It's been a week since Path of Fire™ has launched and I've had plenty of time to play around with the Soulbeast.Lemme just start and mention that despite its flaws, bugs and necessity for lots of tweaks, I really like it, and I think ArenaNet is in the right direction in terms of theme and concept.This specific thread will be exclusively related to the Dagger Main Hand weapon, so do try to limit comments, feedback and constructive criticism to the dagger please!

SOULBEAST FEEDBACK - DAGGER

The dagger main hand is ArenaNet's Response to the lack of a proper condition-centric main hand weapon. Does it deliver?Well, for the condition aspect, yes, but it offers minimal utility. A lot of bleeds, poisons and vulnerability stacks, with good attack speed, but currently, it is a High Risk, Low Reward weapon - Very close ranged, cleaves only 2 targets and it builds its damage over time, leaving the player rather vulnerable. It does offer some limited utility through it's attack number 3, Instinctive Engage but it could offer something more.

[1] Auto Attack Chain

The change between the preview weekends and the live game are extremely appreciated - it used to feel extremely slow, it now feels more fluid. The power coefficient are very low, but hey, it is condition focused. The one suggestion I'd make for the auto attack chain would be to slightly boost the direct damage coefficients - nothing game breaking, but just enough to say ''I can still deal some damage without relying on building up lots of stacks of vuln, bleed and poison''

Suggestion:

• Augment base damage by 10%
• Augment coefficients by 0.1 for first 3 hits and by 0.2 for the 4th hit

[2] Double Arc

The weapon's second skill currently covers a single purpose: Condition application. Again, this weapon requires the Ranger to jump into danger at very close range, so there is one very simple change that would be welcome by all: Add a short evade frame. I'd also strongly suggest changing the skill's animation - it is really hard to tell if the skill was successful, as it is very similar to the auto attack animations! The Thief's Dagger Dual Skill (with no off hand) Twisting Fangs would perfectly fit this skill's name, and would give a proper visual queue of the skill being cast.

Suggestion:

• Add a 0.5s evade frame at the start of the cast
• Change the animation to Twisting Fangs' animation

[3] Instinctive Engage

This skill is interesting in that it offers no condition, because it is a utility-focused skill. It deals some damage, grants quickness on successful hit and is a leap finisher on 400 range. Oh and it uses the ammunition system, with 2 charges on 15s cooldown (12s when traited)

It is an interesting skill, but oddly enough, it offers no synergy to our Minor Traits! Being a condi weapon, it has no real synergy with Furious Strength (affects direct damage, not condition damage) and it has no synergy with Twice as Vicious

Being a utility skill, I won't suggest anything related to damage, instead, something related to utility - A very short daze on hit. Just for the interrupt, and to synergize with Twice as Vicious. The cooldown, even traited, stays very reasonable (I mean, look at Thieves' Headshot ;) )

Suggestion:

• Daze the enemy for 0.25s on successful hit

If deemed too 'powerful', the daze could be conditional;

• Daze the enemy for 0.25s on a successful hit when you have Quickness

I believe those changes would add functionality in PvE, and for PvP and WvW, a little more utility and survivability.We don't need a full rework, just minor tweaks, and I believe the suggested tweaks would keep a healthy balance while adding something unique and feel more rewarding. The damage is fine, the utility is lacking.

See also:

• Soulbeast Feedback - Beast Abilities - feedback and commentary on the Beastmode F3 Skills and Beast Ability traits
• Soulbeast Feedback - Stance Skills - feedback and commentary on the stances

I love those ideas and i agree with them. Actually i like the direction you want to go with the dagger .Just a couple observations:

• What about Double Arc to apply 3 seconds daze on hit instead Instinctive engage. That skill is designed to be a hard hitting skill, unfortunately ended up to look like another autoattack.
• And Instinctive Engage: Steal one boon on hit. As such can be used to prepare a warrior for applying the daze. With the amount of boons is in game right now the Soulbeast is in great disadvantage is it can steal the stability, protection or resistance which other enemies has very easy access to while blocking all the attacks.

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:I need you to come to my home and explain every aspect of life to me in the format you just explained the SoulBeast Dagger Mainhand.......I also "need" you to do way more stuff like this on the forums.....LOL!

.

At the moment full condi soulbeast can pull off 40k dps. That's basically top dps if you exclude weaver and firebrand at 50k dps (but those 2 are OP and must be nerfed).

@Kidel.2057 said:At the moment full condi soulbeast can pull off 40k dps. That's basically top dps if you exclude weaver and firebrand at 50k dps (but those 2 are OP and must be nerfed).

Keep in mind most people don't play raids as such those measurements against immobile training dolls hasn't got any value.Even in PvE PoF the trash mobs require you to dodge and move from time to time if you are not blobbing. Dagger feels lacklustre in a real game environment in those cases.

Maybe the Wiki needs an update on the auto attack coefficients, as it lists them as 0.4/0.4/0.4/0.5. If anything, Deadly Delivery (1d) requires the largest bump, seeing how its cast time between the demo and launch went from ¼s to ¾s. That said, 0.4/0.4/0.4/0.8 seems more fitting with a minor bump to its base damage as well.

Personally I wouldn't add anything more to the 3 skill, it seems to do its job just fine, and has a lot of synergy with the traits already. However, I would like to see the 2 skill get a buff in some way since it just feels very boring, and weak. I think it'd be cool if it had a conditional daze on it. Like, if both attacks hit it dazes, or if you have quickness it dazed etc. nothing too long though, only like 1s max.

@Wondrouswall.7169 said:Maybe the Wiki needs an update on the auto attack coefficients, as it lists them as 0.4/0.4/0.4/0.5. If anything, Deadly Delivery (1d) requires the largest bump, seeing how its cast time between the demo and launch went from ¼s to ¾s. That said, 0.4/0.4/0.4/0.8 seems more fitting with a minor bump to its base damage as well.

Woops.

No idea why I used the value I mentionned woops

Correcting it right away - also think the base damage should be augmented and minor coefficient augmentation so that it doesn't scale too efficiently with power

But yes the final strike should pack the bigger punch

@Trueshots.9456 said:

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:I need you to come to my home and explain every aspect of life to me in the format you just explained the SoulBeast Dagger Mainhand.......I also "need" you to do way more stuff like this on the forums.....LOL!

Ahahaha thanks for the comment - actually working on other commentaries/feedback/suggestions covering stances, traits and the soulbeast beastmode mechanics too, should be posted shortly :)

@Kidel.2057 said:At the moment full condi soulbeast can pull off 40k dps. That's basically top dps if you exclude weaver and firebrand at 50k dps (but those 2 are OP and must be nerfed).

Keeping in mind those numbers are with a sylvari's pet elite. Not to say hardcores won't race change for the extra damage, but it is still a conditional .

Anet pls hire this man to design ranger specializations. As for the person saying these are obsolete changes in PvE....well maybe they are since most of pve is spamming autos that doesn't mean the weapons themselves need to be boring and sooo straightforward. i ve seen many posts regarding potential changes hope someone out there is listening and something actually changes . While i love the idea behind the spec it feels lil bit clunky and boring. Also i'd like to see dagger getting just a little bit of increase to its power coefficients as to mke hybrid builds actually viable.

@Kuroshini.9482 said:Anet pls hire this man to design ranger specializations. As for the person saying these are obsolete changes in PvE....well maybe they are since most of pve is spamming autos that doesn't mean the weapons themselves need to be boring and sooo straightforward. i ve seen many posts regarding potential changes hope someone out there is listening and something actually changes . While i love the idea behind the spec it feels lil bit clunky and boring. Also i'd like to see dagger getting just a little bit of increase to its power coefficients as to mke hybrid builds actually viable.

Thanks for the comment and feedback :)

Was thinking about how they could boost rhe dagger power damage, and while I understand that it is by design thay it's so low, I feel it shouldn't scale too much with power - buffing base values would help, and slightly buffing coefficients would give it some punch while still keeping its identity as condition-focused

To me the #3 felt like it would be better suited with an evade than the #2 but I dropped dagger pretty quickly on soulbeast so you may have a bit better of a feel than I do. If that happened maybe add a gap closer or something to the #2 so it's hit is more consistent and possibly put the daze on the second hit of that skill?

I can't talk from a pvp perspective yet but condi soulbeast is in a super good spot. Ranger feels super strong in comparison to a lot of other stuff

@Ario.8964 said:To me the #3 felt like it would be better suited with an evade than the #2 but I dropped dagger pretty quickly on soulbeast so you may have a bit better of a feel than I do. If that happened maybe add a gap closer or something to the #2 so it's hit is more consistent and possibly put the daze on the second hit of that skill?

Adding an evade frame on Instinctive Engage would make it the ultimate engage/disengage skill, thought about it too, but then if we moved the daze to Double Arc, you'd have harder time in connecting the attack - leaping to your foe would make it easier to connect the attack, and the quickness gained from it + twice as vicious would really make this skill a utility skill focused on enhancing your dps - also the evade that could be given to double arc would be on a base 7s CD or traited 5.25s (didn't even realise they buffed double arc from 8s CD in the preview weekends to 7s, minor but welcome change!)

@Billy.1879 said:I can't talk from a pvp perspective yet but condi soulbeast is in a super good spot. Ranger feels super strong in comparison to a lot of other stuff

Anything works in PvE so those changes would be minimal for PvE - they are not focused on directly increasing the DPS from conditions - only SLIGHTLY for the power values, and the other proposed changes are for utility. Those suggestions are for PvP and WvW perspectives mainly but find their use in PvE aswell

The synergy that a daze would have with Twice as Vicious does offer potential extra DPS but again it is situational

Also remember that the combat dynamic is VASTLY different in the different game modes, so while condi Soulbeast can be efficient in PvE, you have to remember that PvP and WvW is vs players and not Predictable-Pattern-Following-mostly-static enemies

In short, the dagger condition DPS is adequate, those suggestions are for the dagger's utility and not condition damage efficiency

Why would you buff the power coefficent on a condition weapon? The Soulbeast is a hodgepodge spec, it's meant to work with any other build by taking bits and pieces instead of the whole thing. The dagger is the portion of that hodgepodge that was made specifically for condition builds, because all of our other MH weapons are either power (Sword, GS) or hyrbid (the Axe).

Yes, you read that last sentence right, as everyone seems to forget, rangers have a sword. If you want a better melee power weapon, buff it, and leave the dagger as the condi weapon it was intended to be.

@Conncept.7638 said:Why would you buff the power coefficent on a condition weapon? The Soulbeast is a hodgepodge spec, it's meant to work with any other build by taking bits and pieces instead of the whole thing. The dagger is the portion of that hodgepodge that was made specifically for condition builds, because all of our other MH weapons are either power (Sword, GS) or hyrbid (the Axe).

Yes, you read that last sentence right, as everyone seems to forget, rangers have a sword. If you want a better melee power weapon, buff it, and leave the dagger as the condi weapon it was intended to be.

I pretty gave up on asking for buffs on Sword, GS, and LB. Better off asking for a power weapon that takes no or minimal balancing with pets for future E-Spec.

@Conncept.7638 said:Why would you buff the power coefficent on a condition weapon? The Soulbeast is a hodgepodge spec, it's meant to work with any other build by taking bits and pieces instead of the whole thing. The dagger is the portion of that hodgepodge that was made specifically for condition builds, because all of our other MH weapons are either power (Sword, GS) or hyrbid (the Axe).

Yes, you read that last sentence right, as everyone seems to forget, rangers have a sword. If you want a better melee power weapon, buff it, and leave the dagger as the condi weapon it was intended to be.

Thanks for the feedback

I think you fail to see the main theme of the suggestions - its not about buffing dps output but to add utility

The suggestions to the auto chain is minimal, I already mentionned and acknowledged dagger is a condi weapon in the hands of a Ranger - it already has rather low values, I was merely suggesting adjusting the values to some levels that give it some oomph without pushing away from it's condition role.

I am leaving the dagger as a the condi weapon it is meant to be.

Don't think people forgot about sword either

I also understand Soulbeast's dagger is supposed to be pretty much single target - the auto chain can hit up to 2 foes (but thieves' daggers can hit 3) but I feel Double Arc should cleave at least up to 2 targets. Instinctive Engage is fine with single target

EDIT - Thief auto also affects a maximum of 2 targets - it's only the dual skill Twisting Fangs that can hit up to 3 targets, my bad!

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:I also understand Soulbeast's dagger is supposed to be pretty much single target - the auto chain can hit up to 2 foes (but thieves' daggers can hit 3) but I feel Double Arc should cleave at least up to 2 targets. Instinctive Engage is fine with single target

Thief dagger hits two targets, not three. Same as the necromancer's dagger. The "cleave" weapon for thieves is sword, which does hit three.

I have a bug with my soulbeast dagger. All the animations for it are bugged and showing thief animations. Only difference is the 2 and the 3 have swapped places. I'm not sure how they could bug like this, or maybe these are placeholder animations?

(yes I'm kidding and yes I agree with OP)

@Kravick.4906 said:

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:I also understand Soulbeast's dagger is supposed to be pretty much single target - the auto chain can hit up to 2 foes (but thieves' daggers can hit 3) but I feel

Double Arc

should cleave

at least

up to 2 targets.

Instinctive Engage

is fine with single target

ah-HA! Thanks for confirming, didn't even check the auto chain skill target limit, based that on... Twisting Fangs itself, which affects 3 targets! Thanks for clarifying, correcting right away.

A daze will helps tons.Dagger oh needs a look i wanted to go D/D but torch is miles ahead