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Soulbeast - Power Melee Stancebeast

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

Focused on: Strike damageControl and Mobility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required: Heart of Thorns buildsPath of Fire BuildsSecrets of the Obscure builds

Difficulty:
Normal
This build was last updated on January 17, 2025 and is up to date for the March 11, 2025 patch.

Overview

A burst damage focused Power Soulbeast build for PvP opting for 2 melee sets after the Sword rework. The introduction of Mace/Mace adds a more tanky set to the build which makes it better at 1v1ing on top of being just a good roamer.


Skill Bar

Smokescale
Polar Bear
Sword/Warhorn
Mace/Mace
Utility


Skill Variants

Weapons

  • Greatsword over Mace/Mace - more bursty option with lower survivability. Players without the Secrets of the Obscure expansion will have no choice but to use the Greatsword.


Utility

can be swapped out for:

  • - better burst damage when used in , also quite good at countering specs that rely on stealth for survival such as Deadeyes.


Pets

Polar Bear Polar Bear can be replaced with:

  • Boar Boar - strong offensive pet with 2 CCs and some burst damage in Beastmode.
  • Siamoth Siamoth - it's similar to Boar but offers better survivability.


Template Code

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Specializations


Equipment

Sword
Warhorn
Sigil
Sigil
Mace
Mace
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Relic


Equipment Variants

Relics

  • - defensive option with extra healing, just as popular as Relic of Fireworks.
  • - damage boost with high uptime, but also takes some time to ramp up and its maximum burst potential is slightly lower than that of the other options.
  • - similar to Fireworks, but some of the triggers are defensive skills that may not always line up with your burst combos.


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).
    • IMPORTANT: skills that affect your pet like have to be used after merging if you wish to benefit from them, already active skill effects will be lost just like when swapping pets.
  • You get to revive pets in combat by melding with a dead pet and then exiting Beastmode.


General

  • Don't trust the wording of , Beastmode F1-3 skills can also proc the damage bonus not just weapon skills.
  • Use , , and (GS-only) to roam between capture points. These are also great tools for disengaging or chasing after targets, and the Sword skills can do a lot of damage as well.
    • All 4 of these skills are also combo finishers that could be used inside Smokescale's for Stealth Stealth, covering your movements and burst attempts.
  • allows you to be more flexible with your Beastmode usage by letting you swap pets while merged. With this you can adapt to situations much better.
  • When playing with Boar Boar, its Beatmode ability is your primary burst skill. Hits hard, has a short cast time and a very subtle animation most people won't even notice.
    • Try to set this up with CC, which should be easy considering how both other Boar Beastmode skills are CC skill. The F3 is especially good for this as grants you Quickness Quickness and Fury Fury via trait synergy.
  • Polar Bear and Krytan Drakehound also provide access to .
  • Weapon dependent When used in Beastmode, Greatsword's is going to give you the Attack of Opportunity effect which increases the damage of your next attack. It's only the next strike however, doesn't cover 2 part attacks like Boar's . Consider following up with a weapon swap into either or .
  • Sometimes you might want to get greedy with . While this is your last resort option against condition bursts, it's also great at keeping things like Weakness Weakness, Chill Chill and Blind Blind off of you. If you're chasing a low HP target and you want to secure a kill, Bear Stance could ensure that you get to deal damage without any hinderance. You could even combine it with to make yourself immune to hard CC too.
    • Of course this is a bit of a gamble, if the target survives your burst you'll be left without your strongest defensive CDs so the plan might backfire.
  • should always be used in . It's a really strong burst CD that also denies stealth access for enemies.
  • is your other burst CD, adding extra damage to every hit you score on a target. This is best used with which delivers multiple attacks in rapid succession. Smokescale's also has great synergy with this, and you could even combine the two and use SA while Hunter's Call is active.
  • Be careful with Blind Blind and Aegis Aegis when casting ! If the initial strike misses the birds won't be summoned and the entire skill goes to waste.


Burst combo examples

One Wolf Pack Multihit

  1. on Smokescale.
  2. for Might Might and Fury Fury
  3. if you have it.
  4. immediately as Hunter's Call connects.
  5. to evade incoming attacks and keep up the pressure.
  6. near the end of Hunter's Call while One Wolf Pack still lasts, this is another great multihit ability that synergizes well with the elite. Overlapping it with HC is fine too, although OWP can only add an extra strike once per interval so using both at the same time could be a waste.


CC chain with Maces

  1. for the pull and boons (merged F3 ability of Polar Bear, Boar and Krytan Drakehound).
  2. to stun the target.
  3. Optional - at this point you should consider swapping to Smokescale with (F4). This would give you more Quickness Quickness and increased offensive stats, but it's not mandatory.
  4. (this should hit at the same time as the 2nd part of Flourish)


Both Pets

  1. for the pull and boons.
  2. to swap to Smokescale.
  3. while the pull still lasts.
  4. for a quick followup while the CC lasts.


If you're playing with Greatsword

  1. for the pull and boons.
  2. for the CC and to reset Maul.
  3. again.
  4. At this point your next strike will deal bonus damage, use it on some hard hitting ability like GS 3, Smokescale F1/F3, or Sword 2-3.


Sustain

  • You're heavily reliant on blocks, stealth, mobility and evasion to avoid damage. Stance skills 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.
  • Smokescale's is an instant defensive skill with evasion while merged.
  • 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 Stealth Stealth and mobility skills.
  • Both sets have access to some minor cleansing:
    • On Sword/Warhorn removes 1 condition when you swap to this weapon in combat.
    • Mace has which cleanses up to 3 conditions.
    • removes several non-damaging conditions, you could consider popping this right before using the aforementioned two methods in order to increase the chances of cleansing damaging conditions with them.
  • 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.
  • protects against any type of pressure be it direct damage, CC or conditions.
  • Every mobility skill is also a defensive skill in a way, useful for putting distance between you and your enemies. Comboing them with Smokescale's for Stealth Stealth makes you even more slippery.
  • is one the best defensive skill on Sword/Warhorn, dazing targets in melee and applying Weakness Weakness to them while also being a Blast finisher that could give you stealth. The other one is which makes you evade incoming attacks.


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Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 7 votes.
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3 stars
Auroraborealis gave this build 3 stars • March 2025
Very viable build for unranked, offers decent damage, and moderate crowd control. The burst windows are on par with Holosmith or Power Herald, although the survivability is sufficiently lacking in some aspects especially against strong condition builds like Condition Reaper. Offers slighty more damage than Druid on single targets, but loses all the group utility, daze, and revivification. The kit on Untamed is arguably stronger since it not only provides high damage/burst, but also brings great utility via Untamed trait synergies with pet control. Mobility is also a slight con of this build, and you are encouraged to save your sword mobility skills for dealing actual damage instead of wasting them moving around the map. Additionally the build is very susceptible to crowd controlling effects, and the lack of stability can surely be felt in this current meta.
5 stars
Fli gave this build 5 stars • October 2024
I killed a lot of people with this shit. Love it. Sure it’s not the best build but who cares.
5 stars
Emilon gave this build 5 stars • July 2024
Mace elevated this build to new heights, was a godsend for its survival. All around great damage too, it can pull a 10k burst out of thin air from so many sequences and has plenty of CC.
5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • June 2024
Even after the nerfs it continues to have some ranked presence. Insane damage, good CC and decent sustain. Plenty of mobility combined with Stability and stealth access makes this quite hard to pin down too.
5 stars
Colophonius gave this build 5 stars • September 2023
This is the most outrageous bullshit op build in a long time and it doesn't get any nerfs so far. I'm just loging in every week to see if this got nerfed and if not log out again.
5 stars
Goon gave this build 5 stars • August 2023
Very good build that could possibly be the target of future nerfs. Insane damage, good mobility and strong disengage allows this build to excel as a high burst roamer. At first the build may seem to have low sustain but this is merely a lack of sustain via healing. You have strong evades and one of the highest stealth uptimes outside thief buids. Doing damage on this build is easy but once you've mastered using the sustain you do have this build is a no brainer 5/5 stars.
4 stars
Eddieknj gave this build 4 stars • July 2023
insane damage, good mobility, lacks sustain and damage reduction. any drawn out fights you will lose

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