Soulbeast - Poisonbeast
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
synergy.
Skill Bar


Shortbow
Dagger/Dagger
Utility
Skill Variants
Heal
- - 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 and a CC, but Alpine Wolf has better mobility and 2 leap finishers in Beastmode to combo with 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.
Template Code
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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
- - higher damage option if you don't need extra sustain.
- - sacrifices some defensive stats for passive defense against conditions.
Relics
- - adds more cleansing to the build in case you're expecting to face condi specs, or you're struggling with condition management in general.
- - the healing reduction could help you kill high sustain specs.
- - adds a powerful proc to your elite with boon corruption.
Vigor uptime which also means more passive healing, damage mitigation and condition cleansing when playing with Nature Magic.
- permanent
- - this could give you a lot of extra healing in some condition matchups when combined with 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 which has a 10s CD.
- Pet related traits and skills such as 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
- With this trait you should usually rotate through the abilities of both pets before leaving .
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.
- 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.
Bleeding and
Poison - these buffs stay active while the skills continue to recharge.
- This provides a relatively small benefit, but a benefit nonetheless.
and 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
Stability. Using this skill to counter CC allows you to keep for emergencies.
is more of a defensive skill on this build, used for its
Mobility
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.
provides a high amount of
- 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
- Use the immob from to root targets into stronger CCs like .
, (from behind or the sides), and then spam as many weapon skills on them as possible + the Bee's and .
- Merging with the Bee increases your condition damage. Always merge when you're doing bursts.
- Bee's merged F3
Taunt at the end of the cast if 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!
is your best burst skill. It's both a good followup to CC and potentially also a CC source with
- Bee's merged F2 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 from range is a decent filler, especially from behind. Many shortbow skills have increased effectiveness when striking from behind or the sides.
- 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:
Quickness makes it easier to pull off skills with long cast times.
is a good opener at the start of burst combos. The - will buff your attacks if used in Beastmode.
- If you want to use
Poison stacks.
offensively, use it after or a CC. That way you'll apply more - 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
- to knock down the target.
- Optional - Swap pets in Beastmode with F4 (Eternal Bond), you'll gain better offensive stats.
- in melee range.
- from behind.
- from behind.
- (if you're on Bee)
Bee
- Start in Beastmode on Bee.
- to apply CC.
Taunt at the end.
for conditions and to - while the Taunt lasts.
- as a quick followup with high damage.
Sustain
- You're heavily reliant on CC, evasion and mobility to avoid taking damage. Stance skills and
- and 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.
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.
- Both weapon sets and both pets provide ways to avoid damage (not even counting all the CC):
- Dagger 4 has an evade frame on .
- Shortbow has an evade frame on .
- Bee is more offensive but still has , which is a rather lengthy CC. It's also a mobility skill you could use to run away.
- Alpine Wolf has to help you mitigate incoming damage.
- Dodging applies
Protection, which also heals thanks to the trait . 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 to run away, cast in a safe position and then follow up with .
- You can umerge while casting and it'll still go off, while being able to make the pet cast sooner.
- If taken Wolf's is perhaps the most powerful defensive skill in the build. It breaks stuns, grants immunity to direct damage and even cleanses some conditions.
- 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. 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.
- 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.
Protection and as has no cast time, this can be used even while CC'd in order to survive enemy burst!
grants
Related Builds
- Soulbeast - Poisonbeast Roamer - WvW version of the build.
Ratings

Great damage and sustain, nice to see an older build get back into the spotlight.

I play it with D/D instead of shortbow but it's good either way. People always underestimate condi rangers but it can be very viable. Not that great above 1v1 tho so it's a bit niche.

A very strong 1v1 and side node. Has the ability to sustain, kite, and kill. When played by a well experienced player, it's god tier.

Surprisingly not bad in this bursty meta; axe 3 with quickdraw, easy access to invis with trapper rune, an unblockable launch, and very high sustain make it a decent sidenoder. I prefer playing it with a rabid amulet for more toughness, swamp drake instead of the wolf (tail swipe is a blast finisher for your heal trap and means even more weakness application), and signet of renewal as a 2nd stunbreak. I feel like it's really held back by a lack of boonrip however. This is a build to try if Untamed is too hard to learn.

Leaning somewhere around a 3.8 for this build. It is a totally workable condi build that takes advantage of stances and sages. It can side node decently and stances make it harder to meme. Stances are actually fairly weak however and it only really puts out poison which is cleanseable.
Basically it work really well if you want to afk on a side node but doesn’t bring anything other than that

Almost exactly the build I have found that works really well. Totally destroys teams/characters that rely on healing.
Comments
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