in teatime they pointed out soulbeast could be an alternative to guardian in WvW. I agree

They pointed out that soulbeast being able to share instances would be a fantastic alternative to the guardian in wvw comps (which until now it has been the prominent class together with necro).

They talk about the potential share stances has unfortunately the implementation in the game does not allow that. Roca as an example pointed out that the CDs are really high and the stances duration short compared to that. Which i personally agree upon.

• Would be that game breaking for Leader of the pack to share full duration of the ranger stances?
• I think Unflinching Fortitude should share the same effects in a 600 radius around the ranger up to 5 allies.
• Bear stance should last 6 seconds, To keep it as an condi clear alternative for Troll Unguent. Traited would be up to 9 seconds of clearing 2 conditions by tick. Is that all overpowered?
• Mightyteapot shared the idea of have a pet focused in team support. To change moas family to have the Harmonic Cry to add some barrier or cleanses in the skill and change Frenzied Attack add an AoE skill to stun break and apply some stability to allies, would it be that crazy? They even can add the Green moa to fill the supportive archetype.

Think about the possibilities. It would not mean any dps increase (which the soulbeast is in not need for) but a share stance soulbeast with stout and supportive moa could be a thing every commander in wvw would like to have around.

This changes would not replace a Firebrand at all but it would open an spot in wvw squads and more importantly: a group support role right now reserved only for guardian.

And the cherry on the top would be able to swap pets while in beast mode to be able to take advantage of the skills without that additional 10 secs CD. That way the beastmode pet skills don't even need to have a short CD, as an example 25 secs for the Harmonic Cry (alternative to Empower) and 30 for the AoE stab (as an alternative to Stand your Ground)

What do you think? With skill split those changes could be first tested in WvW to check how it works.

Ha ive been hopkng for that since pof released, shows how slow people are at build craft now that theyre finally thinking about it. They would have to take some power out of gaurdians kit by increasing thier CDs and reduce our CD, on stances give us full duration shared. We also don't have the natural aoe and cc gaurdian has. Would be cool if we did get all that but Im skeptical cause it's been a year.

Another issue I have with game Currently is the skill bloat crazy I'd much rather have classes get nerfed down,and I don't even wanna to think of a zerg with power scourges and one wolf pack buffs

Increasing shared stanse duration to same length with soulbeast would be great buff for support build and make it viable alternative for FB. But i dont think there is realy any need decrease stanse cooldowns, because most of them have only 20s downtime when traited. Only Griffon stanse seems somthing that need to be worked(maybe switch that might from evade to aegis/reta?).Also making some pets focused more on support sound good idea, but i thing that should happen as part of bigger pet rework, which they definitely need anyway.One way make ranger overal more usefull for as wvw/pvp support would be moving spirits, by bringing Spirits unbound back to Nature magic line(might need someting more added than just ability to move for spirits).

I don’t think rangers would complain about improvements to soulbeast slot skills, but I rather have the devs work on improving Druid (our real support elite) team support mechanics for competitive gameplay... and reworking those not great daggers... and fixing up condition builds so we can have more viable builds to run outside of pve.

Also, no amount of soulbeast boon buffs would compete with the firebrand toolbox, unless the devs went overboard... which won’t happen because soulbeast wasn’t designed primarily as a support spec.

@"Eleazar.9478" said:Ha ive been hopkng for that since pof released, shows how slow people are at build craft now that theyre finally thinking about it. They would have to take some power out of gaurdians kit by increasing thier CDs and reduce our CD, on stances give us full duration shared. We also don't have the natural aoe and cc gaurdian has. Would be cool if we did get all that but Im skeptical cause it's been a year.

Another issue I have with game Currently is the skill bloat crazy I'd much rather have classes get nerfed down,and I don't even wanna to think of a zerg with power scourges and one wolf pack buffs

Pretty much. To be honest, not a lot of buildcrafting is even tried anymore because most optima are obvious. We can talk about concepts and "this """could""" work" (in the right contexts) all day, but until things drastically change, the top-end is painfully obvious.

Good luck trying to convince ANet to actually tone power down, though.

Hell, good luck even trying to convince a sizeable chunk of the active players that it'd be a good idea. Most of the people who've fought for ending powercreep have just quit altogether at this point. My play time is definitely down like 90% since PoF.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@"Eleazar.9478" said:Ha ive been hopkng for that since pof released, shows how slow people are at build craft now that theyre finally thinking about it. They would have to take some power out of gaurdians kit by increasing thier CDs and reduce our CD, on stances give us full duration shared. We also don't have the natural aoe and cc gaurdian has. Would be cool if we did get all that but Im skeptical cause it's been a year.

Another issue I have with game Currently is the skill bloat crazy I'd much rather have classes get nerfed down,and I don't even wanna to think of a zerg with power scourges and one wolf pack buffs

The damn sad truth

@"Swagger.1459" said:I don’t think rangers would complain about improvements to soulbeast slot skills, but I rather have the devs work on improving Druid (our real support elite) team support mechanics for competitive gameplay... and reworking those not great daggers...

Why not both? CA 10 sec cd in all game modes. DC and CS increase the cd of CA by 30%. This gives support specs 10 sec cd and 16 sec cd to dueling traits.

Since soul beast is the only ranger spec that gets rid of the pet, I also really want it to work for front line wvw since every other ranger spec has the pet problem. I think this requires a change to leader of the pack, Griffon stance, bear stance, and dolyak stance interaction.Leader of the pack should be more generic in its wording with duration boost and share tailored per stance.Defensive stances buffed to 600 radius while offensive ones keep 360.Dolyak stance with leader of the pack is roughly equivalent for stability to "stand your ground" if it has a 600 radius. Have the share duration of dolyak and bear be 6 and 4 seconds (100% share).Griffon stance should give more than 25 endurance and also have a 600 radius. If necessary, reduce the endurance regen to compensate for the immediate boost.*Unflinching fortitude: not a stance but if they make it 360 -600 radius aoe should be 50% damage reduction.

These changes won't break pvp or pve while giving ranger unique bonuses that would make them viable in wvw zergs. By viable, I mean not kicked by a commander since they could replace a second guard in a sub group. Especially in a meta where boons get ripped so easily, this change gives SB defensive support share that cannot be fully stripped. Therefore it shouldn't be as powerful as the boon equivalent but they still need to be stronger than their current implementation.

One thing to be weary of is that this build doesn't really require boon duration because most of the shared buffs aren't boons. A mix of crusader and marauder/valkyrie gear and remorseless crit gs2 procs means this support can be tanky while dishing out some decent damage.

nooooope. even if the stance durations were doubled for allies fb would still be taken. they've got so much more buffs / hard damage mitigation.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:nooooope. even if the stance durations were doubled for allies fb would still be taken. they've got so much more buffs / hard damage mitigation.

10000% this.

To even get close to Firebrand, you'd have to take Stances and Stance sharing and throw them on Druid.

Even then, you'd have less stability and less healing sources. Not to mention the toughness and healing buffs and utility from Firebrand tomes and traits. On top of the abundance of Aegis sources that both mitigate damage and Heal.

Nothing is ever going to approach replacing a Firebrand in a WvW party because of this and it will remain a party staple.

At best, Druid/Soulbeast would be competing with the Chrono in a 1 FB party, but that's already a lost fight too. Less/worse AoE ranged pull, no Veil, no Gravity Well/Time Warp, no Portal, and has to pick either Heals or boons where a Chrono build can choose to do both.

if this were pre hot meta I would possibly agree. even then.

pets in wvw dye too fast so I dont think they will ever play a role in any builds besides roaming maybeinstead of making soulbeast wvw zerg friendly they should make the core ranger wvw zerg friendlyelite specs should add some flavor to the core builds and not be pay2winbut even before that they really need to something about the powercreep this is not a shooter why are there so many one/two shot buildswe want decent fights not winner is who first smashes all buttons or face roles the keyboard