Guild Wars 2

Just trying to get some feedback from other classes outside of the Guardian sub forum.

Our new spec is really underwhelming compared to like the Holosmith or Weaver and Dragonhunter was already one of the weak, if not the worst, elite spec introduced into this game.

I’m really thinking Anet does not care about Guard anymore.

Will probably not buy.

Thoughts?

How its underwhelming, instead of F1, F2,F3 doing something minimal it now give you a tome with 5 new skills. So its add a lot of more gameplay to the class.

How can you claim it is underwhelming before you even play it?

jheryn.8390:

How can you claim it is underwhelming before you even play it?

That’s a trap.

Adrenalin.5719:

jheryn.8390:

How can you claim it is underwhelming before you even play it?

That’s a trap.

Seriously. You get a little snippit of what it does with no idea of it’s abilities before players even get a chance to play it, and you can make judgments from that?

People thought the Warrior elite from HoT would suck before it came out. The torch? And it gave us the Burnzerk.

Same for Tempest and we got Fresh Air Ele.

Wait and see what it can do before making snap judgements is all I am saying.

Why do you compare Firebrand to Warrior and Ele and not Dragonhunter? Pretty cheesy manipulation strategy.

That’s fine, I just am not going to take the negative approach because of a tidbit of information about one class and information that I don’t really have. Also, the Crystal Desert, Elona, new enemies, new areas, etc., etc., that they did show look amazing.

So I’ll, happily buy the expansion. It’s more than being happy with what they do with one thing to me.

If you don’t buy, I guess that is your choice. Good luck.

They didn’t even reveal any actual game footage for firebrand. Stop whining before you even test it out yourself :/

In fact they have to nerf base guard/DH’s burn potential if they intend to make Firebrand the “burn guard”. It’s already ridiculous in it’s current HoT meta.

What they did for every class is give them another spec role different from what we get from HoT. So classes that get a defensive/supportive spec will get an offensive one this time round, vice versa. What’s wrong with getting tome spells for support? The tome elite was there since launch until it got remove, now they are bringing it back in a different manner which is great.

lmaogg.7325:

In fact they have to nerf base guard/DH’s burn potential if they intend to make Firebrand the “burn guard”. It’s already ridiculous in it’s current HoT meta.

Howso? It’s ok in PvP till like Plat but except that burn DH is trash.

Seems like a class that would work well in group content as a support build, at least from what I saw. Not sure what it will do in PvP or the synergy since they didn’t really go into that.

I’m actually really excited about the Firebrand. A more active group support role sounds right up my alley!

Adrenalin.5719:

Why do you compare Firebrand to Warrior and Ele and not Dragonhunter? Pretty cheesy manipulation strategy.

That wasn’t the point of the comparison.

The point was this:

People thought X was going to be disappointing before trying it. After they tried it, they found it was actually pretty great.

jheryn.8390:

How can you claim it is underwhelming before you even play it?

This.. x10000

Seera.5916:

People thought X was going to be disappointing before trying it. After they tried it, they found it was actually pretty great.

Yeah, but Dragonhunter was the same until it turned out to be definitely a terrible spec.

Actually, if you look at the previews for the Firebrand it is like they took the idea of the original guardian tome system and gave it a major overhaul. As for DH spec, I like the bow for my guardian. I never was big on using a staff or scepter for ranged, but I always like having the option.

I guess it goes to show, different players all have their different tastes. Specs like this give us even more options to make our characters a little more unique and allow us to play the way we prefer vs going full on meta.

I hope the tomes have ground targetted skills, directional cones, and targetted abilities in addition to PBAOE.

Adrenalin.5719:

Why do you compare Firebrand to Warrior and Ele and not Dragonhunter? Pretty cheesy manipulation strategy.

Actually Firebrand makes DH look very lackluster just off the preview. DH has always been a niche role and at launch, it was very weak and their bandaid solution to making it even remotely viable was buffing damage modifiers on everything. Even the DH traits are just a big dmg modifier.

Firebrand looks more dynamic, and is clearly not a niche role especially with access to 3 new tome skills along with shorter cooldowns compared to DH, and the page system they are introducing.

Obviously this doesn’t mean it will be OP, maybe it will but no one can know that until it is played in comparison to the other elite specs out. As for design, firebrand > DH.

I think the impression came from two things. Little about them in the preview, and the follow up with WP saying they just do a little of everything, when specifically asked.

That’s where we are right now, a little of everything but not really good at anything. I loved my guardian before they changed the original skill trees. I played Guardian, exclusively. The PVE HOT meta made me not want to play it anymore— especially when guild leaders and raid leaders told me they would never bring a Dragonhunter to a raid unless there was absolutely no one else.

I am waiting to see for myself, and hoping for the best.

Adrenalin.5719:

Seera.5916:

People thought X was going to be disappointing before trying it. After they tried it, they found it was actually pretty great.

Yeah, but Dragonhunter was the same until it turned out to be definitely a terrible spec.

But that isn’t the point of the comparison that was being made to get you to see that claiming something is going to be bad without trying it isn’t a sure thing.

Well in my opinion it looks way better than dragonhunter and I even think to play Firebrand (There are worse elite spec – look at deadeye and soulbeast, also mirage is a little bit miserable)

jheryn.8390:

How can you claim it is underwhelming before you even play it?

100% agree

Seera.5916:

Adrenalin.5719:

Seera.5916:

People thought X was going to be disappointing before trying it. After they tried it, they found it was actually pretty great.

Yeah, but Dragonhunter was the same until it turned out to be definitely a terrible spec.

But that isn’t the point of the comparison that was being made to get you to see that claiming something is going to be bad without trying it isn’t a sure thing.

I think the word for the OP is inconsolable or maybe disconsolate. They assume Firebrand is going to be terrible and they do not want to be comforted or consoled or indeed to see any possibility that it won’t be terrible.

It’s not feasible for ArenaNet to make a new, better spec than Firebrand in less than two months and there is no real feedback here; saying it’s “really underwhelming” is not really actionable. Mind you, I’m not sure what kind of useful feedback anyone could give until we have a chance to use it.

Personally, I’m curious about Firebrand, it will be nice to have another/better condi options for Guard.

Rong.5470:

Well in my opinion it looks way better than dragonhunter and I even think to play Firebrand (There are worse elite spec – look at deadeye and soulbeast, also mirage is a little bit miserable)

What?! Deadeye looks like a beast! And while I’m not too hyped for Soulbeast I can understand why people would be hyped for it because they can finally run petless ranger.

But beware, Firetrash will have 90sec cd on tome f3 which does not give any blocks except maybe 1 aegis which some classes ignore with unblockables (most of new elites have unblockable) and you are stuck in f3 until you spend all points and then you have 90 sec cd on it.

F2 have some heals resistance but when someone jumps you in wvw and pvp you have no active blocks you die pretty fast being as support class.

I dont see it will be used in raids cause chrono and druid can do much better on shorter cd and alacrity.

Firetrash will be most welcomed in world bosses.

I don’t see it being competitive cause it does not have proper defensive abilities nor good cd’s. Wish it was kit based like leaked, it would be much more complicated and better dps wise.

Adrenalin.5719:

Seera.5916:

People thought X was going to be disappointing before trying it. After they tried it, they found it was actually pretty great.

Yeah, but Dragonhunter was the same until it turned out to be definitely a terrible spec.

Actually only Bow is terrible, where Dragonhunter as a spec adds a lot of damage to the core class with its traits and two of its traps, particularly on large hitboxes. There is a reason that ALL of the raid meta builds and exactly half of the other meta builds for guardian are all based in Dragonhunter, and it’s not because it is “definitely terrible”.

If anything we should be happy that the Guardian Elite Spec is not so unbalanced that it completely invalidates the core class over the elite, unlike some specs on some classes.

Adrenalin.5719:

Our new spec is really underwhelming compared to like the Holosmith or Weaver and Dragonhunter was already one of the weak, if not the worst, elite spec introduced into this game.

We can’t possibly have any idea before the expac launches how this is going to turn out. Before HoT, there were complaints from fans of every class. No one predicted that mesmers would be well-suited as tanks or how useful GS would be to necro condi builds.

Even if there were anything to the OP’s worries, there’s six weeks left until launch. ANet isn’t going to be making any substantive changes now. They’ll take some feedback in 10 days after the trial run and they’ll pay attention to how people actually use the build in the first 4-8 weeks after launch.

Until then, instead of trying to find something to complain about, try looking for ways to make the new elite shine. It is there that we’d find if there’s an issue or not.

I think the Firebrand looks pretty badkitten. I love the visuals.

Sojourner.4621:

Adrenalin.5719:

Seera.5916:

People thought X was going to be disappointing before trying it. After they tried it, they found it was actually pretty great.

Yeah, but Dragonhunter was the same until it turned out to be definitely a terrible spec.

Actually only Bow is terrible, where Dragonhunter as a spec adds a lot of damage to the core class with its traits and two of its traps, particularly on large hitboxes. There is a reason that ALL of the raid meta builds and exactly half of the other meta builds for guardian are all based in Dragonhunter, and it’s not because it is “definitely terrible”.

If anything we should be happy that the Guardian Elite Spec is not so unbalanced that it completely invalidates the core class over the elite, unlike some specs on some classes.

hehe I like to see ppl write “Firebrand have so good looking visuals” but saddly visuals do not make this game unless you sit in LA showing off your class visuals.

Visuals do not attack nor defend you in pvp and wvw. Or they just wanna be pretty corpse

And DH was bad pre hot, traps were also bad with no boons. I was loud seeing how stupidly underpowered it was. Luckily some dev logged once into pvp with it and saw how underperforming it was so they buffed it.

I hope some dev log into firebrand and try pvp and wvw roaming and when he get rekt few times in couple of seconds he might buff us giving us true leaked kits.

Or I hope I see some dev in wvw and pvp with his firebrand so i can rekt him in there with my DH or Scrapper.

hehe I like to see ppl write “Firebrand have so good looking visuals” but saddly visuals do not make this game unless you sit in LA showing off your class visuals.

Sure, but they do make the class fun to play. Balance is far more likely to be fixed than visuals are, so if the Firebrand is underpowered at first, they can always tweak that up later. My issues with the DH had nothing to do with balance, I just thought it was stupid for a Guardian to be a “Dragon Hunter.”