Guild Wars 2

Kind of more of the same.

Axe skills need a range increase and buff either in damage or conditions.

Mantas need a range increase. Some of suggested an AOE, but even if it is just within the front arc that would be fine. The current cone is too narrow.

Tomes feel really important to the specialization and so should work more like elementalist attunements with a shorter cooldown. Maybe have pages charge in some way.

I like the idea of the class the abilities, just feels like it needs a small tweak with range and a decision on how tomes work.

Mysticjedi.6053:

Kind of more of the same.

Tomes feel really important to the specialization and so should work more like elementalist attunements with a shorter cooldown. Maybe have pages charge in some way.

We can’t have such powerful skills on so short CD. Otherwise tome skills would be nerfed into oblivion. If I have to choose I choose to have a powerful skill on long CD rather than a garbage one on a short CD.

Assic.2746:

Mysticjedi.6053:

Kind of more of the same.

Tomes feel really important to the specialization and so should work more like elementalist attunements with a shorter cooldown. Maybe have pages charge in some way.

We can’t have such powerful skills on so short CD. Otherwise tome skills would be nerfed into oblivion. If I have to choose I choose to have a powerful skill on long CD rather than a garbage one on a short CD.

Problem is that they are now garbage with big cd’s.

Leaving Eternal Oasis as your last rotation on F2 for a 33% stronger Empower combined with the quickness you get from stowing the Tome is quite nice in WvW

And the animations look really sexy! Survivability is my problem…

Assic.2746:

Mysticjedi.6053:

Kind of more of the same.

Tomes feel really important to the specialization and so should work more like elementalist attunements with a shorter cooldown. Maybe have pages charge in some way.

We can’t have such powerful skills on so short CD. Otherwise tome skills would be nerfed into oblivion. If I have to choose I choose to have a powerful skill on long CD rather than a garbage one on a short CD.

There is one problem, tomes abilities are not powerful at all. Tome of resolve sucks as heal for example is nothing even close to druid or even DH heal xD

Imbued Haste has to be tweaked, no reason for it to favor condi builds over power based ones. Either make it a major trait or change the stats bonus to impact both power and condi builds or modify it into something else different. As of now, it feels mandatory to run FB as a burn guard.

Support capabilities on the firebrand are way too weak or sporadic, tomes have way too long a cd and the payoff for using those skills just isn’t there; the heals on tome of resolve are especially weak, druids and heal-bot tempests run circles around the FB. It’s a shame really, becuz the visuals on tomes are lovely, unfortunately, tomes of resolve and courage are way too unreliable to be considered for use in any game mode or meta.

In the current iteration, FB is just another burn guard with lackluster support. If elite specs are meant to change the way the class is being played, FB does not achieve that because burn guards has been around forever.

I feel like Firebrand has too many new things that don’t work together and has nothing that works with what we had before. What we are left with is a weird gameplay with which we don’t know what we are supposed to do. Are we supposed to be frontliners doing damage? I mean, axe is melee and is purely condi (and disrupt, if you trait for it) but i guess we don’t have the survivability and our tomes are too slow to allow us to quickly react to real close combat situations.

Then i guess we are supposed to play support, right? But we don’t have any real big heals or anything and the little ones we have are on our F2 tome which has a huge cd. What if people realize that we are healing and start targeting us? We change to F3, right? But before i can finish casting anything i am dead because there is no instant survivability skill. I mean, what is the point of making F3 a stunbreaker with virtues if i can’t dodge after i use it because i need to wait for the tome to finish casting? People usually burst after they cc, you know? Am i supposed to rely on my team to watch my back constantly so i can give them the little support my F2 has?

I guess that what we are left is a power build, right? But hey, isn’t Dragonhunter much much better at that?

Nothing synergizes well on firebrand, the weapon doesn’t make sense. It would be better off if we gained dual axes and the offhand axe actually had some support/defensive skill. Or you know, tomes had some changes. But i won’t get into those since everybody already made some pretty good suggestions.

Here is my opinion:

1. First is about guardian core trait, please consider making the self healing from the Monk’s focus can be share to allies. Just like the Divine trait from monks in Guild Wars 1, you can bring additional healing from using any monk skills on allies.

2. Please consider remake the staff #1, making it just like Scholar’s attack way.

Light of Purify(edited):
Cast a blue fireball that explodes on impact and hits multiple foes. have conditions on them.
Cast time: 3/4s
Damage: 242 (0.6)?
Number of Targets: 3
Trigger chance: 20%
Radius: 180
Range: 1,200

Since most of the staff skills are range 1200, the auto-attack should be the same, too.

Guardians only have one weapon can do 1200 range attack, if they’re not DH, the choice are limited. Hoping we can have a least two range weapons can choose what to use, just like Warriors.

In some cases we still need long-range fighting, a support guardian can not and should not choose a unrelated scepter as a long-range battle choice.

3. Please consider remake the staff #2, making it become a ground target skill.

Healing Burst:
Summon a light of life at the target ground, damage foes and heal allies in the area.
(Using the same animation as passive heal of Signet of Courage.)
cast time: 3/4s cooldown 8s
Damage: 484 (1.2)
Healing: 788 (1.2)
Light Aura (4s): When struck, you gain retaliation. Incoming condition damage is reduced by 10%. (Cooldown: 1s)
Number of Targets: 5
Radius: 240
Range: 1,200

In the initial simple environment, the players do not need to walk too much to complete the battle, but with the late more and more difficult fighting environment, including FOTM T4 and Raid, they need a lot of moving, the design of the ball has been outdated.

And the Detonate Orb of Light has a deadly problem.
If player gets close to target and have to quick detonate the ball to heal allies, the ball always got recharge, granted light aura to allies, but it didn’t trigger its heal, such a waste.

4. Please lower Sanctuary cooldown time to 60s.

5. Shield of Absorption: Remove the push function. Create a dome around you that dazes foes and absorbs projectiles. Stun them if they’re attacking.
Daze: 1s
Stun: 1s
Number of Targets: 5
Shield Duration: 4s
Combo Field: Light
Unblockable

Since the push function isn’t a good way in most fighting, and consider it’s a rescue skill, it becomes unblockable and causing short daze or stun will be more effective.

6. Symbol of Swiftness: Sear a mystic symbol into the target area, damaging foes and granting swiftness to allies.

Since its icon is a shield… could it becomes granting aegis instead of swiftness?

Symbol of Guard: Sear a mystic symbol into the target area, damaging foes and granting aegis to allies.

Damage (5x): 1,010 (2.5)?
Aegis (3s): Block the next incoming attack.
Number of Targets: 5
Symbol Duration: 3s
Symbol Radius: 180
Combo Field: Light
Range: 1,200

7. Hoping all the Symbols can use the same system animation design from Firebrand in the future.

Thank you for watching.

From a small-scale roaming WvW point of view
Axe
Good power scaling on the AA. Condi application is a bit underwhelming in terms of the duration, especially since the range of AA is so short and the symbol takes a while to deliver only a few short-duration bleeds. Pull feels fair.

Mantras
I’d say they’re near useless if you and your allies are cc’d and you can’t position yourself to cleanse/stun break your allies. Often times I’ve had to stunbreak myself, turn around, then use Liberation. I propose they affect everyone in 180 radius aoe around you (Symbol sized) in addition to a lengthened mantra cone of 450/600.

• Solace: Self healing isn’t enough and scaling is low. Aegis application is difficult. Healing Breeze has been much much better.
• Lore: I think this mantra is good. 1-2s Resistance instead of regen?
• Truth & Flame: Underwhelming.
• Liberation: Because it’s an elite, I think the rules can be bent for this mantra. Make it a pbaoe of 360 radius and I think it’ll warrant use and compete with other Guard elites.

Tome of Justice
This tome feels pretty good, overall. A few number tweaks are appropriate:

• #2: Increase the range of pbaoe. It felt very unclear when the burning actually applies and from which center-point. Maybe change the function to: Cast #2 to gain 4 charges that are insta cast and apply burning to enemies nearby. No icd.
• #3: The long cast time coupled with the small aoe makes this ability hard to use at max range. Lower the cast time and keep the small aoe. Don’t want to be putting a huge converging pull on such a low cooldown. Also, the vfx does not match the time of the actual pull. Please reduce this visual noise.

Tome of Resolve
Base numbers and scaling needs to be tweaked.

• #1: Increase the base healing very slightly. Decrease the scaling. This will be the go to heal that non-healing power specs will use.
• #2: Cast time doesn’t make sense. Seems like the cast time was justified because we got a fancy new character animation. To keep the animation, pulse condi removal 3x (up from 2x) around character. Keep the radius.
• #3: A lot of people have been criticizing this skill. It does nothing but fuel boon corrupts. Give it a blast finisher.
• #4: Drop the base value. Drastically increase the scaling to about 1.8x, so at lvl 80 with 1200 healing power, it could heal nearly 3000 without modifiers. This will be the healing skill that healing power specs will use.

Tome of Courage
Overall I like this tome. Great support, stunbreak on #4. Rewards reactive counterplay.

• #2: Taunt in a small radius is a little strange. Could we add a resurrect component to this skill? 15% of their health.
• #5: Imo the toughness is a bit underwhelming but it’s a fair skill.

Traits

• Liberator’s Vow: I know this trait, and many others, proc once the ability is finished casting, but if the quickness triggered upon cast, then it could be paired with Healing Breeze for pretty good burst healing.
• Weighty Terms: Remove the 10s cooldown. Using the final cast of the mantra (and thus triggering the entire mantra’s cooldown) is the limit this this trait should come with.

I realize that most of the changes I called for are buffs, but Firebrand (and guardian in general) has built in counter-play considering all the boonhate —especially corrupt--
that is coming with this next xpac. Condi guard still relies on one condition, they are still hampered by no +25% passive movement speed trait/skill, Tomes are gated by long-ish cooldowns which I think is very fair, especially when traited. The mantras are very situational and if you stack mantras, you’re sacrificing a lot of potential utility for yourself and your team.

Here is my feedback on the firebrand:

-The axe:
the 2nd axe skill aoe is way too long too cast.
the 3rd skill(the pull) with 600 range is too short, maybe 900 range.

-The mantras:
Terrible, for one the fact that they are mantras…I know quickness, but still.
The mantras work in tiny cones in front of you was not a good idea.

-Support firebrand:
Was it really better than a core or dragon hunter support (Healing Wise)

-Condition cleanse skill on the Healing tome:
Not enough condition cleanse, cross a scourge and you are dead.

-Animations:
Floating pages around the firebrand…no
The 1st skill and every book worked in cones and wasn’t good.
The tome skills were pretty.
The asura firebrand tome swap animations are cute and different than the other races.

What i would like:

-Rework the axe cast time and range.
- Give firebrand something else than mantras, or mantras with a 360° skills and at least 600 range.
-Make the support aspect of the firebrand actually support. Change the 1st skill on tomes to a target skill or a 360° skill application rather and a small cone in front of you.
-Make firebrand’s 2nd skill in tome of resolve (the spin) a combo finisher, to blast the water field.
-Give firebrand the old guardian tome animations. (the giant tome was a great idea)
- Maybe rework the firebrand swap tome animations, maybe by race the asuras got way more love than the others.

To be honest I’m kinda disappointed with firebrand. The visuals are beautiful and I was really excited about it, but after playing it in the demo I have to agree with some of the people who are complaining about it.
This is my overview:
1-The class itself feels a bit clunky.
It gives the impression that it needs to be under constant quickness and alacrity to function. While I know that we have been given plenty sources of quickness, a class that depends on a boon uptime to flow well is not exactly fun (we cannot really compare it to chronomancers since chronomancers bring much more to the table and plays fine even if you aren’t focusing on giving quickness)
2- the class forces you into melee range without providing any survivability, gap closers or escapes.
The range on the mantras and axe is short, making you have to get really close to the enemy to be able to use those skills. The problem comes with the preparation and cast times. Switching from weapon skills to your heals isn’t instant as it is with core guard or behind a 1s cast like DH. This means your survivability skills are very easy to interrupt and given we have no way to easily disengage from combat you’re stuck with what you have.
(Of course you could forgo using the new skills and weapon, but then why would you even use the elite spec.)
3- the support abilities feel awkward.
When you think of a support class you expect something that will provide a benefit (be it heals, boons or other advantages) to the rest of the party. The way firebrand is now it feels like a very selfish form of support since unless the firebrand manages to pile up the rest of their party in a small 60° cone, they are the only ones who will be affected by the buffs and heals they provide.
I understand you can turn around to use the mantras and turn again to face the enemy and maybe develop some sort of chicken skewer strategy of turning in circles while attacking and buffing, but honestly it feels really clunky to have to do so to get this spec to work. Not to mention the hitbox is sorta weird and that small altitude differences can nullify your skill altogether.
I know there are other support skills in the kit that bring bigger aoes to the table, but if you cross out the cones, you’re left with 1/2 (or less) of what this spec brings.
4-wasted tomes and cooldowns.
The cooldowns on tomes feel excessive, mixing this with long cast times both to summon and use the skills makes tomes become more hassle than useful toolkit. Not to mention putting away the tome makes it go on CD even if you haven’t used it. Because of this it feels wasteful to close a time without using all of it’s pages, but, sadly this also means running around doing nothing while the tomes skills are going to use them efficiently (aka not to overwrite stab as it’s going, waiting with heal tome open when everyone is healed up, etc)
If the books didn’t go into CD and you could switch through them freely, it would feel better. Maybe make the pages work like ammo does, regenerating over time.
5- there is really no reason to ever use the last charge in mantras
There is not much to say here, there is no need or incentive to do so. It feels more like a mechanic introduced to punish button mashers than a class feature.
All in all I feel like the class has too many problems to actually be fun, as it brings too many obstacles and provides no reward for overcoming them.

I was excited when I heard tomes was going to be the Firebrand mechanic but after playing I was very disappointed After all when I think of Tomes I think a caster type. But it seems to be more made for up close fighting. The limited range on it. The mantra’s seem more supportive and weak. I would like to see more range on the mantra’s and tome skills. Maybe add some as ground targeting symbols. I have always thought there was not enough Symbols. And this would have been the perfect setting for it. Mantra or Tomes casting symbols on the ground would have been great. I also noticed that some of the traits do not work with the Tomes. Such as the one that restores Virtue of justice upon killing a target did not work with the tome.
Edit : Also if you don’t use up your Tome and swap to weapon or another tome you loose it it goes on cool down. Why not instead make it like Necro you build faith or something up to use abilities and swap out tomes as needed and pay the cost for the chapter you use. Maybe take another page from necro and let abilities be more ground target and around caster.

I was going to make a post here and summerize my opinion, but i already have a 2000 word post on design flaws and a second post on specific skill changes. So meh…

Ya, “meh”… an onomatopoeia used to express disinterest. This summarizes my guardian experience overall from beta. If its releses anywhere close to its beta form, i’m probably not even going to unlock the elite spec on my main. And will either ignor FB or reroll…

This is a SUPPORT Spec, and i was looking forward to having decent boons that were impactful to a fight OR was a contender for a healer. FB tomes have such potential, but they are so poorly executed. And the Stupid! Mantra range… none of these devs have actualy been in a melee fighr with a team.

It will be fun in PvE. WvW it is only viable for a commander not other guards in the group. Unless they change a few things (which they might) I will just use my vanilla guard build for group comp.

A bit late, but here is my feedback on the firebrand:

Axe:

- Axe 1 could use longer duration on the condi’s it applies, since it isn’t really stacking condi’s as it should.
- The symbol on axe 2 has an excessively long cast time and could use a reduction in that department.
- Axe 3 is good at what it does, but could use an extra burnstack to make it slightly better.

Tomes:
Tome of justice (ToJ):
- Tome of Justice is incredible at applying burning spikes, especially to large groups, but these groups have to remain in front of you (which is why ToJ 3 is necessary for anything but target golems).
- When it comes to skills I most enjoyed using ToJ 4 and 5, since they gave me a (relatively large) fire field and a group wide buff that can’t be removed. ToJ 5 in particular adds some dynamic which makes it interesting. These skills are fine as is.
- ToJ 2 is basically ToJ 1, but not cone based and with additional firestacks to counterbalance the CD time. You will most likely only use this skill once (maybe twice with additional pages) in your rotation, since waiting around for it instead of spamming 1 takes a bit too long. CD can be reduced with loremaster, but even then spamming ToJ 1 seems more effective than waiting around for ToJ 2.
- Talking about spamming 1, this is probably the most effective way to build up burn stacks (since other skills have CD’s). Sadly it’s cone based instead of 360 ° AoE, which makes it somewhat harder to land. This is what you’ll be doing when you have blown all your other skills, which is not very exciting, but AA never is.
- ToJ 3 is the skill you need to collect all your foes in front of you. Sadly, it has an 8 sec CD, so if you waste it, you’ll probably waste your chance at burning. This CD can also be reduced, but even with the reduction the wait might be too long to use it twice in one rotation (unless you simply don’t attack at all, which will reduce your dps greatly and leave you open for counters).

Overall I would reconsider the CD times on these skills, since they greatly bar the use of some of these skills. While this is fine for ToJ 4 and 5 (since their effects are relatively strong to be spammable), it is holding ToJ 2 and 3 back, especially in places where spiking down opponents is necessary.

Tome of Resolve (ToR):
- ToR is focussed on healing and condition removal, at which it can do a decent job (the condition removal shines a bit more here than the actual healing). However, it relies heavily on skills hitting your allies, which is very difficult to accomplish with cone based skills (since your allies constantly move around).
- Both ToR 4 and 5 are therefore the best skills on the set, due to the (relatively) large range and 360 ° AoE. ToR 4 is a decent heal with a water field for some additional healing and some swiftness. ToR 5 increases the effectiveness of healing received by allies and therefore has great synergy with all other healing skills (it also converts condi’s to boons, which puts it a notch above the rest).
- ToR 3 is a bit of a letdown, since it only provides limited healing through regen and some swiftness and vigor (which are alright, but not as essential as added healing or condi removal). This skill needs an added direct heal to be on par with the remainder of the skills in this skillset
- ToR 2 is a condi cleanse and a heal in one skill, making it stronger than ToR 1 at least. Use of this skill will of course depend on whether or not there are conditions to be cleansed, but since condition are omnipresent, this skill will always see use, if not only for the added healing on it. The CD seems appropriate, since condi cleanses are not something to be spammed, but rather to be timed.
- ToR 1 is you spam heal and it does just that, spam healing. It is difficult to aim with the cone and your have to run behind allies to heal them, but it somewhat works if you hit them with it.

Overall, ToR could lose the cone based gameplay for the more traditional healing style of 360 ° AoE. It will not ensure that every heal lands, but it will make the lives of healing Firebrands everywhere that much easier.

Tome of Courage (ToC):
- ToC focusses on granting stability and defensive spells, while being able to CC enemies with the taunt on ToC 2. It is a bit lacking in both the defensive and offensive department, as improvements could be made in both.
- ToC 1 is probably your most reliable source of (quick) stability, but could still be interrupted, defeating the purpose of the skill. It also has no offensive component (which I would expect of a charge). Some might or retaliation could be added to also make it somewhat offensively oriented.
- ToC 2 is the only skill on the tome that does damage and it gives the guardian acces to taunt (which it could have used for the dragonhunter spec). Taunt is ofcourse nice for breakbars, but the 1.25 sec duration will not have a great effect in PvP oriented combat (except maybe to strip away stability). A stack of retaliation (short duration) might be fun to add to it for some additional damage.
- The ground casted dome might be a very nice idea for ToC 3, but the cast time is a bit too long to really be reactive. Additionally, it is rather difficult to predict where on the battlefield this dome will perform best, since it is rather small. All in all, only allies within the dome will be safe from projectiles and since they tend to move around a lot, the coverage of this dome is not really that great. A shorter cast time will greatly benefit this skill.
- ToC 4 is a bit of a strange skill. It’s the only stunbreaker on the set and it grants resistance in 1 second pulses (likely to prevent removal). Why this skill is even a stunbreaker (instead of say, skill 5) completely eludes me and why it only grants resistance amazes me even more. Giving additional defensive boons to this skill (such as protection) or granting this skill stability would greatly improve it and raise it above mediocre.
- ToC 5 is probably the strongest skill on ToC as it grants stability and protection along with 300 toughness to allies (which is good everywhere but raids). It also grants retaliation which improves your offenses almost equally (if you trait into retal, that is).
The only improvement here would be a longer duration on the boons provided, since the stability doesn’t last much longer than ToC 1’s.

Overall this tome feels a bit subpar due to the lack of both defensive and offensive presence. While it does what one would expect of it (give stability), it could do so much more to turn the tide of battle.

Mantras:
Mantras can be relatively powerful utility skills, yet they are held back by two major drawbacks: long precast times and cone based AoE. This makes it so that none of these mantras allow offense/defense on the fly, unless you have them prepared. Even when they’re prepared, mantra’s still have a hefty cast time (0.75-1 second) which diminishes the reactive gameplay the guardian is known for. The player also feels somewhat discouraged to use the final charge since putting the mantra and cooldown and having to recast it later is quite a hassle.
- Mantra of Solace does somewhat average healing (including the final skill) and grants Aegis to you and allies (in a cone). However, casting it fully takes quite a lot of time (even if it’s prepared) and works best when allies are present in your cone (which has the same drawbacks as ToR 1). Therefore, it’s a bit subpar as a self-heal and only average as a group heal. Removing the cone would greatly benefit this skill and the group play it was balance around.
- Mantra of Flame has relatively low burning potential, since it can only stack up to 5 burn stacks before reaching CD (and it will usually only provide 2, since recharging it during a long fight costs you dps in the long run). It does provide some nice physical damage, but it needs more burning on the first two attacks.
- Mantra of Potence is amazing at providing might to the firebrand and its group. 360 ° AoE would really make this skill shine, in addition to higher might duration (although that might also be provided through stats and runes).
- Mantra of Lore provides additional condi removal and some healing through regen. Overall, it isn’t as strong as ToR. However, while ToR is an entire skillset (with cast times and CDs), this is just one skill with relatively low cast time (still 0.75 sec though). This makes the skill shine a bit in comparison to ToR, yet it might feel as overkill when you have acces to ToR (perhaps a good skill for when ToR is on CD).
- Mantra of Truth provides the Firebrand with some alternative conditions. Only the movement impairing ones are really interesting while weakness could be replaced with vulnerability for additional damage.
- Mantra of Liberation feels like “Stand your ground” on steroids. While the stability one the first two attacks is somewhat meager for an elite skill, the long duration of retaliation on this skill makes it worth taking if your invested in the retaliation traits in radiance. Overall, the only thing that this skill needs is extra stability.

Overall, some mantras feel strong, but they are rather limited in use. The long pre-cast discourages the use of the third charge, while the cone prevents proper group sharing. One benefit of mantras, however, is that you can switch them for another mantra even when they only have one chrage left, effectively resetting the charges.

During Guild Chat a couple of days ago one of the developers mentioned the following about Tomes:

“They get to choose the role they want based on the tome they go into.”

However, the most I could make out of the Firebrand during the demo weekend is a close combat condition class with tomes coming second place. Right now, tomes and mantra’s do not seem to make a significant impact on the build diversity of guardians. Two reasons why:

• Master of None. A major design flaw with the Firebrand is thinking that it can perform different roles within a group at the same time. In practice this is very limited. The limitations come from the stats on the gear and trait selections. If I use a condition DPS build I am not going to actively use Tome of Resolve which my companions can rely on. The Firebrand grandmaster traits should be focused on strengthening these different roles and empower each tome depending on the role you pick. Just like what was done to the Holosmith & Daredevil grandmaster traits. This way you put more focus on the individual tomes and less on forcing Firebrand to be everything at once (which will never work from a support perspective). Each grandmaster trait should severely reduce cooldown and add extra pages while adding a unique mechanic related to the tome.

• Flexibility. The developers have put a huge skill cap on tomes and mantra’s by adding high cool downs on tomes and short range on mantra’s. I do agree with the developers it does give you a distinctive feel you’re playing a heavy class. However, the rewards and effectiveness of these restrictions make tomes and mantra’s too niche.
  1. Tomes: The reason nobody used the tomes in the first place was because of the high cool down and short duration. The implementation of the tomes has barely changed from it’s original functionality other than the fact we can now use all tomes at the same time. The developers have managed to put in some interesting new mechanics such as the page system. Unfortunately, it feels like they made the same mistake as with the Revenant energy bar by putting in too many restrictions limiting active play. I see the possibility for a really fun synergy between Tome of Courage (preventing damage) & Tome of Resolve (resolving damage) but the synergy between the two is lost because of the cool downs. Once both tomes are used the guardian is limited in their ability to fulfill a supportive role.
  2. Mantra’s: I really like the way the ammo system was done for mantra’s. It rewards active play and paying attention on how often you should use your mantra. I really dislike the short range. It won’t work. Support skills simply need flexibility due to the volatile nature of emergency situations.

Traits:
- The minor traits feel strong enough for the Firebrand. The focus on quickness in these traits is particularly nice, since it combines well with the other traits and Mantra of Potence. However, the stats on Imbued Haste could be changed up a bit, since healing power and toughness are dumpstats.
- Some of the major traits are way worse than the other available option. The entire upper traitline (Unrelenting Criticism, Weighty Terms and Stoic Demeanor) are the worst choice among the three, since you either want to invest into quickness or tomes on this build. These traits are basically moot choices, since no one will pick them. The other two lines are competitive and based on your prefered playstyle, it will be obvious which line you will choose. Mixing the two lines is ofcourse also a possibility, but staying with three traits from one line seems to be the most cohesive and beneficial choice.
- Some of the internal CDs on the quickness line traits do feel a bit overdone (especially Liberator’s Vow, since 2 sec quickness isn’t that great and the only skill that would benefit from a lower ICD would be Mantra of Solace, which needs some love), but they are understandable since quickness generation would get out of hand. CD reduction for the axe is oddly missing here, despite the fact that an axe trait is present.

Overall feel:
- The Firebrand is definitely succesful at dishing out condition damage through burning (and some bleeding). ToJ is the prime kit for condition damage, with axe being a filler weapon when ToJ is on CD.
- The firebrand also succesfully provides the casted support that was announced. The tomes, in this regard, are somewhat underwhelming when compared to the support provided by some of the mantras. However, for a better supportive playstyle, the cone based skills have to go.
- Due to the focus on casted support (and away from instant/reactive support), the firebrand does feel a bit more glass cannon than the core Guardian/Dragonhunter. This is especially prominent in 1v1 fights and single player combat. The Firebrand really shines in groups, but on its own, it’s somewhat feeble.
- Also due to the focus on casted support (and condition damage), the playstyle of the Firebrand feels somewhat sluggish. While it can provide burning peaks and peaks in boons/healing, this takes quite some initialization time, making the spec much slower than core guardian or even Dragonhunter.

The enhancement to tomes would be to put them all on the Ammo system for pages, that way you can switch between the tomes to an extent (one page from a tome, that tome starts recharging ammo, swap tomes, use another page from another tome, that tome ammo starts recharging, etc. up to a maximum charge of 5 or 8 pages per tome to not encourage single tome camping until fully spent like it is now.)

It seems like ANet originally intended this feel of ammo-based tome pages play but then scrapped it for the full cooldown version. IMO, that’s what feels clunky. Long cast times are fine to an extent because the abilities from the tomes are impactful (some abilities more so than others).

This post isn’t feedback insomuch as it is an exploration. The question I am attempting to answer is: “Why doesn’t the Firebrand work?”

I managed to spend time on the spec during the stress test yesterday, and I found it in actual practice to be wholly lackluster. The damage was terrible in spite of speccing completely for DPS. It was incredibly clunky to use, with all of the skills having way too long of a cast time. It was incredibly slow moving and immobile. It was largely defenseless. Overall, it just wasn’t pleasant to play.

The strange thing is, unlike most specs, it isn’t the traits that are lackluster. I mean, Stoic Demeanor and Weighty Tomes are fairly weak, but I could still see a use for them in
catching escaping enemies or heavier breakbar damage. The rest of the traits are, daresay, good.

The biggest problem with the Firebrand is that it wants to be two things at once. First, it wants to be a condi melee spec that fights and supports in close range. Second thing it wants to be is a backline support spec. And, by design, it can’t be these two things at the same time.

As a weapon, the Axe is arguably the worst main-hand weapon that guardians have. It gives you no defense. It has no movement skills. The only thing interesting the axe does is have the Firebrand’s worst pull skill. All the axe does is inflict very little condi damage. It is a weapon that is both boring and weak. Guardians _need_things like Symbol of Swords, Protectors Strike, Chains of Light, Leap of Faith, Line of Warding, etc in order to survive. A weapon without these kinds of skills is just going to get the guardian killed.

To call the Tome skills “clunky” would be an understatement. The tomes cannot be used tactically in the heat of battle due to their long activation time, and this activation time is stacked on top of the long activation time of each individual skill in the tome. For example, if I wanted to use Scorched Aftermath, I would have to do the following:

#1: Wait for the aftercast of my previous skill to end (1/4th to 1/2 a second)
#2: Activate the tome (3/4ths to 1 second)
#3: Activate the skill on the tome (1 1/4 to 1 1/2 second)

Put it all together, and Scorched Aftermath is a skill with a 2.5 second activation time, and for that cost it just isn’t worth it. The skill also locks out all of my weapon skills, and puts the other tome skills in the same bar on a 30 second cooldown if I need to swap back. Every single tome skill suffers from this same problem of having a large time investment for relatively little gain, and forced mutual exclusivity within themselves and with the weapons.

What the devs are intending players to do is pre-cast the tome so they have access to them immediately. But, most of the tome skills themselves are going to be needed mid fight. So all the tomes really do is give you a much slower and crappier version of the utilities that core guardian already has. This is done to unlock the Guardian’s utility slots for Mantras. Well, at least we can use the mantras… and they’re not good.

The tomes lend themselves to distanced AoE support skills, but the Mantras do the exact opposite of this. They’re close range conical support skills, but unlike Mesmer Mantras their power is back loaded on the final cast and they have no mid combat casting bonus. So, take all the QoL changes given to Mesmer mantras and throw them out of the window. Purity of Purpose or something. Anyway, having the mantra be back ended means that you don’t get to take advantage of the ammunition mechanic, since the only real way to lay the mantra is to unload it all at once. The traits reflect this.

For their shotgun like nature they’re recharge times are all way too long. Compare Mantra of Pain’s 1 second recharge to Mantra of Flame’s 30 second recharge, and you’ll see the problem. It’s like anet decided that the recharge for every utility in PoF was going to be 30 seconds, and then made minor adjustments from there. The conical support nature also makes them difficult to use for support, since you’ll have to step outside of of the odd melee range to make sure your whole group gets the buff.

The only mantra of any notice is Mantra of Potence, which can barf out 8 seconds of quickness with some might. The other mantras just sort of… exist. Mantra of Truth is just covering condis. Mantra of Lore wants to convert conditions after spending two blasts cleansing them. Mantra of Flame just does some damage. Quite frankly, there’s little reason to take Flame and Lore over Purging Flames + free utility. Mantra of Solace has some tactical use, but that 2.5 second cast time means that in a long engagement you’ll be dead in the water against enemies who can effectively heal twice. Mantra of Liberation will have some PVP use, since the amount of retaliation it can stack is ridiculous, but the PVE usage of this mantra is nill.

Overall, the Firebrand is distinctly unremarkable. It is slow, clunky to use, it’s weapon is terrible, and quite frankly I’m not sure it is better than vanilla burn guard.

Anyone noticed Mantra heal is aoe 300 range? It drops some kind of circle on the ground while all other mantras are cone oriented.

Ragnarox.9601:

Anyone noticed Mantra heal is aoe 300 range? It drops some kind of circle on the ground while all other mantras are cone oriented.

During elite pre view i stood in the mist and i hit people behind me with mantras, cant recall which one but it might have been Solace.

Even though i like the FB as a concept i just started to realize that FB isnt ready for release at all. In pve it will be so boring since it will be spamming axe 1 all the time. And in pvp it will do less melee condition damage compared to vanilla/DH.

Anet has one hell of a job balancing stuff in this elite since there is a bunch of bugs and numbers that needs to be fixed.

Brutaly.6257:

Ragnarox.9601:

Anyone noticed Mantra heal is aoe 300 range? It drops some kind of circle on the ground while all other mantras are cone oriented.

During elite pre view i stood in the mist and i hit people behind me with mantras, cant recall which one but it might have been Solace.

Even though i like the FB as a concept i just started to realize that FB isnt ready for release at all. In pve it will be so boring since it will be spamming axe 1 all the time. And in pvp it will do less melee condition damage compared to vanilla/DH.

Anet has one hell of a job balancing stuff in this elite since there is a bunch of bugs and numbers that needs to be fixed.

yea FB is not finished at all, its really luckluster with so many contradicting abilities.
Picking 2-2-2 feels like smashing butons for that extra quickness. Its really fast paced and I dont like it. Plus long cast times and no movement speeds and no protection whatsoever. I dont know, I tested it in all beta previews and more I test FB more I dislike it.

Ragnarox.9601:

Brutaly.6257:

Ragnarox.9601:

Anyone noticed Mantra heal is aoe 300 range? It drops some kind of circle on the ground while all other mantras are cone oriented.

During elite pre view i stood in the mist and i hit people behind me with mantras, cant recall which one but it might have been Solace.

Even though i like the FB as a concept i just started to realize that FB isnt ready for release at all. In pve it will be so boring since it will be spamming axe 1 all the time. And in pvp it will do less melee condition damage compared to vanilla/DH.

Anet has one hell of a job balancing stuff in this elite since there is a bunch of bugs and numbers that needs to be fixed.

Picking 2-2-2 feels like smashing butons for that extra quickness. Its really fast paced and I dont like it.

I played mostly 2-2-3 and i love the concept of high speed micro management to have quickness up close to 100% in pvp. Its demanding but due to how they nerfed passive justice it just isnt rewarding. Honestly if they just fixed passive justice, removed burn from axe and replaced it with bleed (to compensate for passive justice buff) and had 600 cones on the mantras i would be game.

I understand that most people that are main guardians are more interested in Tome of Cheese. To even suggest that the nerf was done for balance is just silly since ToJ is a game breaker imho. Vastly over powered and requires about zero skill.

As it stands now i will invest my character hero points and get the fb on release but play thief or mesmer. Tried the Mirage and even though the mesmer community isnt satisfied it allows for some really weird (for the opponent) game play. I liked it.

Brutaly.6257:

I understand that most people that are main guardians are more interested in Tome of Cheese. To even suggest that the nerf was done for balance is just silly since ToJ is a game breaker imho. Vastly over powered and requires about zero skill.

As a Guardian main, I am not interested in Tome of Cheese. The part I am most interested in is the mantras and using them to provide healing, quickness, and a perma ~18 might stacks solo in fractals and open world bosses (for raids, chrono, PS, and druid all need huge nerfs in order for anything to take their places). Sadly the mantras suck and hopefully Anet is fixing it.

When it comes to the tomes, they are pretty meh to me. ToJ is amazing but as amazing as it is, the other two suck just that much. ToR scales horribly, takes forever, and is a worse CA in every possibly way. ToC has some nice skills but suffers because some are situational and popping into ToC to cast that one skill puts it on full CD so it feels like a waste if you don’t use all of the pages. All the tomes suffer by having the problem of jumping in for one skill then feeling like a waste unless you spam all the pages.

So as a Guardian main, I want the spec to be playable, I don’t care about it being OP or not so long as it is fun. FB has had the opposite effect compared to DH on me. When DH was first spoiled I hated the name, hated the traps, and the only redeeming thing was I finally got a bow. When it was release I liked the traps, the name is whatever, the bow was great (now nerfed to trash, scepter is love, scepter is life) and all the complaints got dealt with. Compared to FB where I loved the idea of it, loved what the mantras did, loved how it was support or condi. Yet when playing it it was slow, the mantras sucked, axe was meh (though at least it has break bar damage on mainhand). Unless huge changes happen it will be the complete opposite of how DH was for me.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The strange thing is, unlike most specs, it isn’t the traits that are lackluster. I mean, Stoic Demeanor and Weighty Tomes are fairly weak, but I could still see a use for them in catching escaping enemies or heavier breakbar damage. The rest of the traits are, daresay, good.

Because we’ve seen so much use of other CC traits like Soaring Devastation or Wrath of Justice? No one uses those CC traits in their builds. Not in PvP, WvW and certainly not in PvE to break bars.

Other than that I disagree with the fact the traits are fine. Loremaster is Absolute Resolution Version 2. Loremaster will always be the preferred choice as Grandmaster, in any situation. Traits like that one and Legendary Lore / Archivist of Whispers should just be made baseline. Currently, the traits give us a choice between having a build focused on Tomes, Quickness or CC. Instead it should be DPS/Healing/Support.

You are undervaluing quickfire way to much. This things puts out 10 burns at 3 sec.
While tome of justice does 1 sec of burn every 3 hit(If traited.). Can you do 30 ToJ proce every 10 sec, on figths that aren´t AoE.
And i was being nice there using traited ToJ. Since quickfire build can drop virtues for zeal and get even better dps output. Since only good dps trait in virtues is last one.

Quickfire should be the go to option for bosses and single target. Loremaster is option for AoE or enough mobs that it can outperform quickfire.

nuaa.4962:

You are undervaluing quickfire way to much. This things puts out 10 burns at 3 sec.
While tome of justice does 1 sec of burn every 3 hit(If traited.). Can you do 30 ToJ proce every 10 sec, on figths that aren´t AoE.
And i was being nice there using traited ToJ. Since quickfire build can drop virtues for zeal and get even better dps output. Since only good dps trait in virtues is last one.

Quickfire should be the go to option for bosses and single target. Loremaster is option for AoE or enough mobs that it can outperform quickfire.

Quickfire scales with your allies’ stats, not your own, so it only works in the condi subgroup, and even then, mesmer will waste their 2 stacks. Same for magi druid, so better hope your subgroup has a condi druid instead.

Even then, condi classes like druid, soulbeast, thief and scourge won’t have max burning duration like firebrand, further reducing Quickfire’s potential.

And more importantly, you need to provide quickness to your allies for it to work, so it’s not compatible with the condi dps build, only the “support” one. And in practice, it won’t proc every 10 seconds, but every 12 seconds most of the time.

It is a feedback topic, so lets give some feedback.
Feedback: Please change Ashes of the just to work like venoms, let it be based on guardians stats. A change that benefit dps and support firebrands

In end, quickfire can beat loremaster already, but ofc it depends on group setup. Thing is fixed it to be a good choice, should be easy as hell. Since they already did devlop this type of interaction with venom.

Axe felt really horrible to play with during the tests. Something about it just wasn’t right.

I really like firebrand, but the animation locks on some of the abilities will pose quite a problem in quick paced play I think.

Axe certainly didn’t feel right. I think it was skill 2 with its huge wind up and ridiculously short range.

Tyche.4072:

Axe felt really horrible to play with during the tests. Something about it just wasn’t right.

I really like firebrand, but the animation locks on some of the abilities will pose quite a problem in quick paced play I think.

There are several problems with the axe. The visuals don’t match the attack range at all. It looks similar to Ele’s Lightning Whip (300 range), but it has less than half that (130 range). Then add the delayed blue axe swing to that, and it just feels clunky.

The super long cast time on #2 is thew cherry on top.

RabbitUp.8294:

Tyche.4072:

Axe felt really horrible to play with during the tests. Something about it just wasn’t right.

I really like firebrand, but the animation locks on some of the abilities will pose quite a problem in quick paced play I think.

There are several problems with the axe. The visuals don’t match the attack range at all. It looks similar to Ele’s Lightning Whip (300 range), but it has less than half that (130 range). Then add the delayed blue axe swing to that, and it just feels clunky.

The super long cast time on #2 is thew cherry on top.

Yea that axe blue visual and sound gets pretty annoying while having quickness…

Ill rather see some blue trail without sound or something similar.

Firebrand was superslow and had allot of support stuff on such short range it was hard to land on enemy and teammates.
Firebrand needs a: “When equiped with axe weapon gain 25% mobility passive.” Put it on Swift scolar or Imbued haste traits.

I can live with anythin else but 5 years without 25% mobility is enough. Especially how fast other classes are right now.

Arricson Krei.9560:

From a small-scale roaming WvW point of view
Axe
Good power scaling on the AA. Condi application is a bit underwhelming in terms of the duration, especially since the range of AA is so short and the symbol takes a while to deliver only a few short-duration bleeds. Pull feels fair.

Mantras
I’d say they’re near useless if you and your allies are cc’d and you can’t position yourself to cleanse/stun break your allies. Often times I’ve had to stunbreak myself, turn around, then use Liberation. I propose they affect everyone in 180 radius aoe around you (Symbol sized) in addition to a lengthened mantra cone of 450/600.

• Solace: Self healing isn’t enough and scaling is low. Aegis application is difficult. Healing Breeze has been much much better.
• Lore: I think this mantra is good. 1-2s Resistance instead of regen?
• Truth & Flame: Underwhelming.
• Liberation: Because it’s an elite, I think the rules can be bent for this mantra. Make it a pbaoe of 360 radius and I think it’ll warrant use and compete with other Guard elites.

Tome of Justice
This tome feels pretty good, overall. A few number tweaks are appropriate:

• #2: Increase the range of pbaoe. It felt very unclear when the burning actually applies and from which center-point. Maybe change the function to: Cast #2 to gain 4 charges that are insta cast and apply burning to enemies nearby. No icd.
• #3: The long cast time coupled with the small aoe makes this ability hard to use at max range. Lower the cast time and keep the small aoe. Don’t want to be putting a huge converging pull on such a low cooldown. Also, the vfx does not match the time of the actual pull. Please reduce this visual noise.

Tome of Resolve
Base numbers and scaling needs to be tweaked.

• #1: Increase the base healing very slightly. Decrease the scaling. This will be the go to heal that non-healing power specs will use.
• #2: Cast time doesn’t make sense. Seems like the cast time was justified because we got a fancy new character animation. To keep the animation, pulse condi removal 3x (up from 2x) around character. Keep the radius.
• #3: A lot of people have been criticizing this skill. It does nothing but fuel boon corrupts. Give it a blast finisher.
• #4: Drop the base value. Drastically increase the scaling to about 1.8x, so at lvl 80 with 1200 healing power, it could heal nearly 3000 without modifiers. This will be the healing skill that healing power specs will use.

Tome of Courage
Overall I like this tome. Great support, stunbreak on #4. Rewards reactive counterplay.

• #2: Taunt in a small radius is a little strange. Could we add a resurrect component to this skill? 15% of their health.
• #5: Imo the toughness is a bit underwhelming but it’s a fair skill.

Traits

• Liberator’s Vow: I know this trait, and many others, proc once the ability is finished casting, but if the quickness triggered upon cast, then it could be paired with Healing Breeze for pretty good burst healing.
• Weighty Terms: Remove the 10s cooldown. Using the final cast of the mantra (and thus triggering the entire mantra’s cooldown) is the limit this this trait should come with.

I realize that most of the changes I called for are buffs, but Firebrand (and guardian in general) has built in counter-play considering all the boonhate —especially corrupt--
that is coming with this next xpac. Condi guard still relies on one condition, they are still hampered by no +25% passive movement speed trait/skill, Tomes are gated by long-ish cooldowns which I think is very fair, especially when traited. The mantras are very situational and if you stack mantras, you’re sacrificing a lot of potential utility for yourself and your team.

These are excellent suggestions, just as good if not better than the ones I’ve made. One major thing I’d append to this is the cast times and cooldowns of tomes. The average cast time of a skill within a tome should be 0.5s, not 0.75s. The cast time to enter a tome should be either 0.25s or instant. Cooldowns should reflect how effective the tomes can be in a combat situation. Right now, 2 out of 3 of them are too high. Cooldowns should be more like 25, 40, 55 (untraited) rather than this 30, 45, 90 nonsense we have right now. Traited, that puts us at 21.75, 34.75 and 48 seconds which I think are perfectly fair.

You may disagree, arguing that the cast times and cooldowns are justified given what the class is capable of /its intended purpose but ideals like this only hold up in ideal situations. The reality is; if a high-damage class manages to get the jump on a firebrand and is going ham, there is NOTHING a FB can do to stop them. FB cannot peel from a situation, has absolutely no gap openers, only two instant-cast skills (heal and elite) to combo-break with and no decent “oh shi-” buttons. It needs faster cast times and reasonable cool downs to be able to adapt to being focused in higher levels of game play.

Feedback? Okay…

If FB is supposed to be our support elite spec, we have no support elite spec.

Tomes are a joke with those cooldowns. Why is it that this cooldown trend is in place? Where ToJ is shorter than ToR is shorter than ToC? They all do vastly different things. All the tomes should simply be 30 sec when traited. Mantras should have 600 radius just like shield #4. ToR needs WAAAAYYY better scaling. Going from a 1200 to a 1600 heal on ToR 4 with full clerics is laughable. (I approximated those numbers) lol

That’s my 5 cents.