Build: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

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on July 03, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 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

Axe/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.

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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

Axe

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 - higher damage and some defense against conditions.

Relics

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

• Relic of Antitoxin - better condition cleansing.

• 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 could help you recover from condi bursts because of the additional 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 Axe/Dagger the prime considerations are Winter's Bite and Stalker's Strike. Both of these offer a mix of damage and survivability. In terms of raw damage Splitblade could be better than Stalker's Strike when SS wouldn't inflict the extra Poison stacks.

• 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 Hawk.
  • 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.
  • Turn around before using Quick Shot in order to move "forward".

• Roam between capture points with Swoop (soulbeast) and Crippling Leap (soulbeast).

Damage

• The basic gameplan is simple: CC targets with Spike Trap, Crippling Shot, Concussion Shot (from behind or the sides), Entangle and Brutal Charge (soulbeast canine) then spam as many weapon skills on them as possible + the bird's 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 and Splitblade are cone-shaped attacks 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, and pets are less reliable than players (although there are exceptions..).

• Winter's Bite is the best skill on Axe. While it does less condition damage than Splitblade it applies up to 3 conditions to the target, which overall puts more pressure on them. The Weakness even helps with mitigating incoming damage.
  • This is best used in Beastmode as the Weakness will immediately apply when the skill hits instead of having to wait for your pet to attack.
  • In Beastmode the Winter's Bite effect is applied to you for 15 seconds even if you throw this skill at the ground with no target, while out of combat. As the duration is longer than the skill's CD it's worth using as you're traveling the map because you'll be able to begin the next fight with a free Weakness.

• 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.

• Use Hawk's F2 on CD for the Bleeding and Poison from Poison Master. It's easier to land this skill right after unmerging.

• Hawk'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.

Hawk + Axe

1. Start in Beastmode on Hawk.
2. Spike Trap for an unblockable CC.
3. Winter's Bite should land right as the trap activates.
4. Cast Primal Cry but exit Beastmode while still channeling this ability. Command Hawk to do his Lacerating Slash while still casting Primal Cry (this skill won't be interrupted by leaving Beastmode).
5. Stalker's Strike while the target's still Chilled from Winter's Bite, this way we apply more condi stacks.
6. Splitblade in melee range where all the axes will hit the target.

Wolf + Shortbow

1. Entangle for an unblockable soft-CC.
2. Brutal Charge (soulbeast canine) 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

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 with one of your many mobility skills such as Swoop (soulbeast) 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 damaging and 1 non-damaging 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 (soulbeast), 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 (soulbeast canine) inside the field.
6. Crippling Leap (soulbeast) inside the field.

Note: obviously this can be done the other way around too, starting with Wolf and swapping to 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.