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Soulbeast downside prediction.


DanAlcedo.3281

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@shadowpass.4236 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Soulbeast: The downside to merging is losing your pet in order to gain access to Beastmode skills.

just like...

Berserker: The downside to berserker stance is losing your normal burst skills in order to gain access to Berserk mode.

The thing is not having pets while melded is not a drawback of Soulbeast it’s a drawback to the new mechanic soul beast gets. It would be like saying the drawback to chrono is if you shatter your clones for your F5 you can’t shatter them for something else.

When Soulbeast gets a drawback (its not going to be if), it will probably be we only get one pet, but swapping procs on going in or out.

Much like how berserker completely lost access to normal burst skills, daredevil lost range on steal and Druid lost pet stats.

Eh I guess. It's still a big tradeoff though.

Only one pet on Soulbeast would 100% kill the specialization. Hopefully that doesn't happen.

If soulbeast got pet swap procs from going in and out of beast mode i'm pretty sure they'd be fine, and would still have quite a bit of variety at their disposal, but the existing boonbeast build would definitely die.

Honestly I think this would be a more significant nerf than the doubling of the CA cooldown Druid received.

I don't know about the rest of you, but nearly all of my rotations/gameplay I've practiced over the years rely on using
my skills in conjunction with BOTH of my pets'
. This would single handedly crush soulbeast into complete uselessness. Personally, I would never touch the specialization again. Unfortunately, seeing as how Druid has been beaten by a nerf bat consistently since HoT was released into an unrecognizable mess of a dumpster fire, it would leave core ranger as the only semi-competitive build in sPvP/WvW.

Out of all the tradeoffs to choose, removing one of our pets is one of the WORST ones I could imagine.

Into uselessness is a big parabolic isn't it?It would change playstyles, it would change builds. But I wouldn't say useless.Its a harsh tradeoff for a strong gain.You gain access to beasts kills and their utility. You lose a second pet.Sure beasts kills in Bmode are kinda meh but with only one pet buffing of these skills is more justified and a more streamlined gameplay style wouldn't hurt the spec IMO.Main part why this is bad for soulbeast is because the variety of pets go down again. But that's a core issue not a soulbeast issue.

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I can see why people think that the mere existence of the merge button calls for a trade off.

My problem then is that that merge button and its interaction with core ranger is the only really good thing about SB, along with a couple of stances and one of two adept traits. The weapon is underwhelming (it should have been a core ranger weapon for obvious reasons, but also so they could have sorted out the class' mainhand identity crises, but that's beside the point), most of the other traits are either meh, boring or just simple damage modifiers.

You're better off picking a different traitline if you're gonna stay unmerged for long periods of time just to prove a point. Making the argument that pet merging only is a drawback to the mechanic, and not to Soulbeast, is completete nonsense because there is nothing else about the elite spec that you really want, other than said mechanic. If the skills and traits were more impactful, I would perhaps have argued otherwise.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Soulbeast: The downside to merging is losing your pet in order to gain access to Beastmode skills.

just like...

Berserker: The downside to berserker stance is losing your normal burst skills in order to gain access to Berserk mode.

The thing is not having pets while melded is not a drawback of Soulbeast it’s a drawback to the new mechanic soul beast gets. It would be like saying the drawback to chrono is if you shatter your clones for your F5 you can’t shatter them for something else.

When Soulbeast gets a drawback (its not going to be if), it will probably be we only get one pet, but swapping procs on going in or out.

Much like how berserker completely lost access to normal burst skills, daredevil lost range on steal and Druid lost pet stats.

Eh I guess. It's still a big tradeoff though.

Only one pet on Soulbeast would 100% kill the specialization. Hopefully that doesn't happen.

If soulbeast got pet swap procs from going in and out of beast mode i'm pretty sure they'd be fine, and would still have quite a bit of variety at their disposal, but the existing boonbeast build would definitely die.

Honestly I think this would be a more significant nerf than the doubling of the CA cooldown Druid received.

I don't know about the rest of you, but nearly all of my rotations/gameplay I've practiced over the years rely on using
my skills in conjunction with BOTH of my pets'
. This would single handedly crush soulbeast into complete uselessness. Personally, I would never touch the specialization again. Unfortunately, seeing as how Druid has been beaten by a nerf bat consistently since HoT was released into an unrecognizable mess of a dumpster fire, it would leave core ranger as the only semi-competitive build in sPvP/WvW.

Out of all the tradeoffs to choose, removing one of our pets is one of the WORST ones I could imagine.

Into uselessness is a big parabolic isn't it?It would change playstyles, it would change builds. But I wouldn't say useless.Its a harsh tradeoff for a strong gain.You gain access to beasts kills and their utility. You lose a second pet.Sure beasts kills in Bmode are kinda meh but with only one pet buffing of these skills is more justified and a more streamlined gameplay style wouldn't hurt the spec IMO.Main part why this is bad for soulbeast is because the variety of pets go down again. But that's a core issue not a soulbeast issue.

Additionally Soulbeasts already have an effectively immortal pet so unlike other range builds if the Soulbeast needs their pet, they will always have them.

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@Durzlla.6295 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Soulbeast: The downside to merging is losing your pet in order to gain access to Beastmode skills.

just like...

Berserker: The downside to berserker stance is losing your normal burst skills in order to gain access to Berserk mode.

The thing is not having pets while melded is not a drawback of Soulbeast it’s a drawback to the new mechanic soul beast gets. It would be like saying the drawback to chrono is if you shatter your clones for your F5 you can’t shatter them for something else.

When Soulbeast gets a drawback (its not going to be if), it will probably be we only get one pet, but swapping procs on going in or out.

Much like how berserker completely lost access to normal burst skills, daredevil lost range on steal and Druid lost pet stats.

Eh I guess. It's still a big tradeoff though.

Only one pet on Soulbeast would 100% kill the specialization. Hopefully that doesn't happen.

If soulbeast got pet swap procs from going in and out of beast mode i'm pretty sure they'd be fine, and would still have quite a bit of variety at their disposal, but the existing boonbeast build would definitely die.

Honestly I think this would be a more significant nerf than the doubling of the CA cooldown Druid received.

I don't know about the rest of you, but nearly all of my rotations/gameplay I've practiced over the years rely on using
my skills in conjunction with BOTH of my pets'
. This would single handedly crush soulbeast into complete uselessness. Personally, I would never touch the specialization again. Unfortunately, seeing as how Druid has been beaten by a nerf bat consistently since HoT was released into an unrecognizable mess of a dumpster fire, it would leave core ranger as the only semi-competitive build in sPvP/WvW.

Out of all the tradeoffs to choose, removing one of our pets is one of the WORST ones I could imagine.

Into uselessness is a big parabolic isn't it?It would change playstyles, it would change builds. But I wouldn't say useless.Its a harsh tradeoff for a strong gain.You gain access to beasts kills and their utility. You lose a second pet.Sure beasts kills in Bmode are kinda meh but with only one pet buffing of these skills is more justified and a more streamlined gameplay style wouldn't hurt the spec IMO.Main part why this is bad for soulbeast is because the variety of pets go down again. But that's a core issue not a soulbeast issue.

Additionally Soulbeasts already have an effectively immortal pet so unlike other range builds if the Soulbeast needs their pet, they will always have them.

The other side of the spectrum where the pets die too fast from collateral damage via aoe, especially now on druid, isn't any better.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:Soulbeast: The downside to merging is losing your pet in order to gain access to Beastmode skills.

just like...

Berserker: The downside to berserker stance is losing your normal burst skills in order to gain access to Berserk mode.

The thing is not having pets while melded is not a drawback of Soulbeast it’s a drawback to the new mechanic soul beast gets. It would be like saying the drawback to chrono is if you shatter your clones for your F5 you can’t shatter them for something else.

When Soulbeast gets a drawback (its not going to be if), it will probably be we only get one pet, but swapping procs on going in or out.

Much like how berserker completely lost access to normal burst skills, daredevil lost range on steal and Druid lost pet stats.

Eh I guess. It's still a big tradeoff though.

Only one pet on Soulbeast would 100% kill the specialization. Hopefully that doesn't happen.

If soulbeast got pet swap procs from going in and out of beast mode i'm pretty sure they'd be fine, and would still have quite a bit of variety at their disposal, but the existing boonbeast build would definitely die.

Honestly I think this would be a more significant nerf than the doubling of the CA cooldown Druid received.

I don't know about the rest of you, but nearly all of my rotations/gameplay I've practiced over the years rely on using
my skills in conjunction with BOTH of my pets'
. This would single handedly crush soulbeast into complete uselessness. Personally, I would never touch the specialization again. Unfortunately, seeing as how Druid has been beaten by a nerf bat consistently since HoT was released into an unrecognizable mess of a dumpster fire, it would leave core ranger as the only semi-competitive build in sPvP/WvW.

Out of all the tradeoffs to choose, removing one of our pets is one of the WORST ones I could imagine.

Into uselessness is a big parabolic isn't it?It would change playstyles, it would change builds. But I wouldn't say useless.Its a harsh tradeoff for a strong gain.You gain access to beasts kills and their utility. You lose a second pet.Sure beasts kills in Bmode are kinda meh but with only one pet buffing of these skills is more justified and a more streamlined gameplay style wouldn't hurt the spec IMO.Main part why this is bad for soulbeast is because the variety of pets go down again. But that's a core issue not a soulbeast issue.

Removing the second pet means we lose access to SEVEN whole skills from our arsenal.

If you guys don't understand how significant of a change this is, you've never been utilizing your pets correctly. It's worse than losing our second weapon set.

Furthermore:

  1. It would completely annihilate build diversity
  2. Force soulbeasts into one-dimensional, easy-to-predict, cookie-cutter playstyles/builds
  3. Delete so many skill rotations we currently have access to

I barely ever merge when playing soulbeast, so forcing me merge to activate pet swap traits in situations where I need my pet is awful.

Horrible, horrible tradeoff. I'm not exaggerating when I say it would kill the specialization.

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I still think Core F5 would be a good way to start in terms of a trade off.

I mean this is exactly what they did with core Rev. F2 was a thing on Herald and Renegade but not Core Rev so rather than "trade-off" they went with a core F2.

If they can create a core F5 that comes on par with E-Spec F5s, I see that as a genuine trade-off compared to just trying to continuously nerf ranger. If they can F2 Core Rev, they can F5 Core ranger. Druid nerf was lazy no matter how much effort they think they put into it.

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@"ChronoPinoyX.7923" said:I still think Core F5 would be a good way to start in terms of a trade off.

I mean this is exactly what they did with core Rev. F2 was a thing on Herald and Renegade but not Core Rev so rather than "trade-off" they went with a core F2.

If they can create a core F5 that comes on par with E-Spec F5s, I see that as a genuine trade-off compared to just trying to continuously nerf ranger. If they can F2 Core Rev, they can F5 Core ranger. Druid nerf was lazy no matter how much effort they think they put into it.

I couldn’t agree more! I’d much rather see core specs buffed where needed to have more specs become viable options rather than cripple specs that people have worked hard to acquire and play well! Druid had been one of my two mains since I started playing the game and all I played in endgame PvE but all the unneeded nerfs have ruined any enjoyment of the class for me. :(

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@Crab Fear.1624 said:What if they kept both pets but could only choose one to merge with, regardless if they swapped?

I mean then they would be able to choose sustain or damage, but still keep both pets when not merged.

denied! they want their stealth, mobility, burst and cc

why didn't you jsut d0dg3???

oh we not talking about burst now, my bad

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@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@"ChronoPinoyX.7923" said:I still think Core F5 would be a good way to start in terms of a trade off.

Core F5 - summon the ranger's 2nd selected pet. Duration 30 secs / 120 sec cooldown.

Smokescale and Gazelle/Bristleback? Hmmm....

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alpha_Strike

I'd probably wouldn't want a large cooldown like that for an F5, as there are other ways to get around this, but that's beside the point. Adding an F5 to core Ranger would be the best route to go about it.

A single pet would be a hefty drawback indeed, but there's always worse, like permanent merger when selecting the traitline. Then traits that activate with or while in Beastmode would shift over to activating on F2, and stuff like Fresh Reinforcement would be repurposed to a lame copy/paste of Revenant traits like, gain a certain boon on pet swap depending on the beast archetype. :#

This option is likely on the table. The way it will be spun is players that wished for pet swap during Beastmode will finally get it, but at a cost. Careful what ya wish for.

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@shadowpass.4236Could you please elaborate why seven?I only come to 4 skills you can actively control. The others are passive from the pets. Although useful in some regard they are not controllable skills.

And yeah ofc it's a heavy hit.I main ranger and I know that lot of utility goes down the drain. But that's the point.Sbeast has a crap ton if utility. Mobility, tons of boons, stealth, blocks, evades, good dmg, lots of modifiers, good selfsustain und great kite potential.

Pet skills should be improved, traits should be streamlined. But changing petswap into beastmode is actually kinda huge in conjunction with all the swap traits (although many could use some improvements too). Thus you won't lose as much as you propose because you gain something too.

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@"InsaneQR.7412" said:And yeah ofc it's a heavy hit.I main ranger and I know that lot of utility goes down the drain. But that's the point.Sbeast has a kitten ton if utility. Mobility, tons of boons, stealth, blocks, evades, good dmg, lots of modifiers, good selfsustain und great kite potential.

Pet skills should be improved, traits should be streamlined. But changing petswap into beastmode is actually kinda huge in conjunction with all the swap traits (although many could use some improvements too). Thus you won't lose as much as you propose because you gain something too.

It would boil down to the execution of it all. I think the idea of 1 pet could work, but there's a lot more that'll have to go into it other than modifying pet swap traits (most of which you listed).

I'm more in the camp of core Ranger getting an F5 and something else done as a "trade off" with Druid, with some of Soulbeast's traits reworked (Eternal Bond to refresh Beastmode cooldown on pet swap, please!).

The single pet thing might be better saved for another elite spec. At least then, the effort could be used to build a new elite spec with that idea in mind vs having to reconstruct most of a current elite spec.

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@Wondrouswall.7169 said:

@"InsaneQR.7412" said:And yeah ofc it's a heavy hit.I main ranger and I know that lot of utility goes down the drain. But that's the point.Sbeast has a kitten ton if utility. Mobility, tons of boons, stealth, blocks, evades, good dmg, lots of modifiers, good selfsustain und great kite potential.

Pet skills should be improved, traits should be streamlined. But changing petswap into beastmode is actually kinda huge in conjunction with all the swap traits (although many could use some improvements too). Thus you won't lose as much as you propose because you gain something too.

It would boil down to the execution of it all. I think the idea of 1 pet could work, but there's a lot more that'll have to go into it other than modifying pet swap traits (most of which you listed).

I'm more in the camp of core Ranger getting an F5 and something else done as a "trade off" with Druid, with some of Soulbeast's traits reworked (Eternal Bond to refresh Beastmode cooldown on pet swap, please!).

The single pet thing might be better saved for another elite spec. At least then, the effort could be used to build a new elite spec with that idea in mind vs having to reconstruct most of a current elite spec.

Overall I would rather like more traits that interact with weaponskills that influence the pet.Like marking an enemy and refreshing its family specific skill (like the knockdown on canines, or the lightning storm on Jacaranda, moa heal etc.) Soulbeast would lose them if merged but ranger and druid would benefit from them.Core rangers could have the most benefits out of this and they could say it's a mechanic only to core for example or that druid loses this interaction instead of a stat downgrade etc.A plain F5 in my opinion is a bit to bolt and boring and no given trait infrastructure is present atm to support it and would need heavy trait changes. Building on something present has more fundament. I would call that a lower hanging fruit if I may use your words.

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@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:I still think Core F5 would be a good way to start in terms of a trade off.

Core F5 - summon the ranger's 2nd selected pet. Duration 30 secs / 120 sec cooldown.

Smokescale and Gazelle/Bristleback? Hmmm....

As ok as I’d be with this it’d mean that there’s no way rangers getting a beast master elite spec lol, but I’d probably go Hyena, Hyena, Hyena, Wolf and just unleash the legion.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:@"shadowpass.4236"Could you please elaborate why seven?I only come to 4 skills you can actively control. The others are passive from the pets. Although useful in some regard they are not controllable skills.

And yeah ofc it's a heavy hit.I main ranger and I know that lot of utility goes down the drain. But that's the point.Sbeast has a kitten ton if utility. Mobility, tons of boons, stealth, blocks, evades, good dmg, lots of modifiers, good selfsustain und great kite potential.

Pet skills should be improved, traits should be streamlined. But changing petswap into beastmode is actually kinda huge in conjunction with all the swap traits (although many could use some improvements too). Thus you won't lose as much as you propose because you gain something too.

Arsenal - an array of resources available for a certain purpose.

By definition, removing our second pet means we lose access to all seven of it's skills as well as any potential skill combos/rotations it offered in conjunction with our weapon skills/other pet.

However, if you're asking specifically about which skills I was counting as the seven and/or pet control, I can elaborate further using Smokescale as an example:

  1. Smoke Assault is the first attack your Smokescale will use after pet swapping. This skill can be interrupted and placed on full cooldown by pressing F1 again or F3.
  2. Takedown usually follows Smoke Assault but can be cancelled by calling your pet back with F3 and "saved" for when you actually need the interrupt.
  3. Bite is the auto attack. This can be cancelled by pressing F3.
  4. Smoke Cloud is our smoke field.
  5. Takedown
  6. Smoke Assault (player)
  7. Worldly Impact
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@"InsaneQR.7412" said:A plain F5 in my opinion is a bit to bolt and boring and no given trait infrastructure is present atm to support it and would need heavy trait changes. Building on something present has more fundament. I would call that a lower hanging fruit if I may use your words.

I'm not so sure on that. I believe the traits and skills of core Ranger that already interact with the pet should be enough if core Rangers were to be given an F5 function such as Alpha Strike (mentioned above).

The potency and potential is there. I'd imagine some measurements to be taken to make it a bit risky of having both pets out, sharing the same health pool during their time out together in order to keep the cooldown reasonable and the encounter manageable enough for opponents to deal with.

Calling both pets out that benefit from traits such as Fortifying Bond, any effect given with F2 such as Invigorating Bond or the recent Poison Master, boosts from skills such as shouts and signets - it's all very powerful if applied to both pets simultaneously and would be a significant trade-off when slotting an elite spec.

Having Soulbeast be a 1 pet spec and altering pet swap traits to work with F4 in general would indeed be lower hanging fruit. However, I'd argue that this deep into the game, Anet should stop reaching for lower hanging fruit when it comes to Ranger and reach higher.

They've done it before on two occasions that I can think of, especially when Irenio first helmed Ranger during the Heart of Thorns release. The last chapter in this LS is done and released, which seems like a perfect time to work and introduce a core F5.

The alternative is allow core Rangers complete control over their pet's skills, but they've said it before on a stream, "that would be overpowered". Not sure if that sentiment has changed since then considering all of the power creep.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:Pet variety was always garbage.Smokescale is meta since it's release.Core pets just suck and need improvements.I agree that the core pets need a complete rework to bring them up to the smokescale's level of functionality, but considering how people shriek with rage the second a pet is actually effective in any way, I wouldn't hold out too much hope for it...

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@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:

@InsaneQR.7412 said:Pet variety was always garbage.Smokescale is meta since it's release.Core pets just suck and need improvements.I agree that the core pets need a complete rework to bring them up to the smokescale's level of functionality, but considering how people shriek with rage the
second
a pet is actually effective in any way, I wouldn't hold out too much hope for it...

Well... not necisarily smoke scale level, but the level of all the new expansion pets, since they vastly out perform core pets for no good reason.

That being said definitely for the love of god do not nerf the expansion pets, to put them in line for core, the xpac pets are what pets should’ve always been power level wise.

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My Predictions:

Soulbeast:

Bird Swoop Cool down increased from 10s to 20s and/or range reduction from 1200 to 1000.

Internal Cool down of 20s added to the traits Fresh Reinforcement and Unstoppable Union.

Sic Em Soulbeast Damage reduced from 40% to 10%

Core:

Rugged growth base healing rate reduced by 25-50%.

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@"GUFF.5692" said:My Predictions:Sic Em Soulbeast Damage reduced from 40% to 10%

Nah. Anet will most likely change Sic 'Em to be like Warrior's ["On My Mark!"](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/%22On_My_Mark!%22 ""On My Mark!""). No point coming up and coding for something new when they can just copy/paste and be done with it, minus the ammo for an extra jab.

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