Help me improve my build (PvE open world)

[leasm.1279]

I tried a few builds for my Soulbeast, and so far I came to this:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRBHfhG2JlKQ3KYJvgNLALvYxQwYCAjuTXe1t7Geb6ABrqWJOfO-jxRGQBaQ/QJ2fwEq/gmTCgtU+BgnAAHVCCA-e

Axe+Torch is a blast. I love this setup. Then I started trying Shorbow, and yet it's safe to stay at range I noticed the playstyle is not for me. Then it took some time for me to decide for Dagger+Warhorn.

I wanted to like Dagger, but I needed survivability to be able to use it, so I took Predator's Cunning to allow poison to drain life. Then my utilities are pretty self-explanatory to complement this trait: Viper's Nest and Vulture Stance. The basic playstyle is to stay at range until Vulture Stance is off cooldown, then engage with Dagger plus Hunter's Call from Warhorn to be able to stay at melee.

Still trying some things, such as Beastmastery instead of Wilderness Survival (mainly because of Honed Axes). Also want to eventually get rid of all my Rampager armor (switching to Viper), but for now I don't have money. Also undecided for the heal skill: too many good ones.

So, I'd like suggestions to improve my build for open world PvE.Any ideas?

[Professor Sprout.1560]

If you're using Leader of the Pack and not using Nature Magic you may be better off using Bear Stance instead of the healing shout; I question whether this build has enough sustained condition clear with just the sigils and Jacaranda, what with the condition spam of some of the newer monsters. I'd also recommend Quickdraw over Vicious Quarry as it will let you execute your combos more often.

Obviously the duration of your conditions is pretty low, especially poison which will hurt the damage of your dagger/vulture stance/trap quite a bit - in the absence of any armour/trinket changes you could consider swapping out one of your sigils for Malice/Venom, or your runes for 4Nightmare2Trapper. If you're willing to change the trinkets at least by grinding LWS3 maps you could swap those for a mix of Viper & Trailblazer - your defences will be approximately the same (with Carrion you'll have more hit points, with Trailblazer you'll have more toughness) and you'll be able to cap your condition duration once you have ascended Viper's armour and weapons.

What race are you? If asura, consider running Raditation Field instead of your poison trap - not only is it more stylish but it's actually a stronger skill, with more pulses of damage, great range, a longer-lasting poison field and the extra utility of inflicting weakness.

I've put these suggestions in a build so you can compare with what you posted and see if you like the look of them.

[ITheNormalPerson.9275]

I'm going to assume you don't want to change your build too much (I.E. you want to use the same weapons/traitlines, just minor iterations)

• You're already running a decent chunk of boons and stuff. that's good! boons are really important. However, you're missing a huge advantage of soulbeast, and that's moa stance. Moa stance is unbelievably powerful for keeping a ton of boons, and ranger is already great at stacking them. A simple combo like [Moa stance -> Vulture Stance -> F3 -> We Heal As One (It does benefit from moa stance the last I checked) -> dagger 3 twice] Will give you a bunch of quickness, 25 might extremely quickly, and a ton of fury and swiftness. On top of that, you also use warhorn, and both skills on that synergize really well with your boon stacking skills like vulture stance. (And speaking of, since it's worth mentioning. WHaO is a really great heal skill. It has a higher base heal than bear stance, gives you a lot of boons (I.E. it will give you bonus protection, which fun-fact, turns into more healing due to wilderness survival), and a lower cooldown than bear stance. it synergizes REALLY well with moa stance as well.)

• I know you probably don't want to waste much money on gear, but it's worth mentioning that rabid armor is both cheap, and pretty much objectively stronger than rampagers. Even when it comes to DPS, they're pretty even (rabid might even come out on top, I haven't checked since the balance patch), and rabid has toughness, which may give you a bit more sturdiness, which you mentioned you lack.

• I agree with the post above in that you definitely want to compensate a bit for the lowered condi duration. Given that it's open world, trying to hit 100% in 3 different condis is a bit silly and unoptimal. And since bleeding will definitely be your highest damaging condi by a large margin, I'd recommend taking Agony sigils over generosity. They're cheap, and will be a large boost to your damage. Strength sigils however, are pretty great, especially if you run moa stance. If you need extra condi removal, don't be afraid to take wilderness knowledge over poison mastery. The loss is actually fairly minimal due to the lowered CD on sharpening stone, and you get a bit of extra fury uptime (not that you'd need it)

• I'd recommend omitting A/T for shortbow, but I'm sure you don't want to and it's totally fine to run it! I just find that SB is a better ranged weapon and gives you a bit more utility.

Good hunting! And could I just say, I totally dig open world oriented theory-crafting. It's 100% my jam and has been basically all I've done since I've gotten my hands on soulbeast.

[leasm.1279]

Man, I've always been a big fan of traps, since the time you could toss them, but I already dropped Flame Trap for Vulture Stance. And now you guys are asking me to drop Poison Trap for Moa Stance? LOL ?

But I'll give it a try. I agree stances are so powerful currently.

Only issue is I feel I'm losing too much AoE damage comparing to my last builds - I used to play with Honed Axe to bring AoE to axe, plus two traps. Now with Wilderness Survival and stances instead, my sources of AoE are petty few. And AoE is too important to open world.

Edit: I dropped Sharpening Stone instead, yet it was my best dps utility. But now with both stances plus Poison Trap I feel toughter. Poison drain plus protection uptime (which also heals) feels great. Also got Empathic Bond to help with conditions (yet it seems to do nothing while merged). In fact Soulbeast is giving me a good headache, due to too many good options. I only miss my Axe 3 dealing damage in area. Hope they make this baseline.

[Seteruss.4058]

It is silly to use dagger offhand, but the extra poison and the evade at same dagger 4, may save your life.I equipped it once just for fun and really can stay in melee range way more often while evading attacks.Not optimal at all but do the job.

[leasm.1279]

Thanks for all suggestions. I have updated my build:http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRBHfhG2JlKQJvYHvg3KAVLYxQwYCAjuGQ+1t7Geb2ABrWQJifO-jxRAQBhU5XQU/JQ7PghnAwNVCCgTCgM0PAA-e

• Got Carrion armor now, plus Viper trinkets. Seems a great mix. Satisfied with my stats now.
• I noticed runes of Mad King are as good as Krait, with that extra huge effect that combos way too well with Vulture Stance.
• I was having issues with defiance bars, so I got Soften the Fall, which (weird enough) seems amazing to break bars.
• Switched to Entangle, since it seems to be as good as One Wolf Pack for damage, but with added defense.
• Got Wilderness Knowledge to have more condi clear. Also drops Soften the Fall cd to match my heal, and drops Entangle cd to match Mad King effect.

[Peacock.6412]

I run A+T/D+T and have found BM line invaluable. If you were to take a Drake pet, you would have an on demand blast finisher every 15 seconds when merged to apply to bonfire, and could swap the warhorn out for more roasty torch goodness! Plus, dagger 3 on top of bonfire also gives you fireshield for more toasty burn goodness. I tend to use resounding timbre (16 second CD on WHaO + regen and swiftness, tho you could also go potent ally for additional stacks of might), Natural Healing (nice regen per tick), and Honed Axes which is going to make your axe far more effective both in terms of CD and the Winter's Bite AOE. There are other perks to being merged with pet in the Beastmastery line as well (some stat increase and 25% movement speed buff). Also? You might want to consider swapping soften the fall for Taste for Danger, not only do you gain 1200 HP, but you also gain additional expertise which in turn is going to up your condition duration, and therefor damage as well.

I think we both gun for something similar playstyle wise, but go very different routes to get there :D

ETA: Have never posted up a build before.. but why not? No, it's not optimal by most people's standards, but for me? It works pretty perfectly (IE: I can stay alive). I need the massive tankiness since I have to wear clunky wrist braces thanks to rheumatoid arthritis which makes my reaction times terrible lol! Also? I take spring rolls for food (which effects concentration stat), but could not find it on the food list, boon duration stat reflects lower due to this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNMQRAnf4fjUqQNL2yCesAVLWKEs8r73t8+0FiWBgmPww6Fcy5GRE-jRSAQBhUpXEV/Ra6CkpSw/t/Qh0KAgnAQAOJAiUZgoguK-e