Soulbeast - Boonbeast Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Direct damage, Mobility and Sustain

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Overview

A Soulbeast WvW roamer focusing on boon stacking, mobility and sustain. While it's primarily made for 1v1s, the build has several tools for buffing allies as well when roaming in a group.

Skill Bar

Axe/Warhorn

Greatsword

Utility

Skill Bar Variants

Utility

• - purely a defensive option, breaks stun, adds Vigor to the build, evades attacks and even cleanses conditions beyond just the trait synergy. Note that the evade frame's cancelled by weapon swapping in which case the trait won't go off.

• - a more offensive choice which helps you burst better with auto attacks among other things, but also has a defensive side to it (breaks stun, cleanses conditions via WK, and the Superspeed is great for disengaging).

Elite

• - adds another burst window to the build, but you'll be more vulnerable to CC. Good option if you have trouble getting kills or roam in a group as stances can be shared with allies.

Pets

• Siamoth over Smokescale - equally viable alternative, only thing you lose is the chase potential of Smokescale.

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Specializations

Variants

• trades defense against direct damage for better condition cleansing.

Variants

• offers better pressure at the expense of lower sustain and less Quickness.

Equipment

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Zealot

Accessory
Zealot

Accessory
Zealot

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Axe
Marauder

Warhorn
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Greatsword
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Rune

Viable alternatives:

• - a very tanky rune which provides uptime for your most important boon while also synergizing with all the sources of healing in the build.

• - excellent boon duration.

Consumables

Food

There are several viable options:

• - considered to be optimal by many, this food offers passive damage mitigation and a general stat boost.

• - great defensive option with and synergy.
  • Budget version:

• - cheap crit chance boost plus armor ignoring damage procs which also heal you.

Utility

• or .

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Soulbeast allows Rangers to meld with their pet, becoming one. This is done through which has a 10s CD.

• Soulbeasts can't swap pets in combat. Use Owl.

• Pet related traits and skills such as the Attack of Opportunity from will continue to function even while merged, but this time you'll be the one who benefits from them, not the pet (although sometimes the effects are lessened).

General

• and are your two main mobility skills. Make sure you do not have anyone targeted while using them. Make sure you do not have an enemy targeted when using these skills for general mobility or disengaging.

• passively maintains a high uptime of healing reduction in duels via Poison, which is very important when fighting other bunker specs.

• Dodging applies Protection, which also heals thanks to the trait . also reduces the condition damage you take by 33% while affected by this boon.

• Survival skills each cure 2 conditions and grant Fury.

Weapon sets and damage

• Most of the damage will come from spamming auto attacks on Axe.
  • is an excellent filler which stacks Might and bounces off to other targets. This skill allows you to keep some distance from the target while constantly pressuring them. The bouncing axes can also clean up Mesmer clones nicely.
  • is best used in melee range to make all attacks land on the target. The axes also pierce, hitting enemies behind your target as well.
  • doesn't hit as hard is it used to but still does the most damage on this set (as far as single strikes go). In you deliver all of the conditions in 1 hit instead of having to rely on the pet for the Weakness, which is a great conditin for keeping Power based specs in check.

• is the hardest hitting skill in the build and the reason why there's on GS. Should be used right after swapping weapons.
  • refreshed the cooldown on which is a great followup, you could try to chain ⇒ ⇒ before the sigil expires.

• Greatsword is also the defensive/utility weapon set, offering a block in , an interrupt in and mobility in .

Stances

• allows you to share your stances with allies, including your pet. Try to do this whenever possible.

• is a high uptime stance which increases boon duration. Aim to sync it with your most important sources of boons such as , or .

• is very straightforward, just use it against any kind of CC whenever necessary. Consider using it before while under heavy condition pressure. Dolyak Stance can remove 3 conditions and make you immune to those for its duration, which means there's a higher chance for your heal to remove 2-4 damaging conditions (depending on traits). It also provides you with a safe way to finish off downed enemies.

• If taken is best used with and Axe auto attacks. The rapid strikes proc this elite often, adding burst to a weapon set that otherwise has none.