Should Plasma be removed from Siamoth?

Personally, I think Siamoth dropping Plasma is one of the key factors in Soulbeasts strength in PvP and I absolutely abhor the RNG associated with it, the weird pick up issues (try picking it up in sword for example - doesn't work half the time), and the fact it basically means you're winning the fight. It is my opinions that plasma should be removed from Siamoth (and that all the pigs should go down to just 1 forage item) and I was wondering what other rangers think.

I think the pickup should be removed first and changed to a similar function to steal.After that they could change the drop chance abit to be the lucky draw basically and the other two are the stealth as the base option so to say.

Overall the rng isnt that bad if the pickup gets fixed.

The problem with the RNG is that if we are near equal skill level and you get plasma and I don't, you win the fight - and vice-versa.

If this is a large part of what is causing Soulbeast to [arguably] overperform in sPvP, then yes I do think it should be removed before other traits and skills are adjusted. I do also agree with @"InsaneQR.7412" that the functionality of the forage skills needs to change into a Steal equivalent so they are less clunky. Also, "Eat Egg" should be removed from Pig forage as well. What's 6 initiative gonna do for a Ranger?

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:If this is a large part of what is causing Soulbeast to [arguably] overperform in sPvP, then yes I do think it should be removed before other traits and skills are adjusted. I do also agree with @"InsaneQR.7412" that the functionality of the forage skills needs to change into a Steal equivalent so they are less clunky. Also, "Eat Egg" should be removed from Pig forage as well. What's 6 initiative gonna do for a Ranger?

Maybe change the initiative into endurance and we are good.

@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:If this is a large part of what is causing Soulbeast to [arguably] overperform in sPvP, then yes I do think it should be removed before other traits and skills are adjusted. I do also agree with @InsaneQR.7412 that the functionality of the forage skills needs to change into a Steal equivalent so they are less clunky. Also, "Eat Egg" should be removed from Pig forage as well. What's 6 initiative gonna do for a Ranger?

Yeah that's a great idea! :D

No. No no. Why the fuck do people always ask for pet nerfs?Nerf soulbeast moa stance and ect in pvp. Not the core pet. (Trying to fuck up my core build huh)

And over performing? it's good and in the meta but boon beast gets countered by Mesmer and is weak in team fights. It's really moa stance being over the top.

Sides soulbeast needs buffs (Griffin and vulture are jokes) dagger still sucks beyond belief in pvp.

Moa stance is OPif they need that boon beast is going to have a lot of steam takin out of it

@Eleazar.9478 said:Nerf soulbeast moa stance and ect in pvp.

Agree, 66% was crazy to start with. Also, Stability and Protection up time.

Let's start with Moa Stance, I guess it will fix the later ones.

pigs should be reworked anyhow... may as well remove the plasma.

I can go both ways on this.

My arguments in favor of KEEPING plasma:

1. 1v1 matchups are significantly less favorable when we don't have access to it. Plasma and OWP are the only reasons the meta boonbeast build can kill anything. If plasma gets removed, we are essentially relying on a gimmick elite (+wh4 and autoattack spam) every 60 seconds to kill anything.
   • As such, removing plasma will hurt rangers' place in the meta fairly significantly. Without it, our matchups against every class get significantly harder (both to survive and kill). Even more so against condi mesmer, holo, and spellbreaker.
   • Plasma basically gives us a "break" where the other person is forced to kite away from us or pop defensive cooldowns. In a fight, boonbeast plays completely defensively until we get a plasma or use OWP.
2. It IS fun when you get it.
3. Removing plasma means Siamoth is going to be relatively useless in PvP. However, that means I get to use my smokescale again! ^^

   ---

My arguments in favor of REMOVING plasma.

1. It basically makes you unkillable for a few seconds. Obviously, it's not an actual invulnerability. However, coupled with boon share, getting plasma on boonbeast and merging for extra boon duration causes us to gain access to a fairly long duration resistance, stability, quickness, and alacrity. These 4 are the important boons in plasma as they make us immune to conditions, hard crowd control, increases our damage output, and reduces our cooldowns (thus decreasing the time it takes to get another RNG plasma).
   • As a side note, long duration protection (rugged growth procs) + regen also increases our sustain. However, we already have access to both of these boons in the build, so, the ones you get from the plasma don't make too much of a difference.
   • Sometimes, depending on how much damage the enemy is willing to take, getting plasma basically guarantees you get the decap/full-cap as they're usually forced off-node.
2. It's annoying when an enemy ranger gets plasma. I hate having to retreat or being unable to get the kill because the other person got lucky.
3. There's no skill involved in using plasma.
   • A mediocre player can still force a high tier player to retreat when they use it and merge, simply because of how strong the boons are.
   • However, you have to know how to play ranger properly in order to maximize the value you get from it.

     ---

So, overall, I would probably lean more towards removing plasma IF holo and condi mirage were nerfed as well. Otherwise I'm kind of indecisive since removing plasma means those 1v1 matchups become extremely difficult and oppressive.

I think what makes soulbeast stronk is soulbeast AND NOT CORE.

This thread will result in both plasma and moa stance getting nerfed.

The rng on pigs, while charming, should go. But before they change anything about that, the mechanic needs to change to work like Steal.

Well....if plasma is the issue, plasma should be changed. I feel like people have been saying Plasma should be nerfed for forever.

Personally, I don't notice a difference in performance between running the build with Siamoth versus running the build with Smokescale.

If anything, I'm on board with going after Moa Stance first, except that I just want the effect flat out changed because it's boring, passive, and lasts forever traited. You can't even use it wrong; most people can get a great deal of mileage out of it by just using it on cooldown. I'd change the effect to something like "heal for every boon applied for x seconds." The effect would then play off of the 4 boons gained and encourage you to play around your boons more actively while retaining the same sort of "use boons with this stance" design.

Anyhow, that's just my 2c.

I don't want to argue with no one, but again, we ranger, always we ask our class to be nerfed and then we complain about how bad our class become.

holo needs nerf, FB needs nerf, mirage needs nerf and soulbeast plasma needs nerf.

I honestly want plasma removed. it's one of those things in this game that just promotes brainless spamming. you can be very low skill with meta boonbeast and completely destroy most other ranger builds even soulbeast ones.moastance, get plasma, merge and now you're invulnerable, have very high dmg and you just have to spam axe skills. even AA hitd hard with quickness as you probably have around 15+ might stacks.

@bigo.9037 said:holo needs nerf, FB needs nerf, mirage needs nerf and soulbeast plasma needs nerf.

I honestly want plasma removed. it's one of those things in this game that just promotes brainless spamming. you can be very low skill with meta boonbeast and completely destroy most other ranger builds even soulbeast ones.moastance, get plasma, merge and now you're invulnerable, have very high dmg and you just have to spam axe skills. even AA hitd hard with quickness as you probably have around 15+ might stacks.

Let's say somehow I agree with you, if all those classes get nerf then plasma from siamoth must get nerf too. But, do you know if on other forum classes (holo, FB, mirage) are posts where they are asking to nerf their classes too? Or we, rangers are the only kitten class who ask nerf for themselves?

Nerfing something from core (imo) is never the right way to approach toning down an elite spec. If soulbeast is too strong with plasma but the other ranger specs (core and druid) are not, then the right approach is to address whatever from soulbeast is making plasma overperform. Moa stance is likely the answer.

Aftwr reading sime stuff here i think i am the only one that just thinks: FIX THE EFFING PIGS FIRST.after that we can talk about plasma and moa stance.But remember plasma is also a thief and environment skill so nerfing it is kinda a basballbat action. Nerfing moa (atleast in pvp) can be discussed later on.

Ranger has multiple viable builds in every game mode and we're asking for nerfs.....what world is this??? isn't this what we wanted? granted some of it is passive, kind of boring and pvp could use some teamplay buffs but it's not like we're a free kill in any competitive mode or insta kicked in PvE modes. Until anet can show that they can CHANGE a profession without completely GUTTING it please don't ask for "changes."

To elaborate on my earlier post:

Siamoth's plasma is one of the few pet f2s with potential for worthwhile interaction with skills/traits. And it doesn't need soulbeast to achieve that interaction. Nature magic traits (Bountiful Hunter, Fortifying Bond, and Lingering Magic) all work well with it as does the shout WHaO when paired with those traits. I could understand asking for plasma's removal if it could only conceivably be utilized by a single overperforming build, but that's not the case.

Also, Anet cannot split the functionality of a skill between the modes according to posts by the devs themselves. Plasma's removal would affect all modes whereas boonbeast is only overly strong in sPvP. It would be much more feasible for Anet to adjust the numbers somewhere for boonbeast in sPvP versus a functionality change they wouldn't be able to split.

I would personally welcome a rework of all the pig forages. Clunky environmental items with RNG is not the best design. I would just hope that removing the RNG would end up as a net benefit to the forages instead of leaving them worse off than they were with the RNG.

Nah, thieves and mesmers have cheap mechanics so why shouldn't Ranger too ^^

I'd say in its current state for a pet, the siamoth is fine. If traited, forage is on a 24 second cd (30 norm), which is a fairly long time in pvp seconds. As it has been pointed out already, there is only a 33% chance of even yielding plasma. On top of all this, picking up the item is not nearly as easy or smooth as picking up other active items like turrets or banners. Porcine drops are like picking up pve items on the ground, it takes at least a second to do so, rather than a passing run through click like engineer or warrior items. The only argument for it's removal is the notion of passive gain, but I agree with so many of the others that this should be a pet family rework for effective change and not the removal of this one aspect. Furthermore if plasma is too over-powered in competitive arenas, then I believe it should be removed from wvw, pvp entirely for any profession which would only additionally include thieves (steal from mesmers) I believe.

There's also the fact that enemies can pick up and use the plasma in both sPvP and WvW.

Should work just like a steal.Maybe the buffs of Plasma shouldn't be as over the top as they are now?But I would definitely like to get rid of the pick up.

Honestly I think the 33% chance of getting plasma is fine, but I really wish they’d just change it so that the F2 skill changes into the new one, not you having to pick it up.