Guild Wars 2

This thread is to hold feedback from the demo weekend for Firebrand.

I’m excited for the Firebrand.

Only wish I have so far is for the old tome animation to come back, aka Tome of Wrath/Tome of Courage. Maybe not exactly as it was, but I’d like to have a floating tome in front of my character when I activate the class mechanic. I don’t think it’s fair that ArenaNet is holding that back on us.

So, I’m hoping that feedback is more visible here than it is in the old threads that have been going on for a while.

The support aspects of firebrand, that’s sure after very short testing, are fatally flawed. I’m not really sure how a dev can be stupid enough to combine a melee weapon (130 range) with frontal cone mantras, but that’s the current ingame state. How exactly is that supposed to work for any game mode?

With the axe, you’ll have to stand close to the enemy in order to deal damage. On the contrary, mantras require you to stand at some range if you want to hit allies, since they are a tiny 60°-cone (I don’t think it’s substantially more and certainly not even 90° or higher). Even in a comparably static environment like a PvE boss mob, that doesn’t work. I really don’t want to know what would happen in PvP – I guess you typically wouldn’t hit anyone.

The (potentially) supportive principle behind firebrand looks fine – handing out perma-quickness and some nice smaller things, while dealing some reasonable damage. However, for that to work, the implementation of mantras needs to change. The cone must go and be replaced by a player-based circle. A full circle. For PvE, I assume 300 range will work in most reasonable cases, but the other modes probably require 450 or more. If that doesn’t happen, firebrand support is dead on arrival.

Oh, and axe #2 needs to provide some buff to allies, because it’s the only symbol not giving any buff. For obvious reasons, it should be quickness.

I’m laughing so hard at Mantra of Flame. 2.75s to charge and then cast a cone aoe that deals 1 stack of burning, 15s recharge, 25s if you use the third charge. The cone is small and has a range of 300.

Guardian main for 5 years.
Axe auto feels horrible, that delay is unusable for me.

Those mantra’s i mean come on you can’t run a mantra build not unless you want to spend half your life watching them charge.

Virtues look pretty but its all kinda the same lackluster thing,

Infact this is my overall opinion its lackluster all around, feels like a few fire animations with some boons thrown in. It will be strong or weak depending on those boons but it will still be boring to play.

So simply put nothing feels impactful at all. The boons of course are very impactful, but they don’t feel impactful.

I see this spec as me clicking way more buttons and basically not a single skill feels like i even did anything.

Its like ooohh a pretty fire animation what did it do, give a boon, next skill oohh look a different fire animation what did that one do…. give a boon etc etc etc whole spec to me.

My opinion, just makes me feel better to say it.

Kaim.5483:

I’m laughing so hard at Mantra of Flame. 2.75s to charge and then cast a cone aoe that deals 1 stack of burning, 15s recharge, 25s if you use the third charge. The cone is small and has a range of 300.

All mantras are bad. I hope they’ll change/buff them in some way before the release.

Mikau.6920:

Kaim.5483:

I’m laughing so hard at Mantra of Flame. 2.75s to charge and then cast a cone aoe that deals 1 stack of burning, 15s recharge, 25s if you use the third charge. The cone is small and has a range of 300.

All mantras are bad. I hope they’ll change/buff them in some way before the release.

Mantra of Lore is okay in PvP if you remember to charge it before battle and if you don’t constantly get interrupted.

The other mantras are garbage in PvP that’s for sure.

Axe 2 skill is horribly slow. Not befitting of an axe at all. It feels weird and clunky.

To be honest, so do the tomes. They feel weird and clunky, especially the summoning and stowing of them. The recharge cooldowns are way too long even when using the Virtues trait line. Druids get to pop their celestial avatar every 15 seconds in PvP. Necros and reapers get to pop their shroud every 10 seconds. Why do you have to wait 25 seconds, 38 seconds and 76 seconds for ours? And this is WITH the Virtues trait line!) The tomes are not nearly powerful enough to justify such insane cooldowns.

I don’t like mantras on mesmer but I like the mantras on firebrand even less. Maybe they’re good in PvE, I wouldn’t know, but they have no place in PvP aside from maybe Mantra of Lore. Charging and casting the mantras is just too slow and clunky.

I guess that really sums up the Firebrand: slow and clunky.

Even though the condi damage on it is super good and we get to spam a ton of quickness, it’s not nearly good enough to make up for how horribly slow and clunky this class is.

As a Guardian main since beta, these are my thoughts after playing Firebrand.

The Good:
-Pretty visual effects (if a bit overwhelming at times)
-Overall fire damage is good (to the point it will likely get nerfed)
-Team quickness uptime is good (possibly a trait bug – see below)
-Mantra skills are instant cast with a small 1s ICD after the initial cast which helps to counteract the lack of instant virtues

The Bad:
-300 range frontal cone attacks. This times 1000. The positioning requirement feels like garbage mixed with the 130 range axe. These skills should be either circular PBAoE 300+ range (ideally) or 180° frontal with 450 range. I understand you wanted to differentiate them from Mesmer mantras in some way, but this is not the way.
-Pages and mantra charges make you play the UI. I was sitting there constantly looking at my skill bar tracking the white rings and page counts instead of playing the game and enemies.
-Tome CDs + Page Limit + Tome Skill CDs + Tome Skill Cast Times is severely flawed. One or several of these systems need to change.
-Symbol of Vengeance (Axe skill 2) provides no boon. It should (ideally) provide quickness in some form (Per pulse might be too good; maybe make it apply the boon once on initial cast).
-Axe bleed damage is very mediocre, even with throwing everything at it I can in sPvP (including the on hit trait and Sigil of Agony). This essentially puts it in a weak cover condi role. It’s duration needs to be massively buffed.
-The third mantra skill bonuses feel too weak to justify their use over letting them recharge ammo, especially on the elite. 5s swiftness and 2 extra stab stacks on the elite skill for 25s extra CD and having to recast the mantra? Nope.
-Liberator’s Vow lacks synergy with Quickfire. Their cooldowns should be in line.
-Loremaster’s “Retain Virtues passives while they are on cooldown” should be a GM Virtues trait, NOT a Firebrand GM trait. This deserves to go to base Guardian.
-Slow as a Grandmaster trait is lackluster. Slow as a condition is lackluster in general.
-I’d like to see Legendary Lore changed. It should provide something more substantial than simple boons/1 stack of burning at the major trait slot. Something like “+% outgoing healing while in Tome of Resolve” and “Allies affected by your Tome of Courage spells receive -% condi damage for x seconds” for example.

The ?:
Stalwart Speed currently applies quickness per stack of Stability. Unsure if this is intended (likely not).

TLDR: Overall this elite spec feels bad to play. Wonky positioning requirements, constantly playing the UI instead of the game, and slow gameplay, which is ironic for a spec designed around quickness.

P.S. Another major suggestion for Guardian and the game in general is to change the way regen works. It should prioritize the stacks with healing power over duration. Skills like Symbol of Faith (Mace 2) get overwritten by longer duration regen and severely limits our ability to do any substantial healing output.

P.P.S. – Fix staff

BushidoBlade.1389:

As a Guardian main since beta, these are my thoughts after playing Firebrand.

The Good:
-Pretty visual effects (if a bit overwhelming at times)
-Overall fire damage is good (to the point it will likely get nerfed)
-Team quickness uptime is good (possibly a trait bug – see below)
-Mantra skills are instant cast after the initial cast which helps to counteract the lack of instant virtues

The Bad:
-300 range frontal cone attacks. This times 1000. The positioning requirement feels like garbage mixed with the 130 range axe. These skills should be either circular PBAoE 300+ range (ideally) or 180° frontal with 450 range. I understand you wanted to differentiate them from Mesmer mantras in some way, but this is not the way.
-Pages and mantra charges make you play the UI. I was sitting there constantly looking at my skill bar tracking the white rings and page counts instead of playing the game and enemies.
-Tome CDs + Page Limit + Tome Skill CDs + Tome Skill Cast Times is severely flawed. One or several of these systems need to change.
-Axe skill 2 (symbol) provides no boon. It should (ideally) provide quickness in some form (per pulse might be too good).
-Axe bleed damage is very mediocre, even with throwing everything at it I can in sPvP (including the on hit trait and Sigil of Agony). This essentially puts it in a weak cover condi role. It’s duration needs to be massively buffed.
-The third mantra skill bonuses feel too weak to justify their use over letting them recharge ammo, especially on the elite. 5s swiftness and 2 extra stab stacks on the elite skill for 25s extra CD? Nope.
-Liberator’s Vow lacks synergy with Quickfire. Their cooldowns should be in line.
-Slow as a Grandmaster trait is lackluster. Slow as a condition is lackluster in general.
-I’d like to see Legendary Lore changed. It should provide something more substantial than simple boons/1 stack of burning at the major trait slot. Something like “+% outgoing healing while in Tome of Resolve” and “Allies affected by your Tome of Courage spells receive -% condi damage for x seconds” for example.

The ?:
Stalwart Speed currently applies quickness per stack of Stability. Unsure if this is intended (likely not).

TLDR: Overall this elite spec feels bad to play. Wonky positioning requirements, constantly playing the UI instead of the game, and slow gameplay, which is ironic for a spec designed around quickness.

P.S. Another major suggestion for Guardian and the game in general is to change the way regen works. It should prioritize the stacks with healing power over duration. Skills like Symbol of Faith (Mace 2) get overwritten by longer duration regen and severely limits our ability to do any substantial healing output.

P.P.S. – Fix staff

QFT

My own impression besides the above.

Remove casting times on the tomes, make them instant and promote a fast game play, its just to clunky.

Reduce CD on tomes of courage and resolve and let the pages be the gating. Why not just use the same cds as the vanilla virtues?

Reduce casting time on skill 2 on the axe, its just to slow.

You need to add in some sort of mobility, ideally a teleport on one of the mantras.

This just is to slow.

Even though people might think the burning needs a nerf i dont, you can stack even more on a vanilla guardian.

Might be a stupdi question but why is there casting/chargin on the mantras? I dont get the concept of casting a skill for over 2 s to access other skills when there is no limitations in time and number having multiple mantras charged.

PS I really like the concept of FB now you just have to make it playable. DS

Right now NOTHING about the entire elite spec feels “smooth” or “clean” besides the visuals.

Mantras are a hot mess, what exactly is their purpose? Are you suppose to face tank enemies with them being basically sword auto attacks? Or are you suppose to position yourself exactly half a step behind allies to buff them?

Tomes have charges…and cast time…and cooldown all rolled into one, and if you happen to accidentally slow a tome, you’ve basically wasted 30 secs of 5 skills. Either make them Kits or rework them, they’re currently kitten and are jack of no trades master of zilch.

This feels worse than the DH Longbow on Beta weekend 1 when auto attacks and spear of virtue could be auto strafed from 600 range.

Got to be the worst elite skill in the came.

Mantra of Liberation is just bad. Not only the cone but seriously poor impact.

So far Firebrand is very underwhelming. It plays so slow in PvP that you get steamrolled quite hard before really pushing out damage.

The lack of range and the slow casting are probably the biggest downfalls on this elite.

Not sure if bug but Renewed Focus is only refreshing Tome of Justice.

phokus.8934:

Not sure if bug but Renewed Focus is only refreshing Tome of Justice.

It refreshes both courage and resolve in wvw for me.

It doesnt refresh an active tome though.

I’m seeing a lot of people complaining about Mantras when they are not even using them properly lol.

Maybe the Firebrand isn’t meant for PvP? Not all elite specs are made for every game mode. Firebrand is insanely overpowered right now and extremely fun to play.

It’s fast, flows extremely well, Mantras are fun, burn guard is insane, i don’t understand the complaints, we are gods right now, instead of complaining and asking for buffs you should begging the devs not to nerf us into the ground.

Brutaly.6257:

phokus.8934:

Not sure if bug but Renewed Focus is only refreshing Tome of Justice.

It refreshes both courage and resolve in wvw for me.

It doesnt refresh an active tome though.

Which it should.

If I’m “in” a tome and I press Renewed Focus, I expect the tome I’m “in” to me immediately available again when I swap out of it. That’s how it should work.

Mantra of lore is really nice! For the Firebrand as condition remover but for the team its just bad. 60 degree (?) cone and 300 breaks it as a support tool.

Arnath.2319:

I’m seeing a lot of people complaining about Mantras when they are not even using them properly lol.

Maybe the Firebrand isn’t meant for PvP? Not all elite specs are made for every game mode. Firebrand is insanely overpowered right now and extremely fun to play.

It’s fast, flows extremely well, Mantras are fun, burn guard is insane, i don’t understand the complaints, we are gods right now, instead of complaining and asking for buffs you should begging the devs not to nerf us into the ground.

Congrats on soloing all those golems.

Arnath.2319:

I’m seeing a lot of people complaining about Mantras when they are not even using them properly lol.

Maybe the Firebrand isn’t meant for PvP? Not all elite specs are made for every game mode. Firebrand is insanely overpowered right now and extremely fun to play.

It’s fast, flows extremely well, Mantras are fun, burn guard is insane, i don’t understand the complaints, we are gods right now, instead of complaining and asking for buffs you should begging the devs not to nerf us into the ground.

I don’t care if I would 1 shot everything I looked at or took forever to kill stuff, if the skills are unusable, unfun, and require 1000 hoops to jump through in order to get them to work, I want a fix to how it functions.

The cast times on Tomes need to be looked at. 3/4-1+ seconds just doesn’t flow nicely in PvP.

Brutaly.6257:

phokus.8934:

Not sure if bug but Renewed Focus is only refreshing Tome of Justice.

It refreshes both courage and resolve in wvw for me.

It doesnt refresh an active tome though.

If you’re in an active tome and have others on cooldown and use RF, it doesn’t refresh the tomes (in PvP).

Arnath.2319:

I’m seeing a lot of people complaining about Mantras when they are not even using them properly lol.

Maybe the Firebrand isn’t meant for PvP? Not all elite specs are made for every game mode. Firebrand is insanely overpowered right now and extremely fun to play.

It’s fast, flows extremely well, Mantras are fun, burn guard is insane, i don’t understand the complaints, we are gods right now, instead of complaining and asking for buffs you should begging the devs not to nerf us into the ground.

Fast? Flows extremely well?

I don’t know which version of GW2 you’re playing but clearly not the same one as everyone else. Firebrand is anything BUT fast and does anything BUT flow well. Firebrand is the most sluggish and clunky elite spec I’ve tried so far…

An absolute mess of a elite specialization if we talk about PvP and WvW.

Everything having a cast time, plus such a low range you are asking to be constantly interrupted and unable to do anything, at all. It’s not even good for supporting.

Plus the tome visuals are really bad. I have said this a lot, but I honestly think we deserve to have the old tome of wrath/courage visual back with a tome floating in front of us, even a scaled down one, because at the moment, it’s lacklustre as heck.

what slow casting with such huge amount of quickness? Are you even reading skills? seriously.

Mikali.9651:

what slow casting with such huge amount of quickness? Are you even reading skills? seriously.

Exactly.

Don’t get mad at the spec just because you don’t know how to play it correctly, it is one of the fastest, least clunkyest elite specs in the game.

It feels sluggish and clunky until you learn to spam quickness at some constant rate. Cast times of mantras and weapon skills are made for quickness. Using Mantra of Potence helps a lot. What needs to be changed are tomes CD – that’s for sure. U spam them fast while you have quickness but after that u have to camp weapons basically and wait for recharge or use elite already.

EDIT: In my opinion FB will be great in PvE (raids for example) when they give some stat combo with concentration and expertise. In PvP it lacks defense (I am used to condi clear on F3 in DH) and you can be killed quickly if you dont time skills well. Or maybe I’m just not used to it yet. Oh, and it spams conditions pretty well.

My only minor suggestions would be put quickness on axe symbol and widen the cone and range on mantras slightly, besides that the spec feels amazing to play.

Well after some testing in wvw here are my thoughts:

F1 is ok maybe they will nerf it.

F2 need some slight changes:
– 3 needs to have blast effect so we can do 4 (waterfield) -> 3 (similar to druid)
- heals are not that strong, in celestial I heal 850 with skill 1 so at least we need some blast to blast that water.

F3 have enormous cd, it needs to be shaved a bit.

Mantras: well they are fun but elite needs aegis like heal. Its nothing special to take instead RF. or at least some protection + swiftness not on final.

Axe symbol could give swiftness as a boon.

Mantra trait is not that good compared to giving quickness buff to party.

Legendary lore trait should be grandmaster and with slight buffs, tome cd trait should swap places with it.

Tome switching should be 1/4 cast time.

MichalAniol.5807:

Cast times of mantras and weapon skills are made for quickness.

Quickness should be a benefit, not something you need. Every other class, quickness is 100% a buff but for Firebrand quickness is mandatory so it is extremely kittenty without it. Since this is the case, they should just have a minor that makes the Firebrand have quickness 100% of the time without trying to go for it because it’s a nerf not having it.

In my opinion FB will be great in PvE (raids for example) when they give some stat combo with concentration and expertise.

You can cap burning with 0 expertise. FB will never get used as a quickness support because unless you are a god, you will never get your entire subgroup with quickness for the entire fight and that will be such a huge loss of DPS that you’re way better just taking a Chrono. The burning damage may or may not become good, but then that destroys the whole purpose of this elite spec imo because Guardians alread have a DPS elite spec that should be the go to if you want to deal damage.

I love how for 2 elite specs in a row, Anet has decided to give Guardians a spec with terrible flaws.

Quickness should be a benefit, not something you need. Every other class, quickness is 100% a buff but for Firebrand quickness is mandatory so it is extremely kittenty without it. Since this is the case, they should just have a minor that makes the Firebrand have quickness 100% of the time without trying to go for it because it’s a nerf not having it.

Well didn’t see that this way but I can agree with it. About that expertise – after a short time of playing today the stat combo I mentioned just felt as and “ideal” one, not the usefull one.

Too much switching to make use of skills with cooldowns.

F3→4→F2→5→Mantra Heal.

You’re really penalized by going into a Tome. If the cooldown was based on how many pages you have left it maybe better.

MichalAniol.5807:

EDIT: In my opinion FB will be great in PvE (raids for example) when they give some stat combo with concentration and expertise.

As long as mantras are cones, FB will just suck as a supporter because the only character you’ll give quickness to is your own.

My experience so far:

Mantras: I liked the mantras. They worked better than expected. The issue is that the third charge in almost all of them is way to weak to justify using it vs waiting ammo to re-fill. And when used most of them have ridiculous CD + 2.75 cast time. Should almost never use third charge unless you are about to die. In addition, for any ally to benefit from it they must be extremely close, as a result it is mostly used for yourself and no support benefit.

Heal mantra: Will be great in PvE, since it provides aegis and no cast time. Will not be used in sPvP since the heal is weak and long CD.

Tomes: terrible on so many levels. I will be honest, I do not play Druid and Elemetnalist for a reason, and that is I do not want to change my cast bar. This changes the way guardian plays and not in a good way at all.

The tomes themselves are incredibly underwillming, beside the tome of justice, which is not that useful in sPvP. Needless to say, the Virtues primary goal is instant sustainability or damage avoidance, to which the tomes fail miserably.

I would rather the entire tome system be scrapped. There is no saving grace here. It needs to be instant cast skill just like core guardian and DH.

Axe: it is a bit weak in sPvP. It would be okay if the symbol cast is reduced to 0.5-0.75 sec. The way it is designed right now will never work in sPvP or even in PvE. And please remove the daze. Enough with the AOE CC already.

As far as Firebrand currently stand, both core guardian and DH are stronger in sPvP. Better damage and better sustain. Even for condition damage, core guardian is better.

This seems clunky and slow with very little synergy between skills. A month out from expansion don’t see any major changes happening but some tweaks will hopefully improve things.

Axe:
1 – I think range on the axe auto attack needs to be increased by 30 as our new tome skills have us casting in a cone in front of us if we’re standing beside or stacking on allies they wont be gaining any effects.
2 – Symbol needs a boon, would like to see it give 1 second of stab on cast this would work nicely with Stalwart Speed. number of targets effected needs to be increased to 5 to match other symbols
3 – Adding slow or weakness to this skill will make it that little bit better.

Firebrand:
Virtues/Tomes – These need to be instant cast we have now lost the effects of activating these (burn, heal, aegis) would suggest adding these to Swift Scholar: burns foes, heals, grants aegis and grants quickness.
Each tome has a field but no way to blast them, suggest adding a blast finisher to all tome 2 skills.
Cooldowns – Are far too long, if i activate a tome use no pages and deactivate it, it has the same cooldown as using all the pages. When stowing a tome the remaining pages should remove 2 seconds off the cooldown.

Unrelenting Criticism:
Change to – Applying burn will also apply bleed, this I think will work better than the 33% chance to apply and will also effect our other utility’s and skills that apply burning.

Imbued Haste:
Needs something extra for when we don’t have quickness. 25% movement speed when wielding an axe. This will work well because taking Firebrand we have given up the range and mobility that Dragon Hunter gives.

Mantra’s :
Need alot of work, A fix for these would be removing the internal cooldowns on runes from the 3 and 6 bonus’ so that using all the heal or elite mantra charges will be buffed by the runes we are running and not just the first cast.

Final Mantra charge needs buffs on all to make worth using.

Mantra of Truth – Change this to aoe so it effects all targets around the guardian, and make it a blast finisher. This will work well with our tomes as we can apply large fields but have no way to blast them.

Weighty Terms: This should also reduce cast time to prepare a mantra or grant stab while preparing and also reduce cooldown of mantra skills by 20%.

Bugs:
Renewed Justice is not effecting Tome of Justice.
Guessing Courageous Return is not effecting Tome of Resolve aswell.

Tome of Courage also doesn’t give stability when traited with Indomitable Courage.

Bugs- casting mantras for first time do not trigger character voice(which i do like)

Tried it in pvp with sage amulet.(power,vit,condi and heal pow)
I am being destroyed by holosmith insane dmg, spellbreaker insane dmg, mirage insane dmg and deadeye insane burst. Such unbalanced pvp.

We need definetely protection for 4 sec on elite, F2 heals should be better (with sage I am healing so low numbers)
F2 3rd skill needs to be blast.
F3 huge cooldown.

Mantra with condies should give chill also.
Quickness mantra needs swiftness buff also.

I feel weak in pvp.

- Tomes and Mantras work well in WvW zerg, but hitting allies outside of that with Mantras can be really hard
- Burn spam in melee is easy even in full Marauder, I’m guessing it will be nerfed
- Tome skills bring an interesting change and are really powerful support tools, lack of defense and movement ability just forces you to quit using them if someone attacks you
- Axe skill #3 felt bugged, it seemed my char didn’t turn around and it gave the “no line of sight bug” if I tried using it on an enemy on my side or behind

Overall Tomes can be really fun but I can’t help but feel really vulnerable when running Mantras and Tomes. I have to run Shelter as my only “oh kitten” button. And it feels like if there is any focus on me I will instantly go down, the Tomes don’t help here.
The amount of support and boons that it can spit out is insane, and I expect nerfs, but it is relatively helpless and you need someone else to take all the hits for you

I have to echo a lot of the sentiments here.

I was super stoked at the thought of Firebrand at first, but in my humble opinion the play style of the tomes and mantras are god-awful and I feel more like a punching bag than anything else.

Maybe it’s different in WvW, but I don’t play that mode (I pretty much just do sPvP and the occasional PvE).

So far my initial reaction is no reason for me to switch using it over Dragonhunter and that’s just sad.

Initial feelings:

Axe skills feel pretty good
-Axe 1 has a 2nd “free” hit that gives another chance to proc bleed if traited
-Axe 2 really needs a boon, it just feels wrong to walk over a symbol and get no benefit from it. We need to get something out of it because in pvp noone is going to sit in it for an extended period of time
-I wish Axe 3 animation was cleaner. An actual pull of some sort instead of a magical axe.

Mantras, overall not a fan of cones. Especially on healing/defensive mantras, keep it on offensive ones if you must.

Solace- decent heal, the cool down needs to be shortened a bit. Mesmers can stealth/port away after they use their mantra heal. We remain sitting ducks.

Potent Haste – really strong mantra but mainly for pve. Quickness is good in pvp as well but you cannot afford to waste slots on a utility that just gives buffs.

Flame Rush – quite good, gives consistent burns. Probably still not good enough for pvp as its a unreliable cone attack that gives no defense.

Echo of Truth – Not sure what this is supposed to do. The damage on it is pretty low, gives no defense, and not quite an offensive skill either. I think this was intended to give cover boons for burn guard but seems unnecessary now that we have access to so many burns. Almost like a utility offensive skill, may see some play if it can neutralize players in a 1v1? (probably not but maybe)

Opening Passage: Regen is a really weak boon, I dont think this skill can beat out contemplation. Especially since regen is easily overwritten and weak without healing power whereas contemplation can be traited for an instant heal as well. Perhaps consider adding another defensive boon like resistance or protection to it. It doesn’t even come close to smite conditions power now that I think about it.

Portant of Freedom (Elite) – AoE stun break is strong but idk why this was made when stand your ground exists. If it sees any play it may be WvW. The third charge is not very strong on this skill either. Going with a bell theme, maybe something like a strong daze/stun nearby foes on third use.

Traits – Only really have an issue with one atm

Weighty Terms- immob is awkward on healing mantras (These ones should not be cones) You want to aim them at allies but immob does nothing there. Also needs text clarification that charge recovery is shortened not the actual recharge of the mantra

Tomes: These feel really nice once you are in them but there are too many gates on its power.
Cast time on tome, Page limit, Tome recharge time, Skill recharge time, Skill cast time. The biggest change I would make here is to remove the cast time on tomes. Tomes having a cast time really makes them feel clunky to me. I think the only reason it was added was because they chose to give tomes quickness when we entered them.
I’d rather have the quickness removed when we enter than have a cast time to enter the tome. If the issue is counterplay then make a symbol really obvious above our heads about what tome we entered.

I realize a lot of what I am comparing it to is current skills and Anet may not want to just give us better versions but the utility/power/defense of the skills, even if different, needs to be comparable to what already exists or these skills will never see play.

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to play some more and refine some of this over the weekend.

edit: Wild idea on tomes, remove the cast time completely but make us do something gain pages over time, skills can be gates via number of pages requires to use the skill or simply increase the cooldown on stronger tome skills accordingly.

The fact that you only grant quickness when you first apply stability makes it so that only the skills with more stability all at once are used to stack quickness. Also the fact that pages are tied together between tomes feels really bad. The mantras don’t feel that useful, the cone needs widening. The damage is fine but the panic buttons are few and far between, and using any tome but the damage one is just a big target on your back.

Edit: It seems as though you do get separate pages, don’t know what happened the first time I used it in a fight. Also I back up all the regen complaints, its not that useful.

Arnath.2319:

Mikali.9651:

what slow casting with such huge amount of quickness? Are you even reading skills? seriously.

Exactly.

Don’t get mad at the spec just because you don’t know how to play it correctly, it is one of the fastest, least clunkyest elite specs in the game.

No it isn’t. The quickness doesn’t remedy the sluggishness of the class nearly enough, and with spellbreakers in the game you can basically say goodbye to your quickness the moment they enter the scene.

Don’t say nonsense if you don’t even know how the game, pvp and other professions work.

If something requires mandatory quickness just so it can feel slightly not sluggish, then it is an effing terrible skill to begin with.

I take back what I said about tomes they feel EXCEPTIONALLY weak. I thought the virtue tome would act like a 2nd full heal like cele form does for druid and the courage tome would provide more defense but the cast times and weak pay off , make them insta kill fodder in pvp.

After testing I need to say that firebrand is sooo a slow class even with swiftness -_-
The cast times on tomes are way too long and the fact that we have a melee spec but no mobility is so kitten.
All classes can kite us easy…..
The burning is OK but it’s like the old burn guard, a one trick pony….
I was rly hyped but now I thing I won’t play this condispec!

Firebrand axe 3 also works in an odd manner, you have to be facing the target to cast it but once you do, change directions mid animation, it will track with the way you are facing and “miss”.

My two cents on Firebrand: Remove cast time on tomes, trim aftercasts on various abilities. Buff Axe 1 range slightly, give axe 2 a boon on the symbol, not stab or anything stupid, swiftness or maybe even quickness on initial cast. Make mantra’s AoEs. We understand you wanted them to be different from mesmer mantras, but this tiny 60 degree cone with a mediocre 300 range means we have to be behind our allies to hit them with it, or we just continue to play selfishly at the front due to our melee range.

I can’t stress enough though how clunky tomes feel, even with the quickness we have. There’s too many hoops to jump through with all the cast times, aftercasts, charges, and independent cooldowns.

Edit: I even posted a reddit thread about it yesterday and most of the feedback in it lines up with whats being said here on the forums. https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6ukwwj/firebrand_demo_feedback_compilation/

Mantra is abit situational and probably would be only good in PVE, but the traitline and tome are so brokenly strong.

Just made a build dedicated to Virtues (tomes) itself, and that aoe burn damage is just out of the roof, and the radius is insane. (50 stacks of burns all by yourself with some bleed)

I use Firebrand, Virtue and Radiance, with Balthezer rune.

If they wanna shorten the tome cast time, they have to massively nerf their effectiveness too.

Problem #1
Firebrand, like Dragonhunter, is all over the board; they don’t work as a cohesive package. The ideas conflict with each other leading to two opposing specs in one.

1. It’s trying to be a condi build with only burning. Too easy to clear w/o cover conditions.
2. Mantras are short range and instant (after charging) – great for a melee build.
3. Tomes and tome abilities are cast time and if you’re in melee, will be constantly interrupted. They’re best used for backline where you can avoid the interruption. But half the abilities are short range.
4. Axe is short range, which goes against tomes.

If you didn’t have to take tomes, Firebrand would be a pretty good melee spec with a slant toward conditions. But tomes do not mix with axe or mantras.

ANet will probably just make a trait which gives stability on tome casts which will be effectively mandatory for PvP.

Problem #2
Tome abilities lack impact and synergy. Many are too slanted to one role and if you don’t spec for that role, you may as well not have that tome.

1. Tome of Justice is far too condi heavy. As a support, it’s basically a double-cast to use a CC. #2 is too short range to be useful for weakness. If you’re not condi or with a condi-user for #5 to be useful, there’s little point to this tome.
2. Tome of Resolve is just a pile of suck. At the rate conditions get stacked right now, you’ll be half-dead or interrupted before any of the condi clears happen. The #4 has just plain awful scaling – just use #3.
3. Tome of Courage has a lot of neat abilities. But the tome’s cooldown makes using pages on #1 silly. #2 is hampered heavily by range. #4 seems like it should be on Tome of Resolve. #5 is basically just double-hitting on what traited virtue of Courage does. So you’re basically either going to waste pages on useless stuff or just close the book after #4 and #5 and maybe #3.

The entire problem with the original tome elite abilities was that they had maybe one good ability, but otherwise got in the way. That problem hasn’t been fixed. Having pages in tomes is pointless since all they do is stop you from spamming #1.

If I was making a tome-based spec, I would make it work at range completely (everything has min 600 range or is ground target) and the spec would lose weapon swap (so kinda like engineer kits). That allows the tomes to take on a more meaningful role.

Axe
I gotta admit it feels incredibly clunky (in PvP). AA chain doesn’t really deal that much condition damage. I went for a marauder amulet instead of a viper one and it actually felt better.

On the other hand Axe #3 – Blazing Edge is very effective.

I saw people complaining on Symbol of Vengence. It’s true it has long casting time but with Stoic Demeanor trait it is possible to combo it with Blazing Edge. Pull into daze. Besides that Symbol of Vengence is an AoE 180~240 radius Daze. I think people don’t yet realize how strong it is especially when you can grant yourself Quickness and Might via Potent Haste and shorten the casting time.

Mantras
Can’t say much about them except the simple fact… mantras are fun to use.

Tomes
I have mixed feelings about them. On the one hand entering combat with tome already active helps a lot: unexpected pull, protective bubble, stability. But besides that tomes are mostly useless skills on the skillbar. You can’t use them in 1v1. Same if you get caught in the teamfight. If you don’t cancel your tome you’re dead.

Suggestions
I have in mind some trait changes.

1. Archivist of Whispers is not a match for other two traits in the Major Adpet traitline. A slight change can make it viable as well as improve the usage of tomes.

Archivist of Whispers

Your Virtues gain additional pages. Take reduced damage while casting a tome skill.

Additional Charges: 3
Damage Reduced: 20%

2. Canceling your tome without really utilizing it feels bad. The important part is that you have to stove your tome and not use all the pages. Additionally Swiftness will allow you to relocate.

Loremaster / Quick Learner

Tome skills get reduced recharge. Retain Virtues passives while they are on cooldown. Gain health for every unused page and place a Lesser Symbol of Swiftness while stowing your tome.

Recharge Reduced: 33%
Healing per unused page: 150

3. Each of the tomes has a combo field: fire, water, light. But there is no way to blast them on your own. Weighty Terms could change final charges of Firebrand’s mantras into blast finishers. Because right now there is no actual incentive to use/waste a final charge.

Weighty Terms

The final charge of your Mantra skills inflict immobilize and cause a blast. Mantras gain reduced recharge.

Immobilize (2s): Unable to move.
Recharge Reduced: 20%
Damage: 850
Combo Finisher: Blast

edit.

After 20 more PvP matches I have to say I got used to the tomes. Though my statement hasn’t changed for a tome to be effective it has to be actvated before the combat starts. Tome of Justice offers good damage even if you don’t use Viper’s Amulet. After all I think Firebrand is the most balanced spec among the GenII elite specs. It’s certainly not broken.

I’ve been wanting to use an axe as a Guardian for a long time and, by itself, the axe is a fine weapon. Axe3 is a clever way to get around the lack of mobility, although it could stand to be a bit stronger (maybe larger pull range? I need to test that more), and Axe2 takes a little too long to cast, and is a little underwhelming at that. I’d be happier if the symbol had a support boost.

The problem with the spec is that nothing synergizes with the axe. It makes more sense to use a ranged weapon if you are going to use mantras, which basically just means scepter after the recent “don’t use the staff” patch. The spec would have made more sense being combined with a short bow, or putting axe as a base Guardian weapon and switching an unnerfed staff to FB-only. Staff-FB would work well if the range hadn’t been reduced so much. You’d still be playing a support-only class, but it would be solid support.

I really want to use an axe, but if the only way to do so is to take the FB spec, you’ve crippled your build before you started.

As for tomes, I said this in the tome suggestion thread (and it may just be a bad idea), but I’d rather see the tome powers merged with your normal weapon powers rather than replacing them. I’d call them “blessings,” as if your are sprinkling holy water on your weapon, and now it’s doing its normal damage, plus temporary burning/support/healing boosts as selected. I know Guardian healing has always been less powerful than other options, but I always appreciated the more passive “healing while you fight” mechanic. Having to pull out of the fight to become a 10-second dedicated healer just doesn’t feel right.

My own observations about the Firebrand thus far:
- The trait “Healer’s Retribution” does not seem to apply retaliation when using it together with the new mantra heal.
- The trait “Wrath of Justice” does not trigger a Lesser Signet of Wrath when striking an enemy with Tome of Wrath’s damaging effect.

Possibly more to come.