Soulbeast - Poisonbeast

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Condition damage, Mobility and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

This build was last updated on August 21, 2022 and is up to date for the August 23, 2022 game patch.

Overview

A Condition damage based Soulbeast duelist build for PvP.

Skill Bar

Shortbow

Dagger/Dagger

Utility

Template Code

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

Nature Magic over Skirmishing: most tanky option.

Beastmastery over Skirmishing: improved Command skills, pet attacks and .

Equipment

Shortbow

Sigil

Sigil

Dagger

Dagger

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Usage

Elite specialization basics

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

• Pet swapping is disabled while in combat.
  • Hawk is the pet you'll be using in combat.
  • Siamoth is your non-combat pet. What that means is you'll only use this pet for one thing: , hoping for a Plasma which can be consumed by . Use Forage between fights so you may start the next encounter with a free consumable. Swap back to your other pet as soon as possible.
  • Traits related to swapping pets now activate upon entering/leaving .

• 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

• makes your toolkit way more flexible by significantly reducing the CD of the first skill you use after swapping weapons, allowing you to better adapt to situations. There are a lot of ways to use this trait, here are a few ideas:
  • On short bow you should either open with for burst damage (this is the most common), if you need sustain (evade attacks), or if you want more CC.
  • On dagger/dagger usually can't go wrong with a opener as this skill has both good damage and a lengthy evade frame for general survival. If you're not in melee range and don't need to evade anything, go with either or .

Mobility

• Maintain permanent Swiftness with and .
  • Turn around before using Quick Shot in order to move "forward".

• Roam between capture points with .

Damage

• This is fairly straightforward, your burst damage comes from short bow while dagger/dagger is slightly more defensive but still brings decent pressure to the table.

• On bow spam as much as you can, ideally from behind. Many short bow skills have increased effectiveness when striking from behind or the sides.

• is one of your burst skills and should be used on CD. Due to the cone shape of the volley it's best used in point-blank range, right in melee to ensure that all the arrows hit the target.

• should be used a few seconds before entering a fight, preferably while merged with your pet. This gives you a buff that makes your next 3 attacks inflict Bleeding while the skill continues to recharge. Doing this without merging basically has the same effect except your pet will gain the buff, and pets are less reliable than players (although there are exceptions..).

• If you're using for the damage and not the evasion, you should first make sure your target is crippled. has the benefit of allowing you to use as the first skill after swapping weapons for synergy, while still getting the most damage out of it.

• (Hawk F2) is a spammable source of Bleeding and Poison from .

Sustain

• Every stance in the build is defensive by nature and can be shared with allies, which you should aim to do whenever possible.

• The build doesn't have a lot of means to deal with conditions, limited mainly to and .

• If damage is starting to overwhelm you and you are out of CDs, just run away with and wait a little before reengaging.

• Dodging applies Protection, which also heals thanks to the trait .

• Applying Poison steals some health from the target.

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

Related Builds

Stancebeast Roamer - the WVW Roaming version of this condition Soulbeast PvP build.