User:Masel/Builds/Soulbeast

Sw/A + A/Wh Power Soulbeast

Build Rating (Subjective)

Criterion	Rating
Burst Damage	5/5
Sustained Damage	5/5
Utility Options	3/5
Survivability	4/5
Difficulty	2/5

Power  Soulbeast is a very bursty class, even with a simplified rotation like the one I use. It's an amazing pick for all aspects of PvE and it's surely one of the strongest power builds for general open world and solo gameplay, as it provides itself with good amounts of all essential boons. With the usage of   Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and   Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge, it can extend all boons on itself further by using   "We Heal As One!",   Moa Stance and  Essence of Speed.

Link to the Build on the Editor

Playstyle & Skills

Skill Type	Skills
Red Moa (Merged)
Sword + Axe
Axe + Warhorn
Utility

Pets

• Pets are the most important aspect of the class + specialization design. Soulbeasts gain the ability to merge with their pet to gain a few additional abilities, at the cost of having the pet around you.
• Merging with your pet also makes you receive all the benefits that your pet would otherwise receive and merging further increases some of your stats for the time that you’re merged.
• In group content, you’ll want to stay merged with the pet of choice at all times because it increases your dps by a noticeable margin, through the increased stats from both soulbeast and the Beast Mastery specialization. You can use several different pets, but in group content, they should all be from the Ferocious pet category because that increases your Power and Ferocity and gives access to   Worldly Impact.
• The default choice for the pet is the   Juvenile Red Moa, as it does the highest damage via   Frenzied Attack. If you want breakbar damage with a short cooldown and small damage trade-off, use the   Juvenile Rock Gazelle.
• In open world, it can make sense to unmerge to use a pet as a decoy or punchbag by gathering aggro from enemies, e.g. whenever staying in melee is too dangerous.

Stances

• Stances are a very nice skill type that comes with the soulbeast. By default, they only apply to the soulbeast itself, but with  Leader of the Pack, they can be shared with nearby allies.
• Since stances are pretty strong, this allows for some neat interactions. The two stances we'll make use of the most are   Moa Stance and   One Wolf Pack.
•   Moa Stance is great for boon self-application, which is why it is the fundament of the open world build.
•   One Wolf Pack is great for damage and allows for even higher burst potential when shared with allies.

Skill Usage & Choices

Generally, you'll want to try and use as many high-damage skills inside the 10 second window of   "Sic 'Em!". Outside of it, just use your sword skills and   Path of Scars on cooldown.

•   Slash,   Crippling Thrust +   Precision Swipe make up for a very strong chain of auto attacks, that applies both  Might to you and  Crippled to foes.
•   Pounce is a gap-closer that deals high damage. Also gives  Vigor and deals more damage against bosses!
•   Serpent's Strike is another gap-closer that deals even higher damage than   Pounce, but only to a single target. it also includes a short Evade window, so if you can time it right, you can dodge attacks with this.
•   Path of Scars is a ranged skill that pulls enemies to you. This can be used to maintain a good uptime on  Twice as Vicious.
•   Whirling Defense is the strongest damage ability in full aoe in your kit and the only axe skill that is melee. It applies large amount of  Vulnerability, and also makes you reflect projectiles while it is active. Since you cannot move while casting this, you need to look at your positioning before you cast it.
• Hammer is a good complementary weapon to Sword/Axe that can increase both uptime on  Relic of Fireworks and overall dps if played right. For that, check out the snowcrows power soulbeast build!

Utility Skills

Default Skill	Notes
"We Heal As One!"	Heals for a large amount and copies shorter version of all boons on you to yourself when merged. Must-have.
Frost Trap	Good damage skill, also gives you   Frost Aura for -10% damage taken when you use   Pounce or   Serpent's Strike inside it.
"Sic 'Em!"	Massive increase in damage when merged against a single target. Your strongest damage skills should be used while this is active.
Signet of the Wild	This is just there for the passive ferocity, do not use it.
One Wolf Pack	Great skill for burst damage. With  Leader of the Pack, this is shared with nearby allies and the hits they do use your stats and count for your damage!

CC Skills for breakbar damage:

•   Path of Scars
• (With Axe + Warhorn)   Call of the Wild
• (With Rock Gazelle)   Charge

Gear

Important Stats in Hero Panel (descending in Importance):

1. At least 50% Critical Chance: Fury gives 40% due to  Vicious Quarry,  Hunter's Tactics adds another 10% against enemies with a breakbar and being merged adds another ~7% via  Pack Alpha
2. Maximize Power
3. Maximize Ferocity

Gear

Armor	Prefix	Rune
Head	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Shoulders	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Chest	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Gloves	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Legs	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Boots	Berserker's	Superior Rune of the Scholar
Trinket	Prefix
Amulet	Berserker's
Ring 1	Berserker's
Ring 2	Berserker's
Accessory 1	Berserker's
Accessory 2	Berserker's
Backpack	Berserker's
Weapon	Prefix	Sigil
Sword (Main Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Force
Axe (Off Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Impact
Axe (Main Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Force
Warhorn (Off Hand)	Berserker's	Superior Sigil of Impact
Purpose	Item Type	Source
Damage	Ascended Food	Cilantro Lime Sous-Vide Steak
Damage	Non-Ascended Food	Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
Survivability	Ascended Food	Peppercorn-Crusted Sous-Vide Steak
Survivability	Non-Ascended Food	Oysters with Zesty Sauce
Damage	Utility	Potent Superior Sharpening Stone
Survivability	Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Damage	Relic	Relic of Fireworks

• For a budget variant, simply replace all ascended armor pieces of Berserker's with rare/exotic Berserker's.
• The secondary weapon set (Axe/Warhorn) is mostly there for ranged gameplay whenever it is needed. You can also apply additional breakbar damage with   Call of the Wild, but that requires you to be in melee range when cast.
• Superior Sigil of Air is cheaper than Superior Sigil of Impact and yields similar results on the golem, but it is only single-target and lower damage against bosses with frequent breakbar phases.
• Ascended gear is always ideal, but exotic gear is fine for everything aside from higher-tier fractals.

Food, Utility and Relic

Piece	Name
Ascended Damage Food	Cilantro Lime Sous-Vide Steak
Non-Ascended Damage Food	Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
Ascended Survivability Food	Peppercorn-Crusted Sous-Vide Steak
Non-Ascended Survivability Food	Oysters with Zesty Sauce
Damage Utility	Potent Superior Sharpening Stone
Survivability Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Relic	Relic of Fireworks

Ascended Food is always ideal, but never required.

Traits

• The default specializations for damage are Beast Mastery, Skirmishing and of course Soulbeast.
• We're using all of them in both open world and instanced content, which is very convenient!

Skirmishing
Beast Mastery
Soulbeast

Skirmishing

• Skirmishing boosts your damage output by making you deal 10% more damage and increasing critical chance by 10% crit when you flank enemies or agains enemies with a defiance bar (i.e. all bosses). Flanking enemies means standing in at least 45° to the left or right from where the enemy is facing, so the window for it is pretty forgiving. You can also give yourself swiftness and fury when swapping weapons.
• It'll also make  Fury grant you 40% crit chance and 250 ferocity instead of just 25% crit chance, so it is essential that you maintain that buff.

Beast Mastery

• Beast mastery is universally great for soulbeast, because it strongly enhances your pet, and on soulbeast, it therefore enahcnes yourself the same way.
• It increases all your stats aside from Expertise, Healing Power and Concentration, further boosts your damage while on high health, makes you move 30% faster and further reduces the cooldowns on axe skills by 20%. All of this is great, never change these traits. For the master trait line, you can freely choose though, since none of those really enhance your damage. I usually go with  Natural Healing since it makes your pet (or you when merged) more resilient.

Soulbeast

• With those traits, soulbeast will make you deal increased strike damage while you have fury (you should know by now how essential keeping fury up is).
•  Essence of Speed extends all other boons whenever you receive  Quickness. This is incredibly powerful, because it drastically enhances the uptime on all boons on you, making soulbeast a very good choice in unoptimized groups where boon uptime isn't guaranteed.
• Finally,  Twice as Vicious makes you deal 10% increased damage after applying Control effects and  Oppressive Superiority increases your damage against enemies with lower share of health than you by 10%.
• Against bosses with shorter burst phases, it can be worth it to run  Leader of the Pack instead of  Oppressive Superiority

DPS Rotation Showcase

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.

Open World Build

You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.

For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.

• The first major step to increase survivability is to use   Moa Stance instead of   Frost Trap.   Moa Stance is a massive boost to survivability through the  Protection it grants. It makes all boons you grant 66% longer. It also affects its own boons, making them last longer than stated in the tooltip.
• Use   Quickening Zephyr instead   Signet of the Wild.The application of quickness through this extends all boons aside from quickness itself, and is further amplified by the extra boon duration from   Moa Stance.
• Use  Leader of the Pack instead of  Oppressive Superiority to increase the duration of   Moa Stance.
• Use   "We Heal As One!" on cooldown; when merged, this will apply copies of your own boons to you and is also amplified by   Moa Stance.
• Through all the above and  Essence of Speed, you will be able to extend boons supplied by   Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and   Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge for up to one minute after entering combat. That is a massive boost to both damage and survivability.
• You can use   Stone Spirit for area  Aegis and to maintain  Protection without jade protocols.
• Use a different pet; my favourite pet is the Smokescale. This has a CC skill built-in in the form of   Takedown, a fun evade skill with   Smoke Assault that grants  Might and keeps   Worldly Impact. If you need something more resilient, use the Brown Bear or Jacaranda.

Utility Skills (Open World)

Skill Choice	Notes
"We Heal As One!"	Heals for a large amount and copies shorter version of all boons on you to yourself when merged. Must-have.
Moa Stance	The fundament for the open world build through large boon application, as explained above.
Quickening Zephyr	Quickness application to trigger  Essence of Speed as well as another stun-break. Try to pair this with   Moa Stance to make the quickness last longer.
"Sic 'Em!"	Massive increase in damage when merged against a single target. You can use   Stone Spirit for area  Aegis and to maintain  Protection without jade protocols.
"Strength of the Pack!"	Strong source of  Stability and  Might. This is not required, you can also use   One Wolf Pack for higher damage.

• If those changes are not comfortable enough for you, you can use the survivability food and utlity item listed above for another -10% damage taken and 150 Toughness!