Soulbeast was ranger 2.0

Pre patch soulbeast, imo was ranger 2.0. It did everything core could do but better. It felt like what competitive ranger should have always been imo...

But...

There had to be a trade off. Could there be a better solution? Maybe, but this is what we got... a ranger with 1 pet that deals more damage than core ranger without having to synergize with a squishy pet.

They're not gonna change it. Deal with it. In some ways it's a buff. In a lot of ways a nerf. Nevertheless, I still think it offers things core lacks.

I like your response and agree it does offer something still through merging and gaining pet skills on your character. Still makes for a more interactive and fun experience over core.

How anyone can argue that pre-patch Beastmode wasn't a straight upgrade to core Ranger without a trade-off (permanently giving up something available to core) is beyond me.

@Eurantien.4632 said:Pre patch soulbeast, imo was ranger 2.0. It did everything core could do but better. It felt like what competitive ranger should have always been imo...

But...

There had to be a trade off. Could there be a better solution? Maybe, but this is what we got... a ranger with 1 pet that deals more damage than core ranger without having to synergize with a squishy pet.

They're not gonna change it. Deal with it. In some ways it's a buff. In a lot of ways a nerf. Nevertheless, I still think it offers things core lacks.

A sensible remark from well known ranger main...it's surely welcome

Alot of HoT Elites were essentially Profession+ too.

Old Berserker was Warrior+Scrapper was Engineer+

But the way they are making tradeoffs really ticks me off.They are more interested in TAKING from the Elite spec than ALTERING the mechanics.

Like Function Gyro robbing a place of an Elite Toolbelt isn't even remotely comparable to how Holosmith has an entire weaponset for their Elite Toolbelt.

It's like they don't know how to design it and just decide to rip something from the Elite and call it a day as a tradeoff.

@"Yasai.3549" said:Alot of HoT Elites were essentially Profession+ too.

Old Berserker was Warrior+Scrapper was Engineer+

But the way they are making tradeoffs really ticks me off.They are more interested in TAKING from the Elite spec than ALTERING the mechanics.

Like Function Gyro robbing a place of an Elite Toolbelt isn't even remotely comparable to how Holosmith has an entire weaponset for their Elite Toolbelt.

It's like they don't know how to design it and just decide to rip something from the Elite and call it a day as a tradeoff.

Is "a single pet" even a valid trade off?.......Really ranger mains should politely leave the room...to go and pray to the Dev at Anet who honestly just love the class. The class is freaking amazing right now compared to others like ele, warrior, engi.....you have it good guys, just be silent and try to get as little attention as possible

@"Arheundel.6451" said:

Is "a single pet" even a valid trade off?.......Really ranger mains should politely leave the room...to go and pray to the Dev at Anet who honestly just love the class. The class is freaking amazing right now compared to others like ele, warrior, engi.....you have it good guys, just be silent and try to get as little attention as possible

1. I don't even main ranger.
2. Nothing I said ever mentioned or cried about Soulbeast tradeoffs.

I just mentioned that I don't like how they are making the tradeoffs : they are boring and lazy changes.If Anet going forward is gonna just do lazy "trade offs" for every Elite spec, I think it's safe to say we do not need anymore expansions, anymore Elite specs, or anymore content, because instead of innovating new gameplay mechanics or altering them, they just take it away and call it a day.

Slb is currently lower than the Ranger, in the tradeoff obtained by Slb there is something wrong.

Slb's damage isn't higher than Ranger's, only the initial burst because he can use Sickem.

Soulbeast = Druid.

@Revolution.5409 said:Slb is currently lower than the Ranger, in the tradeoff obtained by Slb there is something wrong.

Slb's damage isn't higher than Ranger's, only the initial burst because he can use Sickem.

Soulbeast = Druid.

SB‘s damage is higher than ranger’s though.

When you are merged with your pet, you can extra stats based on the type of pet. Furthermore, there is a trait in the BM line that increases your pet’s stats (and when merged, your own stats) even more.

Increasing your own stats is far more valuable than increasing your pet’s

@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

@Revolution.5409 said:Slb is currently lower than the Ranger, in the tradeoff obtained by Slb there is something wrong.

Slb's damage isn't higher than Ranger's, only the initial burst because he can use Sickem.

Soulbeast = Druid.

So, rather than tinker with the pet merge mechanic (and pet swap, too), maybe they should have looked at the coefficients when rangers merge and made adjustments there?

Soulbeast deals HELLA dmg. I've 1shot people POST patch in wvw AND spvp. Bam, 1 WI and someone dies. But seeing how anet decides to give soulbeast , mirage and friggin druid, berserker tradeoff before FB, I'm no longer saying anything bad about soulbeast ever.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

@Revolution.5409 said:Slb is currently lower than the Ranger, in the tradeoff obtained by Slb there is something wrong.

Slb's damage isn't higher than Ranger's, only the initial burst because he can use Sickem.

Soulbeast = Druid.

I mentioned in a previous post, the reason you get stats bonuses is because the ranger class as a whole is balanced around having a pet (your class mechanic). If you got rid of your pet by merging, you would literally be intentionally nerfing yourself. You have to gain stats to compensate for losing your pet.

Limiting SB to one pet was because in every instance of there being a base ranger build, SB was a 100% improvement. And even using SB, you were not even required to merge in the first place. Comparing this to berserker for example, they must not enter berserker form to use their burst and have no access to standard burst skills. SB was a spec that left you with everything base ranger offered, and then gave you even more. This change follows the same direction that berserker, Spellbreaker, daredevil, deadeye, reaper, and other such specs took that by gaining a new mechanic, you lost some aspect of the base class mechanic.

Anet has simply decided that the trade off SB’s should have would to instead only have access to one pet in combat and focus solely on the merging and un-merging aspect of the spec. Now instead of trying to decide situations where you should swap pets, it’s now when you should merge and un-merge.

For PvE this change is literally a non-issue. If you’re a SB you should nearly always be merged with your pet in the first place. Even in the extreme edge cases where you would want to un-merge and swap to, for example, a CC pet, it’s such a minor gain that it usually won’t even matter. For PvP and WvW, you need to now take into account what pet you want to be locked into before you begin an engagement.

@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

@Revolution.5409 said:Slb is currently lower than the Ranger, in the tradeoff obtained by Slb there is something wrong.

Slb's damage isn't higher than Ranger's, only the initial burst because he can use Sickem.

Soulbeast = Druid.

The pet is our class mechanic and part of our DPS, when you play Core Ranger the pet is essential, when you increase his statistics it is as if you increase the statics of the character himself.I can get everything I have on Soulbeast on my Ranger except the Sickem Burst.

@Revolution.5409 said:

@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:

@Revolution.5409 said:Slb is currently lower than the Ranger, in the tradeoff obtained by Slb there is something wrong.

Slb's damage isn't higher than Ranger's, only the initial burst because he can use Sickem.

Soulbeast = Druid.

I can agree that that is true, but SB genuinely does more damage than base ranger.

Testing on the golem the only time I found base ranger does more damage is when I had no buffs and sat in one spot and auto attacked with longbow. Even then ranger only beat SB by like 350 dps. When doing things such as raid rotations, or even simply auto attacking with standard raid buffs, SB is far superior than base ranger.

The stats gained from merging and from the beastmaster line give you so much more value when given to your character (SB merged with a pet) than giving them to your pet. Your character can do so much more damage when combining those extra stats alongside runes, sigils, and other % damage increases, none of which can effect your pet.

@"Yasai.3549" said:Alot of HoT Elites were essentially Profession+ too.

Old Berserker was Warrior+Scrapper was Engineer+

But the way they are making tradeoffs really ticks me off.They are more interested in TAKING from the Elite spec than ALTERING the mechanics.

Like Function Gyro robbing a place of an Elite Toolbelt isn't even remotely comparable to how Holosmith has an entire weaponset for their Elite Toolbelt.

It's like they don't know how to design it and just decide to rip something from the Elite and call it a day as a tradeoff.

Weird logic seeing how you literally recognized power creep of the especs by -rightfully- calling them "professions+" and yet you still seem to not understand (or pretend to) why some things have to be nerfed/taken away to even the playground. They're doing what they should have done long ago.

@"Sobx.1758" said:

Weird logic seeing how you literally recognized power creep of the especs by -rightfully- calling them "professions+" and yet you still seem to not understand (or pretend to) why some things have to be nerfed/taken away to even the playground. They're doing what they should have done long ago.

What I'm saying is tradeoffs like this are ridiculous.Scrapper was extremely underused because of simply being Engi + a ranged press F.

Infact in most cases, people just played core Engi instead because of how bad Gyros are.

The whole Tradeoff thing happened like so much later when Holo existed and dominated the competitive scene and Scrapper was given a really nice rework to compete with, but out of the blue, HURRDURR TRADEOFF and forced them to have their Elite toolbelt replaced with an AoE press F with a cooldown.

Obviously this was done yo reflect Holo's forge on Elite toolbelt but how can one compare a single cooldown based AoE press F to an entire weapon set with 5 skills.

It just doesn't make sense.

@Yasai.3549 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:

Weird logic seeing how you literally recognized power creep of the especs by -rightfully- calling them "professions+" and yet you still seem to not understand (or pretend to) why some things

have

to be nerfed/taken away to even the playground. They're doing what they should have done long ago.

I think part of the theory there was that they were trying to make function gyro something that was actually relevant outside of competitive modes, and to do that they needed to put it somewhere on the skill bar rather than something that can only be activated by interacting with something in the downed state. Doesn't really work, since the effects of the function gyro are really nothing to shout home about in PvE, but I don't think that move was entirely motivated by "but tradeoffs!"

I personally have no issue with the 1 pet nerf and I think the idea is fair tradeoff for beastmode but also I can't understand the other nerfs specially the traits? why they focused in soulbeast with no real reason! (aside from 2nd pet removal which is fine), it seems that we either getting a new elite spec or that ranger are being too popular and they need to push people away from it to other classes cause if you check metabattle builds or any other builds site you would notice that soulbeast don't have a single meta or great build for sPvP and WvW and only have meta builds for PvE.

Soulbeast didn't need any nerf apart from the 2nd pet removal, still for the majority of soulbeast players me included its better than core though.

@Yasai.3549 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:

Weird logic seeing how you literally recognized power creep of the especs by -rightfully- calling them "professions+" and yet you still seem to not understand (or pretend to) why some things

have

to be nerfed/taken away to even the playground. They're doing what they should have done long ago.

It does make sense and you already made the thread about it which you might as well go and re-read right now instead of repeating same thing that was already answered to. Nerfing/taking away from especs was needed whether you like it or not.Also this is about SB being unable to swap pet during fight which makes sense for it to not be pretty much a direct upgrade over core. And seeing how what happened here is fully reasonable and NOT an overkill in the slightest, it's pretty funny you're trying to use it as another jump pad for your "HURR DURR TAKING AWAY ALL TEH TIEM!" ridiculous claim.

@"Sobx.1758" said:

It does make sense and you already made the thread about it which you might as well go and re-read right now instead of repeating same thing that was already answered to. Nerfing/taking away from especs was needed whether you like it or not.Also this is about SB being unable to swap pet during fight which makes sense for it to not be pretty much a direct upgrade over core. And seeing how what happened here is fully reasonable and NOT an overkill in the slightest, it's pretty funny you're trying to use it as another jump pad for your "HURR DURR TAKING AWAY ALL TEH TIEM!" ridiculous claim.

Why do yu assume that I'm arguing because tradeoffs are big bad and big nerf.

I have always been saying that the way Anet does tradeoffs is stupid and some of them aren't even trade offs, but mechanic removals.

For example, Chrono has Illusionary Persona removed.If there was anything about Chrono that made Illusionary Persona overly powerful, then yes the trade off makes sense.

But no, nothing about Chrono that Core and Mirage can already do makes Illusionary Persona powerful, so why remove it?

So what next?

Ah.... I see Firebrand has 3 tomes as additional weapon sets.Tradeoff : Firebrands can only have 1 weapon set at a time in combat.

Is this the tradeoff yu really want? I sure as hell don't want this to be the sort of balance philosophy for them to force on the players.

BUT HEY IF YU NEED IT TO BE SPELT OUT FOR YU : TRADEOFFS ARE NEEDED YES, BUT THE WAY ANET DOES IT IS STUPID AND NEVER MAKES SENSE^Literally all I've been on about the entire bloody time

I got a question for you guys, so is this build really viable? https://www.godsofpvp.net/builds/ranger

I was using tiger with this and white moa.

I traded different stuff while using this build axe/axe GSGS LB GS shortbow.

I tried these builds in mist not ranked or unranked mainly practicing and tinkering with the build.

I heard rangers don't do great in 1v1 not sure if thats true, but its certainly rough fighting AOE classes at close range they wreck me such as dealing with heralds and renegade.

@Yasai.3549 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:

It does make sense and you already made the thread about it which you might as well go and re-read right now instead of repeating same thing that was already answered to. Nerfing/taking away from especs was needed whether you like it or not.Also this is about SB being unable to swap pet during fight which makes sense for it to not be pretty much a direct upgrade over core. And seeing how what happened here is fully reasonable and NOT an overkill in the slightest, it's pretty funny you're trying to use it as another jump pad for your "HURR DURR TAKING AWAY ALL TEH TIEM!" ridiculous claim.

Because I'm not sure why you'd decide to keep complaining about something like that otherwise.

I have always been saying that the way Anet does tradeoffs is stupid and some of them aren't even trade offs, but mechanic removals.

And nothing about the trade-offs being partial mechanic removal makes it stupid or even bad. It actually makes sense seeing as otherwise especs are just building on top of core classes, which was the problem with especs in the first place. What's stupid though is insisting on using "yu" for no apparent reason.[skipping the chrono part, because I don't play chrono]

Ah.... I see Firebrand has 3 tomes as additional weapon sets.Tradeoff : Firebrands can only have 1 weapon set at a time in combat.

Is this the tradeoff yu really want? I sure as hell don't want this to be the sort of balance philosophy for them to force on the players.

Do I "WANT IT"? That's a weird (or calculated?) question seeing how most players will cry on the sight of any nerf or adjustment that's not favorable for them, which DOESN'T MAKE THEM RIGHT.Now, does it make sense? Yes, at the first glance it does and you probably know FB needs to be brought down as well -but hey, you probably know there's already a thread about that, right? I doubt you bringing it up after it was mentioned there is a coincidence. And why cutting parts of core-spec mechanics (so they can be replaced by another, even if at different spot) is fine? Because if you want to play core class with core mechanics, you can play... That's right, core class. It's not going anywhere and existance of especs shouldn't push out the usability of core. But they obviously did and you know that.

BUT HEY IF YU NEED IT TO BE SPELT OUT FOR YU : TRADEOFFS ARE NEEDED YES, BUT THE WAY ANET DOES IT IS STUPID AND NEVER MAKES SENSE^Literally all I've been on about the entire bloody time

There's literally nothing stupid about those trade-offs, if you want to play core -play core. So much for "spelling it out for you".

@Yasai.3549 said:Obviously this was done yo reflect Holo's forge on Elite toolbelt but how can one compare a single cooldown based AoE press F to an entire weapon set with 5 skills.

It just doesn't make sense.

Guardians and firebrands say hi. :DYes, sometimes the tradeoffs don't feel really balanced, there's a popular thread going on about this issue with firebrand.

Whether anything like this will get changed... well, I suppose ANet is known to give in to forum pressure when it's persistent and loud enough. Only time will tell.

@Eurantien.4632 said:Pre patch soulbeast, imo was ranger 2.0. It did everything core could do but better. It felt like what competitive ranger should have always been imo...

But...

There had to be a trade off. Could there be a better solution? Maybe, but this is what we got... a ranger with 1 pet that deals more damage than core ranger without having to synergize with a squishy pet.

They're not gonna change it. Deal with it. In some ways it's a buff. In a lot of ways a nerf. Nevertheless, I still think it offers things core lacks.

I'm a main ranger as well, and to be honest I'm glad for this trade off. There was no reason to play other specs in WvW or even PvE (except niche situations with druid). I can't speak for everyone but I think a lot of ranger mains feel the same way. It does feel much more balanced now.

It's not "balanced" at all, they stripped out all of our utility (and any reason to use anything other than the absolute best pet we have) and replaced it with nothing just to satisfy whiny PVP/WvW players.

The only upside of the patch was that they kept the pet nerfs out of PVE this time.