Soulbeast - Boonbeast Roamer

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

Focused on: Direct damage, Mobility and Sustain

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on October 20, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Soulbeast WvW roamer focusing on boon stacking, mobility and sustain. While it's primarily made for 1v1s, the build has several tools for buffing allies as well when roaming in a group.

Skill Bar

Axe/Warhorn

Greatsword

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Lightning Reflexes - purely a defensive option, breaks stun, adds Vigor to the build, evades attacks and even cleanses conditions beyond just the Wilderness Knowledge trait synergy. Note that the evade frame's cancelled by weapon swapping in which case the trait won't go off.

• Quickening Zephyr - a more offensive choice which helps you burst better with auto attacks among other things, but also has a defensive side to it (breaks stun, cleanses conditions via WK, and the Superspeed is great for disengaging).

Elite

• One Wolf Pack - adds another burst window to the build, but you'll be more vulnerable to CC. Good option if you have trouble getting kills or roam in a group as stances can be shared with allies.

Pets

• Siamoth over Smokescale - equally viable alternative, only thing you lose is the chase potential of Smokescale.

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Specializations

Variants

• Child of Earth trades defense against direct damage for better condition cleansing.

Variants

• Bountiful Hunter offers better pressure at the expense of lower sustain and less Quickness.

Equipment

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Zealot

Accessory
Zealot

Accessory
Zealot

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Axe
Marauder

Warhorn
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Greatsword
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Rune

Viable alternatives:

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Earth - a very tanky rune which provides uptime for your most important boon while also synergizing with all the sources of healing in the build.

• Rune of Superior Rune of Leadership - excellent boon duration.

Consumables

Food

There are several viable options:

• - considered to be optimal by many, this food offers passive damage mitigation and a general stat boost.

• - great defensive option with Companion's Defense and Rugged Growth synergy.
  • Budget version:

• - cheap crit chance boost plus armor ignoring damage procs which also heal you.

Utility

• or .

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 the Attack of Opportunity from Maul will 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).

General

• Swoop (soulbeast) and Swoop are your two main mobility skills. Make sure you do not have anyone targeted while using them. Make sure you do not have an enemy targeted when using these skills for general mobility or disengaging.

• Refined Toxins passively maintains a high uptime of healing reduction in duels via Poison, which is very important when fighting other bunker specs.

• Dodging applies Protection, which also heals thanks to the trait Rugged Growth. Second Skin also reduces the condition damage you take by 33% while affected by this boon.

• Survival skills each cure 2 conditions and grant Fury.

Beastmode

• Owl is for sustain/mobility while Smokescale's mainly for damage, offering you great offensive stats as well as new damaging and CC skills.

• 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).

• Takedown (soulbeast) is a great setup for Worldly Impact or Maul.

• Owl adds some extra mobility for chasing people or disengaging from fights via Swoop.

• Owl's F3 Spiritual Reprieve is your second healing skill and also a potent support tool when roaming in a group.

• Don't forget to unmerge once beast skills are on CD or you're done with your burst combo, as you have greater DPS while you let your pets attack your enemies.

Weapon sets and damage

• Most of the damage will come from spamming auto attacks on Axe.
  • Ricochet is an excellent filler which stacks Might and bounces off to other targets. This skill allows you to keep some distance from the target while constantly pressuring them. The bouncing axes can also clean up Mesmer clones nicely.
  • Splitblade is best used in melee range to make all attacks land on the target. The axes also pierce, hitting enemies behind your target as well.
  • Winter's Bite doesn't hit as hard is it used to but still does the most damage on this set (as far as single strikes go). In Beastmode you deliver all of the conditions in 1 hit instead of having to rely on the pet for the Weakness, which is a great conditin for keeping Power based specs in check.

• Maul is the hardest hitting skill in the build and the reason why there's Sigil of Superior Sigil of Vision on GS. Should be used right after swapping weapons.
  • Hilt Bash refreshed the cooldown on Maul which is a great followup, you could try to chain Maul ⇒ Hilt Bash ⇒ Maul before the sigil expires.

• Greatsword is also the defensive/utility weapon set, offering a block in Counterattack, an interrupt in Hilt Bash and mobility in Swoop.

Stances

• Leader of the Pack allows you to share your stances with allies, including your pet. Try to do this whenever possible.

• Moa Stance is a high uptime stance which increases boon duration. Aim to sync it with your most important sources of boons such as Spiritual Reprieve, Call of the Wild or Dolyak Stance.

• Dolyak Stance is very straightforward, just use it against any kind of CC whenever necessary. Consider using it before Troll Unguent while under heavy condition pressure. Dolyak Stance can remove 3 conditions and make you immune to those for its duration, which means there's a higher chance for your heal to remove 2-4 damaging conditions (depending on traits). It also provides you with a safe way to finish off downed enemies.

• If taken One Wolf Pack is best used with Hunter's Call and Axe auto attacks. The rapid strikes proc this elite often, adding burst to a weapon set that otherwise has none.