maxing a condi build, Bramymond.7689 has it right. The various combinations are trying to maximize duration (100% or 2x base is max) on the ranger's damaging conditions.

For a shortbow/shortbow build, most of your damage is bleeding with some poison, so you can focus on bleed duration without losing much. Krait runes are great for this and, with food and traits, will get bleed duration up to about 97%. This opens a sigil slot which is usually Sigil of Earth for extra bleed on crit.

For builds running axe/torch or dagger/torch, burning is added to the mix (and potentially also confusion if you run iboga). This is where the nightmare/trapper combination comes in; it maximizes the duration of all of your conditions, instead of one or two.Burning is a whole lot of damage but ranger doesn't have any traits that specifically enhance it like we have with bleed/poison. So the rune combination is pushing all of the condition durations as high as possible, without getting those mostly-useless 6 rune bonuses. Bleed suffers a bit but this is where you use a duration sigil to compensate.

I don't know of any other build combinations that would use 4 of one, 2 of another, but that's why. The duration bonuses can be more powerful than the 6th bonus is some situations.

On Geomancy: you see it everywhere and in every condi raid build because it's kinda OP. It hits 5 targets and the bleed is almost 20 seconds if you cap bleed duration. And considering that if you are doing an actual rotation where you have to weapon-swap anyway, it's free damage.If you find that you use specific weapons for a reason instead of always swapping for max damage; you can drop this for something worth less dps like Earth Sigil.Side note: if you are put in combat while mounted, dismounting will proc the sigil.

A couple off-meta sigils to consider:Sigil of BlightSigil of DoomThese are more if you want to look into poison as a theme and get some bonus procs of Predator's Cunning. B) Overall dps will be lower.

Your rune thoughts are spot on. A couple other to consider:Rune of Orr : Poison focused, a bit of quickness, requires dungeoning ArahRune of Thorns : Poison focused, stacking buff, requires HoTThe aforementioned Rune of the Renegade : flat condi-damage buff, no duration, PoFRune of the Berzerker : Like Renegade but a power/condi hybrid.Off-meta Rune of Rata Sum : Poison duration, and radiation field summon! Is a poison field that applies poison and weakness for the duration.

Of course, playing PvP/WvW are different beasts. You'll generally need more survivability and will have to adjust gear accordingly.

Feel free to ask if you have other questions. I'm sure others will chime in if I don't know what I'm talking about. ;)

@Khailyn.6248 said:I dont run a condition build with my soulbeast, but if I did, I would run Sigil of Bursting, and rune of the renegade just to get the condition damage as high as possible. I do not raid, but occasionally do fractals and in my experience, mobs dont last long enough to invest in condition duration. If I had to include an alternate rune, because I heavily favor bow use, it would be Superior rune of thorns from the itzel vendor, which boosts poison duration.

This is my main concern with piling heavily on condition duration, but if fractal & regular mobs are dying quick, that's a fine thing. Champions and other boss fights, I'll still be well served by duration, I think.

For what it's worth, I am going heavily into this build on the recommendation of some experienced guildies to see how it works for me. So far it's great fun sometimes, very frustrating at others. I am enough of a collector that I might well kit myself up with a full power set of gear too! Or whatever else looks good. What build do you run with your soulbeast? I'm keen to hear about alternatives.

Thank you all for your comments and analysis. It's much appreciated!

@Corax.7692 said:

@Khailyn.6248 said:I dont run a condition build with my soulbeast, but if I did, I would run Sigil of Bursting, and rune of the renegade just to get the condition damage as high as possible. I do not raid, but occasionally do fractals and in my experience,

mobs dont last long enough to invest in condition duration

. If I had to include an alternate rune, because I heavily favor bow use, it would be Superior rune of thorns from the itzel vendor, which boosts poison duration.

I run a power soulbeast geared for WvW since thats what my guild mostly does. Though I run it in open world as well. It's a full marauder gear set with runes of durability, sigils of energy and I'm going to be testing sigil of draining. Running sigil of severance currently. While I'm making a second set of ascended medium armor it'll be harrier to heal in fractals. For a condition build.. I would be split between vipers and grieving, perhaps a mix of the two situation depending. By all means you should go with what works for you.

I play hybrid soulbrest,ranger with Carrion+Sinister gear.You run Viper it mean you need dmg both condi right?

If easy to think just use bleed dur or cri x% get bleed or hit add valu is easy to use on weapon set.Rune?I would introduceRune of "Krait" bleed forever and cheap like dirt.Rune of "Adventurer" is good both pow+condi and refill 1stanina bar after heal.Rund of "soulbeast" is work well on pow spec and codi spec status in your gear too.in PvE condi duration is very good but WvW condi dur not make maximum effect most people clean condi faster than leave them do max dmg.

Pick something cheap easy to use and simple.

Added an update on Sigil of Geomancy. It procs for me on swap to/from weapon, not just to, as the tooltip states. If I'm right, this frees up your other weapon for a different sigil. Will be testing.

Nope. Must've been an occasional glitch. It was only happening during octovine fight when I picked up the bramble be gone.

@Corax.7692 said:Added an update on Sigil of Geomancy. It procs for me on swap to/from weapon, not just to, as the tooltip states. If I'm right, this frees up your other weapon for a different sigil. Will be testing.

I think you'll find from your testing that it is only when you swap to the weapon with the sigil. Or more specifically, if the weapon set you are swapping to has a ready-to-go swap sigil.

There is one case where you can get away with one swap sigil. If you're set up with three one-hand weapons; the weapon that is shared can have a swap sigil that will activate every time.For example: If you have a Dagger with Geomancy (as soulbeast). Your sets could be Dagger(Geo)/Warhorn - [Empty]/Torch.For gameplay, this setup works just like D/W - D/T with two daggers and the geomancy sigil will activate every time. (Most, if not all, swap sigils have a cooldown lower than weapon swap cooldown)

If you run any two-handed weapons or if you run four different one-hand weapons, you will need two of the sigil to get the effect every swap.

The Superior Sigil of Geomancy is surprisingly inexpensive on the trading post; I wonder why? (Then again, the most expensive, at 120g, is the Superior Sigil of Karka slaying....)

@Corax.7692 said:The Superior Sigil of Geomancy is surprisingly inexpensive on the trading post; I wonder why? (Then again, the most expensive, at 120g, is the Superior Sigil of Karka slaying....)

I think thats because you cant actualy get karka sigils anymore

@Corax.7692 said:The Superior Sigil of Geomancy is surprisingly inexpensive on the trading post; I wonder why? (Then again, the most expensive, at 120g, is the Superior Sigil of Karka slaying....)

Geomancy is cheap because of the type of build its associated with. While the bleeds it procs is pretty potent, they're a long duration, PBAoE and comes with the encumbrance of weapon swap. This automatically drops its value in WvW (PvP doesn't have a cost) to the margins. In PvE, Geomancy is a second tier choice for condition builds. Top Tier is Condi duration, which is why Malice is the first choice for most builds, followed by condi specific duration sigils if not enough exists on the build already. Granted the latter are also cheap, as only a few builds would call for it.

What makes Geomancy second tier in nature, is that it only stands out against static targets that are vulnerable to rotations long enough to incorporate weapon swap. They're lack luster in trash fights due to the low upfront damage output; but then again, thats a trait of condition builds in general. The only reason you see this sigil so much in raid builds is largely due to no other decent option for extra condition damage, and is often cheesed with things like symmetric weapon pairs, half pairs, or builds that already have weapon swap in its rotation. If Bursting did +6% to output like Renegrade runes do (rather then 6% to the Condi damage stat), you'd see that used in builds just as often as malice, with the justification to back up it.

Now compare that to any Power build where Force and Air are obvious choices for stacking more damage, and properly scale with stat investments.