The Masses self nerfed Soulbeast

[Mell.4873]

Now that most of player base has learned of the one shotting Soulbeast build we really see how inaffective it really is. 

I can't count how many times a roaming Soulbeast has attempted to duel me only for me to turn around and one shot them. I would even go so far as to say it's even easier to down that any other iterations of Soulbeast. Longbow Soulbeast atleast attempts to avoid damage while this full Greatsword plus Sword combo is a joke. They either run in and die or pray they on shot you. 

Half the players I duel don't even know that you can still CC with your pet once you are downed. Honestly this whole thing is just a joke at this point, this is nothing like the Elementalist reign.

[Eddie.9143]

Doubt you're running into good players and having that feeling. Good ones can play defensively on it, run with the insane mobility, stealth to reset, etc. The build just does wayyy too much damage, it's goofy

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Running into soulbeast players that cant use the build doesn't mean it is balanced. 

[magickthief.6492]

anyways, nerf thief

[Mell.4873]

5 hours ago, Eddie.9143 said:

Doubt you're running into good players and having that feeling. Good ones can play defensively on it, run with the insane mobility, stealth to reset, etc. The build just does wayyy too much damage, it's goofy

Very true most people have no clue what they are doing so they are just easy kills. To many Soulbeast on the enemy team is just an I Win button at this point. 

[Mell.4873]

4 hours ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Running into soulbeast players that cant use the build doesn't mean it is balanced. 

True, its more the effect we saw with Elementalist isn't being repeated with Soulbeast. Even if it is easy to learn it's really hard to master. 

I mean this is true for most one-shot builds. Scrapper for the longest time was one-shotting players but no one complained since it was the top PvP players that could pull it off, untill they nerfed Scrapper quickness. 

[Xhieron.2168]

8 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

... I can't count how many times a roaming Soulbeast has attempted to duel me only for me to turn around and one shot them. ...

I know, right? How about those Soulbeast one-shot builds getting one-shotted by ... what is it you're playing?

Right.

The problem isn't the current Soulbeast iteration. It's a problem, but it's a problem that exists in the same milieu as the Trapper version whatever-the-hell Dragonhunters, permission-zerkers, etc. You can kill it with the nerf hammer, but you really need to kill a half-dozen other builds too.

Soulbeast is just a symptom of the meta. And the meta, at least down in the trenches, is rocket tag. If you can't kill the other guy in three seconds, either by outright 100-0ing them or stacking 30 conditions, you lose because they're going to do that to you first. None of these builds are hard to use, and that's part of the reason they're popular. I am absolute dogshit at PVP and I can do a middling job on these builds. As it turns out, it's super easy to just faceroll whenever the conditions are right for it, either because you landed a CC (or dragged them into your trap nest) or used any of your spare gap-closers after they're out of dodges. Step 1. Setup. Step 2. Push all your buttons. It's not a sophisticated process.

The actual problem is that damage across the board is just too high across an unacceptable number of builds. Nobody likes Bunkertime, and the current builds have the exact same problem with counterplay as a bunker meta: There isn't any. With bunkers it's just whoever stands on the point first wins. With these builds, it's whoever lands the first rocket wins.  Neither is fun because both metas only test for one skill, and that means skill expression is almost always overshadowed by chance. A little more durability isn't the worst idea. No one should be getting one-shotted by anything. If your answer to the Soulbeast problem is playing something else to one-shot the "ineffective" ones first, you're part of the problem too.

Edited September 3, 2023 by Xhieron.2168

[Mell.4873]

3 hours ago, Xhieron.2168 said:

I know, right? How about those Soulbeast one-shot builds getting one-shotted by ... what is it you're playing?

Right.

The problem isn't the current Soulbeast iteration. It's a problem, but it's a problem that exists in the same milieu as the Trapper version whatever-the-hell Dragonhunters, permission-zerkers, etc. You can kill it with the nerf hammer, but you really need to kill a half-dozen other builds too.

Soulbeast is just a symptom of the meta. And the meta, at least down in the trenches, is rocket tag. If you can't kill the other guy in three seconds, either by outright 100-0ing them or stacking 30 conditions, you lose because they're going to do that to you first. None of these builds are hard to use, and that's part of the reason they're popular. I am absolute dogshit at PVP and I can do a middling job on these builds. As it turns out, it's super easy to just faceroll whenever the conditions are right for it, either because you landed a CC (or dragged them into your trap nest) or used any of your spare gap-closers after they're out of dodges. Step 1. Setup. Step 2. Push all your buttons. It's not a sophisticated process.

The actual problem is that damage across the board is just too high across an unacceptable number of builds. Nobody likes Bunkertime, and the current builds have the exact same problem with counterplay as a bunker meta: There isn't any. With bunkers it's just whoever stands on the point first wins. With these builds, it's whoever lands the first rocket wins.  Neither is fun because both metas only test for one skill, and that means skill expression is almost always overshadowed by chance. A little more durability isn't the worst idea. No one should be getting one-shotted by anything. If your answer to the Soulbeast problem is playing something else to one-shot the "ineffective" ones first, you're part of the problem too.

My current build is a duel Axe Ambush Untamed. The Ambush isn't to much damage but I can use it one after the other so it can kill squishy builds really well

I agree this is the current meta hense why I changed. 

[Itz Jay.8941]

11 hours ago, Eddie.9143 said:

Doubt you're running into good players and having that feeling. Good ones can play defensively on it, run with the insane mobility, stealth to reset, etc. The build just does wayyy too much damage, it's goofy

The reason people want to play carry builds is because the game is very much about chance, it's not organised 5 vs 5, it's duo/solo q. So you are taking into account if you play, either 3 or 4 of the players on your team might not be that great. If you play support, you don't really have a chance if those team mates go down within 10 seconds, which is quite common on the first fight at middle, and can decide the entire game. So you got to take something in a duo which is a fast play maker to make sure you still have some presence if your team goes down.

Soulbeast can be fun in this situation because of your access to stealth, very good mobility, lots of gap closers, lots of CC, high melee burst damage, stun breaks good, lots of evasion frames, it's a very versatile tool-kit. So you can +1, you can peel, you can chase, you can disengage, you can decap, 1v1 is possible, team fight is possible, area stealth, it's got loads of value. It plays very much like a ninja, get in, get out, repeat, d/p is like an assassin in comparison.

It's a button masher and when you start facing better players you can see the potential in clutch situations, you have the ability to pull of insane escapes and re-engage quickly. While fairly simple in terms of understanding your build, you can very much go from zero to try full try hard mode and even feel like you pushed past full try hard mode sometimes, mastering it is very rewarding, this in combination with its versatile tool-kit is what makes it so popular I think. One thing you don't have is a strict rotation so this is something to be aware of when using or fighting the build, it's about timing so having your wits about you as opposed to doing everything right in your rotation, quite often you can change your rotation to keep them guessing, you can go ham or bait them out.

Although I'm no pro I do think burst damage is insane across the board now, this is a really exacerbated by the fact you have low population, poor matchmaking and such a wide gap between skill and experience. This means that while one person doesn't ever get hit by maul for 10-12k because they don't stand in melee range of a SLB, the theif or somebody who's being hit for 12k from stealth is banging his head on the keyboard stealthing every 2 seconds and running round with 4k hp decapping the entire game. It's just silly that it can stack the birds from 1200 range with a 12k instant melee hit from stealth. That being said I don't think it's more overpowered than some other options for solo q, I multi class and don't seem to push any higher on anything on particular unless I duo, but I don't think you can these days, the gameplay is too fast-paced and bursty for there to feel much difference in ratings

[Flumek.9043]

I dont think its a "learned" to play issue. To me it feels like a:

"theres 2-3x Rangers on every team.....

hmm....

maybe instead of a balanced build I can hard gamble and pick 3x defensive power utilites....which means I maybe live the burst combo but instadie to condies....

hmm....

PROFIT! "  🙂

[Flowki.7194]

11 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Very true most people have no clue what they are doing so they are just easy kills. To many Soulbeast on the enemy team is just an I Win button at this point. 

This simply isnt true for a very good reason.

 

Any player with just a shred of know how can pull off this easy chain; Sick em (also handy target reveal) > one with wolf >Hunters call+smoke assasin then straight into serpent strike. It is not hard, and it will outright delete most burst specs unless they double dodge or block/immune. The soulbeast is nion immune during this ''opener''. Multiple soulbeasts spaming this kind of low skill burst will get kills far easier than any other spec stack I can currently think of. Seriously, even bad condi catas were not that much of a threat because they only stacked fire, meaning it was VERY easy to clense the dmg of multiple bad condi catas.

 

Hunters call+smoke assasin is a very toxic low effort high reward combo, blowing vital utility while the soulbeast still has ALL of its sustain, dodges and CC left after the fact. Its a free shot at ''1 shotting'' somebody in lower elo, nothing major lost if it fails.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Mell.4873]

6 hours ago, Flowki.7194 said:

This simply isnt true for a very good reason.

 

Any player with just a shred of know how can pull off this easy chain; Sick em (also handy target reveal) > one with wolf >Hunters call+smoke assasin then straight into serpent strike. It is not hard, and it will outright delete most burst specs unless they double dodge or block/immune. The soulbeast is nion immune during this ''opener''. Multiple soulbeasts spaming this kind of low skill burst will get kills far easier than any other spec stack I can currently think of. Seriously, even bad condi catas were not that much of a threat because they only stacked fire, meaning it was VERY easy to clense the dmg of multiple bad condi catas.

 

Hunters call+smoke assasin is a very toxic low effort high reward combo, blowing vital utility while the soulbeast still has ALL of its sustain, dodges and CC left after the fact. Its a free shot at ''1 shotting'' somebody in lower elo, nothing major lost if it fails.

 

 

Again I understand the combo and why it is so strong. I mean it was around before the sword changes and this Meta one-shot Build. You know the reason why it's not very strong when played by the Masses. Soulbeast just like in PvE is extremely squishy, unless you are a PvP God no one not even me can play it competently. 

The Learn to Play issue here is not other players but the Soulbeast itself. Builds like this have existed forever I mean I did mention Scrapper. How long did Scrapper have Quickness in PvP, it took a Rifle buff for Arena Net to Nerf that loophole. 

Soulbeast has always had the bird combo but you were dead with no counter play if you didn't kill your opponent. 

[Flowki.7194]

24 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

Again I understand the combo and why it is so strong. I mean it was around before the sword changes and this Meta one-shot Build. You know the reason why it's not very strong when played by the Masses. Soulbeast just like in PvE is extremely squishy, unless you are a PvP God no one not even me can play it competently. 

The Learn to Play issue here is not other players but the Soulbeast itself. Builds like this have existed forever I mean I did mention Scrapper. How long did Scrapper have Quickness in PvP, it took a Rifle buff for Arena Net to Nerf that loophole. 

Soulbeast has always had the bird combo but you were dead with no counter play if you didn't kill your opponent. 

 

Regardless of the past, things are what they are now. Just a simple chain of abilities from SB that I highlighted will kill a fair few specs, and to not die to it requires a lot more game knowledge and counter than to do it.

 

I also play with the bird instead of pig. The chain I highlighted is easily followed up with some 2hander double maul+dolyak stability, then block > and escape with double swoop+protect me, if you don't get the kill = 2200 units. The bird then has a heal+swiftness+speed relic, swap back to horn/smokescale (which can add more escape with stealth/serpent strike if needed) and its basically a reset. Im not saying its as good as the meta build, but its far lower risk to just keep jumping in +1 style, then getting out. Again, you take next to no dmg thnx to the evades, while dishing out a lot of easy dmg. Scrapper actaully felt harder becuse you atleast had to aim nades.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Flowki.7194 said:

 

Regardless of the past, things are what they are now. Just a simple chain of abilities from SB that I highlighted will kill a fair few specs, and to not die to it requires a lot more game knowledge and counter than to do it.

 

I also play with the bird instead of pig. The chain I highlighted is easily followed up with some 2hander double maul+dolyak stability, then block > and escape with double swoop+protect me, if you don't get the kill = 2200 units. The bird then has a heal+swiftness+speed relic, swap back to horn/smokescale (which can add more escape with stealth/serpent strike if needed) and its basically a reset. Im not saying its as good as the meta build, but its far lower risk to just keep jumping in +1 style, then getting out. Again, you take next to no dmg thnx to the evades, while dishing out a lot of easy dmg. Scrapper actaully felt harder becuse you atleast had to aim nades.

It's still extremely squishy with a simple combo. Post that you die which is why we are seeing Support/Brawler builds making a comeback. They just survive the initial burst then murder the Soulbeast.

[Sweetbread.3678]

Oh my god. How is this moron still here defending a bunch of clearly overlooked PvE coefficients that slipped into PvP and a completely busted One Wolf Pack that has 1/4th the internal cooldown of it's PvE version? There is absolutely no defense of this. Like the only actual argument they seem to have is "I'm so utterly incompetent that even this completely busted, faceroll, cheesefest seems complicated to me so therefore it must be balanced." Just stop and have some dignity. It is just so beyond pathetic at this point how desperate you are to keep your gigantic handicap and it really, really shows.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

5 hours ago, Sweetbread.3678 said:

It is just so beyond pathetic at this point how desperate you are to keep your gigantic handicap and it really, really shows.

Calm down strawman.  

What you aren't realizing is that burst ranger IS the handicap for any team it's on.  In the past week all the way up into high gold I see teams stacking 2 rangers, both burst soulbeast rangers---and they just melt to condis lol.  These matches aren't close, they are like 150-500 in favor of the team without the burst rangers on it.

Also, OWP works nothing like its PvE version--unless you want them to bring PvE MH axe to sPVP and I really, really don't think you want that.  They balance different modes differently, so before raging at posters and calling them 'morons' you may want to do some research as to why things are the way they are.

6 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

It's still extremely squishy with a simple combo. Post that you die which is why we are seeing Support/Brawler builds making a comeback. They just survive the initial burst then murder the Soulbeast.

Agree; which is why anet really needs to rebalance ranger as a whole and stop pigeonholing competitive to these one-shot builds. 

Problem is, they can't because it would require fixing pets and they have openly admitted over the years that is impossible for them.  So, they need to balance around Soulbeast, and we will always see burst from that due to the way might stacking and modifiers work when you merge.

[Mell.4873]

9 hours ago, Sweetbread.3678 said:

Oh my god. How is this moron still here defending a bunch of clearly overlooked PvE coefficients that slipped into PvP and a completely busted One Wolf Pack that has 1/4th the internal cooldown of it's PvE version? There is absolutely no defense of this. Like the only actual argument they seem to have is "I'm so utterly incompetent that even this completely busted, faceroll, cheesefest seems complicated to me so therefore it must be balanced." Just stop and have some dignity. It is just so beyond pathetic at this point how desperate you are to keep your gigantic handicap and it really, really shows.

I never said they shouldn't nerf anything. I'm just saying to most people playing Soulbeast is useless. 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Flowki.7194]

13 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

It's still extremely squishy with a simple combo. Post that you die which is why we are seeing Support/Brawler builds making a comeback. They just survive the initial burst then murder the Soulbeast.

Support builds have and probably will always be around 5% of representation, most tempests now are dps or some hybrid spec, becuase staff and pure support (on agurd and rev, which are both very good) are completely redundent if the enemy teams dps outskills yours. Only matchmaking cap will fix that, as dps skill will be more equal, meaning supports could carry based on their plays. The only reason I can see a rise in gaurdian support is A: tempest got nerfed hard in terms of alternate specs and fun, and B: Core gaurd is quite easy, and can face tank a hell of alot more dmg than tempest for avg skill levels. I don't think supports have risen, and even if, I don't think its becuase of soulbeast. Their is a lot of burst going around, and since support is so unpoplular, its not really a suprise to see some more tanky sustain dps.. its either that or play a burst spec yourself.

 

Occasionally it lines up horribly. You get a decent enemey support tempest, SB and chrono. Lights out. Ive dropped so many tanky specs on 2x chrono burst, and im starting to do the same on SB, so if you primary one burst spec, you leave the other to do its thing.

 

I had a game not long ago on SB as an example. Ive only played it for a few days so im not great at it. The enemy teams 3 best players, tempest/gaurd/weaver hard focused me all game, and I still manedged to do 20% team damage. Chrono in that situation would be having an absolute field day free casting all game.

 

Basically, you can't convince me SB is fine.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Flowki.7194

[Bazsi.2734]

Ranger

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

17 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Again I understand the combo and why it is so strong. I mean it was around before the sword changes and this Meta one-shot Build. You know the reason why it's not very strong when played by the Masses. Soulbeast just like in PvE is extremely squishy, unless you are a PvP God no one not even me can play it competently. 

The Learn to Play issue here is not other players but the Soulbeast itself. Builds like this have existed forever I mean I did mention Scrapper. How long did Scrapper have Quickness in PvP, it took a Rifle buff for Arena Net to Nerf that loophole. 

Soulbeast has always had the bird combo but you were dead with no counter play if you didn't kill your opponent. 

No, it hits harder now with Striders Strength. It was strong before, but now you also have passive +240 power dmg bonus, more might stacks, and a way better mainhand weapon. It just wasn't the same before the sword changes. 

Edited September 4, 2023 by WhoWantsAHug.3186

[Sweetbread.3678]

7 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I never said they shouldn't nerf anything. I'm just saying to most people playing Soulbeast is useless. 

It's the exact same thing in different words; you're just way more dishonest about it. 

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, WhoWantsAHug.3186 said:

No, it hits harder now with Striders Strength. It was strong before, but now you also have passive +240 power dmg bonus, more might stacks, and a way better mainhand weapon. It just wasn't the same before the sword changes. 

Okay but no one is leaving stealth with 25 Might. Maybe 8 if the used Warhorn 5 with no one around. 

45 minutes ago, Sweetbread.3678 said:

It's the exact same thing in different words; you're just way more dishonest about it. 

Have you tried playing Soulbeast..... This logic applies to PvE version to. It can get some of the highest Burst DPS numbers but if any boss sneezes you die.

Stop this, I never said they shouldn't nerf Soulbeast.

[WhoWantsAHug.3186]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

Okay but no one is leaving stealth with 25 Might. Maybe 8 if the used Warhorn 5 with no one around

Okay, but you are ignoring basically all of what I said. Do you even know what Striders Strength does?

[Sweetbread.3678]

1 hour ago, Mell.4873 said:

Stop this, I never said they shouldn't nerf Soulbeast.

On 9/2/2023 at 7:28 PM, Mell.4873 said:

Now that most of player base has learned of the one shotting Soulbeast build we really see how inaffective it really is. 

I can't count how many times a roaming Soulbeast has attempted to duel me only for me to turn around and one shot them. I would even go so far as to say it's even easier to down that any other iterations of Soulbeast. Longbow Soulbeast atleast attempts to avoid damage while this full Greatsword plus Sword combo is a joke. They either run in and die or pray they on shot you. 

Half the players I duel don't even know that you can still CC with your pet once you are downed. Honestly this whole thing is just a joke at this point, this is nothing like the Elementalist reign.

You may have never technically said "they shouldn't nerf Soulbeast", but you literally just made a thread about how "inaffective" it is in a clear attempt to prevent it from getting nerfed. I hate to break it to you but nobody outside of Reddit gives a kitten if you're technically correct. We all know exactly what you're doing. You aren't clever, you aren't honest, and you aren't fooling anyone.

[Chyro.1462]

But what about ... the mighty staff lazers soulbeast?