Corrupting Soul Settler (PvE Heavy sustain/condi build)

[Skuzz.6580]

Hi fellow rangers, keep in mind that everything I talk about in here is based on PvE (mainly Open World).

(scroll down for the the build if you don't care much about the introduction or thought process)

 

Introduction:

The upcoming few weeks are exciting as we enter a new expansion with a lot of new build options available for us thanks to our very diverse new Elite Spec: The Soulbeast.

The new grieving set has caught a lot of people's attention, as well as new abilities that might make a Power('Sic'Em) or Hybrid Power/Condi build viable.

There are a lot of new things that might feel underwhelming (Dagger Main-Hand, Predator's Cunning trait for instance) a bunch of things that do work with our new Beastmode, and a whole lot that doesn't (by either a bug or just not being implemented, for instance, Signet of Renewal's active..), us not being able to swap pet's while in Beastmode (which makes for a ' cluncky' playstyle), etc etc. But, the most important thing, in my opinion, is the diversity we get.

 

Thought process:

On to the actual build and why I am going to run with this build.

So the name I put up kinda sums up the build, It is a Corrupting (Condi dps) Soul (soulbeast which emphasises on sharing and retrieving boons from our pet) Settler (Settler gear= very tanky with heavy condi damage and sustain through +healing power).

The main thing I wanted to achieve before I decided on Settler gear was trying to get Predator's Cunning to work.

Predator's Cunning has very very low power and healing power coefficients, so boosting its output by those ways is just not possible, so in came the toughness stacking idea.

Having high toughness means that all healing you do is just A LOT more efficient. With toughness this high we are talking an average -40% damage received when compared to our default armor value, and that is without Protection (which we have up 100% of the time), with Protection we take 67% normal damage, which then gets reduced by our high armor even more. I don't know the exact calculations here but assuming our high armor blocks around 60% of incoming damage we then only take ~27% of damage (this is assuming the Protection goes before the damage calculation).

So with Toughness being a requirement and Condition Damage being the way we wanted to deal damage there was still room for 1-2 more stats, Well to make things a bit shorter, I decided on Healing Power pretty fast because after all, I wanted to try and Sustain myself even longer/better.

 

So then came, which weapons. Well Dagger Main-Hand however underwhelming it might seem at first glance actually has very good condi damage. The auto attack chain gives short applications but with predator's cunning that is what we want, its #2 is very good in that it does quite some bleeding and afterwards makes your next 2 attacks deal poison, and then there is the #3 which is a Leap finisher as well as a quickness generator (It's damage is trivial).

As much as I would like to try a dagger/dagger setup, Torch is just the most absurd condi damage weapon we have access to, so easy choice here.

Our second weapon set could be alot of things, Axe/Dagger could've worked (though then I would go dagger/dagger and axe/torch) but I always liked my Shortbow, and Shortbow is just a good mirror of dagger in that it applies both bleeding and poison, it also has the same type of abilities like dagger#2 in that SB#4 gives our next 3 attacks bleeding and SB#3 gives us swiftness.

 

onto specializations, Wilderness Survival is a no-brainer, it gives us recharge duration and condi damage on our dagger/torch setup, gives more dodges and protection because of the dodges, more powerful Poison Damage from Poison master (how I wish its active would also work on us in Beastmode.. :( ) but a very overlooked trait, which is actually very powerful for sustain purposes: Rugged Growth, which gives us ~600 health a second.

The second spec is a bit of a 50/50 honestly, between Nature Magic and Skirmishing, Nature Magic makes us more tanky, gives more healing power, some nice condi clearing when dodging (10sec ICD) some boon duration increase and a nice additional heal. Skirmishing makes our bleeds a lot more powerful, gives fury, swiftness and vigor and the trait: Light on your feed might work very well in this setup (with all the dodging and evading, the piercing is very useful).

So honestly I really don't know what 2nd spec I end up choosing, probably trying both and see how my sustain is without Nature Magic. It comes down to Skirmishing being the DPS choice and Nature Magic being the Sustain choice that also has a higher boon uptime (as well as more stacks of boons).

 

The Build:

1) Nature Magic: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAofVnUqAN8id8CerAUtglOBrJYNpOZO/tAwKLv0+ajtpIORPVD-jByCQBH7UAcH9BZU53kU/BAHBAhs/wEeAAmUJIpA8VnG-e

2) Skirmishing: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAofVnUqAN8id8CerAUtgFzjKfi74PmpFGnyp5FCgKJlnEnoaA-jByCQBA4IAkRlfT4BAMJ1fuj+gjdKAMpSQhs/ApA8VnG-e

I think most choices in the spec's speak for themselves, but I will explain a few things anyway:

 

Soulbeast:

- Elevated Bond simply works very good in combination with Nature Magic's: Fortifying Bond and " We Heal as One"

- The grandmaster traits are all 3 pretty good in different situations:

* Eternal Bond is obviously very nice to have when soloing, it helps you keep that killstreak sigil maxed out

* Leader of the Pack is very nice for when you are with a group or even when solo if you want to stack more boons via Moa Stance (this works on your pet)

* Oppressive Superiority is the obvious choice for more damage

 

Wilderness Survival:

- So the first trait choice, and actually the only real choice is also a very flexible one, Oakheart Salve is the Sustain Choice, and the one I like the most since this builds vulnerability is condi's, so with this trait you at least minimize that by getting regeneration and reducing damage further when you have regeneration. Taste for danger is the DPS option, but honestly, 5% condi duration is not that much.

 

Nature Magic:

- a few choices in this spec, first up Spirited Arrival vs Evasive Purity: Since we already have 25% endurance regeneration and we are still weakest to conditions I prefur Evasive Purity here, but its 10sec ICD makes it so if you are going to engage in a fight that benefits more from having alot more dodges then I would take Spirited Arrival

- The final choice is Protective Ward vs Invigorating Bond: While the healing sure is nice from Invigorating Bond I think the Guaranteed Protection at the start of a fight and an AoE weakness (mind you, this is in an AoEso with this trait you can engage larger groups of enemies alot ' safer') are just more usefull, for solo play for sure. When in a group however, the heal becomes better, since its an AoE heal.

 

Skirmishing:

- Normally you'd always get Sharpened Edges, but since our crit% is on the low side (when flanking with fury it is around 40%) and since the grandmaster trait: "Light on your Feet" benefits from more dodges, the Vigor gain from Primal Reflexes is a nice addition.

- As for the grandmaster, I just want to try out " Light on your Feet" , it seems like a nice choice, since we will be dodging a lot anyway and if we end up flanking the additional effects and piercing from SB just seems like gold honestly. But obviously Quick Draw is a very good contender, it lets us use our big hitting weapon skills more often. Vicious Quarry is probably not worth it with the low crit chance and the low power damage from which crits scale.

 

As you can see quite some choices that are viable, if you get more known with this spec and the trait swaps possible between encounters or in other settings (solo, group, meta), picking the right things for the right situation will come a lot more natural. You can go very beefy, you can go more group support orientated, more damage, etc.

And that is just the specs, not even talking about the utility skills.

 

Utility skills:

First off I would like to say that IF they make Sigil of Renewal's active effect work in beastmode then Bear Stance is a HUGE heal and will be the heal to go to in group settings for sure, to put this in perspective, you draw upto 13 conditions on you, which first off, don't even damage you because of the Resistance but when you activate bearstance will then get eaten for more healing. In total 8 conditions eaten for a total of ~5800 additional healing on top of the base healing of ~5200.. so yes, that is pretty much a full heal :)

 

- Ok so the choices, I already talked about " We Heal as One" in combination with the earlier discussed traits this is just a no-brainer.

- Dolyak Stance is a very nice stun break that stops crowd controls and gives retaliation, just very solid. " Protect Me!" and Lightning Reflexes are nice Stun Breaks as well but Dolyak Stance is just better, and it works very well with our boon theme that we have going on.

- Moa Stance is probably my favorite stance, it just gives such a massive amount of boons and added boon duration. Together with the 2 Bond traits and our heal skill we can pretty much keep all boons up 100% of the time (even retaliation from Dolyak!!).

- Viper's Nest, now this abilities is just very strong in our build. Predator's Cunning is why. Since Predator's cunning applies for each stack applied, Viper's Nest makes it so it procs a total of 9 times (3 targets 3 times), so a nice 1600 healing and damage proc in addition to an already pretty good condi proc, and it is a Poison Field, which also works nicely with Our leap and projectile finishers.

- The Elite skill can be a choice of 2, 1 being Entangle (which I prefer) the other can be " Leader of the pack" . Sadly " One Wolf Pack" doesn't do much for us, it can be a nice Skill for group play ofcorse with Stance sharing.

 

Pets:

Now this is the most complex part, and honestly, there is no 2 best choice here.

Just make sure you have 2 differend type of pets, where 1 deadly is at least advised (more dmg) the other could be a Supportive , Versatile or Stout one.

- I mainly picked the Jungle Stalker for it's out of Beastmode skill: Mighty Roar. Which is an easy way to keep 25 stacks of might up and well It's Maul ability in Beastmode is pretty sick honestly, an ~8k - ~10.5k (with Skirmishing) bleed and it being a Supportive pet helps out sustain aswell.

- Fanged Iboga is just an interesting pet with probably the most condition damage out of all pet's available, though an honorable mention is the Forrest Spider which has a very nice Poison Field ability. Brisstleback is also a fine pet to use.

- Further more Polar bear is a very solid choice, the Versatile Beast ability is very nice in combination with out fire and poison fields (pull them inside the fields), works even greater when combined with Entangle afterward and it gives a very reliable source of regeneration and an " ow snap' button in Defy Pain. I would probably use Polar Bear if I were to tank in a group setting.

 

Wrap up:

I could definitely see this build function as a tank/support build that still deals considerable damage. Where Condi Druid brought group damage buffs and dealt average condi damage, this build should be able to tank or offtank in fractals while buffing his team with stance effects and also dealing condi damage.

Don't let the defensive gear choice fool you, this build still gets around ~2900 condi damage at 25xMight (not counting killstreak sigil).

But for the most part I think this is an excelent Open world PvE build.

- 3 people standing next to a legendary bounty? Engage!

- you and a friend are running through events, equip some more team support skills and traits and become an unstopable team of 2 that can duo basicly everything apart from meta bosses

- you want a solo with a build that doesn't get you killed by every excidental pull, then this is the spec for you

 

So in case you are still reading, thanks for taking the time, and I hope I gave you inspiration in trying something else then a pure condi or power setup that everyone is talking about.

I think with this build you would have to pull a whole lot of enemies to even get close to dying, your damage is still very good since condi damage only really needs 1 damage stat to be effective (where power needs 3..) and with the combination of toughness and healing you should be able to solo pretty much anything honestly.

 

If you have any suggestions, or other comments, please leave them below!

Have a great time in Path of Fire!!

 

 

 

 

[NemesiS.6749]

why not trailblazer or dire? I am no expert but that gear choice meeh, is it good? I love the shortbow, with skirmishing, my 2 fav weapons are GS and SB on ranger so i need to choose if go condi or power for soulbeast. Anyway if this build is for PvE then why not use viper or the new stat grieving, even sinister. Its useless to go so defensive in PvE

[Skuzz.6580]

> @NemesiS.6749 said:

> why not trailblazer or dire? I am no expert but that gear choice meeh, is it good? I love the shortbow, with skirmishing, my 2 fav weapons are GS and SB on ranger so i need to choose if go condi or power for soulbeast. Anyway if this build is for PvE then why not use viper or the new stat grieving, even sinister. Its useless to go so defensive in PvE

 

I don't think going Defensive is all that bad in PvE (Open-World) honestly, especially not now with the bounty system where you will be fighting champion and legendary enemies far more frequently and a build like this makes you able to safely engage, and hold your own. No need to wait for 5-10 people to show up to help you, since everyone runs these fragile builds that get 1 shot by everything people right now just massively zerg everything, no need to do that if you have this 1 guy that can tank for you, in this case that person could be you.

 

As for the gear choice, vitality does not help me self-sustain myself, it simply increases my health pool nothing more, where healing power gets the most efficiency out of having a low health pool with high defence.

Trailblazer could work, but I just prefer having more self-sustain over more damage.

The idea of this build is to have high self sustain please understand that, obviously running full vipers, zerkers, grieving etc is good, but there are countless of build of that going around, and honestly, since I play a lot solo, I prefer to be able to solo everything rather than kill trash mobs a bit faster (expertise doesn't do all that much in Open World btw).

Anyway, those are my reasons, not saying your suggestions can't work, they sure can, this is just my preference for what my builds tries to do.

[Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582]

Just makle sure you try it out before making ascended gear because I think you will change your mind in the end, it's going to take weeks to kill a champion with this.