Redoing Soulbeast (Work in Progress)

[shadowpass.4236]

Hello fellow Bearbows!

 

Some of you may know of me in game as S H A D O W F A L L. I'm a big advocate for the ranger class and its been my main since GW2 first came out.

Path of Fire has been released for a few weeks now and I've realized (along with many others) that our new espec isn't the most coherent one out there.

 

Our weapons, traits, utilities, and pets are a bit (very) wonky so I've decided to potentially get the ball rolling on a possible rework of our stuff.

With that said, let's begin...

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# Traits

 

_The top, middle, and bottom row of traitlines generally have a single focus throughout them. Soulbeast's traits don't follow a pattern and these ideas are aimed to change that._

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## Top: Entering/Exiting Beastmode

_Baseline: Entering Beastmode grants you the boons affecting your pet. Exiting Beastmode grants your pet half your might stacks and half of the duration of the boons affecting you._

 

* **Minor** - Gain access to Stances. Etc. etc.

* **Adept** - Entering Beastmode cleanses 5 conditions and grants 3 stacks of stability for 4 seconds.

* **Master** - Entering Beastmode grants 5 stacks might, fury, and quickness for 3 seconds. Exiting grants regeneration, protection, and resistance for 3 seconds.

* **Grandmaster** - Entering Beastmode causes your next strike to strip 2 boons from your target. Exiting causes your pet's next strike to steal 1 boon.

 

## Middle: Stances

_Baseline: Stances also affect your pet and share 50% base duration with allies automatically._

 

* **Minor** - Disabling foes removes 1 boon and immobilizes for 1 second.

* **Adept** - Gain a 33% reduction to incoming condition damage and duration while under the effect of a stance.

* **Master** - Reduce stance cooldown by 20% and make the shared duration with allies 100%. Pulse 1 stack of might and fury every second and grant immunity to blind on you and your pet while under the effect of a stance.

* **Grandmaster** - Gain super speed and quickness when activating a stance. Gaining quickness increases the duration of boons on you by 2 seconds.

 

## Bottom: Beast Abilities/Special Bonuses

_Baseline: F1, F2, and F3 all count as Beast Abilities._

 

* **Minor** - Entering Beastmode casts that pet's Soulbeast f3.

* **Adept** - Gain quickness, stability, and cleanse 2 conditions when using a Beast Ability (f1-f3).

* **Master** - 33% chance on hit to apply poison, poison lasts 33% longer, and steals health on application.

* **Grandmaster** - Beast Abilities (f1-f3) have 20% reduced cooldown and deal 30% more damage.

[shadowpass.4236]

Reserved for utilities.

[shadowpass.4236]

Reserved for weapons.

[shadowpass.4236]

Reserved for pets.

[Susanoo.2586]

 

> * **Grandmaster** - Entering Beastmode causes your next strike to strip 2 boons from your target. Exiting causes your pet's next strike to steal 1 boon.

Pls.

On another note. I love the Poison trait, I've always wanted poison builds to work for ranger.

[Aleksander Suburb.4287]

@Traits: The traits follow a pattern and I can find here useful traits, but:

- where is the unblockable? The unblockable trait was the only thing to make power soulbeast effective in wvw.

- If you put the traits in lines, why not a "I will stay in beastmode"-line (without the underwhelming stance). I really dislike the "enter beastmode" traits, because they force you to enter and leave -.-

 

What about:

When your attack was blocked while you're in beastmode, you get 4s unblockable (20s recast)

Reflected projectiles are destroyed.

(This is a bit strong, but it is just in beastmode and will balance the broken, anti-ranger reflect/block-meta. And it is useful in melee, too)

[StickerHappy.8052]

FINALLY. I begged you so much for this that I had to do a video of mine. haha

 

My thoughts:

 

* Poison Master Trait - Still too weak when you have this Bee-ES https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Potent_Poison

 

[Ganpot.3879]

There are some generally interesting ideas, but I've highlighted a few bits that I don't think would work out well or that I have questions about.

 

> @shadowpass.4236 said:

> _Entering Beastmode grants you the boons affecting your pet. Exiting Beastmode grants your pet half your might stacks and half of the duration of the boons affecting you._

> _Stances also affect your pet and share 50% base duration with allies automatically._

> _F1, F2, and F3 all count as Beast Abilities._

 

I assume these will all be baseline regardless of which traits are chosen (your format left it a bit unclear)? They would be very good changes if so, but I would also like to see pet swap added to beastmode by default (which should share the non-beastmode cooldown). It is just way too clunky to force players to exit beastmode to actually obtain the benefits of their second pet.

 

Also, I think giving only half of the ranger's boon duration (and might stacks) to the pet upon exiting beastmode is too punishing. You have to keep in mind that a lot of boons (especially quickness) only last for short durations most of the time anyway, and it takes the pet time to lock onto a target and start attacking once re-summoned. And then there's the unfortunate fact that most pets don't benefit from quickness at all. In many cases, the other half of the boon durations would just be going to waste, which would make people more reluctant to exit beastmode. Instead, just give the pet a free 50% duration on all boons affecting the ranger when exiting beastmode (and hopefully fix the quickness bug). Considering how lackluster and easy to ignore most pets are, I have a hard time believing it will be overpowered (especially with a 10 second cooldown).

 

> @shadowpass.4236 said:

> ## Top: Entering/Exiting Beastmode

> * **Adept** - Entering Beastmode cleanses 5 conditions and grants 3 stacks of stability for 4 seconds.

> * **Master** - Entering Beastmode grants 5 stacks might, fury, and quickness for 3 seconds. Exiting grants regeneration, protection, and resistance for 3 seconds.

> * **Grandmaster** - Entering Beastmode causes your next strike to strip 2 boons from your target. Exiting causes your pet's next strike to steal 1 boon.

 

The adept trait is fine, but granting only 3 seconds of might, fury, regeneration, and protection is a bit weak. Think about extending it to 5 seconds or something. Three seconds of resistance and quickness on the other hand is great. The ranger has plenty of access to fury already, so if you can think of something to give instead that would be ideal, but if not it's still acceptable.

 

The grandmaster trait is alright, but I don't think I would ever consider using it in general PvE content, which is a problem. Perhaps swap the exit effect with the exit effect of the master trait so that the boon interactions are spread out? Maybe also consider buffing it a bit somehow. It doesn't strike me as build-defining or anything, which is something I never knew that I desperately wanted until I saw the Holosmith's grandmaster traits.

 

> @shadowpass.4236 said:

> ## Middle: Stances

> * **Minor** - Disabling foes removes 1 boon and immobilizes for 1 second.

> * **Adept** - Gain a 33% reduction to incoming condition damage and duration while under the effect of a stance.

> * **Master** - Reduce stance cooldown by 20% and make the shared duration with allies 100%. Pulse 1 stack of might and fury every second and grant immunity to blind on you and your pet while under the effect of a stance.

> * **Grandmaster** - Gain super speed and quickness when activating a stance. Gaining quickness increases the duration of boons on you by 2 seconds.

 

Maybe extend the immobilize on the minor trait by 1 second. If the enemy is already disabled, I don't know that the immobilize will even be noticeable otherwise. Even then, I'd think about revising the minor to something else entirely (maybe a new way to grant quickness, since it would combo with the grandmaster trait). The adept and grandmaster traits are good, no complaints. The master trait is interesting (I would have never thought of blind immunity), and my only issue with it is that, again, fury is incredibly easy for rangers to generate, so granting more of it seems like a waste (especially since you eliminated the Furious Strength minor). Honestly though, I'd really like to see all of the stances redone to be more interactive and less... boring.

 

> @shadowpass.4236 said:

> ## Bottom: Beast Abilities/Special Bonuses

> * **Minor** - Entering Beastmode casts that pet's Soulbeast f3.

> * **Adept** - Gain quickness, stability, and cleanse 2 conditions when using a Beast Ability (f1-f3).

> * **Master** - 33% chance on hit to apply poison, poison lasts 33% longer, and steals health on application.

> * **Grandmaster** - Beast Abilities (f1-f3) have 20% reduced cooldown and deal 30% more damage.

 

I dislike the minor and agree with Aleksander Suburb.4287 that this traitline should focus on encouraging an extended merged playstyle. The adept trait seems fine, but you didn't specify the duration of the boons (which would obviously make or break the trait). I would like the master trait, but we already have the Poison Master grandmaster trait from Wilderness Survival. Additionally, this trait would do nothing for a physical damage build, and I would prefer it to benefit both physical and condition builds. How about this: After using a Beast Ability, all of your attacks become unblockable for 4 seconds.

 

I object to the grandmaster trait just on principle. The devs nerfed the hell out of our F1 and F2 beast abilities, and we shouldn't have to take a grandmaster trait just to make them deal more damage than an auto-attack. The cooldown reduction should be carried over from the Pack Alpha minor from Beastmastery (which should also improve our merged Soulbeast attributes, by the way). If this trait existed, it would basically just be a middle finger from the devs. I don't know what you could replace it with... maybe a unique buff that increases damage and reduces all damage taken (including condi damage) by 5% for each enemy within 300 units (max of 30% at 6 stacks) while merged. It might be way too strong (even though it would basically just be replacing the pet from a damage and tankiness standpoint), but at least it would allow Soulbeast to effectively frontline in WvW, and you could combo it with your stance adept trait to heavily counter some of the more cancerous condi builds in PvP and WvW (it would be nice to have some serious counterplay available for a change).

[cyberwolf.5830]

I would add that the F skills while merged should be useful and not kitten damage skills.

For example F2 on cat could be mass invisibility, F2 on wolves could be mass reveal and so on.

In this way when you choose the pet you also choose the fighting style and gives more variety then just hit for 500 dmg or add 1 bleed

[Wondrouswall.7169]

Maybe it's just me, but redoing *just* the Soulbeast traits would not nearly be as effective as rolling in some of the current traits as part of core. Traits like Second Skin, Fresh Reinforcement, Predator's Cunning - all stuff that can be merged in other core traits so **THEN** a finer-tuning and focus can be given to Soulbeast.

 

Not to mention, I'm not a fan of 3 traits (middle) entirely dedicated to Stances - a utility. A better trait structure that fits is something that Holosmith already has. Mold that to the Soulbeast, and I think it should be: Adepts (Entering Soulbeast), Masters (Beast abilities), Grandmasters (Exiting Soulbeast). Go from there.

[Arheundel.6451]

The **unblockable adept trait** has way more value than a bunch of pointless boons all together

[jcbroe.4329]

You addressed all of the issues I have with the trait side of how Soulbeast plays in PvP and WvW and against the metagame, so that's good.

 

You MAY have unintentionally created an extremely broken combination of traits though lol.

 

Look at: bottom adept + top master + middle grandmaster + casting f3 when entering Beastmode included. Factoring in Heal as One forand how it also currently interacts with Beastmode for extra fun and while I haven't done any hard math on it, I'm pretty sure you're looking at permanent quickness and an amount of stability ANet would surely never allow, although it isn't pulsing so you never know I guess.

[LughLongArm.5460]

I don't think Soulbeast needs a redesign, only polish and some improvements.

[Lazze.9870]

Don't agree with this at all. Soulbeast needs some work, polish and tuning one some traits and skill and the ability to pet swap in beastmode. It doesn't need a rework.

Having three traits affecting stances is like taking two steps backwards. No utilities in this game require multiple traits, that's something in the past. Make them strong on their own, have one trait affecting them. You're pretty much asking for the stances to be incredibly weak untraited by giving that much trait potential.