Main problems about soulbeast

A thread to collect the main problems of the soulbeast in your opinion

• Leaving beastmode when use mounts or entering water
• The green aura stays too long, that you can't see your armor in beastmode
• Dagger is too slow and skills too boring or clunky
• Some Beastmode-Petskills are too low (feline bite ordevourer retreat) or buggy (bird swoop)

What do you think are the main problems of the soulbeast?

add no use to stancelost of druid for soul beast is adps loss for high lvl fracals and raids...

Stance unique effects not applying to the Pet by default. Sure, it doesn't matter when merged, but most of these effects would be helpful while the Pet is active. The additional healing and periodic condition cleanses from Bear Stance, the immunity to movement-impending conditions of Dolyak Stance, gaining might or poisoning a foe depending on the target's health threshold with Vulture Stance, and double-Strike as One alongside them with One Wolf Pack.

Even Griffon Stance can find some (limited) use with Smokescale (Smoke Assault) and Fire Wyvern (Consuming Flame), which have a skill that allows those Pets to evade attacks for the additional might. Otherwise, Leader of the Pack is the only option, for half the duration and only if the allied target cap is not reached.

The trait lines have poor synergy with themselves and very little with the core specializations. Some are extremely lacklustre such as Twice as Vicious, pathetic really, an unnoticeable damage increase for 4s with a large condition on it's procc. Make it more like Attacker's Insight.

The meld in-out mechanic is counter-intuitive when it comes to pet boons, constantly losing them on the pet reduces it's effectiveness dramatically. It's also counter intuitive if you are playing at range, since the pet will always appear at your side and then need to close the gap again to the target. So it currently makes more sense to camp beastmode or only use it rarely.

The Ranger needs to transfer his boons to the pet on exiting beastmode.

There are not enough damage modifiers to warrant the loss of the pet or bring Ranger power damage even close to par with other classes.

The Dagger has no utility; Skill #2 needs an evade and Skill #3 needs a daze. The conditions on the Dagger need to be improved damatically. Durations and stacks need to be swapped for more burst damage, ie instead of 1 bleed for 3s, make it 3 bleeds for 1s. Except in this case the dagger could do with 3 stacks for 2s on every AA condition application.

@Wondrouswall.7169 said:Stance effects not applying to the Pet by default.

An oversight yet again I'm sure. The devs should probably have a checklist of things that should be standardized when they think out new skills, traits and weapons for our profession. Every stance tooltip should start with "You and your pet"

@OGDeadHead.8326 said:

@Wondrouswall.7169 said:Stance effects not applying to the Pet by default.

Every trait and skill should begin with "You and your pet". Well, maybe not all of them... ;) Then perhaps the pet would be a very useful mechanic instead of a mediocre one. I just cannot fathom why they do not already do this, it's not like it would turn Ranger into something absurdly OP or anything.

I was watching a vid and the person pointed out if a pet was doing damage and you merged you would be doing less damage than pre-merge. I rolled a third ranger the other day but am still deciding if it will be the new elite or not as part of why I like ranger is having a pet.

I think the main problems with Soulbeast are the dagger skills and the traits. After the demo weekend, I made a reddit thread detailing my feedback and opinions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6une1l/soulbeast_demo_feedback_suggestions/

Dagger power dps is poor.pet pause on swap needs to be looked at again, I still notice a delay that wasn't there before.I think stances should be like druid glyphs, one effect out of beastmode for you and your pet with an alternate effect in beastmode. This could be used to make the spec more condi or power dps focused in beastmode.the raw stat increase for entering beastmode should be increased to better balance the dps loss of the pet. 3-5k dps on average is what we get from the pet, the slight increase to stats won't give us all that back and it will be very build and rotation dependent. either increase the raw stats or add a dps modifier while in beastmode.

My main issue with is, other than dagger being pathetic, is that the traits all seem like an afterthought.

Fresh Reinforcement - Sure, gaining pet boons makes sense.Live Fast - Kinda boring but ok.Unstoppable Union - Again, a little boring but ok.Furious Strength - I didn't test if this worked with conditions but if not, why not? Why give us a condi weapon and not condi traits?Second Skin - This should be merged with Protective Ward.Essense of Speed - So out of place, this feels like a Nature Magic trait.Predator's Cunning - We don't deal nearly enough poison for this to be useful. Each poison tick steals health would be better.Twice as Vicious - This is a useless trait. 4 seconds on disable is pointless, especially as a 5% damage increase.Eternal Bond - Boring but at least it's somewhat useful.Leader of the Pack - Would have been better with full duration for allies. Gives us better group support.Oppressive Superiority - Condition damage would have been better than duration.

A lot of the stance stuff is clearly made for other game modes. Soulbeast for instance will give ranger a proper WvW build. Similarly that trait of increased damage on CC is strong for pvp/WvW. Not everything should be focused on PvE/dps increases.

@AngelsShadow.7360 said:A lot of the stance stuff is clearly made for other game modes. Soulbeast for instance will give ranger a proper WvW build. Similarly that trait of increased damage on CC is strong for pvp/WvW. Not everything should be focused on PvE/dps increases.

I only play WvW,. A 5% damage increase for 4 seconds is not strong, you'll barely notice it.

Say your Rapid Fire usually does 8k damage, you'll get an extra 400 damage from that trait.

I was disappointed by the visual effects. Would be nice to look at a Soulbeast and know exactly what pet he/she is using from the graphical effects.

duplicate - delete

It's been stated many times before now, but the aspect of Soul Beast that makes me hesitant is the loss of condition clears in comparison with druid, and the most noteworthy can't change pets while in beastmode. It basically almost insists upon utilizing only the one pet and negates a lot of traitlines with pet swap activators. There is no immediacy to getting heal or invulnerability from secondary pet if you are waiting on the combined cooldowns of pet swap and beastmode. It is not fluid enough to utilize the 2nd pets in competitive combat in my opinion.

The Grandmaster Major traits are extremely underwhelming. I don't mind the dagger being condition, but perhaps they should swap dagger #3 with sword #3 or something; the sword needs gap closing, and it does not need poison.

@"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

• The trait lines have poor synergy with themselves and very little with the core specializations. Some are extremely lacklustre such as Twice as Vicious, pathetic really, an unnoticeable damage increase for 4s with a large condition on it's procc. Make it more like Attacker's Insight.
• The meld in-out mechanic is counter-intuitive when it comes to pet boons, constantly losing them on the pet reduces it's effectiveness dramatically. It's also counter intuitive if you are playing at range, since the pet will always appear at your side and then need to close the gap again to the target. So it currently makes more sense to camp beastmode or only use it rarely.
• The Ranger needs to transfer his boons to the pet on exiting beastmode.
• There are not enough damage modifiers to warrant the loss of the pet or bring Ranger power damage even close to par with other classes.
• The Dagger has no utility; Skill #2 needs an evade and Skill #3 needs a daze. The conditions on the Dagger need to be improved damatically. Durations and stacks need to be swapped for more burst damage, ie instead of 1 bleed for 3s, make it 3 bleeds for 1s. Except in this case the dagger could do with 3 stacks for 2s on every AA condition application.

Bruh, do you even get the point of bleeding? Frankly, the bleed should be baseline duration 6s. If warrior can get that baseline on AA, why the hell can't Ranger get it on staggered AA. I can't help but feel the dagger was made with "100% Condition Duration" in mind. Bleed isn't for bursting - it's for bleeding enemies out. Other than that, your changes are sensible.

The main problem is that pet does far more damage when attacking than ranger does when absorbing it. What's the purpose of absorbing your pet if you cannot cover the damage loss?

i agree with everyone around

• Visuals are "meh" at best (look at weaver , holosmith ....) , about the SB aure , remove it put some subtle flames on the hands or an aura on the ground or green flaming eyes.
• Dagger MH is a failure , outside #3 , the AA is slow and 4 chain that brings vuln and some bleeding / poison (yawn) , #2 is a power attack that barely does more dmg than autoattack , and has no condi or anything , make the pet do something or while on SB do some cool effect , evade or anything,
• While we are at it Dagger oh needs some love , i was expecting going dagger/dagger and meh ....axe , torch or horn bring more to the table
• traits of SB dont have much synergy, Beastmaster + SB could work , but after playing the demo there are ton of issues
• Stances are good idea and some are welcomed (dolyak )

what i love from SB , smoke assault :open_mouth: , finally a multiattack that looks badass (is a copy of revenant but still cool) , the idea around SB using pet attacks kinda like a Blue Mage :joy:dagger as MH even if its not going to be used at all , would loved sword OH too , but oh well, we can finall dual weild the same weapons other than axes.

edit some core traits should be baseline (Fortifying Bond for example)

@Sartharina.3542 said:

@"Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582" said:

• The trait lines have poor synergy with themselves and very little with the core specializations. Some are extremely lacklustre such as Twice as Vicious, pathetic really, an unnoticeable damage increase for 4s with a large condition on it's procc. Make it more like Attacker's Insight.
• The meld in-out mechanic is counter-intuitive when it comes to pet boons, constantly losing them on the pet reduces it's effectiveness dramatically. It's also counter intuitive if you are playing at range, since the pet will always appear at your side and then need to close the gap again to the target. So it currently makes more sense to camp beastmode or only use it rarely.
• The Ranger needs to transfer his boons to the pet on exiting beastmode.
• There are not enough damage modifiers to warrant the loss of the pet or bring Ranger power damage even close to par with other classes.
• The Dagger has no utility; Skill #2 needs an evade and Skill #3 needs a daze. The conditions on the Dagger need to be improved damatically. Durations and stacks need to be swapped for more burst damage, ie instead of 1 bleed for 3s, make it 3 bleeds for 1s. Except in this case the dagger could do with 3 stacks for 2s on every AA condition application.

Bruh, do you even get the point of doing damage in the first place?

Why would you want your damage to take longer than necessary to deal it's damage and provide more opportunity to cleanse it? Make it a condi burst weapon, it's something different that is actually hybrid.

@BadSanta.6527 said:add no use to stancelost of druid for soul beast is adps loss for high lvl fracals and raids...

Well, not as bad as you might think. Soulbeast can still bring along Frost Spirit. They can also take the trait where stances affect allies as well, meaning power compositions will be hitting twice with that elite. You ele getting 20k dps? For the next 6 seconds it's 40k. That's actually better than quickness. imagine that on KC burn phase. (which is what, 8s?) Soulbeast looks like it'll be really good for burst-type bosses. Healing and condi healing druids certainly pump out GotL, but in most fractals, you'll only be getting the 10% glyph and maybe 2-3 stacks fo GotL over Soulbeast's spirit. In raids, you'll get the same. But in both cases, you're sacrificing damage for sustain. That's fine in raids, but it's not that necessary in fractals, where plenty of bosses have Burst phases (i.e. Arkk)

Also, in raids, you can take a soulbeast and also have a druid, same as if you had a condi ranger and a druid.

@"Crescendo Forte.4821" said:

They can also take the trait where stances affect allies as well, meaning power compositions will be hitting twice with that elite. You ele getting 20k dps? For the next 6 seconds it's 40k. That's actually better than quickness. imagine that on KC burn phase.

One wolf pack doesn't work like that. It only procs second hit every 1/2 seconds, and that second hit does different damage than the hit that procked it. Second strike has damage of 186(0.7)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/One_Wolf_Pack

Guess I should also add another issue (at least I find) are the additional stats of the 5 archetypes. They appear uneven and use the vitality stat on 3 of the 5 archetypes while excluding one very important stat: Expertise.

@Blue Hare.8612 said:

@"Crescendo Forte.4821" said:

They can also take the trait where stances affect allies as well, meaning power compositions will be hitting twice with that elite. You ele getting 20k dps? For the next 6 seconds it's 40k. That's actually better than quickness. imagine that on KC burn phase.

Fair enough, so you'll go from 20k to (20+14) 34k. As most attacks are on a .25 or .5 cast (not counting quickness), It'll probably go down to 30k? But that's a lot of math and averages that will have to be tested when it's out, I think.

@Daniel.5428 said:The main problem is that pet does far more damage when attacking than ranger does when absorbing it. What's the purpose of absorbing your pet if you cannot cover the damage loss?

Heh. To actually get as much control over our cc and fields as other professions get baseline. Or almost as much, since the spider poison field still doesn't go where you want it to.