Soulbeast - Sic 'Em Sniper

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

Focused on: Strike damage and Control

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on November 19, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Soulbeast power build for PvP with exceptional burst damage, made to quickly take out targets. Primarily serves as a roamer/+1er.

Skill Bar

Longbow

Greatsword

Utility

Slot Changes

Utility

For the optional slot:

• "Protect Me!" - defensive skill and another stunbreak.

• Signet of the Hunt - makes your burst unblockable.

• Quickening Zephyr - mix of defense and offense, it's mostly used in burst combos for the Quickness but it can also serve as a stunbreak.

• Griffon Stance - adds more evasion to the build, great at avoiding burst damage if you can time it right.

Pets

Boar can be repalced by:

• Polar Bear - strong defensive pet that still retains the most important CC on Boar while offering a skill that negates incoming strike damage.

• Rock Gazelle - another CC focused pet. It's also a Ferocious pet just like Smokescale while Boar is Versatile, which means you'll gain better offensive stats in Beastmode than on Boar.

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Specializations

Variants

• Oppressive Superiority offers higher burst damage but limits your Beastmode options by removing the ability to easily swap between pets while merged.

Specialization Variants

Skirmishing can replace Marksmanship, both of these are damage focused specs. Marksmanship's speciality is delivering spike damage by boosting skills that only hit once (like Maul on Greatsword) while Skirmishing provides a smaller flat damage boost that goes better with multihit attacks such as Rapid Fire on Longbow or One Wolf Pack. It's up to you to decide which playstyle you prefer. Consider taking Sword/Warhorn instead of Greatsword if you go with Skirmishing:

Equipment

Longbow

Sigil

Sigil

Greatsword

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of Balrior - higher damage boost for your main burst combo, but it's much lower uptime than Fireworks.

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.

• Pet related traits and skills such as Pet's Prowess 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 "Sic 'Em!" 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 can also meld with dead pets and then exit Beastmode to instantly revive them.

General

• Eternal Bond 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 and stay in Beastmode longer.

• Using CC skills grants you Fury so you don't have to worry too much about setting up your bursts, since they tend to involve CC.

• When playing with Boar, its Beatmode ability Maul (soulbeast porcine) is one of your key skills. 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 Prelude Lash grants you Quickness and Fury via trait synergy.

• Polar Bear and Krytan Drakehound also provide access to Prelude Lash.

• Zephyr's Speed and Clarion Bond give you various offensive boons whenever you swap pets (once every 15 seconds). Pet swapping is a great way of instantly setting up burst combos.
  • These traits continue to work even if you swap pets in Beastmode with the help of Eternal Bond.

• Smokescale's F2 Smoke Cloud is a useful combo field:
  • Projectile finishers like Point Blank Shot and Rapid Fire could Blind your target, increasing your sustain.
  • Swoop and Worldly Impact could be used to stack Stealth. While your kit isn't the best for stacking stealth, dropping this field before a fight for your team to execute combos in is generally a good idea.

• Use Hunter's Shot in Beastmode while roaming between capture points if you lack Swiftness.

• Sometimes you might want to get greedy with Bear Stance. While this is your last resort option against condition bursts, it's also great at keeping things like Weakness, Chill and 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 Dolyak Stance 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.

• "Sic 'Em!" should always be used in Beastmode. It's a really strong burst CD that also denies stealth access for enemies.

• One Wolf Pack works best on Longbow, adding extra damage to every hit you score on a target. Smokescale's Smoke Assault (soulbeast) also has great synergy with this, or Warhorn's Hunter's Call if you're playing the Sword/Wahrorn variant.

• Smokescale's Smoke Assault (soulbeast) could be used both offensively (delivering damage while making it impossible to kite you) and defensively (it's an instant cast evade frame).

Doing damage

• Maul grants Attack of Opportunity to you while melded, improving the damage of your next attack skill (but only the next strike, doesn't cover multihit abilities).

Longbow burst combo example:

1. Use One Wolf Pack before the burst.
2. Get Quickness either from Zephyr's Speed or Quickening Zephyr. You should preferably be on Smokescale for improved Beastmode damage.
3. Beastmode for some extra stats.
4. "Sic 'Em!" which boosts the Soulbeast's own damage if used in Beastmode.
5. Point Blank Shot to increase the chance of landing your burst and to proc Twice as Vicious.
6. Rapid Fire for damage.

Greatsword burst combo example:

1. Beastmode on Boar.
2. Prelude Lash for Quickness, Fury, Marksmanship synergy and to make it easier to land Maul.
3. Optional -Swap pets with Eternal Bond (F4) while in Beastmode, this will give you even more Quickness and better offensive stats from the Smokescale.
4. Maul
5. Hilt Bash your target for CC and to refresh Maul.
6. Maul again.
7. Swoop to make the most of Maul's Attack of Opportunity buff which in Beastmode applies to the Soulbeast and not the pet.

Using both pets

1. Start on Boar.
2. Prelude Lash
3. Maul
4. Swap pets with Eternal Bond (F4) for Quickness and to make your next attack a guaranteed crit that also does more damage through trait synergy.
5. Worldly Impact

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Boyce

• Twitch: ROM

• Twitch: Avatar

Related Builds

• Ranger - Power Survival - core PvP version, usable by F2P players.

• Sic 'Em Roamer - the WvW Roaming version of the build.