Guild Wars 2

It looks like firebrand is the elite spec we know least about .
The 2 or 3 youtube video’s about firebrand are mostly based on assumptions
The wiki page espescially when it comes to tomes is very incomplete..

So what have i figured out, the 3 tomes are effectively 3 new forms
Each tome has 5 chapters which will be effectively the abilities on your bar
These abbilities cost pages to cast. We dont know how many pages a spell costs
Looks to be much like the elementalist weapons.

Since all chapters also have a cooldown(wiki) can we asume each chapter cast cost a single page? And how many pages will a to e have when fully loaded?
However, there is a chance that when you dont deplete all pages on a tome,
It will regenerate pages instead of going in full cooldown
So we dont know many of the chapters of the 3 tomes, but it looks like we will have a tome for firedamage, a tome for healing and a tome for buffing/debuffing.

I think the tome mechanic should in the end give the same feel as the celestial avatar of a druid, or the deathshroud of the necromancer.. as long as we domt deplete it.. and we would have 3 offcourse..

A lot of assumptions, but thats because we dont have a complete overview of the to es mechanic yet..

The mantra mechanic has allways been my least favorite one in game. If they only gave the long casting part some kind of usefull effect, it would be much more fun.

And yes, i also agree with everyone that they need to repair the spirit weapons…

But i have strong hopes that the firebrand with the tomes mechanic could become a strong and fun contender, wish we had more information tough.

We know almost everything about firebrand already.

We know every single trait, all axe skills, all tome skills, the page cost of all skills is 1, you start with 5 pages always, we know all mantras except 1.

Tomes have huge cooldowns (30, 45, 90 respectively) so they can never be anything similar to Celestial Avatar.

RabbitUp.8294:

Tomes have huge cooldowns (30, 45, 90 respectively) so they can never be anything similar to Celestial Avatar.

They are comparable to Celestial Avatar as they can be seen as the support based analog of Celestial Avatar. And, since healing > support in terms of impact on any given game mode, I think tomes stand to have their cooldowns reduced to something closer to 20, 35 and 45s respectively.

Dunno bout you guys but I’m quite tired of feeling pidgeonholed into RF. A 75s cd (only if traited for) on a tome means that without RF, you arent going to be using it more than once in any given fight or skirmish in pvp settings.

I’d be happy to give up Renewed Focus if we were given other mitigation options.
Blocks keep getting weaker and weaker with each expansion, same with boons.
We have to give up A LOT to be tanky or fast. We have no endure pain, no stealth, no distortion, no death shroud, no signet of stone, no water field. All we got for when things get hairy is Renewed Focus.

Water field is really what bugs me though, why can’t I combo for anything but retal or 3 might (and the mighty light aura xD (have you ever got the light field cleanse to work? I haven’t))? Anet seems to be moving away from the whole combo thing in general, but if I was to make one change only to firebrand pre-launch it would be the inclusion of a lovely water field.

My fear is that the Firebrand tree won’t give us access to stability… so we’re forced to use the stability + stunbreaker elite utility. On paper that elite may seem awesome but in practice we’ll be more dependant on our team.

I don’t want to be forced to go support just to be viable in PvP…

LetoII.3782:

but if I was to make one change only to firebrand pre-launch it would be the inclusion of a lovely water field.

Tome of Courage skill that increases healing done is a water field.

Azoqu.8917:

LetoII.3782:

but if I was to make one change only to firebrand pre-launch it would be the inclusion of a lovely water field.

Tome of Courage skill that increases healing done is a water field.

Oooooh me gusta, I missed
But can I blast it?

I suppose I could with a focus 5 O.O

Saiyan.1704:

My fear is that the Firebrand tree won’t give us access to stability… so we’re forced to use the stability + stunbreaker elite utility. On paper that elite may seem awesome but in practice we’ll be more dependant on our team.

I don’t want to be forced to go support just to be viable in PvP…

I’m p sure there was tons of stabo, at least 3 single-stack sources.
But it has been a week since I looked at the info

LetoII.3782:

I’d be happy to give up Renewed Focus if we were given other mitigation options.

RF will be more necessary than ever with this spec. No RF, no Shield of Courage, and no mobility from Wings of Resolve means it’s not going to have much self-defense despite being close-ranged, besides Shelter. What Feel My Wrath offers is purely offensive, and Signet of Courage only really functions at long-range to support others. There’s no good reason to give up invulnerability for some stability from the new mantra either, because there are easier ways to get stability than giving up your elite skill.

PvP-wise, even with RF this spec looks like it’ll run on point, get focused, RF activates and runs out, and then it’ll get focused again and die. It can’t support at long-range because all of its skills including tomes are close-ranged, it can’t run away if it gets focused because it has no mobility, and it has no real self-defense so it can’t tank on point (rightfully, because it’s a dps/support spec which shouldn’t be tanking).

Fashion Mage.3712:

LetoII.3782:

I’d be happy to give up Renewed Focus if we were given other mitigation options.

RF will be more necessary than ever with this spec. No RF, no Shield of Courage, and no mobility from Wings of Resolve means it’s not going to have much self-defense despite being close-ranged, besides Shelter. What Feel My Wrath offers is purely offensive, and Signet of Courage only really functions at long-range to support others. There’s no good reason to give up invulnerability for some stability from the new mantra either, because there are easier ways to get stability than giving up your elite skill.

PvP-wise, even with RF this spec looks like it’ll run on point, get focused, RF activates and runs out, and then it’ll get focused again and die. It can’t support at long-range because all of its skills including tomes are close-ranged, it can’t run away if it gets focused because it has no mobility, and it has no real self-defense so it can’t tank on point (rightfully, because it’s a dps/support spec which shouldn’t be tanking).

This. Ppl defending spec that has minimal defense due to aegis (but with unblockables its useless).

Close range condi spec with no mobility no defense and everything with 3/4 cast times, I dont know what guardian dev was thinking, pure luck of unimagination and logic, unless this spec is making 40k condi dmg in 3 sec than that can be justified but I doubt that.

As I was saying 90% of guardians cant wait to try this spec but they will be dissapointed how bad this spec really is but I cant blame them, Valor+Virtues (medi heals) were only good options from 2012 plus traveler(speed) runes while Zeal, spirit weapons, signets are siply bad. I was hoping for some movement trait so we can combine other good runes but as we can see nothing GOOD will ever happen with guardian cause of its good spot. We just need some new dev that will adress all the issues and repair it once for all.

I believe soulbeast is the elite spec we know least about, nearly everything has been published for Firebrand

RabbitUp.8294:

Tomes have huge cooldowns (30, 45, 90 respectively) so they can never be anything similar to Celestial Avatar.

Tomes have huge cooldown becuz they are essentially virtues. Yes, it’s disappointing that player couldn’t roleplay as a dedicated tome-caster, but you have to look at bigger picture; adjusting the CD on tomes meant that Anet have to re-adjust the core specs as well, it’s a cascading effect.

Why does Guardian get shafted in the mobility department every single time?

Mesmers get 25% movement speed increase in a Chrono minor trait and now get superspeed with Mirage.

Firebrand looks good on paper attacking stationary targets (read, PvE) but I’m having an extremely hard time seeing this doing well at any level of PvP.

We need to summon Karl for an AMA and see why he didn’t include any type of movement modifier when we desperately need it more than ever.

phokus.8934:

Why does Guardian get shafted in the mobility department every single time?

Mesmers get 25% movement speed increase in a Chrono minor trait and now get superspeed with Mirage.

Firebrand looks good on paper attacking stationary targets (read, PvE) but I’m having an extremely hard time seeing this doing well at any level of PvP.

We need to summon Karl for an AMA and see why he didn’t include any type of movement modifier when we desperately need it more than ever.

Cause we are meant to die first in a good spot in front lines especially with Firebrand in few seconds into a fight so we can give some time for other classes to super speed away.

phokus.8934:

We need to summon Karl for an AMA and see why he didn’t include any type of movement modifier when we desperately need it more than ever.

This spec needs a lot more than just a movement modifier to survive in close range though.

Fashion Mage.3712:

phokus.8934:

We need to summon Karl for an AMA and see why he didn’t include any type of movement modifier when we desperately need it more than ever.

This spec needs a lot more than just a movement modifier to survive in close range though.

I was only commenting that a universally wanted function was again left off the plate. Why? No one knows.

Unknown.3976:

RabbitUp.8294:

Tomes have huge cooldowns (30, 45, 90 respectively) so they can never be anything similar to Celestial Avatar.

Tomes have huge cooldown becuz they are essentially virtues. Yes, it’s disappointing that player couldn’t roleplay as a dedicated tome-caster, but you have to look at bigger picture; adjusting the CD on tomes meant that Anet have to re-adjust the core specs as well, it’s a cascading effect.

They dont need to overhaul anything, just give a cooldown reduction on virtues of 50% when choosing the elite firebrand.. add to that another 50% when using the grandmaster trait … and you have 7, 11and 23 seconds cooldown on the virtues.. making the tomecaster class much more viable witouth changing any of the core mechanics..

Unknown.3976:

RabbitUp.8294:

Tomes have huge cooldowns (30, 45, 90 respectively) so they can never be anything similar to Celestial Avatar.

Tomes have huge cooldown becuz they are essentially virtues. Yes, it’s disappointing that player couldn’t roleplay as a dedicated tome-caster, but you have to look at bigger picture; adjusting the CD on tomes meant that Anet have to re-adjust the core specs as well, it’s a cascading effect.

So what if they are virtues? The best thing virtues have trait-wise is stability+stun break on F3, when there’s mirage with a stunbreak on dodge.

Regardless, that trait already has its own 30s internal cooldown, so the cooldown of the F3 tome is irrelevant.

To be honest, I read the info regarding skill tree and skills and it is not clear how it functions. We know firebrand will be be condition and support. Effectiveness is not clear. I would also take any values and CDs with a grain of salt.

Will see how things work out with the open beta.

Yes, cds might change, but they would need to be at least halved, and I don’t see that happening, so..

Maybe next xpac, bois

RabbitUp.8294:

Maybe next xpac, bois

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Other thing that really concerns me is the cast time on axe #2 – the same cast time as mace #2 – which is one of the reasons that I hate mace. This cast time might be too much to the skill be viable against players. Lets wait and see.

Mikau.6920:

Lets wait and see.

That’s not what we do here. We hit the panic button and start fires in trash cans.

Kerivek.5740:

Mikau.6920:

Lets wait and see.

That’s not what we do here. We hit the panic button and start fires in trash cans.

We know everything there is to know, except from 1 mantra. What is there to wait for?

Some of us have been playing this game for 5 years, we don’t need to press the buttons to get a feel of the class.

Yes I’ve been playing since beta and I understand that we know what we have. I can even understand people’s points when they say they see a bunch of glaring issues. With all that said…I still don’t think we can make such confident claims of the spec being totally useless without some testing.

It may well turn out to be bad…it doesn’t look great. However, claiming that it is bad as an irrefutable fact this early on is a bit much for me.

Kerivek.5740:

Yes I’ve been playing since beta and I understand that we know what we have. I can even understand people’s points when they say they see a bunch of glaring issues. With all that said…I still don’t think we can make such confident claims of the spec being totally useless without some testing.

It may well turn out to be bad…it doesn’t look great. However, claiming that it is bad as an irrefutable fact this early on is a bit much for me.

Ppl were shouting DH and traps were bad before hot, ppl tested it and it was garbage but they buffed it later cause US (not whiteknights) shouting how bad it is. Same here long cds, big casting times trash traits, no movement trait as a condi brawler, … As someone said I dont need to press buttons to see how bad this spec is. Its just look flashy with those animations but 0 usability.

Mikau.6920:

Other thing that really concerns me is the cast time on axe #2 – the same cast time as mace #2 – which is one of the reasons that I hate mace. This cast time might be too much to the skill be viable against players. Lets wait and see.

Axe #2 seems to be much more loaded then mace 2 though. I think it has/will have higher damage than other symbols (which it should since there is no associated boon), applies bleed, can be traited to aoe daze for a second and it has innate cripple which will be good for chasing and continuing to land auto attack.

Ragnarox.9601:

Kerivek.5740:

Yes I’ve been playing since beta and I understand that we know what we have. I can even understand people’s points when they say they see a bunch of glaring issues. With all that said…I still don’t think we can make such confident claims of the spec being totally useless without some testing.

It may well turn out to be bad…it doesn’t look great. However, claiming that it is bad as an irrefutable fact this early on is a bit much for me.

Ppl were shouting DH and traps were bad before hot, ppl tested it and it was garbage but they buffed it later cause US (not whiteknights) shouting how bad it is. Same here long cds, big casting times trash traits, no movement trait as a condi brawler, … As someone said I dont need to press buttons to see how bad this spec is. Its just look flashy with those animations but 0 usability.

Pretty much this. The Firebrand gimmick on keeping Quickness up to cast the long skills just isn’t feasible and just reeks of odd and bad design. We’re also stuck in melee range with no movement modifiers with a pull on axe3 (if I recall).

Unless we see some sweeping changes with core and right after the preview play this weekend, it’s DH all over again.

Even if the spec works the way it’s advertised and it’s a condi PS for quickness… I just don’t want to play that.

Guardian is advertised as support and I’ve been waiting 2 years since the introduction of dedicated supports with HoT to play support guardian. And we are getting another flavour of DPS.

Worst of all, tomes were the perfect design opportunity for a support spec. Offensive support on F1, healing on F2, defensive support on F3. It’s all just a big waste.

RabbitUp.8294:

Even if the spec works the way it’s advertised and it’s a condi PS for quickness… I just don’t want to play that.

Guardian is advertised as support and I’ve been waiting 2 years since the introduction of dedicated supports with HoT to play support guardian. And we are getting another flavour of DPS.

Worst of all, tomes were the perfect design opportunity for a support spec. Offensive support on F1, healing on F2, defensive support on F3. It’s all just a big waste.

I’m speaking on a PvP (WvW) perspective.

I really like playing as condi guard, but for me as well, it seems that Firebrand will add nothing or not enough for the condi builds we already have. Axe is a melee weapon with no mobility (something that guards already have a problem with) and are too slow with long cast times. If they pretend to use quickness to the spec become viable, then its a really bad design.

Also the tome skills have a long cast time, most of them seems to be melee range and a very long cooldown. The effects of the tomes doesn’t seem that powerful to justify that high cooldown of the virtues. I also believe that the cooldowns should be more closer that core guardian is now (20/30/45). The core virtues got buffed along years, but it took a very long time, before the active was near useless mainly because of that. I really hope they change it soon if ends being that bad.

According with the developers it should be a spec more oriented to condi and support. But the mantras doesn’t seem to bring much support (we have yet to see one last mantra), the axe is pure condi (won’t be used on pure support builds, and I don’t believe that will see use in healing/condi hybrids) and the tomes of resolve and courage have insane cooldowns. The closest to be viable is to loose 2 conditions on 300 range every 12 seconds (Mantra of Lore). Mantra of Solace and Mantra of Liberation are awful, Mantra of Solace heal too little considering an almost 3 second cast time and 30 sec cooldown and Mantra of Liberation will never compete with Renewed Focus that will even more be necessary to reset the cooldowns of the tomes considering how high they are. So I also can’t see the support here.

Even with the numbers giving a negative perspective, I still believe that we should wait to try it out before going on any assumptions. And if this is that bad, complain with valid points on what went wrong and hope they change/fix as soon as possible.

Again, this is from a PvP (WvW) perspective.

The Mantra cast times are 0.75 / 1s. The 2.75s time is the preparation time.

12 seconds is the timer to gain a charge back.

Mantras start with 3 charges available, so you can use 3 in a row with the 3rd being more powerful, then the skill goes on cooldown until you can prepare it again.

Or you can use or or two and leave the final charge sparingly while you wait for the charges to come back.

It’s about situational play and planned skill usage, not spamming abilities.
Some of the recent Dragonhunter players who have grown accustomed to pushing all of their buttons and getting results against similar level players and PvE may find this concept difficult to grasp.

But it’s far better game play and the way all the elite specs have been designed.

Ezrael.6859:

The Mantra cast times are 0.75 / 1s. The 2.75s time is the preparation time.

12 seconds is the timer to gain a charge back.

Mantras start with 3 charges available, so you can use 3 in a row with the 3rd being more powerful, then the skill goes on cooldown until you can prepare it again.

Or you can use or or two and leave the final charge sparingly while you wait for the charges to come back.

It’s about situational play and planned skill usage, not spamming abilities.
Some of the recent Dragonhunter players who have grown accustomed to pushing all of their buttons and getting results against similar level players and PvE may find this concept difficult to grasp.

But it’s far better game play and the way all the elite specs have been designed.

Wait so how do you play DH if you dont push buttons? Clicking with mouse? Srry but whole concept of DH is to use burst combined with traps. Every class push buttons cause of their burst. Srry but in fast paced combat against some classes planning is not a smart thing to do as you might end up dead before noticing. Mantras do not have casting time they are instant, reload of skill is 1 sec after you used it. I might use only heal and that speed mantra if they give 10 sec of swiftness of every mantra usage (but I saw only 5 sec which is really low) elite mantra give 5 sec of swiftness on final which is crap and garbage, elites need to be elite better than enything else but its not more better than heal mantra).
I am seeing builds like shelter, smite codition(or purity), speed mantra or burn mantra, judges intervention, RF cause if you use something else you might die very quickly. And its the same story, we are using already same builds like before cause of survivability, so whats the point of that? Virtues+valor+anything else.

There’s a difference between using skills selectively and pushing everything at once.

You’re a negative person and a huge whiner that jumps to massive conclusions all the time and posts personal attacks against the devs with your whiny bitter rants.

Karl didn’t even design this spec, he designed the Weaver only.

Irenio designed Firebrand, Soulbeast, Renegade and Scourge.

You’ve seen only a glimpse of the spec, we’re missing the runes, the 4th Mantra (with a winged icon) and an actual feel of the spec with proper traits and options selected.

Are you this negative about everything in life or just here? It must be utterly awful for those who have to suffer your presence and attitude every day.

Don’t forget that Renewed Justice and Courages Return are around. I expect maximizing those traits will be the key to getting the most out of the respective tomes.

And in whatever state Firebrand is in each of the three game modes, I’m sure people will make things work out. Sometimes time is all that’s needed.

Ezrael.6859:

There’s a difference between using skills selectively and pushing everything at once.

You’re a negative person and a huge whiner that jumps to massive conclusions all the time and posts personal attacks against the devs with your whiny bitter rants.

Karl didn’t even design this spec, he designed the Weaver only.

Irenio designed Firebrand, Soulbeast, Renegade and Scourge.

You’ve seen only a glimpse of the spec, we’re missing the runes, the 4th Mantra (with a winged icon) and an actual feel of the spec with proper traits and options selected.

Are you this negative about everything in life or just here? It must be utterly awful for those who have to suffer your presence and attitude every day.

Quite frankly you seem like a clueless white knight who is still trying to insist that we’ve only seen a “glimpse” of the spec despite having seen all traits and skills, and only missing a few details on some skills.

Ragnarox.9601:

And its the same story, we are using already same builds like before cause of survivability, so whats the point of that? Virtues+valor+anything else.

This is the main issue with the guardian that actually limits build diversity. The strength of valor. Imo, and i been advocating it openly the only way forward is that the community in fact demands nerfs to the meta. This would force Anet to strengthen our innate survivability and that would open up for more build diversity.

If the amount of healing from the medis some how was innate i for one would at least play 2 signets for max control build. I would also use consecrations a lot more.

The issue isnt that 5 or 6 utilities are totally bad, the issue is that medis are relatively to strong.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Ezrael.6859:

There’s a difference between using skills selectively and pushing everything at once.

You’re a negative person and a huge whiner that jumps to massive conclusions all the time and posts personal attacks against the devs with your whiny bitter rants.

Karl didn’t even design this spec, he designed the Weaver only.

Irenio designed Firebrand, Soulbeast, Renegade and Scourge.

You’ve seen only a glimpse of the spec, we’re missing the runes, the 4th Mantra (with a winged icon) and an actual feel of the spec with proper traits and options selected.

Are you this negative about everything in life or just here? It must be utterly awful for those who have to suffer your presence and attitude every day.

Quite frankly you seem like a clueless white knight who is still trying to insist that we’ve only seen a “glimpse” of the spec despite having seen all traits and skills, and only missing a few details on some skills.

Dont argue with him, hes just insulting ppl and I dont want to lose any of my time arguing with him.

Brutaly.6257:

This is the main issue with the guardian that actually limits build diversity. The strength of valor. Imo, and i been advocating it openly the only way forward is that the community in fact demands nerfs to the meta. This would force Anet to strengthen our innate survivability and that would open up for more build diversity.

If the amount of healing from the medis some how was innate i for one would at least play 2 signets for max control build. I would also use consecrations a lot more.

The issue isnt that 5 or 6 utilities are totally bad, the issue is that medis are relatively to strong.

Well unless they give some sort of buffs to base Virtues. Like Stunbreak and 1 stack of stability on f3. That would give some other builds variety. But for every new elite and including firebrand there will always be Virtues+Valor+elite spec (plus JI and smite or purity).

Ragnarox.9601:

Well unless they give some sort of buffs to base Virtues. Like Stunbreak and 1 stack of stability on f3. That would give some other builds variety. But for every new elite and including firebrand there will always be Virtues+Valor+elite spec (plus JI and smite or purity).

I agree, its the base virtues that needs to be addressed. Your suggestion is fine imo and if you combine them with reduced baseline cd:s (15/30/45) we might be closer to a solution.

Imo skills/traits like selfless daring, monk’s focus and AH should all have much better scaling with healing power and besides selfless daring they also should have nerfed baseline healing.

As long as they keep on adding stuff on top of all the junk we have the number of stuff that needs to be addressed just keep on growing.

Taking a step back and solving the core issues would actually also improve the elites but not making them a must. And it would relatively make signets, consecration and to some extent even spirit weapons better even though i think SW needs a revamp..

If baseline survivability was placed in vanilla virtues instead of AH/monk’s focus and making our healing abilities scale better with healing power it would increase build diversity.

The big question is if this community actually is willing to do the best for the class or if they are to content spamming medis as we do now.

for what ive been reading the skills, it migh end in a class that will try to win over condi creepstacking on targets, lets say… meditations with mantras due lack of mobility as well?
.

low hp, toughness is useless due power creep(looks like PoF will had more on top of HoT) , condis will be nerfed but they need to be strong so it wont change much since they are easilly aplyed vs cleansing (my guard is a condi cleanse build so i think i know what im talk about…)

lets see what surprises they reseved for today’s patch…..

Barriers looks like worths 2 blocks since every one hits like 2k+ with autos alone on my bunker guard xD……. 2 autos atacks and its gone xD