Soulbeast - Poisonbeast

Part of the current metagame

Part of the current tournament metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage, Mobility and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on June 15, 2025 and is up to date for the June 3, 2025 patch.

Overview

A Condition damage Soulbeast duelist build for PvP with high sustain, focusing mainly on winning smaller fights like 1v1s and 2v2s.

Poisonbeast was built around Predator's Cunning synergy.

Skill Bar

Shortbow

Dagger/Dagger

Utility

Skill Variants

Heal

• Healing Spring - if cleansing is less of a priority this could sometimes provide more healing, assuming you can make full use of the Water field with your leap finishers.

Pets

• Alpine Wolf over Fern Hound - they share the first 2 skills in Beastmode, but Fern Hound offers better healing and a chance to cleanse damaging conditions, while Alpine Wolf has a stunbreak with 100% damage reduction that also cleanses some non-damaging conditions. Alpine Wolf is better against strike damage and CC, while Fern Hound is better against condition builds.

• Siamoth over Alpine Wolf - they both have Unflinching Fortitude and a CC, but Alpine Wolf has better mobility and 2 leap finishers in Beastmode to combo with Healing Spring for more healing (if you're taking that heal), while Siamoth has a better F2 skill, slightly longer CC duration and a bit more damage in Beastmode. Very similar pets, this one comes down to personal preferences.

• Hawk over Janthiri Bee - if you don't have access to the Janthir Wilds expansion, you'll have to use the older version of the build with Hawk. The merged F3 is the same. You lose a burst skill and a CC but gain much better mobility.

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

Nature Magic over Beastmastery also works. This is a more forgiving version of the build:

Equipment

Shortbow

Sigil

Sigil

Dagger

Dagger

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of Necromancer - higher damage option if you don't need extra sustain.

• Rune of Orr - sacrifices some defensive stats for passive defense against conditions.

Relics

• Relic of Bava Nisos - adds more cleansing to the build in case you're expecting to face condi specs, or you're struggling with condition management in general.

• Relic of the Demon Queen - the healing reduction could help you kill high sustain specs.

• Relic of Cerus - adds a powerful proc to your elite with boon corruption.

• Relic of Evasion - permanent Vigor uptime which also means more passive healing, damage mitigation and condition cleansing when playing with Nature Magic.

• Relic of Nayos - this could give you a lot of extra healing in some condition matchups when combined with Evasive Purity and your healing skill, but Relic of Evasion itself boosts the effectiveness of Evasive Purity and heals/mitigates damage via Wilderness Survival synergy. Nayos gives you better burst healing, while Evasion provides constant value/mitigation throughout the fight.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

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

• Pet related traits and skills such as Poison Master 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).

• Melding with a dead pet and then exiting Beastmode instantly revives them.

General

• Eternal Bond allows you to swap pets while in Beastmode! This makes it significantly easier for you to adapt to any given situation. For example you could use both pets' mobility skills back-to-back while traveling between capture points, or you could quickly swap to Alpine Wolf for the stunbreak even if you're on Bee.
  • With this trait you should usually rotate through the abilities of both pets before leaving Beastmode.

• Most of your time will be spent in Beastmode, but it's worth unmerging every ~20 seconds so your pets can unload all their CDs before merging again.

• Crippling Shot and Double Arc should be used a few seconds before entering a fight, preferably while merged with your pet. When used in Beastmode, these give you a buff that makes your next attacks inflict Bleeding and Poison - these buffs stay active while the skills continue to recharge.
  • This provides a relatively small benefit, but a benefit nonetheless.

• "Strength of the Pack!" is more of a defensive skill on this build, used for its Stability. Using this skill to counter CC allows you to keep Dolyak Stance for emergencies.

Mobility

• Quick Shot provides a high amount of Swiftness uptime, but not permanent. Staying in Beastmode also give you a passive 30% boost, which is basically just as good.
  • Quick Shot makes you leap back a bit, which is not ideal when your goal is to move forward faster. To fix this you should consider using the keybind for "about face" in order to perform a 180 degree turn before using this skill, then turn back around again at the end of the leap.

• Both pets offer mobility skills in Beastmode.

Damage

• Playstyle: there aren't any key rotations or combos you need to know for this one, only a few high priority skills to use after CCs. Use CCs to set up burst and play defensively when those aren't available.

• The basic gameplan is simple: CC targets with Crippling Shot, Concussion Shot (from behind or the sides), Bumble (soulbeast) and Brutal Charge (soulbeast canine) then spam as many weapon skills on them as possible + the Bee's Stinging Sorrow (soulbeast) and Primal Cry.
  • Use the immob from Crippling Shot to root targets into stronger CCs like Concussion Shot.

• Merging with the Bee increases your condition damage. Always merge when you're doing bursts.

• Bee's merged F3 Primal Cry is your best burst skill. It's both a good followup to CC and potentially also a CC source with Taunt at the end of the cast if Beastly Warden isn't on cooldown. Use it as often as you can, and protect the cast with Stability if necessary.
  • This skill works outside of melee range, making it your most threatening ranged ability that could be used from a safe distance. You could even use it behind walls and pillars to hit enemies on the other side!

• Bee's merged F2 Stinging Sorrow (soulbeast) is quite a strong skill too, but has quite a long cast time. Both other Bee skills could be used for the CCs to set this up.

• On bow spamming Crossfire from range is a decent filler, especially from behind. Many shortbow skills have increased effectiveness when striking from behind or the sides.

• Poison Volley is a cone-shaped attack and should be used in melee range (point-blank) to ensure that all the projectiles hit the main target. This is your highest damage attack on bow, and fits really well into burst combos because of the low cast time, even if the target got out of the CC.

• Dagger/Dagger is filled with fire-and-forget skills that don't require much thought. There are only a few things to note:
  • Instinctive Engage is a good opener at the start of burst combos. The Quickness makes it easier to pull off skills with long cast times.
  • Double Arc will buff your attacks if used in Beastmode.
  • If you want to use Stalker's Strike offensively, use it after Crippling Talon or a CC. That way you'll apply more Poison stacks.
  • Crippling Talon is the only ranged skill on this set and can be used for some ranged poking if you're stuck on D/D but don't want to go into melee.

Burst combo examples

These are merely supposed to give you some ideas, the combos in the build are rather flexible and not set in stone. Just try to maximize CC duration while spamming high damage attacks on enemies and weave in skills with evade frames when they escape the CC.

Wolf + Shortbow

1. Brutal Charge (soulbeast canine) to knock down the target.
2. Optional - Swap pets in Beastmode with F4 (Eternal Bond), you'll gain better offensive stats.
3. Poison Volley in melee range.
4. Crippling Shot from behind.
5. Concussion Shot from behind.
6. Primal Cry (if you're on Bee)

Bee

1. Start in Beastmode on Bee.
2. Bumble (soulbeast) to apply CC.
3. Primal Cry for conditions and to Taunt at the end.
4. Stinging Sorrow (soulbeast) while the Taunt lasts.
5. Poison Volley as a quick followup with high damage.

Sustain

• You're heavily reliant on CC, evasion and mobility to avoid taking damage. Stance skills and "Protect Me!" are there to let you fix some mistakes and patch gaps in your defenses. Once stance CDs have been used you should play much more carefully as you could become an easy target.
  • "Protect Me!" and Unflinching Fortitude can be used more freely for damage mitigation while other stunbreaks such as Dolyak Stance are available. If only one of these skills is available, keep it for emergencies to serve as a stunbreak.

• Both weapon sets and both pets provide ways to avoid damage (not even counting all the CC):
  • Dagger 4 has an evade frame on Stalker's Strike.
  • Shortbow has an evade frame on Quick Shot.
  • Bee is more offensive but still has Bumble (soulbeast), which is a rather lengthy CC. It's also a mobility skill you could use to run away.
  • Alpine Wolf has Unflinching Fortitude to help you mitigate incoming damage.

• Dodging applies Protection, which also heals thanks to the trait Rugged Growth. When playing with Nature Magic, dodging also removes 1 condition.

• Fern Hound's kit serves as your 2nd healing skill. This pet is especially good at disengaging and reseting fights - you can use Crippling Leap (soulbeast) to run away, cast Spiritual Reprieve in a safe position and then follow up with Regenerate (Fern Hound).
  • You can umerge while casting Spiritual Reprieve and it'll still go off, while being able to make the pet cast Regenerate (Fern Hound) sooner.

• If taken Wolf's Unflinching Fortitude is perhaps the most powerful defensive skill in the build. It breaks stuns, grants immunity to direct damage and even cleanses some conditions.

• Dolyak Stance is useful in just about any situation. It mitigates both conditon and strike damage, makes you immune to any form of CC, and even cleanses some conditions.

• Condition cleansing is rather limited. Bear Stance is more of a last resort for when you've taken too much damage and need to survive. Under heavy pressure use the time while your healing skill is active to disengage and reset fights using your mobility skills.

• Griffon Stance is basically an extra dodge which improves your endurance regen so you can avoid even more attacks right after. Great skill when you're being pressured and need to play more defensively.

• Unstoppable Union grants Protection and as Beastmode has no cast time, this can be used even while CC'd in order to survive enemy burst!

Related Builds

• Soulbeast - Poisonbeast Roamer - WvW version of the build.