Soulbeast - Power DPS

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on September 22, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A power DPS Soulbeast build for fractals and raids. This build brings very high burst damage and good CC, making it strong in short fights or fights with burst phases. It also provides heavy Vulnerability and can drop Frost Trap or Signet of the Wild to bring Ranger utility like spirits with a small personal DPS loss.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Axe/Axe

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Longbow can be used instead instead of Greatsword for better burst but lower sustained damage.
• Offhand Warhorn can also be used in place of Greatsword. This is a minor DPS loss, but makes the rotation simpler and more reliable.

Pets Variants

Power Soulbeast can be played merged with either of the listed pets, as they are both of the Ferocious Archetype and provide access to Worldly Impact.

• Rock Gazelle provides more CC in the form of its F2 skill Charge (soulbeast).
• Red Moa is higher dps by about 0.8k with its F2 skill Frenzied Attack (soulbeast). Its F1 skill Harmonic Cry (soulbeast) is also a moderate 5man heal. It has a slightly different rotation.

Skill Variants

Utility

Never replace "Sic 'Em!"

• Moa Stance - an effective 66% boon duration increase, which can be shared 5man with the trait Leader of the Pack. This can allow others in your sub to provide more boons with lower boon duration if they coordinate their skill casts with Moa Stance. Since Moa Stance only lasts on allies for 5 seconds when shared, this will require a lot of coordination to be effective.
• Spike Trap - if CC is needed, e.g. Slothasor and Samarog.
• "Protect Me!" - AoE stunbreak.

Template Code

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

Marksmanship could be used instead of Skirmishing when you're unable to flank the boss constantly - bear in mind that the loss of Hunter's Tactics and Vicious Quarry mean that you will need to compensate by running higher precision runes or gear.

• Stoneform - getting downed (even if it's prevented by Mistlock) will knock you out of Beastmode, so this can prevent that.
• Sharpened Edges is a dps increase for fights with short phases - it will cause your Frost Trap to become slightly de-synced, but is worth it if the phases are short enough that your rotation ends before you get to your 3rd Frost Trap (i.e. shorter than 45 seconds).
• Hidden Barbs is a small dps increase if your group doesn't need any extra Fury from Spotter.
• Natural Healing if you are playing the longbow variant.
• Essence of Speed for better personal boon uptime. Always take this if you are not using dagger, as you have no other source of Poison.
• Oppressive Superiority can be taken if your party is unable to benefit from shared stances, for example if you're playing with mostly condition-damage classes.

Equipment

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Greatsword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Axe
Berserker

Axe
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Equipment Variants

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Severance on greatsword or longbow in fractals if your burn phase times are super short (i.e. shorter than around 12 seconds).
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of the Night and Major Sigil of the Night on night time encounters.
• Slaying sigils if applicable.

Consumables

Food

Utility

• or slaying potions

Usage

The logic behind this rotation is to use your high burst damage skills Maul, Worldly Impact, and Whirling Defense all while under the damage buff of "Sic 'Em!". The rotation is also designed to keep up the 10% damage buff from Twice as Vicious as much as possible, using Hilt Bash and Path of Scars to proc the buff.

Greatsword Rotation

1. Maul + "Sic 'Em!" during the cast
2. Hilt Bash
3. Maul
4. Worldly Impact
5. Frost Trap
6. One Wolf Pack if available
7. Frenzied Attack (soulbeast)
8. Maul
9. Weapon swap
10. Winter's Bite
11. Splitblade
12. Path of Scars
13. Whirling Defense
14. Splitblade
15. Winter's Bite
16. Splitblade
17. Path of Scars
18. Winter's Bite
19. Splitblade
20. Weapon swap
21. Maul
22. Autoattack chain twice
23. Repeat from step 1.

Notes

• The rotation above does not include axe autoattacks, which are used while waiting for cooldowns between steps 13-18
• Never interrupt your autoattack chain.
• The extra damage from "Sic 'Em!" only applies to the target, so be careful not to use it on the wrong thing.

Video Example for the Greatsword + Red Moa rotation written above

Video Example for the Longbow + Rock Gazelle rotation

Video Example for the Longbow + Red Moa rotation

Video example for the Warhorn + Rock Gazelle rotation

CC

• Charge (soulbeast)
• Hilt Bash
• Path of Scars
• Counterattack
• Storm Spirit → Call Lightning (ranger)