Soulbeast is great in WvW and PvP.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

@Norseman.4280 said:

@Khenzy.9348 said:I destroy every Soulbeast is see as a Druid, whether they are power or condis, without much effort. In PvP mind you. I don't really care about WvW, you can make anything work there with the massive stat overbloat. I also have waaay better match ups as Druid than as a Soulbeast, it's no contest.

It's funny you say that. I've had a similar experience as the OP, in that soul beast is, well, a beast! I played base ranger up til this week (don't like druid) But the one thing I really struggle with is druids. I can't figure out why quite yet but compared to everything else, druids gave me fits.

The massive sustain, ability to disengage, stealth & condi removal maybe? Plus, they know Ranger, which is why they are playing it and the best way to learn how to play against a class is play that class :)

Isn't that the main problem here? Actually I thank you for openly admitting the "benefits" of playing druid and for what reason is played:

• massive sustain that helps you recover almost indefinitely from mistakes
• ability to disengage/stealth , look above, again you're allowed to make way too many mistakes and still come on top
• condi removal: nice and comfy I admit it...fair trait that promotes healthy gameplay?...I don't think so

NOTE PvP/WvW-No druid to this day has been able to give me troubles when using a soulbeast, ofc they can all stealth and run and recover Hp easily , there is little I can do about that: I can bring a druid down to 20% HP..they stealth always 1s before I can finish them off...they come back almost full HP.

Personally, I'd love to see all HoT specs being brought down to PoF elite levels, HoT specs offer way too high reward for the effort they require.

NOTE2 PvP/WvWI never played the staff 11111 healbot bunker always used lb -sword/warhorn power druid; I truly hate the staff 11111 druid and all it represents: unhealthy gameplay that should in no way, under no circumstances be promoted, it allows players to survive situations they shouldn't and this goes for virtually all HoT specs

[Pvt Frosty.6973]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

@Ranys.4028 said:

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:You are basing your opinion that it's a great spec in PvP on 30-40 1v1s with a thief?

I believe I also mention a going into WvW for the whole evening and not losing once.

And that formed your opinion of it in WvW, I was referring to PvP. I mean, even though you spent a

whole evening

in WvW, it's not nearly enough time to generate an informed opinion since you'd have such a small sample size of players to vs.

Isn't your opinion based on limited experience too?

Extrapolate some educated and more than likely accurate guesses though.

• Gets owned on Ranger; a core class that even pre-HoT was considered one of the best duelists in the game; low skill player that lacks game knowledge and build understanding.
• Thief friend doesn't know the first thing about thief and doesn't even run efficient setups; low skill player that lacks game knowledge and build understanding.
• Duel for long period of time without outside sources being introduced; skill plateau, fighting one person at one skill level, introduces game mechanics, and thief doesn't try to run other dueling or counter specs, overall maybe a millimeter of progress made
• goes into WvW and plays/roams; people are upleveled, running PvE builds, and no skill based "matchmaking;" inconsistent environment and no metric to measure effectiveness with and the likelihood of a low skill, poorly built, poorly geared character is high in WvW in a lull, worse after an expac release.

Who knows, I could be wrong, this guy could be the Helseth of Rangers. But based on the rating distribution of PvP players and coupled with the impressions of Soulbeast here being "oddly" in disagreement with everybody at that upper end of the measurable skill system, we're probably talking a level of play where just dodging and knowing how skills work will win you every fight, no traits or elite specs necessary.

But I'm sure Soulbeast is good wherever this gameplay is occurring, just like everything else, coherent or otherwise.

Upper end of measurable skill system? Unless you win some kind of tournament at world level.....I don't see any

Then maybe I can vouch for what he is saying.

Soulbeast in the higher echelons of PvP is currently pretty awkward to use due to several intricate reasons, druid recieving a few meaningful buffs with PoF being one of them which I feel deserves a special mention. However, the meta still has not settled and I am sure we will see some pretty meaningful balance changes in the nearer future (not just to ranger/soulbeast)

[jcbroe.4329]

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

@Ranys.4028 said:

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:You are basing your opinion that it's a great spec in PvP on 30-40 1v1s with a thief?

I believe I also mention a going into WvW for the whole evening and not losing once.

And that formed your opinion of it in WvW, I was referring to PvP. I mean, even though you spent a

whole evening

in WvW, it's not nearly enough time to generate an informed opinion since you'd have such a small sample size of players to vs.

Isn't your opinion based on limited experience too?

Extrapolate some educated and more than likely accurate guesses though.

• Gets owned on Ranger; a core class that even pre-HoT was considered one of the best duelists in the game; low skill player that lacks game knowledge and build understanding.
• Thief friend doesn't know the first thing about thief and doesn't even run efficient setups; low skill player that lacks game knowledge and build understanding.
• Duel for long period of time without outside sources being introduced; skill plateau, fighting one person at one skill level, introduces game mechanics, and thief doesn't try to run other dueling or counter specs, overall maybe a millimeter of progress made
• goes into WvW and plays/roams; people are upleveled, running PvE builds, and no skill based "matchmaking;" inconsistent environment and no metric to measure effectiveness with and the likelihood of a low skill, poorly built, poorly geared character is high in WvW in a lull, worse after an expac release.

Who knows, I could be wrong, this guy could be the Helseth of Rangers. But based on the rating distribution of PvP players and coupled with the impressions of Soulbeast here being "oddly" in disagreement with everybody at that upper end of the measurable skill system, we're probably talking a level of play where just dodging and knowing how skills work will win you every fight, no traits or elite specs necessary.

But I'm sure Soulbeast is good wherever this gameplay is occurring, just like everything else, coherent or otherwise.

Upper end of measurable skill system? Unless you win some kind of tournament at world level.....I don't see any

I'm glad you asked because now I get to help you learn about the game you're playing:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Matchmaking_Algorithm

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glicko_rating_system

[Bast Bow.2958]

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@jcbroe.4329 said:

@Arheundel.6451 said:

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

@Ranys.4028 said:

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:You are basing your opinion that it's a great spec in PvP on 30-40 1v1s with a thief?

I believe I also mention a going into WvW for the whole evening and not losing once.

And that formed your opinion of it in WvW, I was referring to PvP. I mean, even though you spent a

whole evening

in WvW, it's not nearly enough time to generate an informed opinion since you'd have such a small sample size of players to vs.

Isn't your opinion based on limited experience too?

Extrapolate some educated and more than likely accurate guesses though.

• Gets owned on Ranger; a core class that even pre-HoT was considered one of the best duelists in the game; low skill player that lacks game knowledge and build understanding.
• Thief friend doesn't know the first thing about thief and doesn't even run efficient setups; low skill player that lacks game knowledge and build understanding.
• Duel for long period of time without outside sources being introduced; skill plateau, fighting one person at one skill level, introduces game mechanics, and thief doesn't try to run other dueling or counter specs, overall maybe a millimeter of progress made
• goes into WvW and plays/roams; people are upleveled, running PvE builds, and no skill based "matchmaking;" inconsistent environment and no metric to measure effectiveness with and the likelihood of a low skill, poorly built, poorly geared character is high in WvW in a lull, worse after an expac release.

Who knows, I could be wrong, this guy could be the Helseth of Rangers. But based on the rating distribution of PvP players and coupled with the impressions of Soulbeast here being "oddly" in disagreement with everybody at that upper end of the measurable skill system, we're probably talking a level of play where just dodging and knowing how skills work will win you every fight, no traits or elite specs necessary.

But I'm sure Soulbeast is good wherever this gameplay is occurring, just like everything else, coherent or otherwise.

Well said, well said. +1

/claps

Have to agree, +1

[Earix.5684]

Capture Point ladder as a measurable skill system, good joke =)

[Pvt Frosty.6973]

@Earix.5684 said:Capture Point ladder as a measurable skill system, good joke =)

It is, by definition, measurable. I think what you were trying to say, is that it isn't reliable. It certainly is not perfect, but I am willing to bet that every player in legendary at the end of the season is a measurably better player than any gold player.As such, at least some form of reliability is granted.

[Loboling.5293]

I have to say, soulbeast is the mot success I've had with the new specs so far in platinum. All the new specs (I haven't played Scourge or Spellbreaker) are mostly underperforming. Granted, I only played two games in ranked with soulbeast so far, but one of them ended with us spawn camping the enemy team.... Of course, this is a team game, but Soulbeast has more pressure than core ranger or druid, which means he can put pressure in situations he previously couldn't.

I think once they buff the random junk pet skills (bite?!?!?) and allow for pet swapping in soul beast, I think the spec will be on-par (but different) from the druid.

[jcbroe.4329]

@Pvt Frosty.6973 said:

@Earix.5684 said:Capture Point ladder as a measurable skill system, good joke =)

It is, by definition,

measurable

. I think what you were trying to say, is that it isn't reliable. It certainly is not perfect, but I am willing to bet that every player in legendary at the end of the season is a

measurably

better player than any gold player.As such, at least some form of reliability is granted.

Exactly this.

Also @Earix.5684 I'm not sure which part you're trying to dismiss. If it's the PvP gamemode in general, it was a part of this threads conversation to begin with, so how you feel about the mode is irrelevant.

If it's the matchmaking system itself, I don't know what to tell you, since Glicko-2 is one of the most reliable skill measuring algorithms available and used by many platforms for competitive ranking and matchmaking (it also solves a lot of the issues with the ELO algorithm). If you think you can make a better algorithm, then by all means go for it, the world can never have enough smart people. If you can make an argument for a different matchmaking algorithm, I'm all ears (I have an idea of which would be better suited for GW2 but ANet didn't and wouldn't use it because of licensing costs).

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

@Pvt Frosty.6973 said:

@Earix.5684 said:Capture Point ladder as a measurable skill system, good joke =)

It is, by definition,

measurable

. I think what you were trying to say, is that it isn't reliable. It certainly is not perfect, but I am willing to bet that every player in legendary at the end of the season is a

measurably

better player than any gold player.As such, at least some form of reliability is granted.

I guess we will see at the next tourney how many Soulbeasts there are, I'm guessing it's a low single digit number.

[Crapgame.6519]

Broken pets and/or class bugs do not make the Soulbeast great. Expansion has been out less than a week so if everyone was being honest we'd all say we are still learning the game play of said class and it is too early to tell with 100% confidence how good or bad it is. Opinions are all we have now but has someone here alluded too the sample size is still too small. Just how it goes but you are entitled to your opinion.

Personally I find the class a bit wonky. Some pets are crazy bugged which give a false representation of performance. Dagger, well, takes some getting used to coming from a Druid who ran LB and Staff. I think if you played a melee based Ranger/Druid pre expansion you are having little issues with Soulbeast and only fine tuning stats. On the other hand if you played LB/GS or do not excel at melee you are having a harder time with it. Just my take.

Then there is the whole condition side of things and managing clearing of.

[Rym.1469]

@Ranys.4028 said:And if you think it's terrible, go train.

In about 30 - 40 fights he maybe only got me 2 times, but that's to be expected with the matchup and the build I'm using (Weakness, Protection, SoS and Eternal Bond denied all of his burst)

No wonder you had a blast 1v1ing and felt powerful, as the build you've linked is a Druid build ;).

[Trueshots.9456]

@HeadCrowned.6834 said:Thief is not made for 1v1's in PvP, so its not so good to base your conlusions on that.

A thief in the sense of how the developers designed them from launch is just that, made for 1v1. Coming from someone who has played ranger and thief both from launch, although I've come and gone from the game many time for short stents, the thief continues to be extremely well adapted for 1v1 in both WvW and sPvP. I'm no pro, but if you're playing thief and are losing tons of 1v1's (see definition below), especially if you're getting the jump, you may want to choose another class....say a SoulBeast Ranger ? :).

Side Note: I like what you all are saying about SoulBeast, its fun to me even though I don't fully understand its capabilities. I am afraid I wont be able to compete in WvW or sPvP with it. I may just have a mental block about it but interested in seeing more builds and thoughts about it in the future here!

Definition: 1v1 - not two people standing around saying "are you ready? are you ready?, I'm ready, I'm ready". A 1v1 in WvW and sPvP are not cordial meetings....WE ARE TRYING TO DECAPITATE EACH OTHER! We're not making sure the guy has all his traits set up, it's about kill or be killed.

[lmaogg.7325]

the thing about Soulbeast is the melded form's beast skills are so much weaker than your pet. I would rather just let my pet run wild and sic my target than to get some addition stats and average skills, only the cc and healing ones might be worth using. Which means staying as druid/ranger benefits more than soulbeast.

[Trueshots.9456]

@Eleazar.9478 said:

As I'm a pretty average ranger in terms of skill ......, in fact I max out at tier 2 and always drop from there simply cause I feel slower than those players ..... Those leaderboard guys are usually pretty gdamn amazing....... Those guys are almost always good duelists and team fighters.

You are far above average as I've played with you quite a few times in WvW, i agree, I agree, and I agree.....

Its rough in sPVP in upper ranks you really do see talent, talent you don't aways see in WvW for sure.

[anduriell.6280]

You just wait for other players to catch up with their new classes.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

Soulbeast feels decent in groups, i do have fun. When solo however, being a WvW player is where my problem comes. 99% of roamers i encounter are condi, and well. I just melt to conditions. There just isnt enough i can do to counter them, even with several skills and heal aimed at anti conditions. It just isnt enough, The sheer application spamming WAY out does my removal (though thats the same for most classes) getting hit by 4-5 conditions every few seconds and i just cant handle it, granted. I am new to Ranger and Soulbeast so if theres some good ways to actually be able to counter and stand a chance against sheer condi spamming from Bunker Condi builds, please let me know ^^

[HeadCrowned.6834]

@Trueshots.9456 said:

@HeadCrowned.6834 said:Thief is not made for 1v1's in PvP, so its not so good to base your conlusions on that.

A thief in the sense of how the developers designed them from launch is just that, made for 1v1. Coming from someone who has played ranger and thief both from launch, although I've come and gone from the game many time for short stents, the thief continues to be extremely well adapted for 1v1 in both WvW and sPvP. I'm no pro, but if you're playing thief and are losing tons of 1v1's (see definition below), especially if you're getting the jump, you may want to choose another class....say a SoulBeast Ranger ? :).

I didn't say thief can't win 1v1's, I said that thief isn't made for it in pvp. There are a lot of losing matchups for thieves in pvp. The strenght of the class is +1ing, as thiefs mobility exceeds the mobility of other classes by far. So you can 1v1, but then you don't use your mobility in your teams advantage. You will be more of a burden for your team if you 1v1 all the time, unless youre a crappy d/d condi thief or something.

[Kraitan.8476]

I love soulbeast I just think the stances need polishing and elite.. just rework it please. It's barely useable/viable in any kind of pvp. I Love the spec & would love to be able to use the new skills alongside it. For example: the griffon stance, gives half a dodge, 8s of +100% endurance regen and might on evade. This basicly comes down to barely 3 dodges and a few stacks of might on a 45s cooldown. You would think: Hhmm, but maybe there's a way to use it in combination with certain traits? No. The only trait interacting with stances is the grandmaster one allowing it to be shared. Final note: Since they are stances, and the elite + heal are already outclassed by old skills + their AVAILABLE traits, why is there a cast time on them? Just not making sense here imo, without a cast time on these skills (which would make sense for a stance right?), they still would not be meta in any way shape or form. TL;DR Love the spec, disappointed with utils + elite.PS. HoT gave druids an elite which was basicly used in pretty much only raids, With PoF. the elite seems to be another somewhat dead skill. I really hope they take another look at these skills.

[Eleazar.9478]

Ya it is however it's alot weaker in 1v1s, soulbeast can't keep up with the sustain of a druid especially when they're running ancient seeds with that bugged gazelle

[Fluffball.8307]

I feel like you're really missing out if you've never played against a really high level PvPer. There are quite a few on the ranger forum, it's worth messaging one to ask for a duel so you can see where you stand skill wise. New PvP players tend to have dramatically distorted views of what a good build is, what works, and how good they are because they don't realize how competent the really good players are.

It's eye-opening and a lot of fun to boot. It gives you something to work towards. If you think you're really good already, there is no motivation to get legend-good. And being legend good means you can absolutely humiliate players in WvW roaming. :3

[Thelgar.7214]

I'm enjoying the Soulbeast in zergs. Would be nice to swap pets while in soulbeast though. But at the same time, there is a lot of value in the variety of stats and skills you can pick from, so having such a wide variety to choose from kind of balances out not being able to swap as quickly.

[Cave Rock.4869]

@Ranys.4028 said:And if you think it's terrible, go train.

I was terrible too. I went into PvP and WvW and got owned. Then I refined my build and asked a Guildie who's very good at fighting, and we spent an afternoon just fighting each other.

He was on a thief, didn't have proper gear set up and is mostly a PvP player, and he apparently rarely encounters a ranger with GS there. All that left him completely disadvantaged.

I won a lot of our fights, we asked about each others abilities, learned how to deal with them, adapted our fighting style to the situations. We got really good during that afternoon to a point where he was deliberately blinding my Point Blank Shot and Maul, and I was predicting his moves while he stealthed and killed him without even seeing him.

In about 30 - 40 fights he maybe only got me 2 times, but that's to be expected with the matchup and the build I'm using (Weakness, Protection, SoS and Eternal Bond denied all of his burst)

After all of that I also went into WvW to see how I would manage now that I've learned how to play soulbeast. Lots of 1v1s and even a bit of outnumbered fighting. I didn't loose the whole evening. I had one draw against a holosmith. A fight that went for 3 minutes already and I probably finally found a gap in his healing/invuln uptime so I could cc and burst him down, but someone from my server ganked so I backed off. We had a few more fights later that were inconclusive, so I'd call that a draw.

I've also heard from lots of people that soulbeast is great in zerks and a lot of fun to play there. I will try it out soon. There are longbow carry builds for PvP that eat Guards and Necros for breakfast and can use unblockable buffs to shoot Ventari Revs off their point and burst them(a little at least).

There are still some encounters that I have to try out. I want to know if I can deal with the condi pressure of a good Mirage and how I can deal with Spellbreakers.There are bugs that need to be fixed, like forcestowed pets when you die shortly after activating beastmode, or Unstoppable Union stunnbreak not working.There are imbalances that

For now though, I'm absolutely happy with my Soulbeast.

Hey Ranys, I pegged the Soulbeast in the moderate to weak level for the Path of Fire meta but I may just be wrong in my video. I was actually surprise it was my best friends first choice to play when it came to the Path of Fire new elites. You and he may just prove me wrong.

Cheers for the positive thread Ranys, from Cave Rock and Bluevoltron42. I hope you like the video :)

[Fluffball.8307]

Hey Ranys, I pegged the Soulbeast in the moderate to weak level for the Path of Fire meta but I may just be wrong in my video. I was actually surprise it was my best friends first choice to play when it came to the Path of Fire new elites. You and he may just prove me wrong.

His review of SB is that it's pretty bad. Did you watch the video?

[EnderzShadow.2506]

@Eleazar.9478 said:Ya it is however it's alot weaker in 1v1s, soulbeast can't keep up with the sustain of a druid especially when they're running ancient seeds with that bugged gazelle

30 dollars to stay druid and just get a better pet.still tempting!

[anduriell.6280]

@EnderzShadow.2506 said:

@Eleazar.9478 said:Ya it is however it's alot weaker in 1v1s, soulbeast can't keep up with the sustain of a druid especially when they're running ancient seeds with that bugged gazelle

30 dollars to stay druid and just get a better pet.still tempting!

I can confirm druid is much better in WvW for roaming, zerging or solo. Yesterday nowadays i was fighting an spellbreaker and just when i downed him a group of 4 appeared.

If it wouldn't be for staff + stealth they could have ganked me easily. That would had happened with the soulbeast 100% chance.