Guild Wars 2

I’m planning to craft ascended armor for my Firebrand ahead of the next expansion. I’ll mainly be using him in open world PvE/big events/fractals, and perhaps some WvW (but rarely).

Was thinking of crafting Viper’s, but before I’d start I thought it would be a good idea to ask it here, to avoid a ‘’kitten , I shouldn’t have done that’’. The reason why I think of Viper’s is because the build will be burning focussed. I got two accesoires with celestial stats (ascended), which I plan to keep.

viper in wvw, viper does not have vitality and you will die too quickly.

I am planing to make celestial cause I was playing it in the test and looks ok plus they will probably buff firebrand cause it was trash tier.
F1 time was awesome on celestial firebrand and all other stats are good for healing toughness.

but before that I suggest you wait for ppl to test them out when expansion comes. Dont rush. save mats for later.

i tested with both celestial and trailblazer with travaler runes in burn builds in wvw and pvp and i say trailblazers. 20 k health and over 3300 in toughness while almost maixing out condition damage.

Celestials might be nice if you go into honor and take advantage of the healing power or if you trait in zeal for might on the scepter. But if so we are taliing about power builds

I have both in ascended in heavy and i played my guardian a bit the last two weeks and i have to say a burn build with trailblazers is just one tough kitten to kill and can stack burns.

But if only one set is possible in the future as well i have to say celestial, it opens up more options and build diversity.

I’d only have the gold to create 1 set, so I want it to be the right one. I just know I want it to be a burning build. Not power oriented (GS, or something). Thinking of Scepter/Focus & Axe/Torch. Would be nice if I could support a bit tho. Hard to decide what to craft.

Brutaly.6257:

i tested with both celestial and trailblazer with travaler runes in burn builds in wvw and pvp and i say trailblazers. 20 k health and over 3300 in toughness while almost maixing out condition damage.

Celestials might be nice if you go into honor and take advantage of the healing power or if you trait in zeal for might on the scepter. But if so we are taliing about power builds

I have both in ascended in heavy and i played my guardian a bit the last two weeks and i have to say a burn build with trailblazers is just one tough kitten to kill and can stack burns.

But if only one set is possible in the future as well i have to say celestial, it opens up more options and build diversity.

I was testing celestial build with sinister weapons (i think) plus valor boon heal trait. Was healing 85 for every boon i give. 3k armor and 42% crit but had 1850 power only. It could work if they rework tomes to be kits and pages like initiative regen. Firebrand is clunky and underpowered if you dont go full condy and pray gods that you put 15 burning before they kill you. Hoping for good rework cause 90% class reviews are bad for firebrand.

Maybe I’ll just make a little mix. Some pieces being Viper’s, and some Trailblazer. Especially playing in PvE, so it should be good enough.

your armor makes up a lot less of your stat points than your jewelry does. so, probably celestial for its versatility. Then for jewelry go viper for pve, and have an offset for trailblazers for going to wvw.

I’d seriously consider waiting for the new stat combos. But if not, maybe consider Seraph, just to utilize everything a FB can bring to the table. It’ll also shake up the norm a bit, because Viper is just so played to death. lol

Alwayshappy.2549:

I’d only have the gold to create 1 set, so I want it to be the right one. I just know I want it to be a burning build. Not power oriented (GS, or something). Thinking of Scepter/Focus & Axe/Torch. Would be nice if I could support a bit tho. Hard to decide what to craft.

For burning builds, go dire because Expertise won’t do you much good.
You can easily get high additional Burning duration without fancy shmance HoT stats by using: Sigil of Smoldering (20%), Runes of Balthazar (45% with all 6 runes), Radiant Fire trait via Radiance (+20%). That’s a total of +85% burning duration. With foods/utils, you can get an additional +8.66% condition duration (100 expertise/ 70 condi damage food & Furious Tuning Crystal which yields 30 expertise from 1000 precision).

Sure you can cap your duration with a bit of trailblazers, but eh.

Getting Dire gear is easy. Go on the tp and search for exotic lvl 80 trinkets with condi, tough, and vit. You’ll find trinkets like “Fang of Tequatl” which have dire stats. You can also do Crucible of Eternity and earn Dire armor/weapons that way.

During the beta weekend I was fooling around with Support/Heal guard for small scale WvW. Went pretty well if you know which buttons to press and when. Boon duration (Minstrel’s) is fine, but with all the boon corrupt coming via Path of Fire, I’m most likely going to go Nomad’s. Could also go Apothecary/Settler’s if you wanna mix condi and healing.

Seraph’s > Sage’s (if added in expac) > Viper

If the Seraph were CondiDamage+Healing main and Concentration+Expertise that would be the stat to go.

Hopefully they release a stat combination like that.

Arricson Krei.9560:

Alwayshappy.2549:

I’d only have the gold to create 1 set, so I want it to be the right one. I just know I want it to be a burning build. Not power oriented (GS, or something). Thinking of Scepter/Focus & Axe/Torch. Would be nice if I could support a bit tho. Hard to decide what to craft.

For burning builds, go dire because Expertise won’t do you much good.
You can easily get high additional Burning duration without fancy shmance HoT stats by using: Sigil of Smoldering (20%), Runes of Balthazar (45% with all 6 runes), Radiant Fire trait via Radiance (+20%). That’s a total of +85% burning duration. With foods/utils, you can get an additional +8.66% condition duration (100 expertise/ 70 condi damage food & Furious Tuning Crystal which yields 30 expertise from 1000 precision).

Sure you can cap your duration with a bit of trailblazers, but eh.

Getting Dire gear is easy. Go on the tp and search for exotic lvl 80 trinkets with condi, tough, and vit. You’ll find trinkets like “Fang of Tequatl” which have dire stats. You can also do Crucible of Eternity and earn Dire armor/weapons that way.

During the beta weekend I was fooling around with Support/Heal guard for small scale WvW. Went pretty well if you know which buttons to press and when. Boon duration (Minstrel’s) is fine, but with all the boon corrupt coming via Path of Fire, I’m most likely going to go Nomad’s. Could also go Apothecary/Settler’s if you wanna mix condi and healing.

My guard (and ultimately FB) is full minstrel/leadership runes support. Minus the scourge boon corruption stuff, how’d you fair as full support? Were tome cast times ever an issue? That’s my biggest fear.

Mikau.6920:

If the Seraph were CondiDamage+Healing main and Concentration+Expertise that would be the stat to go.

Hopefully they release a stat combination like that.

They really need a good condi/boon duration stat combo that doesn’t involve precision. In pvp/wvw that is a near useless stat for a burn guard (especially if they don’t take radiance).

Selendile.9106:

Arricson Krei.9560:

Alwayshappy.2549:

I’d only have the gold to create 1 set, so I want it to be the right one. I just know I want it to be a burning build. Not power oriented (GS, or something). Thinking of Scepter/Focus & Axe/Torch. Would be nice if I could support a bit tho. Hard to decide what to craft.

For burning builds, go dire because Expertise won’t do you much good.
You can easily get high additional Burning duration without fancy shmance HoT stats by using: Sigil of Smoldering (20%), Runes of Balthazar (45% with all 6 runes), Radiant Fire trait via Radiance (+20%). That’s a total of +85% burning duration. With foods/utils, you can get an additional +8.66% condition duration (100 expertise/ 70 condi damage food & Furious Tuning Crystal which yields 30 expertise from 1000 precision).

Sure you can cap your duration with a bit of trailblazers, but eh.

Getting Dire gear is easy. Go on the tp and search for exotic lvl 80 trinkets with condi, tough, and vit. You’ll find trinkets like “Fang of Tequatl” which have dire stats. You can also do Crucible of Eternity and earn Dire armor/weapons that way.

During the beta weekend I was fooling around with Support/Heal guard for small scale WvW. Went pretty well if you know which buttons to press and when. Boon duration (Minstrel’s) is fine, but with all the boon corrupt coming via Path of Fire, I’m most likely going to go Nomad’s. Could also go Apothecary/Settler’s if you wanna mix condi and healing.

My guard (and ultimately FB) is full minstrel/leadership runes support. Minus the scourge boon corruption stuff, how’d you fair as full support? Were tome cast times ever an issue? That’s my biggest fear.

Cast times weren’t ever an issue. My roaming group and I know what each of us are running, and typically we are individually tanky in addition to having two supports in a group of 6-7 or so. My role as Firebrand support was to give off trickle heals, safe stomp, and give Ashes of the Just to our dps (all of whom were running condi, in light of the PoF specs).

By speccing for quickness, you lose a lot of healing potential. If you have stability (Stand Your Ground is a must have, Liberation Mantra is great for stun breaking), cast times won’t be an issue if you know how to spam Resolve heals and pay attention to condis on your allies. If you take the Firebrand trait that gives Aegis on Courage tome skills, it’s almost like you have a second Resolve tome with built in stability — assuming you take Pure of Heart. So again, if you time your stabs and your allies aren’t dumb enough to go full zerk in small scale WvW, then: cast times aren’t an issue and trickle healing is fantastic.

Hope this helps.

Maybe wait for the new stats.

I would definitely suggest waiting for the new stats and they will no doubt change a bunch of stuff when expansion drops. Who knows the whole meta could shift.
Also, can anyone explain to me what the use of the word “kitten” means in these forums?

Kitten is the profanity filter.

Do we think they’ll leave Balthazar runes as is anyway? It’s giving a frightful amount of burning duration, compared to a lot of other ones. Which is cool mind you, just you know, it seems to have been dialled back a lot into Expertise rating elsewhere.

Anyway, I’d definitely wait too. I also agree with Mikau, that’d probably be my dream stat.

Amethyst Lure.5624:

Do we think they’ll leave Balthazar runes as is anyway? It’s giving a frightful amount of burning duration, compared to a lot of other ones. Which is cool mind you, just you know, it seems to have been dialled back a lot into Expertise rating elsewhere.

Anyway, I’d definitely wait too. I also agree with Mikau, that’d probably be my dream stat.

I can’t really see them changing Balthazar runes. Every rune set that increases a singular condition (or boon) increases it by 45%. It is the benefit for specializing in one condition (and how i could see both burn/power guardian using Greiver’s with balth runes, just swap utilities and elite spec).