How would you redesign Soulbeast?

Idk if anyone did a thread like this. But whatever i make now anotherone if it is the case.Soulbeast was for me a very interesting elite to explore and i think it really has potential. Many competitive players love it and many PvE players too due to good dmg. But i am a bit conflicted about it.First: it gives a small antisynergy with petswap which discourages to take certain traits or just to go outside beastmode at all (minly PvE) during that down time you are very vulnerable thus Sbeast mode mainly serves as burst.

What i want to accomplish: Maintain the burst character of the Beastmode. Improve its synergy with petswap.What i want prevent: I want to prevent Camping either one Pet or beastmode itself.

How do i accompplish this:

1. Beastmode is no longer permanent. It has a fixed duration. (i. E 20s)
2. Petswap in beastmode

This wouldnt change much for competitive players due to the swap-in-burst-swap-out playstlye.For PvE it would give more complex rotations and the soec more interesting.For everything else lets look at the traits.

Minors:

• Elevated Bond: Same as before with the above mentioned mechanically changes

• Live Fast: Beastskills give quickness and Fury

• Furious Strength: Do more dmg and gain Condition duration under the effects of Fury.

Major Adept:

Focussed on entering or leaving soulbeastmode actively.

• Fresh Reinforcement: Copy your oets boons onto you when entering beast mode. Copy yours on your pet when leaving beastmode actively. Actively means by pressing the button not by letting the time runs out. This demands more controlled gameplay and less brain afk.

• Unstoppable Union: Break stun and gain Unblockable when entering beastnode, your pet gains unblockable when leaving beastmode actively.

Predators Cunning: Cast Lesser Vulture Stance when Entering beastmode or when leaving it actively. (ca 3s diration)

Major Master:They Focus arround trait-traitline interactions and more interactions with skills of core ranger. Additionally they try to enhance certaina spects if soulbeast in their own way.

• Second Skin: Gain Protection when you gain Unblockable. Protection reduces incomming condition dmg.

• Essence of Speed: Gain improved archetype Stats under the effects if quickness in beastmode and your pet gains its archetype bonus when affected by quickness.

• Oppressive Superiority:When poisoning a foe you also gain a chance to strike a second time stealing health. You do additional dmg and condi duration when your health % is above your enemies. (0.5s ICD)(The additional strike counts as a stance and has a 0.5 duration. Can strike every 0.25s. The duration can be enhanced via traits and shared.)Its basically a mini OWP with life steal, the dmg should be a bit reduced though to compensate for the lifesteal.

Major Grantmaster:These focus on some different playstyles and enhance the characteristics of them.

• Eternal Bond: Beastskills Prolong the beastmode duration. Beastskills gain Reduced CD.

• Twice as Vicious: When leaving beastmode you and your pet gain quickness and the archetype bonus of the last pet you were merged with for a short duration (10s).

• Leader of the Pack: Stances are now shared with allies and have 50% longer duration.

Dagger:

• Reduce the AA to a 3 chain.Everytrike now gives vuln. Bleed is removed. Strikes with bleeds have a good power coefficient instead. Poison stays. Animation that of the Spellbreaker dagger.

• Double Arc: Apply a 1s Daze and your pet will deal multiple packets of poison with the next 3 attacks. (2 stacks each).

• Instinctive Engage: Evadeframe during leap

Every criticism is welcome as long as it is constructive. Any positiv feedback is ofc too.

"Live Fast: Beastskills give quickness and Fury"Potentially one off the most useless minors ever (unfortuneately our MM minors without remorseless are worse). Especially if they don't apply it to the pet F2 aswell, as they should have.

I prefer the current version of soulbeast over this. I think a simpler rework with petswap in beastmode while also making the spec a full power spec instead of the hybrid thing they got going on would benefit Soulbeast a lot more. The spec shines as a power option for ranger, condi ranger however doesn't need the merge to perform on par with other professions. Being dead set on keeping it as an hybrid only hurts it.

I would just add pet swap into beastmode. And overhaul many of the pet abilities.

Some changes I would make, mostly PvE focused:Dagger

• increase power damage on all dagger skills
• as you said remove bleed from auto and cut it down to 3 because the 4 strike chain just completely throws off any flow the weapon can have, keep the poison
• give some utility to 2 but I can't think what
• remove the cast time of 3 and increase its range to at least 600
• Unsplit axe and use the PvP values everywhere
• Might have to look into redoing the dagger trait in WS since MH dagger isn't condi anymore but oh dagger needs looking at anyway.

Other

• Make Axe 3 aoe baseline and add something extra to the axe trait to replace it. Also make it give bonus ferocity per axe so you can get extra by dual wielding axe
• Undo some of the nerfs to core Ranger traits/weapons to make Condi Core and maybe Condi Soulbeast good again now that dagger isn't condi.
• Go over the merged pet skills again, so much potential there but it seems they purposefully hamstringed them so its just Gazelle for 2 filler skills between auto attacks for power, Cat for 1 filler skill between autos for condi and then 1 or 2 pets with some utility that kind of works but not really for PvP/WvW roaming
• A trait for keeping pet bonuses for a time when unmerging is a pretty good idea to go along with this stance dancing gameplay they seem to want for PvP, I'd prefere the option to camp in beastmode as well though

This is actually really good, and probably how the spec shouldve been desigined people would riot though over the forced unmerge

@Eleazar.9478 said:This is actually really good, and probably how the spec shouldve been desigined people would riot though over the forced unmerge

Just at first glance IMO only condi and mainly raid players will complain. The petswap in beastmode should be a good tradeoff.

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@Eleazar.9478 said:This is actually really good, and probably how the spec shouldve been desigined people would riot though over the forced unmerge

No I think open world pvers and wvwers (due to movement speed buff) will wine the loudest, for example remmeber how people where throwing a fit about being unmerged when you demount.

I think for PvPers , roamers, and high end pvers (fracs, raids) they won't mind as much as it would just raise the skill ceiling for possible dps. (For PvP any Soulbeast worth his salt should be mergeing and unmergimg anyways)

@Eleazar.9478 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@Eleazar.9478 said:This is actually really good, and probably how the spec shouldve been desigined people would riot though over the forced unmerge

Yeah thats a fair point. Maybe the balancing on eternal bond could be tweaked so it completely refills it in PvE. So you cannot be permanently in it but atleast 40s and you could use a canine and a bird back to back for nice mobility in WvW so i think this wouldnt be that big of an issue.

I don't think the mechanics need a rework. I love the merge system and think it's a lot of fun to weave in and out. Dagger needs some love and the traits aside from the adept are incredibly boring, but what I would love most is for them to revisit old pets. Oh, and Griffon Stance.

Live Fast - Beastmode F3 skills gain additional functionalities.

• Worldly Impact. Knocks down foes for 1 second.
• Unflinching Fortitude - Condition damage reduced by 50%.
• Primal Cry - Inflict 1 stack terror for 6 seconds per pulse.
• Prelude Lash - Fury (6s) and quickness (3s) after using.
• Spiritual Reprieve - Grants 3 stacks stability for 4 seconds.

All 3 F skills should be beast skills for the traits to work with them. Also an option to choose which 3 F skills you want to use, meaning you can choose from all F1 skills from current pets etc...

Also make dagger pure power, taking it to about 70% GS power multi on skills, this would actually make dagger viable to use, make 3rd skill have an evade.

Make Axe 1 spamable like guardian Staff 1, so it does not require a target (it can be kinda done right now, but you need to play with your camera a lot which is a pain in the..), this way at least in WvW mainhand axe gets more use in zergs.

Axe 5 should be modified so one can move while casting (like warrior).

Stance trait share should be 100% to others.

Reduce some cast times on F2 & F3 skills as they are way too long.

Buff Barrage damage to Meteor levels, with similar cast and cd times.

Change Live Fast so it outputs Regen, Stab, Protection and Might for 3s for you and others within 360 radius. This would tie in well with the first point I've made.

Splitblade cone made more tight, should spread more after 600 range.

@Soilder.3607 said:

• Primal Cry - Inflict 1 stack terror for 6 seconds per pulse.Actually i agree Primal Cry needs a buff and not only in more condi stacks. Fear would be a great choice.

@"InsaneQR.7412" said:Yeah thats a fair point. Maybe the balancing on eternal bond could be tweaked so it completely refills it in PvE. So you cannot be permanently in it but atleast 40s and you could use a canine and a bird back to back for nice mobility in WvW so i think this wouldnt be that big of an issue.

I don't like the idea of temporary merge. There is no need for that limitation in any case because then it would be the same a run with core.

Players shouldn't be forced to go out from beastmode, no other class in game force you this way to play in some concrete playstyle. That approach is a lazy way to fix the core issue with the beast mode.

Pet's should have much better F2. Not just single dps increase of 3K.

IMHO Soulbeast just needs a few adjustments to make it less clunky.

• Clearly pets need a overhaul for AI skills and Soulbeast skills. Anything else than autos shouldn't be spammy and their effects different and significant so it's worth using that over our own skills .

• Access to pet swap in Beastmode. That's ver basic without it the class will always remain clunky. Encourage unmerging by giving positive experience, not to feel forced, encased and punish for using the mechanic.

• Dagger:1 - The 4th attack from the dagger needs to be faster. It feels really clunky to have that there. I would increase the speed to 1/2 second, so it's still slower but not 3 times than the auto.2 - Increase the power coefficients to be higher (as en example 0.65/0.65/0.65/0.8 ). For deadly delivery would be an small nerf, for the other attacks it would be a buff. Anyway it's the path we are going with the progressive buffs to dagger each patch.3 - Double Arc : This skill has to rip 2 boons. Ranger and Soulbeast needs this effect withing their skill, soulbeast even more.4 - Instinctive Engage: This must be an evade. Soulbeast need gap closer and most of all are not evades. Increase the travel distance to 600.

To keep the theme of the dagger:5 - Dagger offhand Stalker's Strike : Increase the coefficient to be closer around 1. This skill also apply stun.6 - Dagger offhand Crippling Talon : this should work like Judge's Intervention skill. It has to be a teleport to target but if none is selected just a teleport on the facing direction. So it can be used as gap closer, right now all classes has a tremendous access to mobility which leaves melee soulbeast in a serious disadvantage .

Just want to put my in my 5cents just incase anet actually reads this. I like soulbeast the way it is, i have a build that works really well with the way it is atm, I have always mained ranger.Daggers need love I agree with that. I love how with different pet merges it makes build diversity wider. I love the mobility of birds with GS, and you have the option to hit hard if someone jumps on you with worldly impact. Im most likely alone here but after a big break from gw2 (6months) i feel ranger Soul Beast is in a good place for pvp and wvw. I always had that class I could never kill and that hasnt seemed to have come up.

In summary, I love SB right now and dont want it changed.