Soulbeast was ranger 2.0

Tazer.2157 · March 5, 2020

@"Sobx.1758" said:
Yeah, totally -if you assume every skill does the same, has the same values, utility, cooldowns etc. So no, way too broad of a statement to just assume it's correct and move on.every skill has a utility whether or not they are equivalent or not. For heavens sake that is the reason why the game has other skills other than just 1 auto attack. A skill always add to the gameplay. Taking away skills reduces utility no matter what. If you are telling me the espec should not be able to use 2 pets, I suggest you look at druid that retains the pet while reducing the stats. The druid still has access to the pet skills.
It didn't take the choice away, if anything now you have to make an actual choice instead of easly bringing both offensive and defensive/utility options with you. And if you value pet swapping in combat more than what sb brings with its espec, then simply don't play sb and stick to core.

Oh don't worry in PvP I see more core and druid than sb. Anet has effectively killed the class with the change. According to Anet, the ranger class is meant to be a versatile one. This is their quote from the ranger class page. "Rangers can adapt to any situation". The ranger class is a jack of all trades and master of none. having both the defensive and offensive option allows the ranger to adapt.

What "wrong"? How does that in any way nullified what I said? "You could mix and match" and yet you almost exclusively picked one offensive and one defensive/utility pet, which makes it hardly a "choice", more of a "I always have an answer to what you do". NOW you're making a meaningful choice instead of just securing most scenarios.

What meaningful choice are we talking about here? Is anyone going to pick the wolf for its fear skill alone? No. A better choice is the smokefield from the smoke scale in almost all circumstances. Combat in Gw2 is not static. The soulbeast earlier had skills that could be used to adjust, example if you suddenly face a condi build, you could switch to the owl and remove the conditions. If the enemy had an ally join him, you could switch to the smokescale, go invisible, and jump out of combat using the swoop skill of the owl. This is called adapting to combat. Something the ranger was designed to do. Having the option to switch between offensive and defensive pets is how the ranger is designed as a class! That is the point of a ranger.

Cool. In what way does it answer to what I wrote?

As I said, more skills always adds utility. The way a soulbeast plays is highly dependent on the pet it merges with. Based on this design and the pletora of pet skills Anet added, it is obvious that the soulbeast was designed to be much more versatile and varied than the druid. Currently, the druid seems to have more utility.

a.k.a pretty much a direct upgrade over core that could play it safe by not having to make an actual choice and picking 2 different types of mergable pets instead. Yup, that's what I keep writing, that's what you try to deny for some reason and also why it's a change in a correct direction without a doubt.

They can have a tradeoff without amputating the class. Reduce the pet stats or pet damage. Something that was done for the druid. Isn't that a better tradeoff?

Exactly, so now you have to actually make a choice instead of picking one for every situation.

Please give me an example of the "meaningful choice" that you talk of.

"the best"? It depends what you want to do with it. There's no one best pet that does everything. And, again, THAT'S THE POINT OF THIS CHANGE.

There are pets that are better than others. The hyena for example is pretty much useless in PvP and will never ever get picked. This change WILL NOT CHANGE THE PETS PEOPLE PICK. The point of the change was tradeoff and not to make pet choice a meaningful mechanic.

Ah, probably the game designers didn't know what their design was designed to do. Glad you could clear it up for them.Jesus, how can you type something like this and pretend you're correct, I have no idea. But I'm probably done here seeing how I can repeat the same thing over and over again and you'll ignore it by writing "wrong!" and "it wasn't designed that way", oof.

If this was such an important change, why did it take almost 2 years for the change? Anet also mentioned that the merging mechanic was quite challenging to pull off. This change came with the huge balance patch which was mostly focused on PvP. The reason behind this change was that many PvPers and Wvwers complained about the soulbeast's mobility. This was a pet skill problem and not a class problem. An example of this is say a soulbeast picks a hyena and a polar bear as pets. Do you think people would complain about how op the soulbeast is or that a tradeoff is required? NO! With these pets, the soulbeast probably becomes the worst class in the entire game.

Change the merge skills, not the gameplay mechanic of the soulbeast.

Kodama.6453 · March 5, 2020

@Tazer.2157 said:
@"Sobx.1758" said:
Yeah, totally -if you assume every skill does the same, has the same values, utility, cooldowns etc. So no, way too broad of a statement to just assume it's correct and move on.every skill has a utility whether or not they are equivalent or not. For heavens sake that is the reason why the game has other skills other than just 1 auto attack. A skill always add to the gameplay. Taking away skills reduces utility no matter what. If you are telling me the espec should not be able to use 2 pets, I suggest you look at druid that retains the pet while reducing the stats. The druid still has access to the pet skills.

Every skill has utility, but you still have to consider power budget. If one class can do more with 1 skill than another class is able to do with 2 skills, then it is logical that the class which needs 2 skills to do the same thing gets more keys available in general.

It didn't take the choice away, if anything now you have to make an actual choice instead of easly bringing both offensive and defensive/utility options with you. And if you value pet swapping in combat more than what sb brings with its espec, then simply don't play sb and stick to core.

Oh don't worry in PvP I see more core and druid than sb. Anet has effectively killed the class with the change. According to Anet, the ranger class is meant to be a versatile one. This is their quote from the ranger class page. "Rangers can adapt to any situation". The ranger class is a jack of all trades and master of none. having both the defensive and offensive option allows the ranger to adapt.

First: This text "rangers can adapt to any situation" means absolutely nothing. It is just fluff and flavour to make the class sound attractive to try out. Alot of classes have similar wordings.Second: Elite specs in general are not supposed to be "jack of all trades and master of none". Elite specs are supposed to give your class a specific playstyle they exceed at. Like Druid is obviously the healing spec, it is supposed to make you a prime group healer. Looking at the traits and the overall design, it seems that Soulbeast is intended to be a bruiser spec, giving the ranger some survivability while dealing damage.

What "wrong"? How does that in any way nullified what I said? "You could mix and match" and yet you almost exclusively picked one offensive and one defensive/utility pet, which makes it hardly a "choice", more of a "I always have an answer to what you do". NOW you're making a meaningful choice instead of just securing most scenarios.

What meaningful choice are we talking about here? Is anyone going to pick the wolf for its fear skill alone? No. A better choice is the smokefield from the smoke scale in almost all circumstances. Combat in Gw2 is not static. The soulbeast earlier had skills that could be used to adjust, example if you suddenly face a condi build, you could switch to the owl and remove the conditions. If the enemy had an ally join him, you could switch to the smokescale, go invisible, and jump out of combat using the swoop skill of the owl. This is called adapting to combat. Something the ranger was designed to do. Having the option to switch between offensive and defensive pets is how the ranger is designed as a class! That is the point of a ranger.

This is exactly what he is talking about, if you can have 2 pets so you have an answer for every situation you encounter (like your example with the owl and condi damage), then the choice has less impact overall. With 1 pet you have to decide which 1 thing you want to accomplish with it. And no, ranger is not supposed to adapt to any situation with their elite specs. Soulbeast is a bruiser elite spec, you can have one pet to merge with, so to support that playstyle it probably would be good to pick a pet that gives you both, offensive and defensive stats at the same time.

Cool. In what way does it answer to what I wrote?

As I said, more skills always adds utility. The way a soulbeast plays is highly dependent on the pet it merges with. Based on this design and the pletora of pet skills Anet added, it is obvious that the soulbeast was designed to be much more versatile and varied than the druid. Currently, the druid seems to have more utility.

Yes, Druid has more utility. It is a healing support class, these classes are defined by utility. What the Soulbeast gets is combat power through stat superiority, it makes sense that the Soulbeast has less utility, when it comes to a direct stat check, then Soulbeast will always win over Druid.

a.k.a pretty much a direct upgrade over core that could play it safe by not having to make an actual choice and picking 2 different types of mergable pets instead. Yup, that's what I keep writing, that's what you try to deny for some reason and also why it's a change in a correct direction without a doubt.

They can have a tradeoff without amputating the class. Reduce the pet stats or pet damage. Something that was done for the druid. Isn't that a better tradeoff?

Reducing the pet stats or pet damage goes directly against what Soulbeast is supposed to do, being a bruiser. It gives you a stat advantage to deal damage in the middle of the enemy, the main tools to do that are the stats given from the pet. Reduce these and the whole concept falls apart. Meanwhile you don't need 2 pets to achieve this goal, you can just pick 1 pet that gives you the stats needed for that playstyle.

"the best"? It depends what you want to do with it. There's no one best pet that does everything. And, again, THAT'S THE POINT OF THIS CHANGE.

There are pets that are better than others. The hyena for example is pretty much useless in PvP and will never ever get picked. This change WILL NOT CHANGE THE PETS PEOPLE PICK. The point of the change was tradeoff and not to make pet choice a meaningful mechanic.

That there are better pets than others is not a design problem with Soulbeast. It is a problem with pets. The right thing to do here would be to rework the pets, but the change made to Soulbeast is still fine.

In general it seems that you are misinterpreting the concept of elite specs. Even if rangers were supposed to be versatile, the same doesn't apply to elite specs. Elite specs focus on a specific thing they are supposed to do. This is the same for all classes.

Scrapper is a bruiser spec.Holosmith is a DPS spec.Reaper is a bruiser spec.Scourge is a support spec.Druid is a support spec.Soulbeast is a bruiser spec.Daredevil is a bruiser spec.Deadeye is a DPS spec.

Accept it, Soulbeast is not supposed to adapt to anything and everything. The class is supposed to give you stat advantage to let you fight surrounded by enemies. But that does not mean the Soulbeast gets the tools to deal with any situation.

kharmin.7683 · March 5, 2020

@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:
@kharmin.7683 said:
@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:
Now with the option to pick only one pet, you tend to pick the best, this is because you cannot work with just a wolf or iboga.

"the best"? It depends what you want to do with it. There's no one best pet that does everything. And, again, THAT'S THE POINT OF THIS CHANGE.

As much as people want to harp about losing “versatility” and “playing with multiple different pets”, the reality is that people only used a small handful of pets in the first place. PvE dps builds had their dedicated pet (which you didn’t even want to merge out of), WvW almost always used smokescale and snow owl, Siamoth boonbeast build, etc. Even Druid, who still has their pet, only ever actually uses half a dozen of them.

That's fine, then. Make the necessary changes in those modes but leave it alone in open world where such things hardly matter.

Anet does not balance the game around open world

Agreed. If only they would split, though....

AlexndrTheGreat.8310 · March 5, 2020

@kharmin.7683 said:
@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:
@kharmin.7683 said:
@AlexndrTheGreat.8310 said:
Now with the option to pick only one pet, you tend to pick the best, this is because you cannot work with just a wolf or iboga.

"the best"? It depends what you want to do with it. There's no one best pet that does everything. And, again, THAT'S THE POINT OF THIS CHANGE.

As much as people want to harp about losing “versatility” and “playing with multiple different pets”, the reality is that people only used a small handful of pets in the first place. PvE dps builds had their dedicated pet (which you didn’t even want to merge out of), WvW almost always used smokescale and snow owl, Siamoth boonbeast build, etc. Even Druid, who still has their pet, only ever actually uses half a dozen of them.

That's fine, then. Make the necessary changes in those modes but leave it alone in open world where such things hardly matter.

Anet does not balance the game around open world

Agreed. If only they would split, though....

But there’s nothing to balance around. That would just be throwing extra work onto Anet. It’s still PvE so there’s no reason to make it it’s own game mode to balance around.

Tazer.2157 · March 5, 2020

@"Kodama.6453" said:
First: This text "rangers can adapt to any situation" means absolutely nothing. It is just fluff and flavour to make the class sound attractive to try out. Alot of classes have similar wordings.

Are you actually being serious? Fluff and flavor? Do you know how many pets are there in the original game. Each pet had different stats and different skills. The choice of pets gave the ranger more options than any other class.

Looking at the traits and the overall design, it seems that Soulbeast is intended to be a bruiser spec, giving the ranger some survivability while dealing damage.

Oh is it really? The soulbeast could be a bruiser if the boon pig was picked with the unflinching fortitude and the multiple boons plasma offered, a soulbeast could also be a very high dps if the smokescale was picked. Can the soulbeast be a bruiser if say a wolf is picked or a spider is picked as the pet? NO IT CANNOT! The way the soulbeast plays depends on the pet it merges with! Having the option to merge with 2 pets gave the soulbeast adaptability. It could do multiple things. That was the point of Anet giving the class merge skills. The soulbeast is an extension of the ranger's versatility after many were unhappy with the druid elite.

This is exactly what he is talking about, if you can have 2 pets so you have an answer for every situation you encounter (like your example with the owl and condi damage), then the choice has less impact overall. With 1 pet you have to decide which 1 thing you want to accomplish with it. And no, ranger is not supposed to adapt to any situation with their elite specs. Soulbeast is a bruiser elite spec, you can have one pet to merge with, so to support that playstyle it probably would be good to pick a pet that gives you both, offensive and defensive stats at the same time.

"Having 1 thing you want to accomplish it with". Do you know how boring that is? That is like giving us only one weapon and telling us "now you need to make a meaningful choice to have to select a weapon" when in reality it is not. With 2 weapons, your choices in combat increase, the game becomes FUN. It is the same with the pets. Any decision made must be made with the intent to improve the gameplay. Well the change to the pet swap did not improve the gameplay. It made it worse. Merge-unmerge-merge unmerge without any thought. Does this sound like fun and engaging gameplay to you?

Yes, Druid has more utility. It is a healing support class, these classes are defined by utility. What the Soulbeast gets is combat power through stat superiority, it makes sense that the Soulbeast has less utility, when it comes to a direct stat check, then Soulbeast will always win over Druid.

What "stat" superiority are you talking about here? No trait in the soulbeast talent line adds any additional stats to it. Right now we can do more with the druid than we can do with the soulbeast because the druid can use two pets instead of one and with pets skills doing 3-4k damage, the druid actually outputs out more dps than the soulbeast.

Reducing the pet stats or pet damage goes directly against what Soulbeast is supposed to do, being a bruiser. It gives you a stat advantage to deal damage in the middle of the enemy, the main tools to do that are the stats given from the pet. Reduce these and the whole concept falls apart. Meanwhile you don't need 2 pets to achieve this goal, you can just pick 1 pet that gives you the stats needed for that playstyle.

Like I said earlier there is no "meaningful" choice. If you can pick one pet, you will pick the better pets. The change did not alter the choice of pets taken in any way. You still see the gazette, the smokescale a lot more. I gave an example where I used to pick the wolf and the iboga because they COMPLIMENTED each other. With this change, we cannot pick pets that compliment each other, rather we need to pick pets that work independently. Is that more "meaningful" as Anet says lazily? No it is not more "meaningful". You talk about Anet adding flavor and fluff, but when Anet talks about"meaningful choices" you adhere to them religiously. Strange.

Accept it, Soulbeast is not supposed to adapt to anything and everything. The class is supposed to give you stat advantage to let you fight surrounded by enemies. But that does not mean the Soulbeast gets the tools to deal with any situation.

If you only played the soulbeast and had builds around the pet swap mechanic you will know how versatile the class was. You could be a healer with the owl , you could be a support pumping out boons like the herald, you could be a trapper with traps and skills like maul, a dps with the smoke assault and the frenzied attack. All this is gone. Again does this change improve the game or makes the game worse to play. In my opinion it is the latter.

AlexndrTheGreat.8310 · March 5, 2020

Yes, Druid has more utility. It is a healing support class, these classes are defined by utility. What the Soulbeast gets is combat power through stat superiority, it makes sense that the Soulbeast has less utility, when it comes to a direct stat check, then Soulbeast will always win over Druid.

What "stat" superiority are you talking about here? No trait in the soulbeast talent line adds any additional stats to it. Right now we can do more with the druid than we can do with the soulbeast because the druid can use two pets instead of one and with pets skills doing 3-4k damage, the druid actually outputs out more dps than the soulbeast.

This is straight up false. The stat superiority is because Soulbeast gets tons of base stats through both merging with their pet, and running traits and abilities that effect your pet (which consequently effect your character itself when you are merged). Stats gained on your character because the bonuses it gains from sigils, runes, and other character modifiers fall out scale the bonuses if they were given to your pet.

Unless your intentionally gimping yourself, or doing nothing but auto attacking, the Druid will never out damage soulbeast.

Reducing the pet stats or pet damage goes directly against what Soulbeast is supposed to do, being a bruiser. It gives you a stat advantage to deal damage in the middle of the enemy, the main tools to do that are the stats given from the pet. Reduce these and the whole concept falls apart. Meanwhile you don't need 2 pets to achieve this goal, you can just pick 1 pet that gives you the stats needed for that playstyle.

Like I said earlier there is no "meaningful" choice. If you can pick one pet, you will pick the better pets. The change did not alter the choice of pets taken in any way. You still see the gazette, the smokescale a lot more. I gave an example where I used to pick the wolf and the iboga because they COMPLIMENTED each other. With this change, we cannot pick pets that compliment each other, rather we need to pick pets that work independently. Is that more "meaningful" as Anet says lazily? No it is not more "meaningful". You talk about Anet adding flavor and fluff, but when Anet talks about"meaningful choices" you adhere to them religiously. Strange.

I think you have your logic backwards: you never picked the pets to compliment each other, you picked them to compliment your build. I don’t know why you’re throwing around the wolf-iboga combo. No one actually uses that.

PvE dps: pick the pet that benefits your damage type. Gazelle for power or lynx for condi

Druid: CC pets or sometimes fury generation because you need it for support in groups

WvW: Smokescale for fighting and snow owl for mobility

These pets weren’t picked because people thought “oh these two can fear and then do condi damage” they were picked because “my build needs ___ and this pet can give me it”.

Axl.8924 · March 5, 2020

Anyone else concerned that folks are calling for ranger nerfs to GS when sustain is already quite high now?

Alo anyone else finding it tough to take down reapers with current dmg 1v1 on reaper shroud?

Psycoprophet.8107 · March 5, 2020

@Axl.8924 said:Anyone else concerned that folks are calling for ranger nerfs to GS when sustain is already quite high now?
Alo anyone else finding it tough to take down reapers with current dmg 1v1 on reaper shroud?

There's always nerf cries in these forums regardless of class ur on so I wouldn't worry to much. Ranger gs already got a nerf/redesign depending on ur view and I doubt they'll nerf it more. I dont think ranger will see to many more nerfs exept for certain pet or pets. Anet does listen to really load qq's sometimes but they also seem to know some are not legitimate complaints and don't make requested changes. Hopefully ranger falls into that category. I trust that the devs know if they actually tried to make everyone happy then gw2 would have zero viable builds lol.

draxynnic.3719 · March 6, 2020

@Revolution.5409 said:
@draxynnic.3719 said:To be honest, I've always felt that soulbeast was already more restrictive when it comes to pet choices than regular ranger. Regular rangers just need to worry about the pet's own skills and characteristics - a soulbeast also needs to worry about how useful the pet skills are to the ranger when melded, and whether the pet is the right archetype to work with their build.
I guess there is the argument that previously you could afford to have one pet that was suboptimal for merging, on the assumption that it was the other pet you'd normally merge with.

No it's the same thing, Ranger as Slb adapts pets to his Build.Slb actively uses the skills it gets from merging with the pet, Ranger instead to maximize the damage is based on the skill used by the pet itself.

The distinction is that for ranger there's comparatively few items to optimise. The pet has its own attributes, so with core ranger, you can have a condition-oriented pet with a power ranger or vice versa. What you care about is pretty much whether the pet's F2 can be synergised with your own skills, and what balance of damage, survivability, support, and CC it offers.

With soulbeast, you have to care about so much more. The pet's family skills need to be something that's useful for your build. It also needs to have an archetype that augments your own build.

Consider the drake family, for instance. Family skills are a lifestealing bite, and an area attack that applies weakness and acts as a blast finisher. So the primary means of synergising with your own build is making use of that blast finisher, and maybe it's a consideration for you that the drake is probably better at fighting multiple opponents than single opponents and is fairly middle-of-the-line between offense and survivability. Choice of precisely which drake you choose is pretty much a matter of preference.

Now, let's say you were considering a drake pet with a soulbeast. Chomp and Tail Swipe are power-based skills, so right away we can rule out the condition-based Deadly option. If you want to be a healer you'd probably want a different pet, so the Supportive Marsh Drake is out. You could possibly manage to get something to work with the Versatile Reef Drake, if you're bringing a lot of buffs on your own bar and don't mind if your pet isn't adding anything to that... but most likely, you're looking at the Ferocious River Drake, or maybe the Stout Ice Drake.

Perform the same analysis across all the families, and you're probably going to end up with quite a few pets that just aren't practical for a soulbeast. Now, there were definitely some pets that were better than others with core ranger and druid as well, but soulbeast creates a bigger divide between good pets and mediocre ones and narrows the range of options - particularly once you've already committed to a particular build on the soulbeast itself.

Revolution.5409 · March 6, 2020

@draxynnic.3719 said:
@Revolution.5409 said:
@draxynnic.3719 said:To be honest, I've always felt that soulbeast was already more restrictive when it comes to pet choices than regular ranger. Regular rangers just need to worry about the pet's own skills and characteristics - a soulbeast also needs to worry about how useful the pet skills are to the ranger when melded, and whether the pet is the right archetype to work with their build.
I guess there is the argument that previously you could afford to have one pet that was suboptimal for merging, on the assumption that it was the other pet you'd normally merge with.

No it's the same thing, Ranger as Slb adapts pets to his Build.Slb actively uses the skills it gets from merging with the pet, Ranger instead to maximize the damage is based on the skill used by the pet itself.

The distinction is that for ranger there's comparatively few items to optimise. The pet has its own attributes, so with core ranger, you can have a condition-oriented pet with a power ranger or vice versa. What you care about is pretty much whether the pet's F2 can be synergised with your own skills, and what balance of damage, survivability, support, and CC it offers.

With soulbeast, you have to care about so much more. The pet's family skills need to be something that's useful for your build. It also needs to have an archetype that augments your own build.

Consider the drake family, for instance. Family skills are a lifestealing bite, and an area attack that applies weakness and acts as a blast finisher. So the primary means of synergising with your own build is making use of that blast finisher, and maybe it's a consideration for you that the drake is probably better at fighting multiple opponents than single opponents and is fairly middle-of-the-line between offense and survivability. Choice of precisely which drake you choose is pretty much a matter of preference.

Now, let's say you were considering a drake pet with a soulbeast. Chomp and Tail Swipe are power-based skills, so right away we can rule out the condition-based Deadly option. If you want to be a healer you'd probably want a different pet, so the Supportive Marsh Drake is out. You could possibly manage to get something to work with the Versatile Reef Drake, if you're bringing a lot of buffs on your own bar and don't mind if your pet isn't adding anything to that... but most likely, you're looking at the Ferocious River Drake, or maybe the Stout Ice Drake.

Perform the same analysis across all the families, and you're probably going to end up with quite a few pets that just aren't practical for a soulbeast. Now, there were definitely some pets that were better than others with core ranger and druid as well, but soulbeast creates a bigger divide between good pets and mediocre ones and narrows the range of options - particularly once you've already committed to a particular build on the soulbeast itself.

You can not synergize thinking only of f2, pets also share the traits of Ranger.If you use a Condi build and take the Hidden Barbs trait this will also affect the bleeding damage of the pet, this means that if your intent is to maximize the damage of a Build you will never use a power pet on a Build Condi.

Eurantien.4632 · March 6, 2020

@Revolution.5409 said:
@draxynnic.3719 said:
@Revolution.5409 said:
@draxynnic.3719 said:To be honest, I've always felt that soulbeast was already more restrictive when it comes to pet choices than regular ranger. Regular rangers just need to worry about the pet's own skills and characteristics - a soulbeast also needs to worry about how useful the pet skills are to the ranger when melded, and whether the pet is the right archetype to work with their build.
I guess there is the argument that previously you could afford to have one pet that was suboptimal for merging, on the assumption that it was the other pet you'd normally merge with.

No it's the same thing, Ranger as Slb adapts pets to his Build.Slb actively uses the skills it gets from merging with the pet, Ranger instead to maximize the damage is based on the skill used by the pet itself.

The distinction is that for ranger there's comparatively few items to optimise. The pet has its own attributes, so with core ranger, you can have a condition-oriented pet with a power ranger or vice versa. What you care about is pretty much whether the pet's F2 can be synergised with your own skills, and what balance of damage, survivability, support, and CC it offers.

With soulbeast, you have to care about so much more. The pet's family skills need to be something that's useful for your build. It also needs to have an archetype that augments your own build.

Consider the drake family, for instance. Family skills are a lifestealing bite, and an area attack that applies weakness and acts as a blast finisher. So the primary means of synergising with your own build is making use of that blast finisher, and maybe it's a consideration for you that the drake is probably better at fighting multiple opponents than single opponents and is fairly middle-of-the-line between offense and survivability. Choice of precisely which drake you choose is pretty much a matter of preference.

Now, let's say you were considering a drake pet with a soulbeast. Chomp and Tail Swipe are power-based skills, so right away we can rule out the condition-based Deadly option. If you want to be a healer you'd probably want a different pet, so the Supportive Marsh Drake is out. You could possibly manage to get something to work with the Versatile Reef Drake, if you're bringing a lot of buffs on your own bar and don't mind if your pet isn't adding anything to that... but most likely, you're looking at the Ferocious River Drake, or maybe the Stout Ice Drake.

Perform the same analysis across all the families, and you're probably going to end up with quite a few pets that just aren't practical for a soulbeast. Now, there were definitely some pets that were better than others with core ranger and druid as well, but soulbeast creates a bigger divide between good pets and mediocre ones and narrows the range of options - particularly once you've already committed to a particular build on the soulbeast itself.

You can not synergize thinking only of f2, pets also share the traits of Ranger.If you use a Condi build and take the Hidden Barbs trait this will also affect the bleeding damage of the pet, this means that if your intent is to maximize the damage of a Build you will never use a power pet on a Build Condi.

Except traits that affect the ranger dont affect the pet. Despite expertise and what not on ranger adjusting the pets tooltip... and traits like hidden barbs seeming like they should work with pets. They dont actually change the pets applied condis at all

Your argument is better served the other way around. Stats in beastmastery help power pets more than condi ones. Some marksmanship traits help power pets too.

If anyone is using a condi pet besides iboga (or maybe bristleback)... they're dumb

Revolution.5409 · March 6, 2020

@Eurantien.4632 said:
@Revolution.5409 said:
@draxynnic.3719 said:
@Revolution.5409 said:
@draxynnic.3719 said:To be honest, I've always felt that soulbeast was already more restrictive when it comes to pet choices than regular ranger. Regular rangers just need to worry about the pet's own skills and characteristics - a soulbeast also needs to worry about how useful the pet skills are to the ranger when melded, and whether the pet is the right archetype to work with their build.
I guess there is the argument that previously you could afford to have one pet that was suboptimal for merging, on the assumption that it was the other pet you'd normally merge with.