Soulbeast Feedback - Stance Skills

[Druar.1730]

Regarding One Wolf pack, i cannot seem to get this to work how i expect it to work, i'll try to explain. It lasts for 8s, has an interval of 0.5s, as such as long as I manage to attack 2 times each second it should give me 16 triggers of one wolf pack, this atleast is how i think it should work. however no matter how i try i cant get it to register more than 9 hits in combat log, and this seems to match on screen numbers i can see by stepping thru recorded materials i did while testing.

So my conclusion is it seems that it doesnt actually have a 0.5s interval, but a 1s interval, that sometimes results in 9 hits for some weird reason. I tested this in many many ways, but even using just dagger auto while under quickness should be sufficient to get enough hits in to have it trigger twice / s, using mad king runes with it + warhorn 4 definately should be enough while also autoattacking.

As far as allies goes it seems they only do get 4 and occasionally 5 hits, but it should in reality be 8 hits, so the same issue is there when shared.

Lastly i fail to see why this skill that in functionality is very similar when shared to, venoms, Elementalists traited Arcane Power, and Firebrands Ashes of the Just, does not credit the soulbeast using the skill, when the other professions similar skills do.

So, am I misunderstanding how One wolf pack works, and 8-9 hits is what I should expect, or is it bugged? and does anyone have a reasonable explanation as to why the damage allies do in this stance does not count to the soulbeasts damage?

[ProtoMarcus.7649]

@Druar.1730 said:Regarding One Wolf pack, i cannot seem to get this to work how i expect it to work, i'll try to explain. It lasts for 8s, has an interval of 0.5s, as such as long as I manage to attack 2 times each second it should give me 16 triggers of one wolf pack, this atleast is how i think it should work. however no matter how i try i cant get it to register more than 9 hits in combat log, and this seems to match on screen numbers i can see by stepping thru recorded materials i did while testing.

So my conclusion is it seems that it doesnt actually have a 0.5s interval, but a 1s interval, that sometimes results in 9 hits for some weird reason. I tested this in many many ways, but even using just dagger auto while under quickness should be sufficient to get enough hits in to have it trigger twice / s, using mad king runes with it + warhorn 4 definately should be enough while also autoattacking.

As far as allies goes it seems they only do get 4 and occasionally 5 hits, but it should in reality be 8 hits, so the same issue is there when shared.

Lastly i fail to see why this skill that in functionality is very similar when shared to, venoms, Elementalists traited Arcane Power, and Firebrands Ashes of the Just, does not credit the soulbeast using the skill, when the other professions similar skills do.

So, am I misunderstanding how One wolf pack works, and 8-9 hits is what I should expect, or is it bugged? and does anyone have a reasonable explanation as to why the damage allies do in this stance does not count to the soulbeasts damage?

Are you able to replicate that? I'll have to test it out myself.

I do agree with others in that the interval really has to be 'unique' per targets

[Kraitan.8476]

In it's current condition I feel like it will take Anet at least a year of balancing to get soulbeast viable in any way shape or form. I really hope they aren't afraid to go big on it and if neccesary tweak it down a little after. But who am I kidding, this spec will never be meta.

[InsaneQR.7412]

Bear: The idea of the 2s resistance sounds good. I would increase only the base heal, that would be enough for better usabbility.

Moa and Dolyak are fine.

Vulture: While in this stance: Condition Duration is increased 33%, when you hit you apply 1 stack of poison and remove a boon, you deal more dmg against targets without a boon.This captures the hybrid feeling and the ruthlessness of a vulture.

Wolfpack: Apply bleed and gain might when hitting a target.Also this captures the hybrid feeling of SBeast and would justify OWP as an elite and not like a utility with a high CD.

The trait should give a CD reduction and some minor seconds of quickness per ally hit.

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

I would love to see the metrics they have on stance skills use since PoF release.

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:... One Wolf Pack - Your attacks now also inflict Bleeding...

@InsaneQR.7412 said:...Wolfpack: Apply bleed and gain might when hitting a target.Also this captures the hybrid feeling of SBeast and would justify OWP as an elite and not like a utility with a high CD...

I would like to see short duration Poison for synergy with Predator's Cunning AND a 33% BASE attack speed increase ( an effect, not Quickness) for the duration.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582 said:

@ArmageddonAsh.6430 said:... One Wolf Pack - Your attacks now also inflict Bleeding...

@InsaneQR.7412 said:...Wolfpack: Apply bleed and gain might when hitting a target.Also this captures the hybrid feeling of SBeast and would justify OWP as an elite and not like a utility with a high CD...

I would like to see short duration Poison for synergy with Predator's Cunning AND a 33% BASE attack speed increase ( an effect, not Quickness) for the duration.

Mmmmm, Poison would be a good option as well, a Trait with (or without...) a ICD that removes a boon when you apply Poison would be VERY welcome as well imo.

[ProtoMarcus.7649]

With today's update, I'd like to add some feedback on current Stance state.

Leader of the Pack (Trait)

• Has an interesting effect for the player now (150% duration) but I feel ally duration should be raised to the normal, 100% duration

Vulture Stance (The condi stance)

• Lower interval cooldown and removal of the health threshold is nice, but I still feel this stance could be made even more unique and useful for condi builds if
• Vulture Stance grants you 33% condition duration bonus - would synergize with more than just poison, and traited would give more utility to self and allies with their condition applications.

Griffon Stance (The evasion stance)

• Lower CD and double might stacks is still not enough
• Make it a stun break
• Give 50 endurance in PvE on cast (up from 25)
• Return 5 endurance per dodge and additional 10 endurance per evade
• Grant 1 might per dodge and additional 2 might per evade
• Lower CD to 35s

One Wolf Pack (The DPS stance)

• Lower interval is good, but still only affects one target at a time which is bad
• Make it so it grants 3s of quickness on cast - with lower interval, it'll greatly benefit, and add utility.

Moa and Dolyak are top notchBear is in a good spot, though a 2s resistance on cast would be welcome (that or a faster interval between cleanses)

[Sol.4310]

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:With today's update, I'd like to add some feedback on current Stance state.

Leader of the Pack (Trait)

• Has an interesting effect for the player now (150% duration) but I feel ally duration should be raised to the normal, 100% duration

Vulture Stance (The condi stance)

• Lower interval cooldown and removal of the health threshold is nice, but I still feel this stance could be made even more unique and useful for condi builds if
• Vulture Stance grants you 33% condition duration bonus - would synergize with more than just poison, and traited would give more utility to self and allies with their condition applications.

Griffon Stance (The evasion stance)

• Lower CD and double might stacks is still not enough
• Make it a stun break
• Give 50 endurance in PvE on cast (up from 25)
• Return 5 endurance per dodge and additional 10 endurance per evade
• Grant 1 might per dodge and additional 2 might per evade
• Lower CD to 35s

One Wolf Pack (The DPS stance)

• Lower interval is good, but still only affects one target at a time which is bad
• Make it so it grants 3s of quickness on cast - with lower interval, it'll greatly benefit, and add utility.

Moa and Dolyak are top notchBear is in a good spot, though a 2s resistance on cast would be welcome (that or a faster interval between cleanses)

I know it's not the solution you wanted but you could take Rune of the Revenant which gives 2 seconds resistance on cast of healing skill.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:With today's update, I'd like to add some feedback on current Stance state.

Leader of the Pack (Trait)

• Has an interesting effect for the player now (150% duration) but I feel ally duration should be raised to the normal, 100% duration

Vulture Stance (The condi stance)

• Lower interval cooldown and removal of the health threshold is nice, but I still feel this stance could be made even more unique and useful for condi builds if
• Vulture Stance grants you 33% condition duration bonus - would synergize with more than just poison, and traited would give more utility to self and allies with their condition applications.

Griffon Stance (The evasion stance)

• Lower CD and double might stacks is still not enough
• Make it a stun break
• Give 50 endurance in PvE on cast (up from 25)
• Return 5 endurance per dodge and additional 10 endurance per evade
• Grant 1 might per dodge and additional 2 might per evade
• Lower CD to 35s

One Wolf Pack (The DPS stance)

• Lower interval is good, but still only affects one target at a time which is bad
• Make it so it grants 3s of quickness on cast - with lower interval, it'll greatly benefit, and add utility.

Moa and Dolyak are top notchBear is in a good spot, though a 2s resistance on cast would be welcome (that or a faster interval between cleanses)

Leader of the Pack change was nice in that now its good for anyone rather than just group/zerg players. I think buffing allies to 100% would be too much. I would have liked to have seen that REMOVED and made it a 100% Ranger only trait. Increased Duration + added effect for each stance would have been very welcome.

Griffon Stance as you say, still sucks. Need i say more?

One Wolf Pack i think would be too strong if it was per a target

Vulture stance is a welcome change, useable no matter what, I think adding increased condi duration would be too much. Maybe adding something like below 50% health targets get applied with a second condition (or maybe double stacks of poison) would be a decent addition.

Moa is broken. There is NO doubt that will be nerfed. I am calling a cool down increase. With the trait that is WAY too much time to have 66% boon increase. You'd better hope that its a cool down increase, because i could see them battering the 66% down to 33% maybe lower due to its insane duration and uptime now.

Dolyak is very solid now, though 6 stacks of stability still isnt enough, even 1 Vs 1 that can be melted through before its base duration has ended. I would have liked it to be either MUCH higher or make it so you cant be CCed at all for its duration?

I would have LOVED some Resistance on Bear Stance and have been calling for it since PoF came out. The 12 Condis removed is nice though (when traited) Maybe make it so that Poison is the first condition on the list to be removed and then for the heal to happen, that way you dont lose SO much healing, considering how low the first part of the heal is.

[ProtoMarcus.7649]

Yeah I agree that Moa Stance is broken... Traited is TWELVE SECONDS duration on a 25s CD - almost 50% uptimeI'd be fine if the base duration was lowered to 6s but keeping the CD as it is - that's a 25% duration decrease

For dolyak stance, yeah, still a bit sad that it is only 1 of 2 sources of stability for the ranger, and compared to Warrior's Balance Stance, it's a little lackluster - I understand it has the additional effect of not being affected by movement-imparing condis - perhaps that can come to play?

One extra stack and one extra second of stability whenever a movement impeding condition is being 'applied' to you (won't affect you anyway) or whenever you cleanse them on stance trigger?

EDIT: Forgot they buffed base moa to 10s... So traited is 15s - reducing it to a base 8s (which was the original duration?) would be okay

[StickerHappy.8052]

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:Yeah I agree that Moa Stance is broken... Traited is TWELVE SECONDS duration on a 25s CD - almost 50% uptimeI'd be fine if the base duration was lowered to 6s but keeping the CD as it is - that's a 25% duration decrease

For dolyak stance, yeah, still a bit sad that it is only 1 of 2 sources of stability for the ranger, and compared to Warrior's Balance Stance, it's a little lackluster - I understand it has the additional effect of not being affected by movement-imparing condis - perhaps that can come to play?

One extra stack and one extra second of stability whenever a movement impeding condition is being 'applied' to you (won't affect you anyway) or whenever you cleanse them on stance trigger?

EDIT: Forgot they buffed base moa to 10s... So traited is 15s - reducing it to a base 8s (which was the original duration?) would be okay

Just wanna make sure. The traited duration is AFTER 150% added right?

[Rap Tiger.1257]

Does my or my allies receive only 4s from one wolf pack and I get 12s with trait? Should not my allies receive 6s? For example, my pet gets the bear stance only 2s and not 4s as it should since the duration for me is 6s with trait.

If this does not have a bug, is it me testing wrong, can someone test and tell me?

[Wondrouswall.7169]

@Rap Tiger.1257 said:Does my or my allies receive only 4s from one wolf pack and I get 12s with trait? Should not my allies receive 6s? For example, my pet gets the bear stance only 2s and not 4s as it should since the duration for me is 6s with trait.

If this does not have a bug, is it me testing wrong, can someone test and tell me?

Allies receive 50% of the base duration of Stances. They do not receive 50% of the personal extended durations.

[ProtoMarcus.7649]

@StickerHappy.8052 said:

@ProtoMarcus.7649 said:Yeah I agree that

Moa Stance

is broken... Traited is

TWELVE SECONDS

duration on a 25s CD - almost 50% uptimeI'd be fine if the

base duration

was lowered to 6s but keeping the CD as it is - that's a 25% duration decrease

For dolyak stance, yeah, still a bit sad that it is only 1 of 2 sources of stability for the ranger, and compared to Warrior's Balance Stance, it's a little lackluster - I understand it has the additional effect of not being affected by movement-imparing condis - perhaps that can come to play?

One extra stack

and

one extra second

of stability whenever a movement impeding condition is being 'applied' to you (won't affect you anyway) or whenever you cleanse them on stance trigger?

EDIT: Forgot they buffed base moa to 10s... So traited is 15s - reducing it to a base 8s (which was the original duration?) would be okay

Just wanna make sure. The traited duration is AFTER 150% added right?

The trait was changed to give 50% duration to self, for a total of 150% duration

Moa Stance was buffed to have a base duration of 10s, once traited it's active for 15s (50% more)

[Wondrouswall.7169]

Heh, I didn't even notice it until now, but Griffon Stance had an unlisted reduction which lowered the base duration from 8s to 6s.

[Marcaum.1302]

Sharpening Stone (bleeding) was nerfed and still outdps Vulture Instance (poison/might) on a poison focused build (100% poison duration) even after it was "buffed". Just sad.

[Wondrouswall.7169]

Probably just me, but I don't think it would hurt if they reverted the duration changes on Griffon and Moa back to 8s, and instead boosted One Wolf Pack from 8s to 10s.

Kinda odd to me that Moa has a longer duration than our elite, which was made better in this update, and could use just a bit more of a push; especially since Moa was also also buffed with regen on top of the previous effects.

[ProtoMarcus.7649]

Griffon Stance duration wasn't changed, only the CD was changed (from 45 to 40s (still ridiculous))EDIT - My bad, it was indeed nerfed from 8s to 6s. What a joke, and a bad one at that! SERIOUSLY if anything, that stance should be the one with a base 10s duration, especially considering its ridiculous 40s cooldown (and not even a stun break)

Un-traited and without vigor, that's barely one extra dodge.

I do agree reverting Moa Stance to 8s wouldn't hurt, I mean traited it lasts friggin fifteen seconds on 25s CD - That's definitely broken - at 12s (traited) it's a sweet spot (though wouldn't be surprised to see the CD go from 25s to 30s)

Also don't understand the change to vulture stance's poison duration... Like the previous poster mentionned Sharpening Stone still outperforms in terms of DPS even when the build is optimised for Poison. It really feels like an underperforming Sharpening Stone - another reason I reaaaaaaally want that extra effect of 33% condi duration on the stance enhancement!

[ProtoMarcus.7649]

WAIT A MINUTE. GRIFFON STANCE ACTUALLY RECOVERS 50 ENDURANCE ON ACTIVATION NOW.

Up from 25 - Is it still worth it?

Not really. If it was stun break and 35s cooldown, maybe, but not int its current state.

[Wondrouswall.7169]

Yeah. Seems to be another tooltip error where they forgot to update it. Maybe that's why the duration was reduced? It's more useful now, but still no dice unless Leader of the Pack also shared the personal endurance gain with allies. As far as I am aware, it only shares the stance buff and boons, yes?

[Professor Sprout.1560]

@Marcaum.1302 @ProtoMarcus.7649 Under what circumstances exactly did you test the damage from Sharpening Stone vs that of Vulture Stance? How many hits were you landing per stance use and how did you calculate for the damage done by sharing the stance to allies?

[ITheNormalPerson.9275]

@Professor Sprout.1560 said:@Marcaum.1302 @ProtoMarcus.7649 Under what circumstances exactly did you test the damage from Sharpening Stone vs that of Vulture Stance? How many hits were you landing per stance use and how did you calculate for the damage done by sharing the stance to allies?

Out of curiousity, I decided to do some tests myself.

These tests are assuming a few things

• That you have 100% bleed duration
• That you have 100% poison duration
• That you are, for the most part, running the meta build, and using qtfy standardized buffs/debuffs
• Since the standard build has over 4 hits per second, given overlap on some skills, and since no one is perfect, we'll use a rough baseline of roughly 2.75 hits per second, achievable by using crossfire with quickness.
• I went for percentages over flat numbers because they were easier to make out the exact difference, and the specific dps is unnecessary for the comparison

So, onto the numbers. I did 3 tests, and repeated them a few times just to make sure there were no outliers.

• Baseline - Sharpening Stone - 100% Damage
• Untraited - Vulture Stance - 97.7% Damage
• Traited - Vulture Stance - 101.8% Damage

Note that traited vulture stance was solo DPS, and wasn't considering the damage you would get by sharing the stance to allies. With that in mind, I think it's unfair to say sharpening stone is a blatantly stronger skill of choice. I don't think either of them would be a poor choice to run in the meta currently. (Excusing if meta Soulbeast suddenly starts running the stance sharing trait, which wouldn't surprise me, and would make vulture stance undoubtedly the stronger choice.) Though, in raids and fractals, I would still probably recommend sharpening stone just due to the ease of use.

[Professor Sprout.1560]

@"ITheNormalPerson.9275" Thanks a lot for your detailed analysis and your data, it is very thorough and helpful. If the meta does shift to using the stance trait, it sounds as though it might make sense to put aside the fire/poison traps and run both stance and stone in the same build.

[Marcaum.1302]

Apart from what @ITheNormalPerson.9275 tested, there is also a HUGE negative side to the Stance when compared to Sharperning Stone that people seem to be failing to see: When i pop Sharpening Stone, I have all the time in the world to shoot my targets for it to proc. Using the Stance, I have ridiculous FOUR SECONDS to dish all the blows I can. That means that if I have to reposition, dodge, or if I get downed, stunned, knocked back/down after I pop the Stance, it all goes to waste until I can try again 30 seconds later.

I think it is totally fair to say Sharpening Stone is BLATANTLY stronger than Vulture Stance for this reason alone. Again, guys, more real world testing, less punch bag testing.