1-Shot Soulbeast -- An example of the worst "balance"

Both done from complete stealth -- never even saw the soulbeast enter stealth, until the moment I was instantly downed. I was wearing a demolisher's amulet and had protection up both times (for the record, my health was 16k. The damage was 9k damage over my max health). The hit was so hard it skipped my auto-elixir S (which is supposed to protect us from this sort of thing). The second time he instantly incapped both me and my ally. This is not good design. This is not fun. There is no counter other than sheer luck or knowledge about exactly what the enemy is running.

I'll admit, I've participated in my share of "this is OP!" discussions. But I was so flabbergasted by this, I can't even be angry about it. It's almost like they were playing with a sniper rifle while everybody else had toy guns. At that point, you just have to take your water guns and go home, it's that unbalanced. This is the kind of thing even I, with my permanent and ridiculous addiction to this game, I have to admit it's time to pack up and just quit. I'm honestly more angry at my teammate who thought we were wintrading because this happened.

I can't believe this game ever tried to be esports.

Is there a solution? Dunno. Maybe a hard cap on the amount of damage a single hit can do in PvP. Somewhere in the 10-12k range seems reasonable for a hard cap. At least then I might have a chance to dodge the second hit.

One of the soul beast samurai ninjas gotcha good lmao

Same here OP. I have screenshots showing the same. Getting one shot completely from stealth, didn't even see the ranger enter stealth. I had Maul hit me for 17k. I also use demolisher amulet. I'm not sure if I had protection up at the time or not. But to get one shot from MAUL, not even worldly impact, from stealth... I was just like wtf. However, i don't want to see this build nerfed, unless they're gonna deal with all of the one shot builds, and other overtuned builds. But i'm glad you took the time to make this post and share those pics. This game's balance is really ridiculous. Anet needs to devote more resources to class pvp balance. I see they are trying, but it's not enough.

@Vagrant.7206 said:I can't believe this game ever tried to be esports.If it makes you happy to hear, the build is completely unusable on a competitive environment.

Those are all baby crits, I got hit for 60,000 from stealth and people were still defending that, saying it was a glassy build

@SoulSin.5682 said:

@Vagrant.7206 said:I can't believe this game ever tried to be esports.If it makes you happy to hear, the build is completely unusable on a competitive environment.

^this

It's pretty avoidable damage if you know what's going on, tho it is a bit overtuned lol

https://clips.twitch.tv/CautiousAlertSharkCopyThis

Yeah.. 22k Worldly Impacts doing 1.33 times your full health bar, with toughness amulet and protection up.

https://clips.twitch.tv/CalmObservantYakCoolStoryBro

Even Steal&Backstab will one shot you through Elixir S (and rip prot btw).

Mantra Mesmer, Core Hammer Guard, these can do this too, but their multi-hit instant burst will usually trigger an Engineer/Warrior's passive defenses for example, so it's slightly less broken.

Death's Judgement having a SFX and visual is more counterplay than I'm used to TBH

There are a lot of one-shot ambush builds! Like 4 if you count Judge's Intervention from behind a wall.

Edit: And while it's a little bit of a joke, these one shot builds rarely are worth running for a few cheese kills

Talking about YOLO Builds, some team ran a DeadEye on Monthly AT on EU.Jawgeous was commenting on it.

This video is pretty interesting, as it shows the use of one of these builds in high level play.Though the DE in question made a few interesting moves in the first half, from a certain point on the game he got focused so hard that the game became perpetual 5x4.

Any time you goes against a YOLO Build, regardless of how broken it looks, just shoot it down and revive your partners. All good.

@ceces.9368 said:Those are all baby crits, I got hit for 60,000 from stealth and people were still defending that, saying it was a glassy build

you weren't hit for 60k, you were hit for around 30k. I confirmed this to be a bug with the logs; I hit someone for 30k WI in spvp (30k popped up over their heads) and they raged saying I hit them for 60k according to their logs.

So either it's a true 60k hit bugged to show 30k on the attacker's side, or it's a 30k hit bugged to show 60k on the reciever's side

I'm gonna assume it's the latter ;p

@Madisonlee.9641 said:

@ceces.9368 said:Those are all baby crits, I got hit for 60,000 from stealth and people were still defending that, saying it was a glassy build

But you didn't provide any proof, you just said you forgot to screen shot it. That's like going to court and saying you forgot the bills, but you did pay 2,000$ for something and should get refunded

It's still too much damage from 1 single ability, even if it's viable or not. How do you think new players get into the game? They try unranked and it's full of builds like this. It's not fun for anyone to get 1 shot

Despite the 1 shots, Harsh Master's build is very benign. There's a reason why he's been playing the same 1 shot ranger build (plus variants) for 3 years years and he's the only one. It's bad. You win some and lose some, but with his build he loses more than he wins.

@ceces.9368 said:

@Madisonlee.9641 said:

@ceces.9368 said:Those are all baby crits, I got hit for 60,000 from stealth and people were still defending that, saying it was a glassy build

As I said in the other thread, by the time the guy raged about it, the hit had already left my combat log and he refused to SS it for me on his end. Just think about it though lol, no one can replicate the damage on attacker's end, not a single person. And only a slight few have said they were hit for 60k. It's pretty obvious that it's a log bug, which is not unheard of, so I don't know how you could think you actually got hit with 60k when every attempt at replication only nets around 30k.

As for your second comment, it's certainly not fun for snowflake carebears lol. I brought my little brother in this game and he got repeatedly one shot by a thief in HJ (a few years ago) named Melon or something who wasn't wearing any clothes and that thief probably one shot him like 20+ times and my brother couldn't stop laughing about how funny it was. He realized that he was dying because he didn't know what the kitten he was doing, so he didn't get salty about it and instead called me to come hunt him, which we did and we laughed more.

I get how it could be annoying but ANY new person is gonna get rekt. ..whether it takes one shot or not.

This topic was already thoroughly covered here -> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/47047/60-000-damage-from-1-ability-is-that-normal/p1

Quick summary for those who missed it:

• 60k single strike is real, but only in Eternal Coliseum with artifact +20% buff and additional +20% buff from the Grenth kill. Otherwise 40k'ish is the highest a one shot soulbeast is going to land.
• Yes the build is real, yes it can stealth for that long.
• While complaining for nerfs, understand where the problem lies with why this damage is so high. It is NOT WI itself, it is the damage multipliers: Attack Of Opportunity, Moment Of Clarity, Remorseless, and Sic'Em. Without these ridiculously amplifying damage modifiers, WI is just a Gravedigger swing. So when screaming at Anet for nerfs, Don't ask for WI to be Nerfed, because that won't change Mauls from hitting you for 40ks. You need to request the sick damage multipliers to be nerfed.
• This build performs terribly in a competitive environment. Players should be less worried about gimmicky one shot soulbeasts, and more worried about 2-3 shot soulbeasts that are actually running competitive build structures. In this case, it is Sic'Em specifically, that is equating to highly over powered Rapid Fires, 2-3 shot mauls & WIs, and 2000 range unblockable undodgable 6s reveals.

Let's also not forgot the other classes with ridiculously high DPS that can run more practical bursts without needing to go unranked gimmick to do it. So be careful where you toss the nerf train agro.

Yeah, meta is kitten and it will stay that way at least a month or two until next patch.Who am I kidding. It will be kitten after next patch as well.

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:This topic was already thoroughly covered here -> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/47047/60-000-damage-from-1-ability-is-that-normal/p1

Quick summary for those who missed it:

• 60k single strike is real, but only in Eternal Coliseum with artifact +20% buff and additional +20% buff from the Grenth kill. Otherwise 40k'ish is the highest a one shot soulbeast is going to land.
• Yes the build is real, yes it can stealth for that long.
• While complaining for nerfs, understand where the problem lies with why this damage is so high. It is NOT WI itself, it is the damage multipliers: Attack Of Opportunity, Moment Of Clarity, Remorseless, and Sic'Em. Without these ridiculously amplifying damage modifiers, WI is just a Gravedigger swing. So when screaming at Anet for nerfs, Don't ask for WI to be Nerfed, because that won't change Mauls from hitting you for 40ks. You need to request the sick damage multipliers to be nerfed.
• This build performs terribly in a competitive environment. Players should be less worried about gimmicky one shot soulbeasts, and more worried about 2-3 shot soulbeasts that are actually running competitive build structures. In this case, it is Sic'Em specifically, that is equating to highly over powered Rapid Fires, 2-3 shot mauls & WIs, and 2000 range unblockable undodgable 6s reveals.

I think a lot of the complaints about WI came after Anet buffed WI to have reduced cast time (and increased radius? not sure on that). So they did make it easier to land, and since it finally lands, people realize how much damage WI can do.

The amount of damage it does is absurd, but maybe the real issue is getting hit by WI from stealth (which Rangers have a lot of access to). We can't say "just dodge it" because it has no tells, and with this game focusing on dynamic actions and reactions, bombs from stealth isn't the best idea. Look at Death's Judgement on Deadeye. Sure, the skill does a lot, but it has a lot of tells via audio and visual. But I think the real complaint about Deadeyes is malicious backstab, which does not have obvious tells.

I do believe one key action doing 30k-60k should not be allowed, and you're right about Rangers needing a nerf on their multipliers (for PvP, we can agree they need some help in the power dps PvE option). I'll be lucky to hit 18k crits with Warrior's Eviscerate with 3 adrenaline bars and peak performance active. Mesmer's burst from stealth can barely scratch 25k, and that requires at least 3 instances of damage (clone shatter burst doesn't do 25k in one shatter). 30k, which seems to be on the lower end of buffed ranger damage, is too much.

There is no “one shot” soulbeast build bro. Id bet the same guy that killed you is the one that wrecked phantaram and the guy that started the 60,000 hit thread as well.

No one even know what his build is, all we know is that he seems to have a lot of stealth and damage modifiers therefore its unlikely this will ever be nerfed as nobody else knows how to make it. And there shouldn’t be a 12k cap hit, people who go full class deserve to hit those numbers IF you can down them with 1 move too.

Id rather they nerf their defensives first as they have too much survivability for the amount of damage they do

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:This topic was already thoroughly covered here -> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/47047/60-000-damage-from-1-ability-is-that-normal/p1

Quick summary for those who missed it:

• 60k single strike is real, but only in Eternal Coliseum with artifact +20% buff and additional +20% buff from the Grenth kill. Otherwise 40k'ish is the highest a one shot soulbeast is going to land.
• Yes the build is real, yes it can stealth for that long.
• While complaining for nerfs, understand where the problem lies with why this damage is so high. It is NOT WI itself, it is the damage multipliers: Attack Of Opportunity, Moment Of Clarity, Remorseless, and Sic'Em. Without these ridiculously amplifying damage modifiers, WI is just a Gravedigger swing. So when screaming at Anet for nerfs, Don't ask for WI to be Nerfed, because that won't change Mauls from hitting you for 40ks. You need to request the sick damage multipliers to be nerfed.
• This build performs terribly in a competitive environment. Players should be less worried about gimmicky one shot soulbeasts, and more worried about 2-3 shot soulbeasts that are actually running competitive build structures. In this case, it is Sic'Em specifically, that is equating to highly over powered Rapid Fires, 2-3 shot mauls & WIs, and 2000 range unblockable undodgable 6s reveals.

Let's also not forgot the other classes with ridiculously high DPS that can run more practical bursts without needing to go unranked gimmick to do it. So be careful where you toss the nerf train agro.

Not saying it is competitive, but this kind of play ruins a casual PvP'ers day. It's not fun, period. As I said in the original post, I just stopped playing, didn't want to deal with that kind of nonsense. I skipped past salty and angry entirely, which is unusual even for somebody like me. Any time there's the ability for a literal one-shot in GW2, it shouldn't happen. Multi-shot? Sure -- a skilled mesmer is a good example, even a spike guardian. A clever deadeye can build up malice for DJ. One shot that skips defensive traits, abilities, boons, and amulets without any warning or build up? That's not good. Yes, it may be poor for truly competitive play, but not all of us are running organized fights.

The other factor is how stealth plays into this build. I know that they're blasting/leaping a smoke field, which is fine in and of itself, but there's absolutely no warning that this kind of attack is coming if you didn't know they were there in the first place. At least with the thief in @Chaith.8256's video, you could see the thief before it ripped him to shreds. Even death's judgement has a warning.

This is why I suggest implementing a hard cap on the damage of a single skill -- with exceptions made for skills that ArenaNet clearly wants to be punishing (IE Death's Judgment or Eviscerate). This way the crazy multipliers can't get too crazy, and it gives people at least the semblance of a fighting chance in scenarios such as this. It also gives ANet a chance to tune things if they spot the hard cap getting reached too often.

@Coolguy.8702 said:There is no “one shot” soulbeast build bro. Id bet the same guy that killed you is the one that wrecked phantaram and the guy that started the 60,000 hit thread as well.

No one even know what his build is, all we know is that he seems to have a lot of stealth and damage modifiers therefore its unlikely this will ever be nerfed as nobody else knows how to make it. And there shouldn’t be a 12k cap hit, people who go full class deserve to hit those numbers IF you can down them with 1 move too.

Id rather they nerf their defensives first as they have too much survivability for the amount of damage they do

Did you not see the pictures I posted in the first post? Literal one-shot. 25k damage from a single skill, I had only 16k max health. That's the definition of a one-shot.

@Vagrant.7206 said:

Did you not see the pictures I posted in the first post? Literal one-shot. 25k damage from a single skill, I had only 16k max health. That's the definition of a one-shot.

Yea i saw them but theirs only 1 guy who uses it. He did the same to other good players. Nobody else knows the build therefore it will never get nerfed

One day they will undestand how ridiculous bad implemented stealth is in this game.

To be honest I'm surprised the last patch buffed Soulbeast where it did. Beastmastery was already extremely strong for Soulbeast. I just played WvW tonight after not having played for 2+ months and despite being rusty, I could really tell the difference the buffs have made. They are buffs that I don't think we really needed, but perhaps were implemented for PvE.

Sure this gimmick build is not meta at a high competitive level, but I do have to agree that numbers like that should not be possible on any spec, at the very least in PvP where stats are more controlled. With that said though, if the devs decide to nerf Soulbeast, they have to be careful where. I agree that Sic 'Em is problematic, and it could be a potentially well-aimed target for a nerf, but it could easily become useless and if they change its functionality that would affect the way it works outside of Beastmode. Perhaps giving it charges while decreasing the damage modifier but implementing the speed modifier that works for pets? I dunno. Worldly Impact does not need a damage nerf though. It's not really the problem. All the damage modifiers that exist in this game are kinda absurd and when you are able to stack so many in a build, it gets out of hand, regardless of how "glass" it is.

@"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:This topic was already thoroughly covered here -> https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/47047/60-000-damage-from-1-ability-is-that-normal/p1

Quick summary for those who missed it:

• 60k single strike is real, but only in Eternal Coliseum with artifact +20% buff and additional +20% buff from the Grenth kill. Otherwise 40k'ish is the highest a one shot soulbeast is going to land.
• Yes the build is real, yes it can stealth for that long.
• While complaining for nerfs, understand where the problem lies with why this damage is so high. It is NOT WI itself, it is the damage multipliers: Attack Of Opportunity, Moment Of Clarity, Remorseless, and Sic'Em. Without these ridiculously amplifying damage modifiers, WI is just a Gravedigger swing. So when screaming at Anet for nerfs, Don't ask for WI to be Nerfed, because that won't change Mauls from hitting you for 40ks. You need to request the sick damage multipliers to be nerfed.
• This build performs terribly in a competitive environment. Players should be less worried about gimmicky one shot soulbeasts, and more worried about 2-3 shot soulbeasts that are actually running competitive build structures. In this case, it is Sic'Em specifically, that is equating to highly over powered Rapid Fires, 2-3 shot mauls & WIs, and 2000 range unblockable undodgable 6s reveals.

Let's also not forgot the other classes with ridiculously high DPS that can run more practical bursts without needing to go unranked gimmick to do it. So be careful where you toss the nerf train agro.

Who gets hit by maul/worldly impact 3 times in a row in a competitive environment? The druid root chain is way worse than any other ranger ability.

The real problem is that condition damage can hardly hurt them，This is even more than the Druids and more damage than the Druids

@Coolguy.8702 said:There is no “one shot” soulbeast build bro. Id bet the same guy that killed you is the one that wrecked phantaram and the guy that started the 60,000 hit thread as well.

No one even know what his build is, all we know is that he seems to have a lot of stealth and damage modifiers therefore its unlikely this will ever be nerfed as nobody else knows how to make it. And there shouldn’t be a 12k cap hit, people who go full class deserve to hit those numbers IF you can down them with 1 move too.

Id rather they nerf their defensives first as they have too much survivability for the amount of damage they doagree, ignore the numerous evade and stealth , condition damage is ridiculous to soulbeast .

Ill quote bounty hunter : You can't fight what you can't see

I know it's pvp section, but they recently nerfed physical trait of warrior from 33% to 10% even in wvw (same as pvp) because eviscerate could crit someone from 13k on glassy target and they allow other classes instead to nuke out over 20k damage on someone with protection, demo amulet. How can this game be healthy id there is so much unbalance between the classes.One get nerfed because of the damage, another one do way worse and it's left untouched I don't get it why.