Build:Soulbeast - Condition Skirmisher

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

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Open World, Open World General and [[|]]

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on April 14, 2022 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A strong condition based build for ranger in open world build which can swap from DPS to defensive variants. This build can do well in almost all areas of open world and can even solo group events or strong bosses.

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Skill Bar

Axe/Torch

Dagger/Axe

Utility

Pets

• Warthog - +condition damage, provides crowd control
• Smokescale - the strongest power option; comes with a strong evade
• Bristleback - best condi pet for ranged DPS
• Murellow - great defensive option
• Jacaranda - the strongest defensive pet when unmerged, provides significant healing when merged
• Eagle - provides excellent mobility

Weapon Variants

Generally, it is recommended to only replace Set 2, and keep Dagger/Torch.

• Dagger (offhand) - Provides additional poison damage and a low-cooldown evade.
• Shortbow - A strong ranged option that deals good hybrid damaged.

Skill Variants

Vulture Stance, "We Heal As One!", and One Wolf Pack are core to this build, replace them only if absolutely necessary.

• Viper's Nest - high cleave damage
• Bear Stance - condi clear
• Dolyak Stance - stability spam
• Griffon Stance - powerful defensive skill
• Flame Trap - low cooldown, high damage trap
• "Sic 'Em!" - strong single-target strike damage buff; use only with the Viper variant
• Sun Spirit - provides a significant DPS boost to nearby condition-based allies.
• Stone Spirit - provides high protection uptime; use to buff nearby allies or for extra defense in hard, static fights
• Frost Spirit - significant strike-based DPS buff for allies
• Storm Spirit - massive DPS increase in static fights when lacking reliable sources of Vulnerability
• Signet of Stone - 6 seconds of invulnerability; can be used with other i-frame sources for a ~13 second invuln period

Specializations

• Leader of the Pack - extends stance durations and shares stance effects; use if taking multiple stances or if playing with a group

Survialist Variant

Wilderness Survival can replace either Beastmastery or Skimishing depending on the need and offers higher defenses and more poison damage. This variant should be taken over Beastmastery if using Trailblazer gear.

• Ambidexterity - useful in high pressure situations where 75%+ hp is hard to maintain.

Equipment

This set uses gear similar to Build:Soulbeast_-_Condi_DPS, making it excellent for general PVE.

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Viper

Chest
Viper

Hands
Viper

Legs
Viper

Feet
Viper

Backpiece
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Amulet
Viper

Ring
Viper

Ring
Viper

Axe
Viper

Torch
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Dagger
Viper

Axe
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Variant Equipment

• Trailblazer, Celestial - trades a small amount of damage for a large amount of EHP. This is an extremely efficient set, but is a luxury as it isn't useful for anything other than solo play or open world farming.
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Mad King - much higher burst damage at the cost of peak DPS.
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Afflicted - budget DPS

Consumables

Food

• Any ascended food is superior to any other food you could use. Steak for power, flatbread for conditions. Budget versions of these foods exist and are acceptable.
• - farming
• - DPS
• - defense

Utility

• (and variants) - farming
• , - dps
• - dps if using gear with high toughness

Usage

Damage

General Tips

• This build's damage relies heavily on Bleeding application.
• Try not to interrupt the autoattack chain.
• If using Shortbow: Flanking enemies is important with this build, as shortbow skills deal significantly more damage when hitting from the back or the side. Dodge through enemies before unloading burst to proc Light on your Feet
• Use traps and stances off cooldown.
• If crowd control isn't important, use Concussion Shot for a damage increase.

Dagger Mainhand

With dagger mainhand, use Instinctive Engage often to proc Quickness. Do not interrupt AA chains and use Double Arc off cooldown.

Shortbow

Spam Poison Volley and Crippling Shot off cooldown while auto-attacking. Use Concussion Shot to proc Twice as Vicious.

Dagger Offhand

This offhand is more geared towards defense. Use Crippling Talon off cooldown, but save Stalker's Strike for the evade.

Axe Offhand

Use Path of Scars to proc Twice as Vicious, then use Whirling Defense.

• It should be noted that Whirling Defense is a whirl finisher. As such, it will produce significant amounts of Bolts when performed in a combo field. The easiest way to do this is to combo it with Flame Trap or Bonfire, but feel free to get creative here.

Torch Offhand

Use everything off cooldown, unless saving Bonfire's cooldown to match that of Whirling Defense.

Defense

• This build has an enormous amount of endurance regeneration and a wide number of evades.
• There is a significant amount of passive healing from Rugged Growth and Predator's Cunning.
• Be sure to take utilities that match the situation. Stances like Dolyak Stance can change the nature of an encounter.

Crowd Control

• Brutal Charge (soulbeast porcine)
• Concussion Shot

Video Examples

• Dire Variant vs Chak Lobber
  • This is a good example of just how effective the build can be even with very cheap gear. While the kill wasn't fast by any means, the Dire variant of the build had plenty of damage and sustain to take on one of the stronger champion mobs.
• Cele Soulbeast vs Razorwing
• Cele Soulbeast vs Bristlebacks