New player Looking for some pointers

[kod.8943]

Hi All,

I'm a wow refugee who bought this game when it came out and decided to give it another go today. I've been doing research on what class( profession?) I want to play and soulbeast really spoke to me. So here are my questions:

How fun is soulbeast to play? Do you guys like it or find the rotation boring?Is it viable at endgame PVE/PVP? (I'm interested in doing both)Easy or Hard to master?Is there any tidbit of information I really need to know about this class?Thanks for the help!

[voltaicbore.8012]

I greatly enjoy soulbeast, as it finally allows my weapon damage to be competitive with other power-based builds for other classes. Not going to address the rotation/boring question, as there's more than one way to play soulbeast and I don't feel like talking about them here.

Definitely viable in both pvp and pve at endgame. I assume by 'endgame' for pvp, you're asking about how well it performs in ranked. I haven't checked the top tiers this season, but if you have a modest amount of skill plat 1 should be very attainable, and plat 2 if you add things like queue discipline (knowing when to spam matches or stop queuing) and team composition. I always found it impossible to maintain plat 2 on my glass cannon soulbeast build, but that likely has more to do with my other pvp skills rather than the class itself.

The only other objectively answerable question you have left is ease of mastery. I'd put soulbeast down as one of the easiest classes to master, it's one of the easiest classes for me in pve to reach the performance benchmarks set by the kinds of people who do that sort of thing.

More than anything else though, I highly recommend you learn ranger from the ground up, as well as re-acquaint yourself with the mastery system and other game-wide mechanics. I'm not sure how far you got in GW2 before leaving it, but chances are there are plenty of non-class-specific aspects of the game that you would really benefit from learning.

[Durzlla.6295]

Soulbeast is an extremely solid elite spec in every game mode, and it’s very fun to play.

I personally find the best rotation a SB can do in PvE very boring, but that’s because you tend to just camp Soulbeast mode. In PvP and WvW however it’s way more fun (to me) because you’re constantly going between soul beast mode and normal mode, which just feels way cooler and more dynamic than camping one or the other.

That being said, Soulbeast is very good in PvE and should be able to be both power and Condi, as well as fulfill some very crucial, but niche, roles like hand kiter.

I’d say it’s about easy-medium difficulty to master.

A good starting point for builds would be metabattle.com it should have solid builds for PvE and PvP that’ll be on the easier end to play and do well.

I would 100% play core ranger first and get used to it first and then slot in Soulbeast though, would make it easier to then grow and be a better than average Soulbeast by being able to then understand what traits will work well/not work well with it etc.

[kod.8943]

Right now im level 80 and it seems I need to unlock beast mode through hero points. I assume I have to do this in the path of fire area and play through the story?

[jcbroe.4329]

@"kod.8943" said:Right now im level 80 and it seems I need to unlock beast mode through hero points. I assume I have to do this in the path of fire area and play through the story?

There are skill points around the map that will require you to do various tasks (beat some sort of enemy, channel at a point of power, etc) on the PoF maps.

Each one on a PoF map = 10 points in the UI and you'll need 250 total to unlock the full elite spec.

You also won't have full access to the pet roster in PvE or WvW right away. The pets will require you to walk up to Juvenile NPCs on PvE maps and "capture" (you just walk up and press F) them.

Here is the core build recommended for Soloing on Metabattle, but it is a little glassy/squishy. It has good information though and getting used to the feel of Core first will help on the way to Soulbeast: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Longbow_Beastmastery

Here is a list of pet locations. Note that every optimal build uses the same handful of pets and make those your top priority: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_pet_locations

[EnderzShadow.2506]

You can play all specs in PvP and have access to all pets without having to unlock anything like you would for pve/wvw.

[CETheLucid.3964]

@kod.8943 said:How fun is soulbeast to play? Do you guys like it or find the rotation boring?A lot of fun, melee and long-range weps have great synergy and it feels satisfying to play. I don't get that from most other classes.Is it viable at endgame PVE/PVP? (I'm interested in doing both)Yes. Different builds for different things but the class has a place in both.Easy or Hard to master?Easy to learn, hard to master.Is there any tidbit of information I really need to know about this class?Don't merge and forget your pet. Work around your pets attacks and merge up to combo multiple CC/big damage moves. Conversely sometimes it's better to stay merged and sometimes it's better to stay unmerged. Your merge counts as a free pet revive in the instance that your pet is downed, without swap penalty. Use that to your advantage.Thanks for the help!No problem.

[kod.8943]

I've put 30 hero points into soulbeast but I can't seem to find the button to merge with my pet...do I have to unlock the whole profession before I have the ability to meld with my pet?

[Skotlex.7580]

@kod.8943 said:I've put 30 hero points into soulbeast but I can't seem to find the button to merge with my pet...do I have to unlock the whole profession before I have the ability to meld with my pet?

Open the hero panel, look at where you set your three specializations (wilderness survival, skirmishing, etc) and change the last line for soulbeast. Now you can merge.

I'd wait until you have a bit more of the traits unlocked so it won't feel like you are running around with an incomplete build. :)