All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

The nerf to justice passive killed even sword as a condi dealing weapon and since power just dont work (ToJ is only usuable with condi) it means all weapons that relied on passive justice just lost 50% of their damage.

This needs to be fixed and is imho the most urgent matter in the entire elite.

Even torch took a huge blow since skill 5 just got nerfed with 50%.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Syktek.7912

Syktek.7912

FB justice was nerfed in order to balance out new sources of burn damage. You can still achieve respectable burn burst with regular weapons from my testing anyway.

And torch five was a loss of DPS regardless (And pretty much would nuke you if you attacked players with retaliation).

Vesper Dawnshield | Guardian

(edited by Syktek.7912)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

FB justice was nerfed in order to balance out new sources of burn damage. You can still achieve respectable burn burst with regular weapons from my testing anyway.

And torch five was a loss of DPS regardless (And pretty much would nuke you if you attacked players with retaliation).

The only new sources of damage is ToJ. the issue is that in our first condi build/specc we actually loose out on condi damage in our weapons.

And skill 5 on torch is one of the best burn stackers we had so no it wasnt a loss of dps in a condi build. And who cares about being hit by retaliation 5 times when i build 5 stacks of burning while doing it.

I think you miss the point here, the weapons we had as condi build weapons are crap now. And they took a slow and badly designed weapon, crap for pvp, and made it the top damage dealer. In an elite that has not shields or mobility what so ever.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Syktek.7912

Syktek.7912

FB justice was nerfed in order to balance out new sources of burn damage. You can still achieve respectable burn burst with regular weapons from my testing anyway.

And torch five was a loss of DPS regardless (And pretty much would nuke you if you attacked players with retaliation).

The only new sources of damage is ToJ. the issue is that in our first condi build/specc we actually loose out on condi damage in our weapons.

And skill 5 on torch is one of the best burn stackers we had so no it wasnt a loss of dps in a condi build. And who cares about being hit by retaliation 5 times when i build 5 stacks of burning while doing it.

I think you miss the point here, the weapons we had as condi build weapons are crap now. And they took a slow and badly designed weapon, crap for pvp, and made it the top damage dealer. In an elite that has not shields or mobility what so ever.

Torch 5 is only good at stacking burns if you’re hitting multiple targets which is situational and all it takes is a guardian to pop a virtue to make you nuke yourself (Also very easy to interrupt, and to avoid, since it has a long cast time). Symbols are better for res denial. This allows you to pick up focus or shield for more sustain and utility.

New sources of burn: Third attack in axe auto chain, Mantra of Flame, ToJ (which can dump massive amounts of burn instantly). A loss of 50% (On Justice Passive) of damage in exchange for ToJ, burns on your autoattack that will effect up to three targets and, once they fix MoF, a utility that poops out burns.

It’s hardly fair to keep Justice + PW doing elongated DoT while you now have three new sources of burn that hit just as hard or even harder (And if traited, Justice stays passive while in ToJ, which is just insane).

And no, the weapons aren’t crap now. I did plenty of testing and found them to be still quite effective at procing J/PW combo which still does massive burns. And if you’re so concerned about it you can still use the previous burn specs which have their very own strengths and better sustain than Firebrand will.

Vesper Dawnshield | Guardian

(edited by Syktek.7912)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

FB justice was nerfed in order to balance out new sources of burn damage. You can still achieve respectable burn burst with regular weapons from my testing anyway.

And torch five was a loss of DPS regardless (And pretty much would nuke you if you attacked players with retaliation).

The only new sources of damage is ToJ. the issue is that in our first condi build/specc we actually loose out on condi damage in our weapons.

And skill 5 on torch is one of the best burn stackers we had so no it wasnt a loss of dps in a condi build. And who cares about being hit by retaliation 5 times when i build 5 stacks of burning while doing it.

I think you miss the point here, the weapons we had as condi build weapons are crap now. And they took a slow and badly designed weapon, crap for pvp, and made it the top damage dealer. In an elite that has not shields or mobility what so ever.

Torch 5 is only good at stacking burns if you’re hitting multiple targets which is situational and all it takes is a guardian to pop a virtue to make you nuke yourself (Also very easy to interrupt, and to avoid, since it has a long cast time). Symbols are better for res denial. This allows you to pick up focus or shield for more sustain and utility.

New sources of burn: Third attack in axe auto chain, Mantra of Flame, ToJ (which can dump massive amounts of burn instantly). A loss of 50% (On Justice Passive) of damage in exchange for ToJ, burns on your autoattack that will effect up to three targets and, once they fix MoF, a utility that poops out burns.

It’s hardly fair to keep Justice + PW doing elongated DoT while you now have three new sources of burn that hit just as hard or even harder (And if traited, Justice stays passive while in ToJ, which is just insane).

And no, the weapons aren’t crap now. I did plenty of testing and found them to be still quite effective at procing J/PW combo which still does massive burns. And if you’re so concerned about it you can still use the previous burn specs which have their very own strengths and better sustain than Firebrand will.

I exchange 5 retal hits any day in pvp for 5 stacks of burning. I exchange it even for 1 stack of burning with 3 sec duration.

Torch is fast hitting and isnt a loss of dps in a condi build, even on single targets.

The axe isnt an addition of burning, it is actually lower burn rate on axe compared to sword or scepter in DH or vanilla.

The mantra isnt an addition to burning since there are better options in vanilla and DH. It is an option but not a competive one.

More options isnt the same as better options and ToJ is the only better option and that is gated behind 4 different mechanics and also is justified in its power due to the total lack of mobility/disengage and active defenses FB has.

I understand why they did it but they did this the wrong way, removing options.

They should have only one condition on the slow axe (bad at proccing VoJ) and that condi shouldnt be burns. Why not 2 stacks of bleeds per hit instead, with 3 sec duration.

Basically the only weapon worth taking in FB is axe and if you want to play a good burn build just go vanilla or DH. That is irony for you when we finally get a “proper” condi build.

FB will be trash and a one trick pony in pvp, spamming ToJ.

So no, nerfed VoJ isnt justified at all and the way they compensated for 2 stacks of burning (1sec) in axe is just the wrong way to go.

The fact is that scepter/sword go a 50% nerf to their damage out put.

Btw being able to trait to keep the passives should have been in vanilla to begin with and its just bad it took them 5 years to realize that.

No i shouldnt be forced to use other speccs when anet say that this is a condi spec them self and only gives us one weapon that works properly with the specc.

(edited by Brutaly.6257)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Syktek.7912

Syktek.7912

So basically you just want to hate FB since you don’t get to be OP and are unreasonable. Got it.

Vesper Dawnshield | Guardian

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

So basically you just want to hate FB since you don’t get to be OP and are unreasonable. Got it.

No, that isnt my point. I dont even play my guardian any more. FB as a concept is great imo but seriously how boring is it to run around and using one weapon since all other weapons under perform. There is no need to swap what so ever. The difference in burn damage is about 50% between the axe auto and the scepter auto.

Also consider the elite also lack the active defenses of the vanilla and if played as anet designed it also give up all damage while using F2+3.

Having an elite with only one working weapon is just bad. It reduces the options in builds and game play making it even more predictable than a DH.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Mikau.6920

Mikau.6920

They could change the burning sources to bleeding on the axe. In that way could could buff the Tome of Justice passive to at least 1.5 sec.

Sorry for my english.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Sifu.9745

Sifu.9745

I am sure that Power weapons/builds work just fine on FB, also healing/support weapons/builds should work even better. I guess healing/support Mace/Staff builds will became insanely op.
Finally i will be able to play a tank or/and healing role.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

Firebrand is gonna be a problem because we have no ranged condi weapon.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Leo G.4501

Leo G.4501

What change to Virtue of Justice was made?

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: nuaa.4962

nuaa.4962

Short version: few condi skill = higher condi output per skill. Alot of condi skill = lower condi per skill, to keep balance. (That should be common sense)

Longer version:
Only reason Virtue of Justice was as good as it was, was because it was only real condi output guardian had, with some symbol burn and spirit weapon. But always seems like Voj was main one for guardian condi damage.

So if you went for condi spec, you where more or less only buffing very few skills, no matter what burning build you went for, which meant those few skill where allowed to output higher damage overall.
Firebrand is the other extreme, a spec filled with option for burning, so if you go for condi stats it needs to balance out over alot of skills. So making ToJ weaker makes perfect sense, now we got a good condi weapon, new burning utility and tome of justice.

Since you where talking about sword earlier, I startet to compare sword vs axe to get a idea of what difference is. Since i forgotten the numbers for sword (Doing LS3 maps i prefered greatsword with Procession of Blades, that just melts groups of mobs)
Skill 1: attack chain takes same amount of time, axe hits 6 times vs swords 5, and full axe chain is 4 bleed and 2 burn on top(can even be traited to around 2 more bleeds per full chain with Unrelenting Criticism!)
Symbol wise, sword is easy to hit with and does 6 hits. Axe is kittens +4 bleeding + counts as axe skill for Unrelenting Criticism procs. Will admit casting speed on axe symbol is annoying.
Zealots defense is only real advantage over axe, since that 8 hits, where last damage output left on axe is the pull that does 1 burning.

VoJ sword is 19 hits with all skills. so 6 burns at 2 sec(VoJ procs)
ToJ axe is 12 hits with all skills. So 4 burn at 1 sec(ToJ procs)+ 2 burn at 1 sec(Axe 1) + 1 burn at 2s sec(axe 3) + 4 bleed at 1 sec(axe 1) + 4 bleed at 4sec(axe 2) + 4 bleed at 4sec(Unrelenting Criticism)
=
12sec burn vs 7 sec burn + 36 sec of bleed. Just comparing those 2 weapons.
And those are base duration and without me looking at cooldowns, So they both build are about equal in condi out put. Now add in all other burning toys firebarnd is getting, if it is still hard to see why ToJ is 1 sec, i dunno what to say.
Just remeber they balancing stuff right now, so they could up ToJ passive duration if they feel firebrands dps is to low, if dps is fine they could up ToJ passive but lower burn duration on skills inside tome. THink positive we are more or less at lowest possible duration, so it can only go up! :p

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Ramoth.9064

Ramoth.9064

wait what changed?

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: nuaa.4962

nuaa.4962

Tome of justice is 1 sec of burn. When virtue of justice is 2 sec.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Leo G.4501

Leo G.4501

Tome of justice is 1 sec of burn. When virtue of justice is 2 sec.

That’s all? And you do mean the passive ToJ, right? Kind of balances with being able to retain the passive while using the tomes. So long as regular VoJ is the same, i can definitely live with that.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

Tome of justice is 1 sec of burn. When virtue of justice is 2 sec.

That’s all? And you do mean the passive ToJ, right? Kind of balances with being able to retain the passive while using the tomes. So long as regular VoJ is the same, i can definitely live with that.

You don’t retain the passive unless you’re talking having the grandmaster trait. Using 5 tome abilities still causes the virtue to go on cd.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Malthurius.6870

Malthurius.6870

It’s basically encouraging you to use the tome itself rather than relying on the passive to deal condition damage. Don’t know why you wouldn’t want to use the tome if your goal is to do condi damage; not to mention axe would be the superior condi weapon even without the nerf thanks to its bleeding application.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

[spvp] The axe performs better in power crit scaling in power gear than the effectiveness of bleeds in carrion gear, for sure. I suppose axe is OK if it lands in groups to dish out burns+bleeds but I still prefer my 1-hander Sword/Scepter. Their base power is lower but on Firebrand, speed wins. They simply dish out burns quicker and that’s what FB spec is all about.

ToJ stands alone from Dragonhunter’s SoJ because they’re separate elite specs. It’s still a nerf to base VoJ, sure, but it is not technically a nerf of DH’s SoJ itself.

I’ll just see myself out now.

aka FalseLights
Rank: Top 250 since Season 2
#5 best gerdien in wurld

(edited by Saiyan.1704)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

They could change the burning sources to bleeding on the axe. In that way could could buff the Tome of Justice passive to at least 1.5 sec.

This is what they should have done

Axe is so slow so it doesnt procc that much VoJ to begin with and by making it a bleeding weapon and having voj last 2s ec would still make more weapons valid in FB.

Sure there are more burns coming from ToJ now but healing capabilities in FB are lower in FB compared to DH and so is survivability so higher damaga output is logical.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

Firebrand is gonna be a problem because we have no ranged condi weapon.

Correct!

Scepter is decent with old VoJ but now its useless.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

I am sure that Power weapons/builds work just fine on FB, also healing/support weapons/builds should work even better. I guess healing/support Mace/Staff builds will became insanely op.
Finally i will be able to play a tank or/and healing role.

No they dont, since ToJ has really bad direct damage, some of the skills is on par with staff auto.

Healing is worse than DH

No it wont be a tank, i play wvw and a FB cant be in front for the lack of bubbles and one serious bad heal (bad for wvw.).

A shout/medi DH is better as tank/healer in practically all game modes.

The above is why nerfing VoJ the way they did is just bad since it limits us to axe and axe alone.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

It’s basically encouraging you to use the tome itself rather than relying on the passive to deal condition damage. Don’t know why you wouldn’t want to use the tome if your goal is to do condi damage; not to mention axe would be the superior condi weapon even without the nerf thanks to its bleeding application.

I do want to use the tome but the specc is built around two playstyles mainly. Tomes and Quickness and one of them is broken. Quickness builds only have weapon option, period.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

That’s all? A

That is all, you do realize it is a 50% nerf to every weapon in condi builds, except axe.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

Short version: few condi skill = higher condi output per skill. Alot of condi skill = lower condi per skill, to keep balance. (That should be common sense)

Longer version:
Only reason Virtue of Justice was as good as it was, was because it was only real condi output guardian had, with some symbol burn and spirit weapon. But always seems like Voj was main one for guardian condi damage.

So if you went for condi spec, you where more or less only buffing very few skills, no matter what burning build you went for, which meant those few skill where allowed to output higher damage overall.
Firebrand is the other extreme, a spec filled with option for burning, so if you go for condi stats it needs to balance out over alot of skills. So making ToJ weaker makes perfect sense, now we got a good condi weapon, new burning utility and tome of justice.

Since you where talking about sword earlier, I startet to compare sword vs axe to get a idea of what difference is. Since i forgotten the numbers for sword (Doing LS3 maps i prefered greatsword with Procession of Blades, that just melts groups of mobs)
Skill 1: attack chain takes same amount of time, axe hits 6 times vs swords 5, and full axe chain is 4 bleed and 2 burn on top(can even be traited to around 2 more bleeds per full chain with Unrelenting Criticism!)
Symbol wise, sword is easy to hit with and does 6 hits. Axe is kittens +4 bleeding + counts as axe skill for Unrelenting Criticism procs. Will admit casting speed on axe symbol is annoying.
Zealots defense is only real advantage over axe, since that 8 hits, where last damage output left on axe is the pull that does 1 burning.

VoJ sword is 19 hits with all skills. so 6 burns at 2 sec(VoJ procs)
ToJ axe is 12 hits with all skills. So 4 burn at 1 sec(ToJ procs)+ 2 burn at 1 sec(Axe 1) + 1 burn at 2s sec(axe 3) + 4 bleed at 1 sec(axe 1) + 4 bleed at 4sec(axe 2) + 4 bleed at 4sec(Unrelenting Criticism)
=
12sec burn vs 7 sec burn + 36 sec of bleed. Just comparing those 2 weapons.
And those are base duration and without me looking at cooldowns, So they both build are about equal in condi out put. Now add in all other burning toys firebarnd is getting, if it is still hard to see why ToJ is 1 sec, i dunno what to say.
Just remeber they balancing stuff right now, so they could up ToJ passive duration if they feel firebrands dps is to low, if dps is fine they could up ToJ passive but lower burn duration on skills inside tome. THink positive we are more or less at lowest possible duration, so it can only go up! :p

I think you missed the point, compare axe with scepter/sword/great sword in an FB build. What will the second weapon set be. Its a a matter of build diversity.

Good luck with spamming auto alone on your FB, the rest of the weapons are useless for damage.

The only thing extra FB brings in is ToJ, the rest of the toys can be swapped for already existing utilities that work better, no one will use mantra for burns when SoJ and medis deal more damage and bring more utility.

I imagine most will play tomes because it easy/cheesy but if you trait 1 (bad design) or 2 for quickness the nerf to VoJ is a big deal and not called for and the ashes isnt an option as a trait in quickness builds. You need the passive to much.

(edited by Brutaly.6257)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Alwayshappy.2549

Alwayshappy.2549

I’ve played around with FB, but I don’t really see your concerns. To me..it only makes sense that they nerfed the passive a bit. There are so many ways to do burning now..I mean, things melted in PvP, aswell as PvE. The Tome alone does plenty of burning and considering tomes is the main thing about FB..

I tried sword and scepter as additional weapons and both worked out fine. Really looking forward to this spec. You may not be OP easily, but it’s certainly strong (after a few hours in PvP and two stress tests – so you/me can only improve – plus things can still be changed.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

I’ve played around with FB, but I don’t really see your concerns. To me..it only makes sense that they nerfed the passive a bit. There are so many ways to do burning now..I mean, things melted in PvP, aswell as PvE. The Tome alone does plenty of burning and considering tomes is the main thing about FB..

I tried sword and scepter as additional weapons and both worked out fine. Really looking forward to this spec. You may not be OP easily, but it’s certainly strong (after a few hours in PvP and two stress tests – so you/me can only improve – plus things can still be changed.

It is a fact that in a damage scenario sword/scepter has half the damage as axe.

The only real addition of burns is ToJ, and if you trait to play tomes (bottom traits).

Trait for a melee quickness build and come back and say that scepter and sword is fine compared to axe. In a pvp/wvw scenario. This build should have the highest damage since it has a much higher skill cap and actually needs a lot of micro management.

I understand why they did it, the desinged axe first and realized that it would be a monster but instead of changing axe they nerfed the underlying procc which had great impact on the other weapons.

The fix should have been to keep VoJ (core weapons and core guardian) as it was and balance the axe by just make the auto do bleeds and they could even have buffed the bleeds since axe can not proc VoJ as frequently as sword/scepter for instance.

The thing is that in pve it will be about spamming ToJ and auto on axe, there isnt room for any other weapon or build.

In pvp no one will grab the axe since it is to slow and telegraphed and require stationary targets to spam the auto. So basically ToJ all the way and ofc purging flames, meditations and SyG.

The damage gap between axe and the rest of the weapons is just absurd.

From a damage pespective i think this might be one of the least fun elites around. Support wise its really nice but needs tweaks.

(edited by Brutaly.6257)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: SharkBall.5829

SharkBall.5829

It is a fact that in a damage scenario sword/scepter has half the damage as axe.

The only real addition of burns is ToJ, and if you trait to play tomes (bottom traits).

Trait for a melee quickness build and come back and say that scepter and sword is fine compared to axe.

Other sources of burning (that are not nerfed): Ashes of Just (which IMO is a much stronger grandmaster than the all-the-time-passives one) and Symbolic burning (which you can easily have more of with FireBrand thanks to the short recharge of the healing mantra… think Zeal 233 Honor 322 Firebrand 222). TBH I think that Scepter/Focus + Axe/Shield might be my go-to weapon sets with FB.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

Other sources of burning (that are not nerfed): Ashes of Just (which IMO is a much stronger grandmaster than the all-the-time-passives one) and Symbolic burning (which you can easily have more of with FireBrand thanks to the short recharge of the healing mantra… think Zeal 233 Honor 322 Firebrand 222). TBH I think that Scepter/Focus + Axe/Shield might be my go-to weapon sets with FB.

it definitely is stronger, that i wont argue against but the issue is still there.

Scepter and sword does 50% condition damage compared to the axe due to this change.

In pvp axe is useless and tbh scepter and sword as well now. The only version of firebrand we will see in pvp/wvw is the Tome of Cheese version and in pve we will se people spamming skill on on axe no matter what build you are using.

The most interesting build and the most skillbased one is dead in the water.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Shiki.7148

Shiki.7148

Uhuh… totally unviable. Just 50+ stacks burn. Scourge does like 9 burst and can sustain 5.

“Revenant is actual proof that devs read the necromancer forum” – Pelopidas.2140

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: nuaa.4962

nuaa.4962

I think you missed the point, compare axe with scepter/sword/great sword in an FB build. What will the second weapon set be. Its a a matter of build diversity.

Good luck with spamming auto alone on your FB, the rest of the weapons are useless for damage.

The only thing extra FB brings in is ToJ, the rest of the toys can be swapped for already existing utilities that work better, no one will use mantra for burns when SoJ and medis deal more damage and bring more utility.

I imagine most will play tomes because it easy/cheesy but if you trait 1 (bad design) or 2 for quickness the nerf to VoJ is a big deal and not called for and the ashes isnt an option as a trait in quickness builds. You need the passive to much.

Can you stop looking at each weapon in a vacum?(think thats the right wording).
ToJ seems focus on high amount burn burst. When you make a spec with high burst that spec often also ends with an time where it goes into low damage mode, to balance out the dps. So having 2nd weapon set being a bit lower on condi damage could be on purpose.
Though i stand by a comment made about FB before “Unrelenting Criticism bug should not be fixed. feels good when ALL weapons can proc bleeds”.

Normal maps, ToJ will be resesting all the time, so i never touched my 2nd weapon set.
For pvp, ToJ was also being reset enough with my build, so my 2nd weapon set was used more for utility then damage.
WvW, yeah not played that enough to judge it.

And then you go into talking about build that been out and tweaked for many years, comparing to new stuff that still seeing it’s first rebalancing from community feedback. Giving feedback is always good, but come on always going with the “its the end of the world” scenario without thinking about the whole picture, when giving the feedback, It must tiring to be this negative.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

Except that clip has nothing to do with the subject. No one is arguing about ToJ, judges intervention, SoJ and the 3 stacks of burning Mantra of (F)lame can apply on stationary objects.

Its rather the opposite that they nerfed the skillbased part of condi and delivered a cheese cake with frosting that people are desperate to hold on to.

Btw i noticed the axe and almost any clip with FB has an axe in it which is more on point tbh.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

When you make a spec with high burst that spec often also ends with an time where it goes into low damage mode, to balance out the dps. So having 2nd weapon set being a bit lower on condi damage could be on purpose.

The burst specc is speccing tomes, the sustained specc is speccing quickness and melee. In melee setups there are two weapon sets.

Sure it could be on purpose but seriously what is the purpose of having one build that has lower dps, worse utility, lower survivability and has a much higher skill cap?

Please refrain from making stuff personal, like me being negative, it just removes credibility. If we dont express our opinions now nothing will change, its before release we can change stuff, Anet has a very distinct track record that they dont change stuff in any major fashion after release, just numbers and not features. I think Fb is a great design and has also stated that but some stuff is just messed up and i think we need to state that. The fact is that no other weapon has a place in a condi FB-build.

The fact is that all other weapon sets has 50% lower condition damage but if you find that balanced (i dont) its fine and if you find ToJ-builds being balanced with melee builds that is fine and i can only say that we have very different perspectives on balance.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: nuaa.4962

nuaa.4962

Btw i noticed the axe and almost any clip with FB has an axe in it which is more on point tbh.

Ok, you can’t be that …….

Ofc they do, it was a beta test, axe is new, main weapon for FB and has alot of condi on it. Most people are going to focus they testing on axe, becuase all old weapon are the same as before, and even a bit weaker becuase ToJ passive…..

(edited by nuaa.4962)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

Btw i noticed the axe and almost any clip with FB has an axe in it which is more on point tbh.

Ok, you can be that …….

Ofc they do, it was a beta test, axe is new, main weapon for FB and has alot of condi on it. Most people are going to focus they testing on axe, becuase all old weapon are the same as before, and even a bit weaker becuase ToJ passive…..

My point is that i done like 200 test runs on almost anything living in PoF and dead in the mist and having any other weapon believing you should do balanced damage is just wrong. The difference is huge, not “a bit” as you put it.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: nuaa.4962

nuaa.4962

The burst specc is speccing tomes, the sustained specc is speccing quickness and melee. In melee setups there are two weapon sets.

Sure it could be on purpose but seriously what is the purpose of having one build that has lower dps, worse utility, lower survivability and has a much higher skill cap?

Please refrain from making stuff personal, like me being negative, it just removes credibility. If we dont express our opinions now nothing will change, its before release we can change stuff, Anet has a very distinct track record that they dont change stuff in any major fashion after release, just numbers and not features. I think Fb is a great design and has also stated that but some stuff is just messed up and i think we need to state that. The fact is that no other weapon has a place in a condi FB-build.

The fact is that all other weapon sets has 50% lower condition damage but if you find that balanced (i dont) its fine and if you find ToJ-builds being balanced with melee builds that is fine and i can only say that we have very different perspectives on balance.

Again you comparing damage of spec we have no idea how good the overall the dps will be, since it is still being changed. And you been so focused on you favorit weapon being nerfed becuase of ToJ change that you not looking at other stuff much.

Fair enough, the “negative” was maybe a bit over the line. But honestly thats how you comments sounded to me.

But here is the thing, yet again. I am not looking at each weapons damage by itself, i am looking at overall damage.

Also ToJ being low duration actually opens for MORE build options. Now it isn´t so powerfull, using tome and losing passive isn´t as bad as it was before.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Ragnarox.9601

Ragnarox.9601

Uhuh… totally unviable. Just 50+ stacks burn. Scourge does like 9 burst and can sustain 5.

this is in pve Golem and only in some circumstances. trust me its not that good.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

The burst specc is speccing tomes, the sustained specc is speccing quickness and melee. In melee setups there are two weapon sets.

Sure it could be on purpose but seriously what is the purpose of having one build that has lower dps, worse utility, lower survivability and has a much higher skill cap?

Please refrain from making stuff personal, like me being negative, it just removes credibility. If we dont express our opinions now nothing will change, its before release we can change stuff, Anet has a very distinct track record that they dont change stuff in any major fashion after release, just numbers and not features. I think Fb is a great design and has also stated that but some stuff is just messed up and i think we need to state that. The fact is that no other weapon has a place in a condi FB-build.

The fact is that all other weapon sets has 50% lower condition damage but if you find that balanced (i dont) its fine and if you find ToJ-builds being balanced with melee builds that is fine and i can only say that we have very different perspectives on balance.

Again you comparing damage of spec we have no idea how good the overall the dps will be, since it is still being changed. And you been so focused on you favorit weapon being nerfed becuase of ToJ change that you not looking at other stuff much.

Fair enough, the “negative” was maybe a bit over the line. But honestly thats how you comments sounded to me.

But here is the thing, yet again. I am not looking at each weapons damage by itself, i am looking at overall damage.

Also ToJ being low duration actually opens for MORE build options. Now it isn´t so powerfull, using tome and losing passive isn´t as bad as it was before.

I am comparing weapons and their validity, the vanilla and DH weapons has no place in FB. It was you that brought in speccs stating that bursting required lower dps between burst (the definition of a burst) and i wrote that the burst specc is ToJ not the melee setup.

And ofc i can see what builds will provide dps and what type of builds that will top the damage. Seriously we played this elite for 10 hours and the game for 5 years, it is not rocket science.

Please stop making assumptions regarding my agenda when trying to diminish arguments, you have no idea what so ever what my favorite weapon is and i can assure you that neither sword or scepter is favorites of mine. My concern is that FB is a one trick pony in melee condi builds and that VoJ nerf reduced diversity.

You cant look at top overall damage in an elite and apply that to other in the same elite build options. Sure a ToJ build has great damage, test a melee/quickness build and see how utterly bad the other weapons are for damage in condi builds In order to keep damaging at such a level that there is a positive tradeoff in survivbility, range and utility the has to be a second set that works reasonably well. The reason i use sword/scepter in my arguments is because those are the best ones at applying burns due to attack speed. Its even worse for the other weapons we have.

Tomes isnt the only thing FB is since mantras are frontal melee support and hence the elite has to be judged based on the different options it provides.

Loosing damage in a large segment of the weapon sets is the exact same as loosing options if you not make all other options meet the baseline. Stating that nerfing VoJ in the manor is great for diversity is just beyond my understanding, if they did it across the board i would agree with you, but they didnt. So stating that the current nef increase diversity is just weird, it pidgeonholes us into less options since no other weapon except axe i valid hence forcing us to play Tome of Cheese.

Thats why i think removing burn from the axe would be good. Removing burn from axe would make it more balanced with sword/scepter (and all other weapons we have) and that would provide more build options. Maknig one weapon stronger and the rest weaker does not improve the number of build options.

Tome of justice deserves a really tough nerf (yeah i said it) since its brainless and without effort and the weird part is that people dont get more upset about VoJ and the nerf but i am certain that when (not if) Anet hits ToJ with the nerf hammer people will realize how big the VoJ nerf really is.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: nuaa.4962

nuaa.4962

You comparing weapons in a vacum and putting the blame on firebrand and axe. But when you look at whole kitten picture, this is not a firebrand problem, but a core guardain problem, that people been complainig about since release.
Why does core guardian lack a condi weapon?
Why is core guardian movement so slow?
Why is core guardian range options so lackluster?

Nah you can´t judge damage from options we had in beta testing. Nobody perfects their rotation that fast when new stuff to test and some of it is even bugged.

I did say sorry, and just said that how you comment felt to me. They still had that “the sky is falling” feeling. Also the higher they put ToJ damage, the more Permeating Wrath and Loremaster becomes must have, which then just lowered build option big time. While HoJ with weaker burns means losing passive isn´t a huge dps lose, so if you know now go for quickfire instead and virtues trait line is no longer a must have either.

I think quickness doubles attack speed and axe skill 1 highest amount hits we got without cooldown(6 hits per attack chain). 2,5s for full chain, though can´t seem to find this info again. So that 1,25sec with quickness that 8 attack chains. So 48 hits, 48/3 = 16 HoJ procs. so 16sec of burn
Sword would be 40hits, 40/3 = 13,33. That would be 26,66s of burn
Quickfire is 2 burns every 10 sec on 5 people. thats 10 burns of 3sec. So 30 sec of burn
EDIT: better add i was comparing damage output over 10sec, since thats cooldown for quickfire.

Hmmm just dawned on my quickfire might actually be stronger then both HoJ and VoJ in group settings. Hmm dropping virtues and going zeal for quickness dps build sound tempting now.

(edited by nuaa.4962)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Knox.8962

Knox.8962

I didn’t play in the stress test, but I did use firebrand during the preview weekend. I think the VoJ passive is just a tooltip error. My tests on the golem and observed results in wvw had VoJ passive working like it does for core guardian.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Leo G.4501

Leo G.4501

That’s all? A

That is all, you do realize it is a 50% nerf to every weapon in condi builds, except axe.

That is not how math works. Go do your homework.

And before you rebutt, taking 2sec off a single stack of burn does not equal a 50% nerf.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

You comparing weapons in a vacum and putting the blame on firebrand and axe. But when you look at whole kitten picture, this is not a firebrand problem, but a core guardain problem, that people been complainig about since release.
Why does core guardian lack a condi weapon?
Why is core guardian movement so slow?
Why is core guardian range options so lackluster?

Nah you can´t judge damage from options we had in beta testing. Nobody perfects their rotation that fast when new stuff to test and some of it is even bugged.

I did say sorry, and just said that how you comment felt to me. They still had that “the sky is falling” feeling. Also the higher they put ToJ damage, the more Permeating Wrath and Loremaster becomes must have, which then just lowered build option big time. While HoJ with weaker burns means losing passive isn´t a huge dps lose, so if you know now go for quickfire instead and virtues trait line is no longer a must have either.

I think quickness doubles attack speed and axe skill 1 highest amount hits we got without cooldown(6 hits per attack chain). 2,5s for full chain, though can´t seem to find this info again. So that 1,25sec with quickness that 8 attack chains. So 48 hits, 48/3 = 16 HoJ procs. so 16sec of burn
Sword would be 40hits, 40/3 = 13,33. That would be 26,66s of burn
Quickfire is 2 burns every 10 sec on 5 people. thats 10 burns of 3sec. So 30 sec of burn
EDIT: better add i was comparing damage output over 10sec, since thats cooldown for quickfire.

Hmmm just dawned on my quickfire might actually be stronger then both HoJ and VoJ in group settings. Hmm dropping virtues and going zeal for quickness dps build sound tempting now.

I totally agree its a issue since launch but if they dont solve the issue they need to account for that issue when designing. They havent done that and there is a simple patch they could make. Buff the passive and place bleeds on the axe on all three hits.
It wont cure the desease but it will fix the current issue.

Of course we can judge damage from beta. Its three skills on each weapon, its not that hard to test and that is exactly what i did. I did minute long test runs with parser and i can tell you that there is a huge difference between sword and axe and even more so compared to scepter.

Apology accepted.

Yes they cant buff VoJ to much but 0,5 sec would be a first step. 2s woudl be reacable with 33% condi duration. The question here is how much is enough compared to Quickfire. As it is now those two isnt balanced. And as you say if they buff to much axe becomes obsolete and i dont want that either. But as it is now i will run with one axe and two off hands in pve.

I think the chain on axe is 1,75 seconds. Proccing 2 stacks of burns each full auto. Those burns in them self is 100% stronger than traited passive VoJ. It is 6 hits so with two passive voj per chain. That is 2,29 VoJ sized burns per second auto attacking.

If i got the math right the axe chain alone deals 2 VoJ and 2 stacks of burning per cast, 1,71 VoJ sized burns per second.
The symbol is 1,67 burns per cast and a casting of 1,25s (also some bleeds but lets not count them) so 0,21 VoJ per second. If you want to to max burning leave the symbol out f it.
Skill 3 corresponds to 4,33 VoJ proccs (4 second burn from the skill and 0,33 VoJ from the single hit) with 0.75 casting which is 5,77 VoJ sized burns per second, the cd is 12s so it adds the difference between the auto (2,29) and #3 (5,77) so roughly 4 stacks in 12 seconds, 0,29. This means that axe with auto alone and #3 applies 2,48 VoJ sized burns per second.

The chain on sword is 1,5 s if i remember correct, with kittens.
The symbol is instant with kittens, 8s cd.
Zealots defense is 0,5 and 8 hits, 12s cd.
That is 1,67 voj per chain or 1,11 VoJ per second .
That is 1,67 voj per symbol or 0,21 VoJ per second.
That is 2,67 voj per ZD.

The chain and symbol deals 1,32 VoJ per second. Symbol being instant (its not due to aftercast but lets make it simple) and ZD has 1/3 of casting time of the chain so we subtract 1/3 of the VoJ proccs from ZD, 2,67-0,56=2,11 divided in cd (12).
ZD adds 0,18 VoJ per second.

1,5 VoJ sized burning per second on sword
2,48 VoJ sized burning per second on axe

The math for scepter is even worse and the rest is just pure garbage.

Add in that axe has much higher direct damage as well and also bleeds on auto and on symbol that i haven included and i havent included the after cast on the sword symbol.

The difference is huge
Removing burns from axe and add in bleeds would pretty much still give us a condi weapon (axe would still be superior) and still usable secondary options.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: nuaa.4962

nuaa.4962

First so happy i kept firebrand wiki tab open, because been looking up numbers so much after writing in this thread :P

Anyway
I would have no problem with replacing burn on last hit of axe chain. Aslong overall condi dps is fine i will be happy. So not like i have something against your suggestion, just i kinda like it at 1sec, because it lower focus on the passive.

But removing 4sec of burn from axe and givng 4 sec of bleed. Then adding 0,5sec to ToJ. That means axe now on full chain would do 3sec of burn and 12sec bleeding. While old was 6sec of burn and 8sec bleed.
Fast math put my guess as 2sec of burn is lost, since 1 burn is something like 4 or 5 bleeds worth of damage but then later made up for with fact we have higher HoJ damage from using other attacks. So yes it could work.

My personal opinion in a older thread was Unrelenting Criticism bug should stay. Since bug makes it work with any attack. Has same result of upping condi on all weapon, while keeping HoJ low. Overall there is other option then buffing Hoj duration. (Unrelenting Criticism would also be easier to controll condi dps on other weapon, since each bleed stack is alot less damage then 1 burn stack)

All i know is. ALso if stays like now with no change i got 3 firebrand spec i am happy with, but they will most like work just as well with yout change. So i am ok with it, but it isnt first thing that need fixing for firebrand (Cast times, cooldown on tomes and ToR needs a good healing buff!! All those are far more important to me)
FB, Virtue and radiance AoE burn for stuff like pve maps
FB, radiance and zeal for quickness burn build. single target burn build
FB, virtues and honor for a pure support spec (this one needs testing)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: otto.5684

otto.5684

So far all weapons worked fine with FB. Axe was somewhat disappointing though compared to sword and scepter. Probably the reason is the the symbol. The long cast makes slow and clunky in PvE and close to useless in sPvP. Otherwise axe was okay.

Condi build with FB/Zeal/Radiance should be okay in PvE. It is for sure stronger than Virtues/Radiance/Zeal. As for sPvP.. nothing FB offers can compete with VoJ. Not even close. Virtues/Med/Radiance or Zeal is much better than any condi build possible with FB in sPvP, at least as far as the stress test goes. We do not know what will happen on release.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Saiyan.1704

Saiyan.1704

As for sPvP.. nothing FB offers can compete with VoJ. Not even close. Virtues/Med/Radiance or Zeal is much better than any condi build possible with FB in sPvP, at least as far as the stress test goes. We do not know what will happen on release.

I will say that it’ll simply be FB > DH > Core in the end.

  • Core – be it power or Burn burst, performs worse than the two elites because it lacks Sustains and overall Stability in clutch situations.
  • DH and FB – it’s a bit too soon to see build effectiveness in competitive PvP but FB has the potential to deal higher team-wide bursts, higher effectiveness in team fight amongst allies, and sustaining itself the same if not better.

It’ll be curious how well each and every profession will utilize these Core, DH and FB builds.

aka FalseLights
Rank: Top 250 since Season 2
#5 best gerdien in wurld

(edited by Saiyan.1704)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Mikau.6920

Mikau.6920

I didn’t play in the stress test, but I did use firebrand during the preview weekend. I think the VoJ passive is just a tooltip error. My tests on the golem and observed results in wvw had VoJ passive working like it does for core guardian.

They are different in sPvP and PvE. In PvE the ToJ passive is 1 sec and sPvP (golems) was 1.5 sec, I believe. But in sPvP both VoJ and SoJ are 4 seconds.

Sorry for my english.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Obtena.7952

Obtena.7952

While it’s unfortunate we lost our ability to have a non-weapon based condition damage build, I think it’s inevitable this happened because of the focused condition damage build we are getting with Axe.

I don’t really see a way to get around this; how does Anet maintain the globally-available condi application while having a focused condi build at the same time? How is that situation something they can even contemplate adjusting when balance is in question? I don’t think the answer is to balance durations or different applications on the knife’s edge … then have to continue to do so with other game changes so things stay reasonable.

I would prefer to maintain VoJ as it was but if the tradeoff is a focused, good condition damage build, I will take that. It’s not like there was a massive range of good condi builds because of the global VoJ application anyways; Passive VoJ was always going to favour the weapon with the fastest executions.

It’s boring? Well, to be honest, you get used to it after playing GW2 for 5 years ..

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Knox.8962

Knox.8962

I didn’t play in the stress test, but I did use firebrand during the preview weekend. I think the VoJ passive is just a tooltip error. My tests on the golem and observed results in wvw had VoJ passive working like it does for core guardian.

They are different in sPvP and PvE. In PvE the ToJ passive is 1 sec and sPvP (golems) was 1.5 sec, I believe. But in sPvP both VoJ and SoJ are 4 seconds.

I know that they are different. I’m saying that the tooltip was not matching the observed behavior. The actual skill effects were generating 4s burns in sPvP with the ToJ passive. I believe the ToJ burns in WvW were 2s long, but I am less sure about that as players don’t cooperate like golems do.

The real question should be this: Is this a tooltip error indicating a shorter burn than the skill actually applies, or did they actually intend to change the passive burn duration and the coding on it is broken.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Brutaly.6257

Brutaly.6257

Lets assume they keep passive as is in FB then they definitely need to lower damage direct damage on the axe (needs to be done in any scenario) since it is now higher compared with sword, as an example.

They should also remove the burns from the chain and add in a non damaging condition.

Even with these two changes it would be the best weapon condi damage wise and if they dont lower direct damage it will also be the best one for direct damage..

Im an not so worried about the axe clumsiness even though casting time on the symbol needs to be adressed. Quickness isnt a rare commodity.

(edited by Brutaly.6257)

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: otto.5684

otto.5684

As for sPvP.. nothing FB offers can compete with VoJ. Not even close. Virtues/Med/Radiance or Zeal is much better than any condi build possible with FB in sPvP, at least as far as the stress test goes. We do not know what will happen on release.

I will say that it’ll simply be FB > DH > Core in the end.

  • Core – be it power or Burn burst, performs worse than the two elites because it lacks Sustains and overall Stability in clutch situations.
  • DH and FB – it’s a bit too soon to see build effectiveness in competitive PvP but FB has the potential to deal higher team-wide bursts, higher effectiveness in team fight amongst allies, and sustaining itself the same if not better.

It’ll be curious how well each and every profession will utilize these Core, DH and FB builds.

You have to test core condi guardian lately. 2k voj aoe procs plus the improved torch 4 are deadly. Burn core currently is so much better than burn DH. Too early for FB though. In addition, if you are going for burst as burn guardian it is not a good idea.

I know everyone feels nostalgic for the mega burns, but considering that half the meta builds are condi, everyone is running multiple cleanses. You are much better off playing the sustain condi game.

All weapons on FB are broken (except axe)

in Guardian

Posted by: Stice.5204

Stice.5204

While it’s unfortunate we lost our ability to have a non-weapon based condition damage build, I think it’s inevitable this happened because of the focused condition damage build we are getting with Axe.

The Tome of Justice itself can be sort of a non-weapon-based condition build in certain circumstances.

I know it’s situational, but with Renewed Justice you can often get ToJ to reset within seconds of closing it, so I was able to sometimes just chain it over and over again during the WvW test weekend, applying a ton of AoE burn damage without using weapon skills at all.

It was just about the only thing I really enjoyed about the new tome mechanics as I found the Tomes of Resolve and Courage to much more unwieldy.

Guardian, Engineer
[SIC] Strident Iconoclast – BP