TL;DR - Let soulbeast damage traits (Furious Strength, Twice as Vicious, Oppressive Superiority) also benefit our pets like existing core ranger traits such as Predator's Onslaught, Remorseless, Bountiful Hunter, etc. This change will improve the damaging potential of the soulbeast trait line reasonably and encourage frequent normal/beast mode swapping playstyle for maximum efficiency.

Hi,I've enjoyed ranger class mainly since the start because of its satisfying combined-wombo-combo with pets and additional mind game/pressure created from proper pet managements. On this perspective, the brandnew soulbeast specialization sounds great to me expecting new creative ways of managing situations from melding/separating with my pets, especially in PvP/WvW game modes. However, current state of this subclass feels significantly underwhelming for me due mainly to the lack of fluidity and synergy between normal and beast modes. Many interesting opinions regarding the issue are already present in this forum, proposing CD reduction/pet swap in beastmode, additional benefits from exiting the mode, rework on some ineffective beastmode skills, and so on. I want to focus on and discuss of offensive traits on the soulbeast line because this line seems to work solely for offensive purpose, lacking any remarkable defensive options particularly against conditions and of disengagement tools, but is relatively not strong if compared with other offensive lines such as marksmanship and skirmishing (^simple comparison based on practical situation is presented at the end). I believe that only the small tweak, traits also working for our pets, can make the soulbeast line somewhat comparable with the others in terms of damage and utility (note that I'm talking about the trait line efficiency rather than the general viability of soulbeast subclass compared to druid in this post).For the quick and clear comparison, respective soulbeast traits and other similarly working traits in core ranger are shown. Traits shared their functions with the pets are indicated with (+pet).

Soulbeast

Furious Strength: You deal more damage (+7%) while you have fury.Twice as Vicious: Disabling a foe increases your damage and condition damage (+5% each) for a short duration (5 sec).

Oppressive Superiority: Deal increased damage (+10%) to foes who have less health than you. Conditions you apply to foes with less health than you last longer (+10%).

Marksmanship

Opening Strike (+pet): You and your pet inflict vulnerability (5 stacks for 5 sec) with your first strike when entering combat.Alpha Focus (+pet): Your opening strikes inflict cripple (2 sec) on your foes.Precise Strike (+pet): Opening Strike always critical hits.Steady Focus: Damage is increased (+10%) when endurance is full.

Predator's Onslaught (+pet): You and your pet deal increased damage (+15%) to disabled or movement-impaired foes.Remorseless (+pet): Regain opening strike whenever you gain fury. Opening strike deals more damage (next single hit for +25%).

Nature Magic

Bountiful Hunter (+pet): You and your pet deal more damage (+1%) per boon that is on you.Other than these offensive traits, there are also pet-sharing traits for supportive purpose such as Companion's Defense and Rugged Growth in wilderness survival line.

Interesting observation here is every offensive trait of the core ranger (esp. the damage boosting one) but the steady focus has pet-sharing feature. I believe that the most important reasoning under such design is to compensate the pet contribution being significant proportion of ranger total damage (actually ranger damage without pet is quite handicapped if compared with other professions). Based on this point of view, three soulbeast offensive traits seem to suffer from unreasonable damage loss in the pet part. Therefore, I hope the soulbeast offensive traits get pet-sharing feature. I believe that this change will not be problematic to PvP balance, considering the traits' awkward conditions for activation and moderate damage boosting capabilities.

^Competence comparison for different offensive trait line selection (example in real situation)

For simplicity, let's imagine two similar power ranger builds in role based on druid and soulbeast lines. If not bad defensive options against conditions are chosen, the quick imaginable builds can be one with MM/BM/Druid and the other with WK/BM/Soulbeast. Expected advantages of each trait line in both builds are probably like-

Power Druid (MM/BM/Druid)

Marksmanship (Offense): aoe boons and unblockable pet, frequent and quick 20+ vulnerability stacks, frequent guranteed-crit quick burst combo from both ranger and pet (tiger <3), enhanced CC from avatar skill, etc.Beastmastery (Utility): overall boon sharing (enhanced shouts), quickness/superspeed pet swap burst combo, stronger pet, etc.Druid (Defense): strong healing capability, burst condi cleanse with not bad CD, disengagement based on stealth/superspeed, area denial ability (both CC and damage) with celestial avatar skills.

Power Soulbeast (WK/BM/Soulbeast)

Wilderness Survival (Defense): frequent small condi cleanses, overall better dodge, fury application, single time CC protection, etc.Beastmastery (Utility): essential source of swiftness, various stat boosts including speed when melded, and same as above.Soulbeast (Offense): on-demand unblockable on merging, 7%+5%+10% decent damage boost only on ranger when the EVERY conditions are met, big hit/disengagement/CC skills on proper pet choices, etc.

Utility and Defense trait lines offer similar functions overall with close efficiency despite the detailed differences such as burst cleanse or frequent small cleanses. However, Offense lines show great difference in their efficiency (frequent big burst from ranger and pet VS generally moderate damage boost on ranger but decent when everything goes right) in my opinion. As you may notice, while the soulbeast line has somewhat huge outplay potential based on frequent on-demand unblockable option and strong beast skills in beastmode, general convenience and capability for burst damage are subpar than druid except if Sic 'Em is on when merged, despite the requirement of extremely hard difficulty/complexity in proper executions for success. Addition of the pet-sharing feature to the soulbeast traits can improve burst potential (with pets) reasonably and is one good start for better gaming experience with this class.

Any opinion or discussion will be appreciated. Thanks!