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

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on April 07, 2025 and is up to date for the March 11, 2025 patch.

Overview

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

Skill Bar

Shortbow

Dagger/Dagger

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

For the optional slot:

• "Protect Me!"
  - medium CD stunbreak with two layers of damage mitigation (protection and barrier).

• Flame Trap
  - extra damage, adds a new condition (plus a combo field) to the build on a very low CD.

• Viper's Nest
  - slightly worse than Flame Trap overall but has
  Predator's Cunning
  synergy.

• Signet of Renewal
  - passive healing, mass cleanse and stun break on active.

• Griffon Stance
  - could come in clutch when you're out of dodges and need to evade an enemy burst.

• Lightning Reflexes
  - low CD stun break, evasion and Immob removal.

Pets

• 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, 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

Skirmishing over Nature Magic: this is a more aggressive version of the build with higher damage but significantly worse condition cleansing. You can get away with playing this especially against Power builds, but Nature Magic is just safer.

Variants

• Light on your Feet
  is an equally viable option, trades some flexibility for improved bow skills and a bit of extra condition duration.
• Trapper's Expertise
  is worth considering if you're picking a trap for the 3rd utility slot, but it's going to lower your survivability.

Equipment

Shortbow

Sigil

Sigil

Dagger

Dagger

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes

• Rune of the 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 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
  Healing Spring
  , 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.

• Traits related to swapping pets now activate upon entering/leaving
  Beastmode
  .

• 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

• Skirmishing variant:
  Quick Draw
  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
    Poison Volley
    for burst damage,
    Quick Shot
    if you need sustain (evade attacks), or
    Concussion Shot
    if you want more CC.
  • On Dagger/Dagger the prime target is
    Stalker's Strike
    .

• Eternal Bond
  allows you to swap pets while in Beastmode! This makes it significantly easier for you to adapt to the situation. For example you could use both pets' mobility skills back-to-back while traveling between capture points, or you could 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
    .

Mobility

• Maintain permanent Swiftness with
  Quick Shot
  and
  Quickening Screech
  (when playing with Hawk).
  • Turn around before using Quick Shot in order to move "forward".

• Hawk-only Roam between capture points with
  Swoop
  and
  Crippling Leap
  .

Damage

• The basic gameplan is simple: CC targets with
  Spike Trap
  ,
  Crippling Shot
  ,
  Concussion Shot
  (from behind or the sides),
  Entangle
  ,
  Bumble
  and
  Brutal Charge
  then spam as many weapon skills on them as possible + the Bee's
  Stinging Sorrow
  and
  Primal Cry
  .
  • Use the immob from
    Crippling Shot
    to root targets while you flank them with
    Concussion Shot
    .

• Relic-dependent: enemies under the eye of
  Relic of Cerus
  get hit every second, so the value of this relic goes up significantly if you can root them right under the eye with
  Entangle
  . Consider setting up the Entangle with
  Spike Trap
  .

• On bow spam
  Crossfire
  as much as you can, ideally from behind. Many short bow skills have increased effectiveness when striking from behind or the sides, use CC skills to make enemies stationary and walk behind them whenever possible.

• 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.

• Crippling Shot
  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, but it's better to have more control over it by applying it to yourself.

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

• Bee's Beastmode F3 skill
  Primal Cry
  is one of the best skills when it comes to condition variety and should be used on CD to pressure enemies. It's an integral part of every burst combo if you intend to get a kill.

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. Entangle
   for an unblockable soft-CC.
2. Brutal Charge
   to knock down the immobilized target. If they try to avoid your burst with blocking skills, use Spike Trap instead (if possible).
3. Swap pets in Beastmode with F4 (Eternal Bond), you'll gain better offensive stats.
4. Poison Volley
   in melee range.
5. Crippling Shot
   from behind.
6. Concussion Shot
   from behind.
7. Primal Cry

Bee + Daggers

1. Start in Beastmode on Bee.
2. Spike Trap
   for an unblockable CC.
3. Instinctive Engage
   for Quickness and damage, plus the mobility in case you weren't alrady in melee range.
4. Stinging Sorrow
   for burst damage.
5. Primal Cry
   for condi variety.
6. Bumble
   to reapply the CC.
7. Double Arc
   for damage and to buff the next strikes.
8. Crippling Talon
   to apply Cripple which increases the damage of Stalker's Strike.
9. Stalker's Strike
   for damage and to avoid any counterattacks if your target's out of the CC.
10. Pet swap with
    Eternal Bond
    and CC with
    Brutal Charge
    .
11. Poison Volley
    in melee range.

Sustain

• A significant chunk of your cleansing comes from
  Healing Spring
  . This is also a Water field with a long duration, and there are plenty of finishers in the build that could be used to combo extra healing. Just about all of your mobility skills are also combo finishers, including Wolf's F1-2 skills while in Beastmode.

• If damage is starting to overwhelm you and you are out of CDs, just run away using your Beastmode mobility skills and wait a little before re-engaging. Make sure you don't have an enemy target selected and autotargeting is turned off in the options!

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

• 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.

• Applying Poison steals some health from the target.

• 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.

• 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.

Healing Combo Example

1. Optional - Pop
   Dolyak Stance
   to reduce the risk of getting interrupted and to reduce incoming damage. This also makes you immune to several non-damaging conditions, making it easier for Healing Spring to remove the damaging ones.
2. Healing Spring
   to create a Water field
3. Swoop
   (Hawk) or
   Bumble
   (Bee), preferably with an enemy target inside Healing Spring's radius otherwise this could take you way out of the field. That's usually not a problem either, just swap Brutal Charge with Crippling Leap in the rotation to quickly jump back inside the ring.
4. Eternal Bond
   to swap pets while in Beastmode.
5. Brutal Charge
   inside the field.
6. Crippling Leap
   inside the field.

Note: obviously this can be done the other way around too, starting with Wolf and swapping to Bee or Hawk. The point is to do 3 Leap finishers inside a single Water field.

Related Builds

• Soulbeast - Condition Trapper Roamer - WvW roaming version of the build.