whats the current Soulbeast raiding build going around?

just curious what the current builds going around are for dps raiding

weapons and sigilsarmour and runesfoodpetstraitsskills

Basically a copy from the past Condi Core ranger, but then using a dagger instead of axe.Same armor, same skills, same rotation.Same 2 core specs and same traits (Skirmishing and Wilderness Survival)And use the obvious SoulBeast Traits (Predator's Cunning + Oppressive Superiority)

This is the DPS post for this condi spec: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/3217/condi-soulbeast-dps-35-6k/p1

Why do people camp inside beastmode? I dont understand. Merg abilities have longer than a 10 second cooldown. Use f2 merg use abilities unmerg

I just completely forgot that being in beast mode gives you slight stat increase based on the type of pet

@Zeek.6743 said:Why do people camp inside beastmode? I dont understand. Merg abilities have longer than a 10 second cooldown. Use f2 merg use abilities unmerg

Beastmode is camped because of the Deadly bonus, which gives +200 condition damage and +100 precision while camping beastmode. This far outweighs the damage our F2 pet skills do. Also the condition based pet F2 skills are still bugged to do barely any damage after you remerge, so much of the damage goes to waste.

I also believe one of the reasons for perma-merge, is that most of the traits and abilities that say "after X, your pet does Y" the "Y-effect" is applied to you instead. So if I use SB 4, my pet's next attack will inflict bleed. If I merge, it is MY next attack that inflicts bleeding.

I know our pets don't do amazing damage, but I'm pretty sure they do more damage than +200 condi +100 prec will do

just stick in druid for raids

@BadSanta.6527 said:just stick in druid for raids

Unless you're trying to DPS, then for the love of god don't play Druid.

@Durzlla.6295 said:I know our pets don't do amazing damage, but I'm pretty sure they do more damage than +200 condi +100 prec will do

In other settings, usually they would. Unfortunately, in a Raid or any PvE scenario where the allied target cap is reached due to 4 other players being around, the Pet damage is very low since it does not receive any buffs and boons. Add that condition Soulbeast/Ranger does not slot Nature Magic, and the last patch nerfed Pets' overall effectiveness (again) with the change of Expertise Training and Companion's Might, so the Pet does what it does and nothing more.

Lynx is one of our best damaging Pets unbuffed, but even against a target with capped vulnerability, it averages 1.7k DPS (with Sharpened Edges, Taste for Danger, and Beastmastery). However, since condition Soulbeast drops Beastmastery, Lynx drops to 1.25k DPS since it loses lower cooldowns, 10% damage when we are above 90% health, +150 stat boost, and +300 ferocity boost.

Include that Lynx is part of the 36/50 pets that have auto attacks not affected by quickness, which means less applications of Sharpened Edges (even though felines have a naturally high precision); and no buffs/boons means their condition damage remains at 1000 while a fully ascended Viper's Soulbeast will have 2022 with 25 might (4 Nightmare/2 Trapper) before including food, utilities, banners, infusions, Ambidexterity, Deadly, and any other bonus.

The player's skills are affected by quickness and Ranger's/Soulbeast's attack frequency with traps, Bonfire, and other multi-hit moves/AoE heavily outweigh the attack rate of any pet - even our best ones or ones that are fully affected by quickness. So, in the end, the +200/+100 bonus does more when all the factors are included. It's like a 2nd set of Runes at this point.

I'm pretty sure the bristleback is the best condi pet unbuffed, because I recall all of the condi cats being weaker than the power cats when they don't have all of their needed buffs and condi sources.

And do we have actual testing done on if the DPS is actually higher or not to camp beast mode? Or is this just from people assuming it is? Because if there's one thing I know it's that this forum in particular is awful about assuming correctly what dps is higher.

EDIT: we also don't have dps numbers on ANY of the new pets, and I'm almost positive that the Iboga aka plant snake, is going to be ridiculously good DPS in a raid environment.

@Durzlla.6295 said:I'm pretty sure the bristleback is the best condi pet unbuffed, because I recall all of the condi cats being weaker than the power cats when they don't have all of their needed buffs and condi sources.

Unfortunately, it is not. Unbuffed and stacked inside of a target's hitbox nets around 1.1-1.2k DPS (with Sharpened Edges and Taste for Danger). Just a tad behind Lynx, but Lynx just hits and has a slight benefit with F2 leaping through a Fire Field and causing a bit of burning if smacked. Most of the time, a Bristleback would be less since it won't be stacked inside a boss's hitbox throughout the entire encounter.

Oddly enough, the highest completely unbuffed Pet (no buffs, boons, or even traits!) is the Jacaranda! But Jaca's not ideal with a condition setup since he can't take advantage of Sharpened Edges (too low crit chance) and Taste for Danger (no damaging conditions). Also, the DPS difference between a completely unbuffed Jaca and Lynx is about 50.

I'm currently in the process of updating my Pet DPS spreadsheet with the new changes and pets so it's nice that to have these results on-hand. :D

Oooh ok, yeah I know there's some pets that are higher damage than Lynx unbuffed (at least back in the day), but they're Power based which isn't going to help a condi Soulbeast lol.

Have you done tests on the Iboga in a raid like setting? Because it gains additional damage on its auto per condi on the target AND is a condi based pet, I feel like it might do some very respectable damage unbuffed against fully loaded targets.

If you are raiding with soul beast you aren't using pet's for the damage, you are using pets for the skills. Maul does more damage than sharpened spine and is on a lot shorter of a cool down. Iboga isn't too great in PvE, even in fractals mine was dying fast, it would be great in beast mode if Primal Cry wasn't 360 radius, because of that and the other skills are ranged it is counter intuitive so if you are close enough for primal cry might as well use maul because we trait for bleeds not confusion, maul does more damage than both of the Iboga skills combined.

@Durzlla.6295 said:Have you done tests on the Iboga in a raid like setting? Because it gains additional damage on its auto per condi on the target AND is a condi based pet, I feel like it might do some very respectable damage unbuffed against fully loaded targets.

I have, but I was very cautious and only applied 5 conditions on the Golem while allowing the Iboga to apply Confusion & Torment on it by itself. Note that the Iboga can practically keep a single, non-moving target permanently confused and tormented on its own, so technically 7.

Results were 1k-1.1k average unbuffed with Sharpened Edges & Taste for Danger - but since the Golem does not perform any actions, the confusion will bring up the damage in a real fight - assuming it lands every stack. Also, condition counts will fluctuate during encounters, so there are times where it will do more or less.

Though Iboga pulls out ahead in counters with adds since it naturally cleaves and has CC with its F2. So, we can contribute some CC without swapping to a non-Deadly pet like an E. Wyvern or Pink/Black Moa (but if the group needs the CC, by all means do so).

@Durzlla.6295 said:I know our pets don't do amazing damage, but I'm pretty sure they do more damage than +200 condi +100 prec will do

Agreed, plus the bleeds from their crits.... Which I believe actually use your stats instead of theirs.

That's pretty good damage from the Iboga tbh, I know I'll probably run it on my Druid instead of a Tiger so I don't have to swap pets to CC, but we'll see.

@narcx.3570 said:

@Durzlla.6295 said:I know our pets don't do amazing damage, but I'm pretty sure they do more damage than +200 condi +100 prec will do

+200 condi damage = A LOT