Guild Wars 2

One thing I think a lot of people are overlooking when they mention the cast times on a lot of the Firebrand’s abilities is that they have loads of self-access to Quickness, so in realistic situations, those cast times are going to be significantly lower in practice.

Additionally, they have extremely easy access to Stability, able to maintain plenty of stability on demand with their Elite Mantra (especially if only using the first two charges and letting them reset) and through Stand Your Ground even if they want, and plenty baked into Tome of Courage.

Although I didn’t check all of their mantras, I believe they all have “instant” uses with no cast times, meaning they can be woven into your rotation while using those “longer” cast time skills.

Combining the above, I think the rest of the kit that we’ve seen so far makes sense. Equipping a Tome automatically gives Quickness, meaning you would use your “longer” cast time abilities first in most cases, and pop off some Mantra charges as needed.

We’ll know more when we actually get our hands on it, but I could easily imagine a rather fluid play style developing from the specialization.

Srry tomes are not kits. They are on 90 and 60 sec cd once you get into them. Kits do not have cd’s. And thats my disappointment. Tomes are nothing but virtues shouts. Wish they were real kits with proper cd’s we can rotate. Disappointed with firebrand totally. And mantras have 2 1/4 cast time also with 3 charges on 40 sec cd, and elite mantra is not that elite , RF is 3x times better saddly. Survivability is going to be bad in pvp and wvw.

I don’t understand how a spec entirely focused towards damage and support would function in close range. I just don’t understand why not make tomes full range like they used to be.

Ragnarox.9601:

Tomes are nothing but virtues shouts.

Which is funny because virtues are already basically just shouts (especially when they arbitrarily lost their 1200 range).

Tome cooldowns are my gripe, too.
F1 is 30 sec
F2 is 45 sec
F3 is 90 sec

The only thnig I saw so far that justifies the cooldown is F3 being able to cast 5 mesmer Feedbacks in a row, but you can’t use any other weapon or tome skills.

Fashion Mage.3712:

I don’t understand how a spec entirely focused towards damage and support would function in close range. I just don’t understand why not make tomes full range like they used to be.

Ragnarox.9601:

Tomes are nothing but virtues shouts.

Which is funny because virtues are already basically just shouts (especially when they arbitrarily lost their 1200 range).

I would laugh my ass out when a good dh or berserker comes near firerand pop his unblockable skill and firebrand goes into f3 try to cast and dies trying to cast first spell but dies to warrior F1 in 2 sec.

Or even better deadeye pops from stealth shoots kilsshot and firebrand dies not even cast a spell.

Or even better weaver comes farting all his elements firebrand tries but fails to go into f3 and dies in painfull death by water/fire combo blast.

Or even better spellbreaker comes and destroy his f3 skill and firebrand dies well cause someone shred his tome.

….funny stuff.

Cast times mean interrupt.
Face off against a decent teef with pulminary impact with this spec?
One backstab, one headshot GG

Ragnarox.9601:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I don’t understand how a spec entirely focused towards damage and support would function in close range. I just don’t understand why not make tomes full range like they used to be.

Ragnarox.9601:

Tomes are nothing but virtues shouts.

Which is funny because virtues are already basically just shouts (especially when they arbitrarily lost their 1200 range).

I would laugh my ass out when a good dh or berserker comes near firerand pop his unblockable skill and firebrand goes into f3 try to cast and dies trying to cast first spell but dies to warrior F1 in 2 sec.

Or even better deadeye pops from stealth shoots kilsshot and firebrand dies not even cast a spell.

Or even better weaver comes farting all his elements firebrand tries but fails to go into f3 and dies in painfull death by water/fire combo blast.

Or even better spellbreaker comes and destroy his f3 skill and firebrand dies well cause someone shred his tome.

….funny stuff.

This is exactly what I’m worried about…CD’s are incredibly high. We’re the new Necro in team fights. Might as well put a permanent red target on our heads now.

“But.. you have Quickness!”

• Yea.. for only 2 seconds. And choosing a concentration amulet is out of the question unless Anet releases a
  1050Condi, 1050Vita, 560Healing, 560Concetration Amulet… I just don’t see that stat combo happening.

Even IF they did.. the extra 1 1/2 second quickness increase from the amulet is not going to make a huge difference. Quickness in general is not very good… If it was, we’d be using the elite “Feel My Wrath”. I’d rather have power or precision on the amulet instead.

What I’m not looking forward to
The lower F1 burn durations / lack of hits axe gives to activate F1.
The high CD utility skills after Mantras are finalized.
The Mantra elite (lack of stability and the expansion’s power creep will force us to use it)

The 1 trick pony I’m looking forward to
F1 giving 3x burn on hit to allies.
Giving Quickness to allies will also give them our F1 activation of 3x burn stacks.(10s icd)
The improved Virtues.
Casting charged Mantras while using another ability.

I think Firebrand will be the old-style Shout LB Warrior. We’ll have some marginal damages but we’ll mainly play a support role. I do hope FB’s damage role is viable but as of now that aspect doesn’t look promising.

Saiyan.1704:

Ragnarox.9601:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I don’t understand how a spec entirely focused towards damage and support would function in close range. I just don’t understand why not make tomes full range like they used to be.

Ragnarox.9601:

Tomes are nothing but virtues shouts.

Which is funny because virtues are already basically just shouts (especially when they arbitrarily lost their 1200 range).

I would laugh my ass out when a good dh or berserker comes near firerand pop his unblockable skill and firebrand goes into f3 try to cast and dies trying to cast first spell but dies to warrior F1 in 2 sec.

Or even better deadeye pops from stealth shoots kilsshot and firebrand dies not even cast a spell.

Or even better weaver comes farting all his elements firebrand tries but fails to go into f3 and dies in painfull death by water/fire combo blast.

Or even better spellbreaker comes and destroy his f3 skill and firebrand dies well cause someone shred his tome.

….funny stuff.

This is exactly what I’m worried about…CD’s are incredibly high. We’re the new Necro in team fights. Might as well put a permanent red target on our heads now.

“But.. you have Quickness!”

• Yea.. for only 2 seconds. And choosing a concentration amulet is out of the question unless Anet releases a
  1050Condi, 1050Vita, 560Healing, 560Concetration Amulet… I just don’t see that stat combo happening.

Even IF they did.. the extra 1 1/2 second quickness increase from the amulet is not going to make a huge difference. Quickness in general is not very good… If it was, we’d be using the elite “Feel My Wrath”. I’d rather have power or precision on the amulet instead.

What I’m not looking forward to
The lower F1 burn durations / lack of hits axe gives to activate F1.
The high CD utility skills after Mantras are finalized.
The Mantra elite (who would skip over Renewed Focus?)

The 1 trick pony I’m looking forward to
F1 giving 3x burn on hit to allies.
Giving Quickness to allies will also give them our F1 activation of 3x burn stacks.(10s icd)
The improved Virtues.
Casting charged Mantras while using another ability.

I think Firebrand will be the old-style Shout LB Warrior. We’ll have some marginal damages but we’ll mainly play a support role. I do hope FB’s damage role is viable but as of now that aspect doesn’t look promising.

haha casual ppl are praising Firebrand cause it looks good on paper(just look at that stream that some casual streamer recorded (didnt record properly and was downvoted so hard), if that type of casuals play guardians I am scared of its future – standing around doing nothing pressing random attack like bots).
But in reality this will happen:

Spellbreaker will crush Firebrand taking his boons and cc and dmg him till death.
Weaver will just rotate his dmg spells before firebrand casts his 3/4 spells.
Scourge will just laugh while taking Firebrands boons and torment+burning his ass till death.
Deadeye will just backstab him from 1500 range 3x times in a row.
Soulbeast will just autoattack Firebrand farting condies like tsunami until he dies in 3 sec.
Holosmith well he will crush Firebrand with hes weapon, spirit weapon(photon weapons – how ironic)
Mirage will laugh entire fight dodging Firebrands attacks.
Renegade….

I know lots of pve casual players are hyping this spec cause we dont have so many possibilities and builds capable of doing anything(Firebrand – close combat specialist….how ironic only class without 25% movement trait is a close combat specialist haha).
For those hardcore guardians there is a secret message engraved in this spec, only true guardian will see it: prepare to be farmed bois in pvp and wvw.

It’s interesting how you call people casual, yet all of your posts on this forum are incredibly negative and whiny.

You’ve given up before you even touched something.

You refuse to theorycraft beyond the obvious and you refuse to adapt to changes and look for the weaknesses in other professions’ new builds.

You and a few others really are making the Guardian profession forum into a whiny cesspit, whereas the other profession forums tend to have a lot more positive theorycrafting and ideas popping up.

What are you guys talking about when it comes to cast times? None of the axe skills have long cast times… and neither do any of the tomb skills…

Wait… are you talking about the mantras? Because you only have to charged those once, in theory. As long as you have 1 charge on the mantra, they’ll regain charges at a set interval. You’d only need to cast them again if you use the final charge.

I’ll link to this, since it’s important to stay informed when it comes to discussing these things: http://imgur.com/a/KBwBS

RabbitUp.8294:

Tome cooldowns are my gripe, too.
F1 is 30 sec
F2 is 45 sec
F3 is 90 sec

The only thnig I saw so far that justifies the cooldown is F3 being able to cast 5 mesmer Feedbacks in a row, but you can’t use any other weapon or tome skills.

They require hitting the enemy to build up charges (pages), the skills within the tomes have cooldowns essentially guaranteeing you only use them once (maybe twice if traited) per tome, every single skill has a cast time AND the tomes themselves have ridiculously long cooldowns afterwards.

Even with virtues traited, we’re looking at cooldowns close to 26s, 38s, and 75s. These are far too long. Tomes could be considered the “support” version of druid’s Celestial Avatar and seeing as healing > support, I see no justification for support to be on a cooldown that is about 3-5x higher than CA.

Arcaedus.7290:

They require hitting the enemy to build up charges (pages)

I haven’t seen a source for that, but it’s often quoted. I’m pretty sure you always have 5 pages when you equip a tome, since Aurora Peachy was spamming tome skills for a while in the pvp lobby without attacking anything.

Good point.
They may well be charges, in addition to cast times, in addition to cooldowns
Lol

LetoII.3782:

Good point.
They may well be charges, in addition to cast times, in addition to cooldowns
Lol

Dont forget is melee condi brawler without 25% movement speed, haha joke of elite spec

Ya, because if anything kept GS rangers alive, it was Signet of the Hunt.

btw, renewed focus will reset to CD on your tomes… mic drop