Soulbeast 2.0 Rework! You'll love it too!

[Swagger.1459]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"Swagger.1459" said:

> > > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > > I don't think a specialization is meant to be "condi" or "power" exclusively. Soulbeast offer condi options that may not be on par to expectation but that's all. In fact I believe that the poison on MH dagger is more here to support the siphon when you poison a foe from _predator's cunning_ than anything.

> > >

> > > On the topic of the main mechanics of the e-specs, I believe that in general ANet do a poor job with the trade off. These trade off are neither consitent nor especially practical. Some time they care to shuffle abilities which is an interesting thing to do despite hurting a bit the gameplay and other time it just feel like random nerf.

> > >

> > > That said, If we have to consider the ranger only, I don't think that Soulbeast have a bad tradeoff. The main reason players complain about it is because ANet didn't care to implement this tradeoff at PoF release and they've grown accustomed to an extended range of freedom that have been taken away from them.

> > >

> > > Honestly, there is worse tradeoff than the soulbeast's where you trade the utility of having a 2nd pet in combat for the utility of being able to merge with your pet.

> > >

> > > If you were to compare with mirage for example, it's like you'd have a ranger e-spec that tradeoff it's second pet for an F4 that spawn temporary pets (a bit like hyena's F2 as the basis for F4) without the liberty of choice to have F4 change your pet while out of combat.

> >

> > I understand players can make different builds, but the idea was for Soulbeast to fall more on the condition melee spec side, with the extras of pet merging stuff. Soulbeast needs a better, and more usable, condition design.

>

> The issue with conditions is that from the beginning ANet made the mistake to put some on AA. More accurately having "skills" as autoattack instead of a bland attack was the mistake. This led condi builds to be heavily reliant on auto attack which make conditions to easily applied in the game.

>

> As for whether or not soulbeast is a condition melee spec or not, I believe that you are misled. E-specs' weapons add flavor, they ain't the "drive" of the e-spec. You are looking at e-spec like the weapon associated is important, it is not. Fondamentally whatever e-spec you use you are still able to use any of the core weapons which mean the espec weapon is an accessory token and as such it cannot define the gameplay of the e-spec. Something that define the gameplay of an e-spec is something that cannot be separated from it's gameplay. For the soulbeast it's simply the beastmode and nothing in the beastmode especially lead anyone to think that it's designed for a condi melee gameplay.

>

> What you have some beef with is the dagger's ability to apply condition damage. I won't lie to you, necromancer's scepter isn't much better at applying conditions on a single target than ranger's main hand dagger, yet it's a stapple of the necromancer's condi kit. The only thing lacking for the SB dagger compared to the necromancer's scepter is the necromancer's scepter trait increasing it's conditions duration. But to compensate this you have a pet to supply yourself with additionnal sources of conditions.

>

> So, why is it harder on the SB to have a working condi build you'll ask. It's simply harder because the ranger's utility don't provide him with long lasting conditions but instead short condi burst which in itself is a better way to take down low health players than impossibly high health mobs. Yet, to take down player it's easier to simply rely on power damage.

>

> Now I know that the necromancer isn't especially good at dealing damage but condition wise I don't believe that dagger soulbeast output in any way inferior to the necromancer. So if anything the melee condi soulbeast is balanced.

 

Replying to this... "What you have some beef with is the dagger's ability to apply condition damage.".

 

That's actually not my issue. My issue is that melee builds struggle when melee skills do not have movement, positioning, and other useful utilities tied to them. If you look at both of my posts on daggers, you'll see where my main issues with the build is, and that's the dagger designs. A player cannot take a dagger/dagger build inside of wvw and spvp and perform nearly as well as other builds. And when ranged weapons across professions outperform melee weapons (as they have been for a long time) that's a major issue. Yes, of course I mentioned condition improvements, but the main concern is having better utility and features to condi skills and designs.

 

 

 

 

[Taril.8619]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> As for whether or not soulbeast is a condition melee spec or not, I believe that you are misled. E-specs' weapons add flavor, they ain't the "drive" of the e-spec. You are looking at e-spec like the weapon associated is important, it is not. Fondamentally whatever e-spec you use you are still able to use any of the core weapons which mean the espec weapon is an accessory token and as such it cannot define the gameplay of the e-spec. Something that define the gameplay of an e-spec is something that cannot be separated from it's gameplay. For the soulbeast it's simply the beastmode and nothing in the beastmode especially lead anyone to think that it's designed for a condi melee gameplay.

 

Well, E-Specs weapons in some cases add to the "Drive" of the spec, due to lackluster core weapon sets that make the E-Spec weapons necessary in order to perform well. An example would be Power Necro, before Reaper it only had Axe/Dagger + Focus/Warhorn. Of which, all combinations are suck (With Axe + Focus at least providing some burst damage) and thus it relies heavily on Greatsword from Reaper spec in order to function.

 

This isn't to mention any times where an E-Spec weapon provides a particular type of gameplay. For Soulbeast, their Dagger is literally the only MH melee condition weapon for Ranger, not only that but it is literally the second MH weapon Ranger has that applies conditions (Aside from the single attack from Sword that puts out a whopping 2 Poison stacks)

 

Further to this, some E-Specs only really provide support for a single gameplay type. For example, both of Thief's E-Specs provide only Power/Precision and non-Condition Damage (With exception of the lulworthy Lotus Training at the end of Daredevil which is otherwise full of nothing that will help Condi play at all, especially T2 traits) which pushes their focus towards a particular style.

 

Meanwhile, with Soulbeast, it does actually provide some support for a Condi style play, from the potential to merge with a Deadly pet to get Condi Damage and Primal Cry (For an attack that applies Bleeding stacks), as well as a couple of traits including both damage types (Twice as Vicious and Oppressive Superiority both give Damage and Condi Damage/Duration)

 

Finally, with Soulbeast providing some support for Condi play, you'd expect it to be able to make use of Condi builds. Add to this the fact that Beastmode is melee focused, by the nature of every BM unique attack being melee (Or pulling enemies into melee range) and many pet attacks that become your F1 and F2 also being melee. Then what you get is an expectation of being able to make a viable melee condi build using the spec.

 

Personally, I see Soulbeast as a wierd spec. It has some support for condi but not on all trait tiers (Also passive traits). It is however possible to make a viable condi build with it though, due to being able to just run a normal Trap + Shortbow build and you don't really lose out on much because many of Ranger's core specs are entirely one-dimensional that even without Soulbeast having any condi bonuses it wouldn't be worse than any other 3rd spec option since nothing else really does anything either... (Marksmanship, Beastmastery and Nature Magic don't really do much for a condi build either... At best you can get Hunter's Gaze in MM for some might...)

 

However, this merely highlights how badly Ranger Core Specs could do with some updating to try and open up their options somewhat. Given that really, only Skirmishing has good options for both Power and Condi builds with a sprinkling of defence. Every other spec seems very one dimensional (With Marksmanship being the worst offender given that it's not only Power focused, but specifically with a tilt towards Longbow)

 

 

[Swagger.1459]

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