Background picture
  • October 22, 2023
  • 14.72 min to read
Overview
Up-to-date

updated for the 9/26/2023 patch

Template Code
[&DQQeOSA+Nzp5AHkAAAAAAKUBpQG1ALUALhYAADsRFRsAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]
Conditions
Role
  • Power Damage
Synergy very high
DPS very high
Independence average
Acquiring basicsaverage
Achieving masterydifficult
The Soulbeast is a DPS build with very high burst damage that can provide strong party buffs with
and other stances, some Vulnerability and crowd control (CC) skills. Furthermore,
is an exceedingly strong reflect skill that comes in handy on several encounters (e.g. Artsariiv). The build benefits from slaying potions and slaying sigils such as
and
.
This build is rather self-sufficient due to:
  • Quickness from
  • Boon extension by
    ,
  • High CC with
    ,
    and
Overall this is a very well-rounded build that is rewarding to play in both PuGs and organized teams alike.
Equipment
  • Berserker
  • Berserker
  • Berserker
  • Berserker
  • Berserker
  • Berserker
  • Berserker
  • Berserker
  • Berserker

Any item with the same stats may be used!

Soulbeast
Heal
Utilities
Elite
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Berserker
Food
Utility
Relic
Build
Traits
  • Skirmishing
  • Beastmastery
  • Soulbeast
Situational Traits
Take this instead of
if you need to help provide Weakness for your Weaver.
Take this instead of
if you are running Greatsword or underwater Spear for cooldown reduction and more damage.
Taken on fights where it can be casted each phase such as Ensolyss
If boons are not a problem and using sword, will provide a slight DPS increase.
Defiance Bar Damage
SkillDamage
200 damage (F2 in Rock Gazelle
)
First Daze 100 damage, secondDaze 125 damage, (Hammer 3)
200 damage (Hammer 5)
150 damage (Longbow 4)
150 damage (Axe 4)
150 damage (Greatsword 5)
150 damage (Greatsword 4 after a block)
232 damage (F2 in Pheonix
)
200 damage (F2 in Smokescale
)
33/s Chilled, 20/s Weakness (Axe 3)
33/s Blinded (Hammer 3)
Pets
Red Moa - Highest DPS pet to use in
if CC isn't needed.
Rock Gazelle - Slight DPS loss but provides substantial CC both in and out of
.
Smokescale - Provides a 5 second smoke combo field to stack Stealth. It can also be used as a CC pet if you need extra
uptime.
Pheonix - An alternative to Rock Gazelle. Does slighlty more CC, but
deals less damage than
. It can be used as a if you need extra
uptime.
Swap Weapons
Weapon Selections
Set 1
  • Hammer - is the standard weapon choice for most bosses except a few cases in fast daily kills or speedruns. Remember you can still precast
    with Longbow before fights start for extra burst.
    Standard Hammer Skills
    • If you need some extra CC, swap to
      (Hammer 5). This is particularly useful on Artsarriv and MAMA.
    • If you do not need the CC or
      proc, swap to
      .
  • Longbow - is taken on encounters where phases are so short, you do not need to swap back to bow during active phases. Once the phase has finished you should have time to swap back to bow and be ready to burst again. If you find yourself stuck on Longbow at points in a fight where you need extra damage, Hammer will probably be a better option.
  • Axe/Warhorn - is a niche weapon choice, but viable on some encounters over Longbow if you don't have access to a Hammer.
Set 2
  • Mainhand Axe - is taken if a phase ends before you start auto attacking with
    for too long. Also in Low gravity it is preferable to play over Sword.
  • Mainhand Sword - is taken when phases are long enough to be autoattacking and the sustained damage is more important than the slightly higher Axe burst.
Note: What weapon variations you use heavily depends upon the encounter, fight duration and group you are playing with. Optimally there is no single weapon choice that fits all scenarios, so take into acount the possible variables, or play the weapons that you enjoy using.
Additional Options
  • Warhorn for Might pre-stacking, can use
    in prestack warhorn.
  • Weapons with specific slaying sigils and/or
    (see Cheat Sheet and CM Guides).
  • Longbows or Hammers with
    are strong for several bosses, especially in faster groups. Check the Power Soulbeast CM Guide) for more information.
  • An Axe with
    instead of
    in very fast groups is good on Artsariiv. Check the Power Soulbeast CM Guide) for more information.
Situational Skills
Your standard 3rd utility, dealing the most damage.
Allows all boons that are applied during its uptime to last longer, great for prestacking. Can also be run in fight to allow for other players to run offensive builds.
Area condi cleanse, also for allies if you play
. Very handy in Captain Mai Trin, Artsariiv, and during any fractal with Mistlock Instability: Afflicted.
Area condi cleanse, taken if you are playing
or your party needs a long lasting condi cleanse. The same situations described in
apply here.
A team source of Stability, can be taken in T4s such as Chaos.
Can be used before Mistlock Singularity precast for and swapped with a usual utility for some extra opener DPS.
A source of Superspeed that allows you to perform skips in combination with
.
A source of Quickness and Superspeed that allows you to perform skips in combination with
.
Prevents you from taking damage. Can be used to perform skip for the left path in Deepstone.
Details
All DPS builds should focus on getting as much damage into the Exposed buff. As your largest damage skill you want to ensure that
under the effects of
is your first priority when you see Exposed on the boss.
As Soulbeast you have quite a few ticking damage over time AoEs, such as
and
(as well as
if you have
from your Weaver). You want to precast these AoEs where possible when you know that the boss is about to be Exposed.
In PuGs, however, it is quite hard to predict when the boss will be CC'd as well as phases can last a lot longer than expected, because of this the golem rotation is listed in the next section so that you can resort back to it if you end up in a longer phase.
Weapon Variations:
For your First weapon set you have a choice of 3 weapons:
  • Hammer - is the standard weapon choice for most bosses except a few cases in fast daily kills or speedruns. Remember you can still precast
    with Longbow before fights start for extra burst.
  • Longbow - is taken on encounters where phases are so short, you do not need to swap back to bow during active phases. Once the phase has finished you should have time to swap back to bow and be ready to burst again. If you find yourself stuck on Longbow at points in a fight where you need extra damage, Hammer will probably be a better option.
  • Axe/Warhorn - is a niche weapon choice, but viable on some encounters over Longbow if you don't have access to a Hammer.
Set 2
  • Mainhand Axe - is taken if a phase ends before you start auto attacking with
    for too long. Also in Low gravity it is preferable to play over Sword.
  • Mainhand Sword - is taken when phases are long enough to be autoattacking and the sustained damage is more important than the slightly higher Axe burst.
Note: What weapon variations you use heavily depends upon the encounter, fight duration and group you are playing with. Optimally there is no single weapon choice that fits all scenarios, so take into acount the possible variables, or play the weapons that you enjoy using.
Pets:
  • For pets you simply run
    Rock Gazelle if you need CC or
    Red Moa if you don't. It is safer to just run Gazelle most of the time and only swap to Moa when you are sure you don't need the CC. You never know when a little CC can come in handy!
  • You want to have
    Smokescale on swap to have quick access if you need stealth for skips at any point.
Utility Skills:
  • You should never swap out
    or
    as they are both massive damage buffs both personally and for the team!
  • You want to always run
    as it grants you a 25% damage bonus for its duration. One thing to keep in mind is that it only grants you a 25% damage bonus against the foe you use it on, so if you are cleaving trash mobs it might not be worth using. Secondly, you only get the buff if you are in
    so also don't activate it if you are unmerged.
  • Your final utility varies depending on the situation. Generally, you want to run either
    since that is your most damaging utility
    • is taken on fights where no other utility is needed.
    • is another common final utility used to extend boons in your party allowing very offensive comps to be run.
    • is also useful in certain T4s to provide team stability. Notably, the last boss of Chaos and the champion before the boss of Mai Trin.
  • Most healing skills on ranger are quite useful:
    is a large heal and extends the boons on yourself thanks to
    . Secondly
    is a great condi cleanse either personally or for your team. It should always be brought for Mai Trin and can be taken on Artsariiv or other fights with the Afflicted instability.
Extra Notes:
  • in combination with
    means that using
    extends your boons, this can be helpful in Ensolyss split phases to maintain boons on yourself. The healing skill
    also allows you to extend boons on yourself.
  • and
    in combination with the
    allows you to move extremely fast and is useful for a few skips. Check the Fractal Guides for specific skips. Superspeed will also override the speed decrease when carrying treasure in Siren's Reef.
Rotation / Skill usage
Golem rotations from raid builds are generally suboptimal in fractals due to Exposed and phases being much shorter compared to raids. The raid rotations are optimized for sustained DPS while in fractals a player needs the ability to adapt a rotation to the amount of time a group needs to finish a phase.
For that reason you can find a video below with openers for each of the CM bosses:
Hammer Opener
  1. (Longbow 5)
  2. Swap to Hammer
  3. (Hammer 3)
  4. (during the cast of
    )
  5. (Hammer 4)
  6. (Hammer 2)
  7. Weaponswap
  8. Continue with Sword or Axe burst from step 6
Note: If you don't precast
, you may want to use
or
early to proc
.
Sword Opener
  1. (Longbow 5)
  2. during the cast of
  3. (Longbow 4)
  4. Weaponswap
  5. (Sword 2)
  6. (Sword 3)
  7. (Axe 4)
  8. (Axe 5)
  9. (Axe 5)
  10. (Sword 2)
Axe Opener
  1. (Longbow 5)
  2. during the cast of
  3. (Longbow 4)
  4. Weaponswap
  5. (Axe 2)
  6. (Axe 3)
  7. (Axe 4)
  8. (Axe 5)
  9. (Axe 5)
  10. (Axe 2)
Precasting
If you have a Mistlock Singularity present you can use this rotation:
  1. If you can place traps before spawning the boss use
    .
  2. If a fire field isn’t present, equip an offhand torch and use
    .
  3. with
    .
  4. Optional Use
    then change back the utility that it was in place of.
  5. to blast might.
  6. to extend your boons.
  7. Pick up
    if there is one.
  8. then take the Mistlock Singularity and trigger the boss.
If you don't have Mistlock Singularity present you can use this simplified rotation:
  1. If a fire field isn’t present, equip an offhand torch and use
    .
  2. to blast might.
  3. to extend your boons.
  4. Pick up
    if there is one.
Golem Rotation
by vpo
Note: The golem benchmark uses a different build setup than the ones above due to its use in raids. Check the description of the benchmark for a link to the build used.
Underwater Guide
Traits
  • Beastmastery
Your other train lines remain the same as on land. The reason for swapping traits here is to provide a 10% damage increase and cooldown reduction on spear skills.
Underwater Rotation
For a DPS rotation the same rules apply as above land, try to fit lots of damage into
and
and line your burst up with Exposed.
You want to start on Harpoon gun and use
(Harpoon Gun 3) and
(Harpoon Gun 4) to precast damage into
.
During the fight, you want to camp Spear since
(Spear 5),
(Spear 2), as well as your auto-attack chain deals good damage. You should swap back to Harpoon gun at the start of the split-phase of the Jellyfish Beast to range the split adds as well as allow you to restart your rotation when the split-phase ends.
Bonus Tips:
  • If you know that a blockable attack is coming then be sure to use
    (Skill 4) since you can proc
    for a nice 10% damage bonus.
  • At the end of a phase you can use
    (Harpoon 3) and
    (Harpoon 4) again.
  • You can use
    to quickly reach or come back from the adds during the Jellyfish fight of Aquatic Ruins.
Weapons
  • Berserker

    2x
  • Berserker

    2x
Skills
Heal
Utilities
Elite
If you need to swap a skill, the same as on land applies. Swap
first then
.
Pets
Lashtail Devourer - Highest DPS pet allowing you to proc
. You can bring this pet if your group can upkeep Fury without you.
Shark - Used only for mobility.
is a great for moving between fractal sections quickly, just remember to swap back to a DPS pet before getting into combat!