Guild Wars 2

I think I’ve played it for long enough now to give some succinct and well-thought out feedback that I hope people find insightful. I’ll start by going over some general impressions, then move on to the weapon, utility skills, traits and finally, the tomes.

In general: Firebrand is conceptually EXCELLENT and fills a role that guardians have long yearned to adequately provide. I love the idea of having more cast-focused support and it really comes together when taking certain traits. Tomes (cast times/CDs) and mantras could use some work.

FX and animations: I love, love, LOVE the animations. These were quite possibly my favorite part of the elite specialization. They did a great job of not being all the same which really helped me connect an animation to a skill, thus learn very quickly.

One criticism I have though is one you’ve all been hearing: Tome animations should involve a floating book (perhaps smaller than our old elite tomes) being held in front of us, rather than some glowy transparent pages.

Axe: I tested this on both power and condition builds. Solid weapon.

-The Good: Cast time on symbol is appropriate. Excellent condition application. I think the weapon is very balanced for condition builds.

-The Bad: The symbol is extraordinarily weak on power-based builds. Consider buffing the base-damage of the symbol (to match that of sword’s symbol).

Mantras: Good conceptually but I think they need some numerical tweaking to be fully viable.

-The Good: They are very interesting to say the least. Enjoyed the elite and heal mantra. The count-recharge mechanic = awesome! Having the option to either spread out uses or close out a fight with a final charge gives nice versatility that I think we’ll appreciate in time.

-The Bad: All 4 utility mantras are underwhelming. The final charges barely do more than the regular charges. I think they should all receive buffs to the final charges considering the cooldowns you must suffer afterwards. They should have more lasting impact.

Regarding the cone hit-boxes of mantras: If guardian mantras are going to be mechanically inferior to Mesmer mantras (cones suck), the effects better AT LEAST be objectively superior and they are not.

Consider buffing the cone’s arc angle/forward range and heavily buff the effects the mantras give.

The Traits: Really liked the traits for the most part. Minor tweaking necessary.

-The Good: The quickness on stability/aegis trait is by far the best trait in this entire line. Otherwise liked the build diversity the traits enabled.

-The Bad: Some of the traits are so heavily overshadowed that I doubt they’ll ever see use. Some could use work. Ex:

• Weighty Terms: In most cases we’re discouraged from using the final charge of a mantra (due to them not being significantly more effective than the first two charges + long CD afterwards).
• Stoic Demeanor: Really a poor trait by itself. It is also completely overshadowed by the other two. Even power-based builds would be more suited to take the bottom grandmaster trait over this.
• Imbued Haste (Minor, Grandmaster): Guardians often lack total health, not armor. Consider swapping the +250 toughness to +250 vitality.

The Tomes: First I want to emphasize that no matter what build you are running/role you are trying to fill, If you play Firebrand, your build WILL rely on tomes to be effective. With that being said, the tomes should at least be compelling to use and for the most part are not.

-The Good: Tome of Justice. This thing wins first, second and third prize. As for the other two tomes? Honestly the best part about the other two tomes is that minor trait that grants quickness when entering/exiting a tome.

The Bad: Cast times and cooldowns. They are abhorrent and WAY too high. They are the reason that Firebrand can NOT peel from a fight and can’t sustain very well. They’re just not fun at all…

Some suggested fixes:

• Instant-cast or 0.25s cast times to enter tomes: 0.75s is way too long, even with quickness.
• Make some skills instant cast. I think making the #5 skill on f2, the #4 skill on f3 tome, and the #2 skill on f1 tome instant cast would all be good choices.
• Lower general cast times: 0.75s (maybe 1s) is the highest any of the cast times should reach to. And for the most part, the cast times should be 0.25 to 0.5s, not 0.75s.
• Lower tome cooldowns to 20, 30, 40s respectively.

Tome of Resolve: This one gets its own section. I’m sorry but this is by far and large the most GARBAGE tome of the three.

• Its healing is abysmal.
• It’s poor at clearing conditions.
• Its one ground-targeted skill is not impactful at all and doesn’t heal.

I found myself using this tome to apply swiftness to myself and allies as I ran across the borderlands in WvW. I would also occasionally pop in and out for a water-field while in zerg play, but THAT’S IT.

Okay, rant aside, here are some fixes for ToR that I think would be appreciated:

• Increase base healing values. This tome is no celestial avatar (and never will be due to its cooldown time) but its base-healing needs to at least do better than Dragonhunter’s Wings of Resolve. The scaling with healing power is great but overall healing on ToR is garbage even with 1400-1600 healing power due to bad base healing.
• Add some more utility to these tome skills. Consider adding blind, daze, cripple, resistance, super speed, immobilize and weaken to some of the ToR skills.
  -I think excellent spots to do this would be adding blind to #3, 2s super-speed to #5 (so you can rush to allies and heal them) and 2s resistance per condi cleared on #2.

Tl;dr: Elite spec is fun and can be effective but there needs to be some serious buffing of the mantras and tomes. Mantras needs stronger effects/increased range, and tomes need lower cast times as well as cooldowns.

Yea Firebrand feels like pre HoT DH when he was garbage, I expect some serious buffs to tomes and elite mantra to give protection cause we lack protection badly, and swiftness.

Good OP…

I agree with everything you said until the second last portions:
“Add some more utility to these tome skills. Consider adding blind, daze, cripple, resistance, super speed, immobilize and weaken to some of the ToR skills”

they may need more utility, but not so spread out. The effect from every random boon added will take away from the target effect of the skill. the Devs believe in trade off (On Guardian more than most classes). So every point of super speed will result in that much less healing…. All i want this tome to do is Heal, Regen, and Swiftness… THATs IT.

For FireBrand to have a healing tome that competes with the Druid, it needs to be focused or it will cut the base healing out put. Every other need should be added through the corresponding utility choices already available in the core Guard and Mantras… Mantras *sigh

Beyond that, excellent points.

momophily.3814:

Good OP…

I agree with everything you said until the second last portions:
“Add some more utility to these tome skills. Consider adding blind, daze, cripple, resistance, super speed, immobilize and weaken to some of the ToR skills”

they may need more utility, but not so spread out. The effect from every random boon added will take away from the target effect of the skill. the Devs believe in trade off (On Guardian more than most classes). So every point of super speed will result in that much less healing…. All i want this tome to do is Heal, Regen, and Swiftness… THATs IT.

For FireBrand to have a healing tome that competes with the Druid, it needs to be focused or it will cut the base healing out put. Every other need should be added through the corresponding utility choices already available in the core Guard and Mantras… Mantras *sigh

Beyond that, excellent points.

I don’t mean that they should include ALL of that utility on ToR but perhaps one, or some of those suggestions.

The big problem with ToR is that it essentially turns you into a humongous target. It’s as if you’re screaming “Hey, look at me, all I’m doing is pumping out some party healing. I can literally do nothing to stop you from attacking/CCing me right now.”

That’s a problem. Both of the other tomes can do something useful aside from their main functions.

f1: Mainly used for applying burning but can also CC and give a unique buff to allies.
f3: Mainly used for stability and providing boons to allies but can also taunt the opponent and reflect projectiles
f2: Mainly used for healing but can also…. kinda… not really… cleanse condis? And that’s it…..

If you recall the old defensive tome back in the day, it was focused on healing but was also capable of dazing and blinding foes. That functionality should return to our ToR imo. I don’t see why it would come with any cost to our healing, especially if it was placed on #3, since that skill does no healing to begin with.

F2 3rd skill should be blast, cause you can use combo water field 4 than blast 3.

All the mantras were unusable for me and I feel the tomes are almost a lazy copy-paste of engi kits.

Just about every guardian has “stand your ground” + condi removal (save yourselves , contemplation of purity, purging flames), so mantras need to fulfill some void. I want to like Mantra of Lore , but I feel it is too unreliable (for me).

Infusion.7149:

All the mantras were unusable for me and I feel the tomes are almost a lazy copy-paste of engi kits.

Just about every guardian has “stand your ground” + condi removal (save yourselves , contemplation of purity, purging flames), so mantras need to fulfill some void. I want to like Mantra of Lore , but I feel it is too unreliable (for me).

I agree. When using the Mantras, it was not enough and I had to revert to the utilities I normally used on a regular guardian just to be effective in a WvW setting.

Arcaedus.7290:

Okay, rant aside, here are some fixes for ToR that I think would be appreciated:

• Increase base healing values. This tome is no celestial avatar (and never will be due to its cooldown time) but its base-healing needs to at least do better than Dragonhunter’s Wings of Resolve. The scaling with healing power is great but overall healing on ToR is garbage even with 1400-1600 healing power due to bad base healing.
• Add some more utility to these tome skills. Consider adding blind, daze, cripple, resistance, super speed, immobilize and weaken to some of the ToR skills.
  -I think excellent spots to do this would be adding blind to #3, 2s super-speed to #5 (so you can rush to allies and heal them) and 2s resistance per condi cleared on #2.

No, increasing base anything is the absolute worst way to balance/rework values. It’s all about scaling. High base values is the reason why cele ele was stupidly overpowered some time ago, and high scaling is the reason why Viper’s is good for optimal dps for some specs. High scaling is also the reason why people get an actual return on investment into stats — which is what we should all want.

Increase the scaling on Tome of Resolve skills to give an incredible return for investing into Healing Power. Increasing the base values will only give dps guardians fantastic support for no investment into support stats.

The only instance where I’ll agree that base values merit increases is if condition/boon durations are too low. FB axe barely gives any condition damage because the base values for bleeding/burning duration are too low. The scaling for each condition’s damage shouldn’t be increased because condi damage should be about consistent damage over time. Increasing condition duration scaling is a different story.

Wonderfully written OP. I would like to put forth my ideas about Firebrand, also coming purely from a WvW perspective.

While the Tomes might be all fine and dandy in a pve or Raid setting, where a lot of things are scripted, things don’t happen the same way in WvW (As I’m sure many of you know).

Base Guard/DH didn’t have a problem with their Virtues, as they felt like they had a “fair enough” cooldown for their use, and their use was strong. F1 was great on both base/DH as far as a quick aoe boost to your might/some fire damage etc.
Tome of Justice does not give this “quick boost” to anything. It’s more like a “Slow boost to some might, and you either choose to camp this, to actually get something out of it, or waste it completely”

Same goes for ToR and ToC. Virtues was good clean healing, kitten good cleanse, good Stability and protection etc etc.. we all know how Guardians/DH worked, I don’t need to explain.

Tomes are amazing. Even with ToR low healing properties. I do agree, though, that the base healing SHOULD be buffed. You know why? Because you’re heavily sacrificing ANY dps for the time you’re in the Tome. It’s a huge issue I feel, and therefore, I have a few Ideas for what could be changed.

Loremaster (Grandmaster trait)
Tomes gain reduced cooldown based on remaining pages.
(This replaces the current cooldown, and removes the passive on cooldown aspect, as it’s less necessary)

Idea 1: Remaining pages unused after you leave a tome should reduce the cooldown by a % amount. My thought, 50% max. If you’re not using Archivist of Whispers, each page =10%. With the trait, each page = 6.25%.

Example: Open ToR, use Epilogue, then Shining River, then Radiant Recovery. You’ve increased healing power, created a healing combo field and then removed conditions off allies. You then leave SoR and have a 20% reduced cooldown.

Idea 2. Tomes do NOT go on cooldown until you have used ALL the pages. Remove Archivist of Whispers and change it to something. Honestly, I’m not feeling creative.

Arricson Krei.9560:

Arcaedus.7290:

Okay, rant aside, here are some fixes for ToR that I think would be appreciated:

• Increase base healing values. This tome is no celestial avatar (and never will be due to its cooldown time) but its base-healing needs to at least do better than Dragonhunter’s Wings of Resolve. The scaling with healing power is great but overall healing on ToR is garbage even with 1400-1600 healing power due to bad base healing.
• Add some more utility to these tome skills. Consider adding blind, daze, cripple, resistance, super speed, immobilize and weaken to some of the ToR skills.
  -I think excellent spots to do this would be adding blind to #3, 2s super-speed to #5 (so you can rush to allies and heal them) and 2s resistance per condi cleared on #2.

No, increasing base anything is the absolute worst way to balance/rework values. It’s all about scaling. High base values is the reason why cele ele was stupidly overpowered some time ago, and high scaling is the reason why Viper’s is good for optimal dps for some specs. High scaling is also the reason why people get an actual return on investment into stats — which is what we should all want.

Increase the scaling on Tome of Resolve skills to give an incredible return for investing into Healing Power. Increasing the base values will only give dps guardians fantastic support for no investment into support stats.

The only instance where I’ll agree that base values merit increases is if condition/boon durations are too low. FB axe barely gives any condition damage because the base values for bleeding/burning duration are too low. The scaling for each condition’s damage shouldn’t be increased because condi damage should be about consistent damage over time. Increasing condition duration scaling is a different story.

Even with full/high healing power investment (1400-1600), you don’t get that great of returns with ToR and burst healing doesn’t come even close to Celestial Avatar.

Healing aside, lets say you’re focused more on support/utility/burns. There is no incentive at all to go into ToR because it provides no boons, utility or damage. Nothing in ToR interacts with the enemy. There are no blinds, soft cc or daze (things ToR could have). It is horrible at cleansing condis (cleanse 2 condis on a 1s cast to people in close melee range…. plus this is on 3s cooldown).

Altogether, it makes for an underwhelming and underperforming class function. There are appropriate ways to buff ToR. I think you could agree that if the perfect value is reached, there could be a base-healing value for ToR skills (as a whole) that makes non-healing power builds feel that it’s a worthwhile tome while making healing-power focused builds viable.

I played 8-10 sPvP games with FB. I tried multiple builds for condi damage or support and none of them worked well. I played 20-25 sPvP games in the last 3 days. I have not seen one game with someone playing FB do well. Not one.

As it stands core guardian (forget DH) is much stronger. Mantras are good, tomes on the other hand…