Guild Wars 2

At least in my opnion. Just far too much cast time, cast time and melee range on top for that. It’s a really bad mix.

Switching between the tomes are equally clunky because of the cast time, and when you’re finally in the tomes you are being very limited with what you can do.

The cooldowns on the tomes are far, far too long as well, and the 33% trait should just be baseline and replaced with something else, maybe something that makes the tomes instant equips instead of cast time equips.

The axe has potential, but is as well rather slow, and the symbol should AT LEAST give some boon. Sadly the #2 skill has a cast time similar to mace, so the talent feels incredibly useless to take since (in PvP scenarios) everyone can just dodge away or stun you.

The only thing Firebrand is good for at the moment is surprise flame bombing, spamming an opponent with fire stacks when they don’t see you attack them.

Otherwise they are lacklustre in the supporting role since everything has cast time, you are standing there just asking enemies to jump and interrupt you and you are unable to do anything.

Mantras are cool, and got potential, but the charge up is again far too long, and we have no trait whatsoever to improve them or change them. Edit: We do have a trait that reduces cooldown and makes the final charge apply immobilize.

But this 300 cone range stuff is just… sorry, it’s almost like a spit in the face. Long, long cast time, and a 300 range cone? Come on…

Otherwise, visually, sound effects and voicelines the Firebrand is top-notch, except for one thing, and that is the—again—very lacklustre animation of opening a tome.

What happend to our Tome of Wrath, and Tome of Courage animations?! Jon Peters said something in the line of revisiting them years ago, but what we got are pages swirling around us, while we stand in a weapon-drawn stance, with no weapons out at all.

Have a scaled down Tome of Wrath-esque model floating in front of us like in the past, those tomes were beautiful and felt powerful!

Seems great at condition cancer. I’d love to have something like old tomes back around about now; not gonna happen though obviously.

Mantras would be okay-ish if they were long-ranged, but as they are now, they’re trash, as I knew they would be. I’m disappointed, but I already knew I would be.

Tomes are meant to be cooldowns, not something you just slip in and out of. You save them for those intense moments.

Instead of asking for the cooldown and cast time to be reduced we should ask for the tome skills to be more impactfull.

Tomes may function like Kits, but we are not meant to use them like Kits, they are essentially 3 bonus elite skills, just like our old tome elite skills were.

The cones on Mantra have to stay, otherwise what’s the point in Shouts? We can talk about widening the cone and increasing the range but the cone is a key aspect to the gameplay.

The charge up on Mantras is good, your’e not meant to burn through all charges in one go, you have to weave your skills and time them according to the situation, not spam use them all at once.
The final charge can be more impactfull so that flirt of going on long cooldown is more incising.

Also why do we need to be the masters of everything? That creates design chaos, if Firebrands are good are fire bombing then let them be good at fire bombing, use DragonHunter if you want more support.

Oh the entire thing is a disaster. When I first heard about Firebrand I was super excited because I’d be able to actually support people and the fact that it also was burning focused was nice as well. Then I saw the skills and traits and I was still relatively stoked. Once I found out everything was a cone, all my hype for the spec fell apart. I do not want to play a clunky spec and have to jump through a million hoops to seem useful.

That’s just the start of the problems too. Another one is how the entire specs cast times seem to be balanced for when you have quickness. So if Anet wanted a skill to cast in 1s, they made the skill have a 1.5s cast time so that with quickness it is 1s (not exact numbers, just for illustration). Meanwhile everything else in the game is given a 1s cast time so it’s a buff having quickness unlike the FB where it is normal to have quickness and a nerf when you don’t have it.

Arnath.2319:

Tomes are meant to be cooldowns, not something you just slip in and out of. You save them for those intense moments.

Instead of asking for the cooldown and cast time to be reduced we should ask for the tome skills to be more impactfull.

Tomes may function like Kits, but we are not meant to use them like Kits, they are essentially 3 bonus elite skills, just like our old tome elite skills were.

The cones on Mantra have to stay, otherwise what’s the point in Shouts? We can talk about widening the cone and increasing the range but the cone is a key aspect to the gameplay.

The charge up on Mantras is good, your’e not meant to burn through all charges in one go, you have to weave your skills and time them according to the situation, not spam use them all at once.
The final charge can be more impactfull so that flirt of going on long cooldown is more incising.

Also why do we need to be the masters of everything? That creates design chaos, if Firebrands are good are fire bombing then let them be good at fire bombing, use DragonHunter if you want more support.

No one said you’re supposed to burn through everything at once, but in PvP/WvW scenario Firebrand just doesn’t work, at all. The cast time on things plus the very short range makes you a target of constant interrupts and moments of nothing to do since your HP is burning away through interruption and cast times.

At the moment there’s pretty much nothing elite with our F-Tome abilities, majority of the abilities are mediocre for the time and preperation you have to do to use them.

To do anything, or barely anything, you have to stack up on stability.

I find it ironic (and hilarious) that old tomes were removed because the baddies thought they were clunky, and now the new tomes are more clunky than ever.

Firebrand lacks focus.

Mantras are melee and cone (why???). Tomes are range. Tomes require 2 distinct stats to be optimal. You have a condi axe, but when you are using tomes you can’t use the condi axe. It needs something to bring it all together. Maybe like going through tomes improves your stats in another area or something. I don’t know! It just feels off.

Then don’t use Firebrand in PvP/WvW? That is perfectly ok to so and is ArenaNets design intention.

This is what happens when they allow a beta test only in PvP, they should have allowed PvE testing to.

The casts are too long for basically everything.

Arnath.2319:

Then don’t use Firebrand in PvP/WvW? That is perfectly ok to so and is ArenaNets design intention.

This is what happens when they allow a beta test only in PvP, they should have allowed PvE testing to.

I can’t imagine Firebrand’s tome of resolve and tome of courage being usable in raids, to be honest. The support capacity is already owned by the Druid, and Firebrand are far too limited with pages.

It could work like a “oh kitten” button if you need to help with some healing, but that should never happen in a raid scenario nonetheless.

Firebrand is only good for flame bursts, not continuous dps.

The tomes are the most restrictive feeling abilities that have ever been put into the game. They have TWO sets of cooldowns (One for the tome and one of the skills) they use a resource system, AND have CAST TIMES?? For kittens sake guys, could you add any more limiters to these things? Maybe toss some ICDs on the auto attack or remove the passives all together?

The worst part, is the tomes aren’t even that strong enough to warrant all these restrictions.

Clunky is the word.

I understand why they went for cone attacks, but without ground indication it’s really hard to see where you’re going to hit, it’s even worse for support abilities because you can easily end up missing your spell, which is really bad for a support, and in PvP cone attacks are horrendous to use against allies because they’re constantly moving, unlike foes you cannot immobilize them. The 300 range is also ridiculous, just like the auto-attack nerf for the “lootstick”, again doesn’t make for a great support ability.

The Tomes should behave more like Engineer kits, and less like the former elite Tomes. The cast time is quite bad for support, particularly if you need to cleanse or heal quickly an ally, compared to the Druid or Ventari which can quickly achieve those tasks. The cooldown for each Tome should also take into account the number of page used, if I use 2 pages to quickly cleanse and heal an ally it shouldn’t have the same cooldown as using 5 pages or 8 pages, once again it totally cripples support abilities because I can use my healing Tome early on in the fight but it’s going to lock it for 35 secs or more, or I need to remain in the Tome stance even though I don’t need it right now but I’ll need it later, which is even worse, compared to Druid/Ventari it’s just bad. The pages mechanic while being cool might also being the one to blame here, I’d like to see higher cooldown for tome abilities but no pages, just like a kit, or more pages in general, but some abilities such as the fourth and fifth using more pages, in return increasing the cooldown for the use of tomes as discussed above.

As a condition build Firebrand is quite good, but as a support it’s clearly too clunky to be efficient at its job.

Aza.2105:

Firebrand lacks focus.

Tbh I got the same feeling as I was trying to find some build synergy with core trailines.

As long time frontline guard tried it in WvW – almost impossible to operate due to clunky tome design. Mantras could be good to replace empower (and staff) and elite, but you end up with useless tomes.

Alchimist.4738:

Clunky is the word.

…and in PvP cone attacks are horrendous to use against allies because they’re constantly moving…

…Tomes should behave more like Engineer kits…

…As a condition build Firebrand is quite good, but as a support it’s clearly too clunky to be efficient at its job.

Then don’t use Mantras in PvP? Like i don’t understand why y’all are struggling with this concept, just because it’s new doesn’t mean it replaces all our other skills.

Tomes should never be like Kits. Tomes are meant to be cooldowns we use in intense situations, not swapped in and out as a weapon replacement.

Why should the Firebrand be good at both condi and support? That is how balance problems are created.
I would much rather have a strong condi guard with no support then a weak condi guard with weak support. The ‘jack of all trades master of none’ thing is horrible class design.

Except Tomes with their 3/4 cast time to go into it and another 3/4 – 1 1/4 to cast an ability is 2 seconds of not doing anything and you’re easily CC’d.

Tomes need to be at most, 1/4 cast time to go into them and the 3/4 – 1 1/4 cast time of abilities need to be shortened.

To add more to my post, the players are going to use the tomes for one or two abilities then go back to their weapon rotation, to return to the tomes shortly after, no matter what build you play. Obviously tomes cannot be engineer kits, it’d way too strong, and should be limited by pages and cooldown on abilities, but certainly not by tome cooldown and tome casting activation.
I think the best option would be for pages to work similarly to the thief initiative, so let’s say firebrand have 12 pages, and each tome skill and tome activation as the following cost (numbers are here to give you a feel of scale):
Tome Skills: 1 = 1 / 2 = 3 / 3 = 4 / 4 = 6 / 5 = 8
Tome Activation: Justice = 2 / Resolve = 3 / Courage = 4
Then your pages replenish naturally one pages per second, and the Loremaster trait increase the number of pages to 15 and gives access to virtue passives when you’re using the tomes. With the abilities still having their cooldown it wouldn’t be too powerful, though those cooldown might need to be increased.

Arnath.2319:

Tomes should never be like Kits. Tomes are meant to be cooldowns we use in intense situations, not swapped in and out as a weapon replacement.

Then you’ll never use Tome of Resolve and Tome of Courage in PvP, except to have stability before a finisher or to panic heal, and you’ll never use them in hardcore PvE because Druid, and even Ventari, are doing a better job than you.

Arnath.2319:

Why should the Firebrand be good at both condi and support? That is how balance problems are created.
I would much rather have a strong condi guard with no support then a weak condi guard with weak support. The ‘jack of all trades master of none’ thing is horrible class design.

Well because the Firebrand is obviously designed to have both support capacities (heal/boon sharing/burn sharing) and to enhance condition build, as someone said above the Firebrand lacks focus it fulfills two roles and his both focused around melee while having range skill on his tomes.

guardian core needs changes to mix well with FB

SW need to be fixed to what they were bofore but with no A.I(stay close the guard and atacks close targets) with the exception of the commands that could use the actuall ammo system.

Shouts.. what are those?

FB needs sometimes to get some range dome, maybe swap hammer trait on virtues with the shield onde??

lol look at these people cryin’ failing to understand that this is not pvp/wvw oriented

Doombringer BG.3740:

lol look at these people cryin’ failing to understand that this is not pvp/wvw oriented

So what do you think Firebrand can do in PvE then?

It’s all locked behind long cast times, long cooldowns and pages. Damage won’t be any good as a condition build because you’re only avble to burt for a little while and then you’re locked out of tome of justice.

Your healing capabilities are nothing compared to druid, druid will outdo you far and more.

Tome of courage only has use in WvW or PvP, but it’s a mode they don’t shine in, at all.

So from what I see from tomes so far, they offer decent support and insane condition cancer, but positioning-wise they leave you dead in the water, and they also make you more or less defenseless because you’re stuck in close-range with no real self-defense or mobility or even instant-cast virtues. So if you’re focused for a moment you’re screwed, just as I knew it would turn out.

Doombringer BG.3740:

lol look at these people cryin’ failing to understand that this is not pvp/wvw oriented

Ah, so it’s useless in over half of the game. Okay.

Doombringer BG.3740:

lol look at these people cryin’ failing to understand that this is not pvp/wvw oriented

None of the specs are intended to work in only one game mode so stop with this crap. The specs that are only used for one game mode are that way due to bad design, not intent. If they get the spec right it should have some kind of place in all aspects of the game. Obviously this isn’t as easy to achieve as we would like, but stop acting like the spec was designed for the sole purpose of PvE use.

The moment I heard the dev say "more focused support" and "casting" I knew that Firebrand in PvP is going to end up as a chicken meant for slaughter. There will be no FB supports due to how much damage and condi application others can do. I couldn’t outheal the damage of two spellbreakers as a pure support build should be able to withstand 2 players with relative ease, while I got steamrolled to the ground due to how much power burst they could make in an interval of few seconds. Mirage condition application is just unreal. All my conditions were burned out in few seconds and mirage’s condition were nowhere near its end. I was basically out of dodges and blocks while my face was getting pumped with 8k crits every few seconds.
Not to mention holosmith who is honestly so broken in terms of power damage with mixed in condition. When I saw a holo coming my way, even when I healed up he just bursted down my healing in 0.5 second. 10k health went for naught. I was struck with 14k damage in 4 hits with holo leap, and they seem to use it very frequently. I just physically couldn’t heal this in a fight when they focused me to bits. It is good to disengage from combat when you get focused, but FB has zero mobility, we will end up as a new reaper necro, first target to kill. The only you can get is leap from GS or a meditation teleport which already depends on a factor if there is a friend or foe as a target to use.
As for condition damage, Firebrand’s cool and I wouldn’t really change that much. Burn is strong, but it’s the only frequent condi we can drop and it is easy to cleanse with a skill/trait that passively or actively cleanses 1 to 2 condis.
But dang... I am so tilted that Firebrand doesn’t have an access to barrier to tank up the damage we will get in melee range. It is a darn barrier for quality’s sake! Why should a necro get it?
How do they expect us to survive if we are forced to get into melee range with no chance for a quick disengage while most of the classes can do so? Firebrand ends up as a one trick pony that is forced to have a good team to be relatively good. If we are meant to stay in melee range, I would gladly trade block mechanic for barrier. No blocks, let’s have barriers. Now it is just a dice throw when you enter a fight, depending too much on how well your team fights and if they will help you out, because once you burn through the pages of your tomes, you are ready for being slaughtered. The healing is good, but not good enough if we look on how much burst power creep PoF will bring to PvP. This is my experience so far as a support Firebrand. As for condition? It passed the test (however axe feels clunky, especially #3 which only works on stationary targets)

But on the bright side, PvE content will be much, much more fun with this spec, especially with a legendary armour to change stats on a whim. I like that part for sure.

Arnath.2319:

Tomes are meant to be cooldowns, not something you just slip in and out of. You save them for those intense moments.

Instead of asking for the cooldown and cast time to be reduced we should ask for the tome skills to be more impactfull.

Tomes may function like Kits, but we are not meant to use them like Kits, they are essentially 3 bonus elite skills, just like our old tome elite skills were.

The cones on Mantra have to stay, otherwise what’s the point in Shouts? We can talk about widening the cone and increasing the range but the cone is a key aspect to the gameplay.

The charge up on Mantras is good, your’e not meant to burn through all charges in one go, you have to weave your skills and time them according to the situation, not spam use them all at once.
The final charge can be more impactfull so that flirt of going on long cooldown is more incising.

Also why do we need to be the masters of everything? That creates design chaos, if Firebrands are good are fire bombing then let them be good at fire bombing, use DragonHunter if you want more support.

Forgot “masters of everything” it is not even adapt at anything except PvE condi damage. It is pretty weak.

Azoqu.8917:

Oh the entire thing is a disaster. When I first heard about Firebrand I was super excited because I’d be able to actually support people and the fact that it also was burning focused was nice as well. Then I saw the skills and traits and I was still relatively stoked. Once I found out everything was a cone, all my hype for the spec fell apart. I do not want to play a clunky spec and have to jump through a million hoops to seem useful.

That’s just the start of the problems too. Another one is how the entire specs cast times seem to be balanced for when you have quickness. So if Anet wanted a skill to cast in 1s, they made the skill have a 1.5s cast time so that with quickness it is 1s (not exact numbers, just for illustration). Meanwhile everything else in the game is given a 1s cast time so it’s a buff having quickness unlike the FB where it is normal to have quickness and a nerf when you don’t have it.

What this person said +1

Hi All,

I’ve got question about tomes. Since they’re a repleacement for Virtues shoudn’t “Renewed Focus” recharge our tomes?

BR

And crying begins...i told you that firebrand is bad design, and ppl were defending it. Yes its fun fresh but when ppl start to farm you in pvp and wvw fun goes away pretty quick. Prepare for some nerfs too, cause thats guardian destiny, always in a good spot

Arnath.2319:

Then don’t use Firebrand in PvP/WvW? That is perfectly ok to so and is ArenaNets design intention.

Make an entire elite spec.

Don’t use it in 66% of the game modes.

Okay.

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 capcloser is so kitten.
Just bad design ^^

Arnath.2319:

Tomes are meant to be cooldowns, not something you just slip in and out of. You save them for those intense moments.

If that is true then tomes should be instantly available to me. As it stands now, by the time I summoned my tome “for those intense moments” – as you put it – I’m already dead.

Now I already predict you’re going to move the goalpost and claim that tomes are meant for pro-active play and thinking ahead so I’m going to nip this one in the butt before it even happens:

What is the point of pro-active healing or cleansing? You can’t heal/cleanse damage that hasn’t be done yet. And if the enemy pays attention and sees you switching to a tome pro-actively, don’t you think a smart enemy will just adjust and counter your choice of tome with whatever is needed to counter it? Because that’s what happened to me. Not to mention how frikkin often I got denied my Tome of Resolve or Tome of Courage by interrupts. Any player who pays even a bit of attention will know when you’re going to summon which tome and since the summoning of the tomes is so freakishly long it can very easily be interrupted. It’s just…. bad…

Also, why is guardian once again the only class that gets screwed over by sluggish design like this? Does necro shroud have a cast time and a long cooldown? No. Does the druid avatar have a long cast time and long cool down? No sir. Ho about soulbeast’s beastmode? Nope, works just fine. Engineer kits? Can just swap in- and out- of them, easy and quick. Yet the firebrand goes something like this: “Hurrrrrr durrrr lemme cast a freakishly long and extremely obviously telegraphed spell before I get access to my new class feature….”

It bad dude…

Arnath.2319:

Instead of asking for the cooldown and cast time to be reduced we should ask for the tome skills to be more impactful.

The tome skills are already plenty impactful, buffing them further would make them too strong.

Arnath.2319:

Tomes may function like Kits, but we are not meant to use them like Kits, they are essentially 3 bonus elite skills, just like our old tome elite skills were.

Says who?

Also, didn’t Anet remove the old tome elite skills precisely because they were slow, sluggish and broke up the flow of the guardian gameplay? Don’t answer, this is a rethorical question, I already know the answer. The answer is yes, yes they did.
Which makes me wonder, why would Anet think that this time the tomes would be more successful? The tomes are obviously going to have the same issues as before if you don’t change what made them a bad choice for your elite skill slot.

Which brings me to the next point: choice.

With elite skills you have a choice. It’s only 1 skill and you can choose which one you want. But the firebrand as an entire profession is entirely build around the tomes. They are not optional. If you want to play firebrand, you get the tomes whether you like it or not.That’s not the same at all as 1 optional elite skill. It’s not even the same as “3 elite skills” as you put it.

Arnath.2319:

The cones on Mantra have to stay, otherwise what’s the point in Shouts? We can talk about widening the cone and increasing the range but the cone is a key aspect to the gameplay.

What was the point of shouts before PoF? What’s the point of shouts right now? There is no point because shouts on guardian haven’t been good outside of WvW for ages (and I’ve heard that even in WvW they’ve fallen out of favor).

So what you’re essentially are saying is because shouts are bad, mantras should be equally bad because otherwise nobody would use shouts…

Well I’ll tell you what, if they don’t make mantras less hilariously bad, nobody will use mantras either.

Arnath.2319:

The charge up on Mantras is good, your’e not meant to burn through all charges in one go, you have to weave your skills and time them according to the situation, not spam use them all at once.
The final charge can be more impactfull so that flirt of going on long cooldown is more incising.

I agree, but the numbers need to be tweaked. The mantras are just too sluggish and slow right now, especially considering how hilariously underwhelming the effects of the mantras are.

Arnath.2319:

Also why do we need to be the masters of everything? That creates design chaos, if Firebrands are good are fire bombing then let them be good at fire bombing, use DragonHunter if you want more support.

Hello, ever heard of condi druids? Ever heard of condi PS berserkers? Ever heard of elementalists?

Also, using dragonhunter for support… what? Since when is DH a support class? DH was always designed to be the more selfish damage-dealer spec of the guardian, as Anet said themselves. Firebrand was supposed to be the supportive spec while also dealing solid condition damage, which was also said by Anet.

So far, Anet did merely a passable job on making DH the selfish damage dealer, and did a horrible job on making FB a supportive condi spec…

Guardian is only in a “good spot” so far as that guardian is viable in every game mode and nobody will hate you for bringing a guardian to the group, but I feel like that’s going to change with FB. People are either going to keep playing their DH or not play guardian at all in PoF, which is a real shame.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Arnath.2319:

Tomes are meant to be cooldowns, not something you just slip in and out of. You save them for those intense moments.

If that is true then tomes should be instantly available to me. As it stands now, by the time I summoned my tome “for those intense moments” – as you put it – I’m already dead.

Now I already predict you’re going to move the goalpost and claim that tomes are meant for pro-active play and thinking ahead so I’m going to nip this one in the butt before it even happens:

What is the point of pro-active healing or cleansing? You can’t heal/cleanse damage that hasn’t be done yet. And if the enemy pays attention and sees you switching to a tome pro-actively, don’t you think a smart enemy will just adjust and counter your choice of tome with whatever is needed to counter it? Because that’s what happened to me. Not to mention how frikkin often I got denied my Tome of Resolve or Tome of Courage by interrupts. Any player who pays even a bit of attention will know when you’re going to summon which tome and since the summoning of the tomes is so freakishly long it can very easily be interrupted. It’s just…. bad…

Also, why is guardian once again the only class that gets screwed over by sluggish design like this? Does necro shroud have a cast time and a long cooldown? No. Does the druid avatar have a long cast time and long cool down? No sir. Ho about soulbeast’s beastmode? Nope, works just fine. Engineer kits? Can just swap in- and out- of them, easy and quick. Yet the firebrand goes something like this: “Hurrrrrr durrrr lemme cast a freakishly long and extremely obviously telegraphed spell before I get access to my new class feature….”

It bad dude…

Arnath.2319:

Instead of asking for the cooldown and cast time to be reduced we should ask for the tome skills to be more impactful.

The tome skills are already plenty impactful, buffing them further would make them too strong.

Arnath.2319:

Tomes may function like Kits, but we are not meant to use them like Kits, they are essentially 3 bonus elite skills, just like our old tome elite skills were.

Says who?

Also, didn’t Anet remove the old tome elite skills precisely because they were slow, sluggish and broke up the flow of the guardian gameplay? Don’t answer, this is a rethorical question, I already know the answer. The answer is yes, yes they did.
Which makes me wonder, why would Anet think that this time the tomes would be more successful? The tomes are obviously going to have the same issues as before if you don’t change what made them a bad choice for your elite skill slot.

Which brings me to the next point: choice.

With elite skills you have a choice. It’s only 1 skill and you can choose which one you want. But the firebrand as an entire profession is entirely build around the tomes. They are not optional. If I want to play firebrand, I ge the tomes whether I like it or not.That’s not the same at all as 1 elite skill. It’s not even the same as “3 elite skills” as you put it.

Arnath.2319:

The cones on Mantra have to stay, otherwise what’s the point in Shouts? We can talk about widening the cone and increasing the range but the cone is a key aspect to the gameplay.

What was the point of shouts before PoF? What’s the point of shouts right now? There is no point because shouts on guardian haven’t been good outside of WvW for ages (and I’ve heard that even in WvW they’ve fallen out of favor).

So what you’re essentially are saying is because shouts are bad, mantras should be equally bad because otherwise nobody would use shouts…

Well I’ll tell you what, if they don’t make mantras less hilariously bad, nobody will use mantras either.

Arnath.2319:

The charge up on Mantras is good, your’e not meant to burn through all charges in one go, you have to weave your skills and time them according to the situation, not spam use them all at once.
The final charge can be more impactfull so that flirt of going on long cooldown is more incising.

I agree, but the numbers need to be tweaked. The mantras are just too sluggish and slow right now, especially considering how hilariously underwhelming the effects of the mantras are.

Arnath.2319:

Also why do we need to be the masters of everything? That creates design chaos, if Firebrands are good are fire bombing then let them be good at fire bombing, use DragonHunter if you want more support.

Hello, ever heard of condi druids? Ever heard of condi PS berserkers? Ever heard of elementalists?

Also, using dragonhunter for support… what? Since when is DH a support class? DH was always designed to be the more selfish damage-dealer spec of the guardian, as Anet said themselves. Firebrand was supposed to be the supportive spec while also dealing solid condition damage, which was also said by Anet.

So far, Anet did merely a passable job on making DH the selfish damage dealer, and did a horrible job on making FB a supportive condi spec…

Guardian is only in a “good spot” so far as that guardian is viable in every game mode and nobody will hate you for bringing a guardian to the group, but I feel like that’s going to change with FB. People are either going to keep playing their DH or not play guardian at all in PoF, which is a real shame.

you should calm down

Mastamaker.2957:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Arnath.2319:

Tomes are meant to be cooldowns, not something you just slip in and out of. You save them for those intense moments.

If that is true then tomes should be instantly available to me. As it stands now, by the time I summoned my tome “for those intense moments” – as you put it – I’m already dead.

Now I already predict you’re going to move the goalpost and claim that tomes are meant for pro-active play and thinking ahead so I’m going to nip this one in the butt before it even happens:

What is the point of pro-active healing or cleansing? You can’t heal/cleanse damage that hasn’t be done yet. And if the enemy pays attention and sees you switching to a tome pro-actively, don’t you think a smart enemy will just adjust and counter your choice of tome with whatever is needed to counter it? Because that’s what happened to me. Not to mention how frikkin often I got denied my Tome of Resolve or Tome of Courage by interrupts. Any player who pays even a bit of attention will know when you’re going to summon which tome and since the summoning of the tomes is so freakishly long it can very easily be interrupted. It’s just…. bad…

Also, why is guardian once again the only class that gets screwed over by sluggish design like this? Does necro shroud have a cast time and a long cooldown? No. Does the druid avatar have a long cast time and long cool down? No sir. Ho about soulbeast’s beastmode? Nope, works just fine. Engineer kits? Can just swap in- and out- of them, easy and quick. Yet the firebrand goes something like this: “Hurrrrrr durrrr lemme cast a freakishly long and extremely obviously telegraphed spell before I get access to my new class feature….”

It bad dude…

Arnath.2319:

Instead of asking for the cooldown and cast time to be reduced we should ask for the tome skills to be more impactful.

The tome skills are already plenty impactful, buffing them further would make them too strong.

Arnath.2319:

Tomes may function like Kits, but we are not meant to use them like Kits, they are essentially 3 bonus elite skills, just like our old tome elite skills were.

Says who?

Also, didn’t Anet remove the old tome elite skills precisely because they were slow, sluggish and broke up the flow of the guardian gameplay? Don’t answer, this is a rethorical question, I already know the answer. The answer is yes, yes they did.
Which makes me wonder, why would Anet think that this time the tomes would be more successful? The tomes are obviously going to have the same issues as before if you don’t change what made them a bad choice for your elite skill slot.

Which brings me to the next point: choice.

With elite skills you have a choice. It’s only 1 skill and you can choose which one you want. But the firebrand as an entire profession is entirely build around the tomes. They are not optional. If I want to play firebrand, I ge the tomes whether I like it or not.That’s not the same at all as 1 elite skill. It’s not even the same as “3 elite skills” as you put it.

Arnath.2319:

The cones on Mantra have to stay, otherwise what’s the point in Shouts? We can talk about widening the cone and increasing the range but the cone is a key aspect to the gameplay.

What was the point of shouts before PoF? What’s the point of shouts right now? There is no point because shouts on guardian haven’t been good outside of WvW for ages (and I’ve heard that even in WvW they’ve fallen out of favor).

So what you’re essentially are saying is because shouts are bad, mantras should be equally bad because otherwise nobody would use shouts…

Well I’ll tell you what, if they don’t make mantras less hilariously bad, nobody will use mantras either.

Arnath.2319:

The charge up on Mantras is good, your’e not meant to burn through all charges in one go, you have to weave your skills and time them according to the situation, not spam use them all at once.
The final charge can be more impactfull so that flirt of going on long cooldown is more incising.

I agree, but the numbers need to be tweaked. The mantras are just too sluggish and slow right now, especially considering how hilariously underwhelming the effects of the mantras are.

Arnath.2319:

Also why do we need to be the masters of everything? That creates design chaos, if Firebrands are good are fire bombing then let them be good at fire bombing, use DragonHunter if you want more support.

Hello, ever heard of condi druids? Ever heard of condi PS berserkers? Ever heard of elementalists?

Also, using dragonhunter for support… what? Since when is DH a support class? DH was always designed to be the more selfish damage-dealer spec of the guardian, as Anet said themselves. Firebrand was supposed to be the supportive spec while also dealing solid condition damage, which was also said by Anet.

So far, Anet did merely a passable job on making DH the selfish damage dealer, and did a horrible job on making FB a supportive condi spec…

Guardian is only in a “good spot” so far as that guardian is viable in every game mode and nobody will hate you for bringing a guardian to the group, but I feel like that’s going to change with FB. People are either going to keep playing their DH or not play guardian at all in PoF, which is a real shame.

you should calm down

What a wonderful post, really added a lot to the conversation there mate.

I happen to be extremely calm, sitting here in my bad robes with a warm cup of tea. I’m good. Would be even better if firebrand was also good though. :P

But thanks for your concern, it’s appreciated.

“Also, didn’t Anet remove the old tome elite skills precisely because they were slow, sluggish and broke up the flow of the guardian gameplay? Don’t answer, this is a rethorical question, I already know the answer. The answer is yes, yes they did.”

lmao, I died laughing. very true

I was very excited by the theme of this, and very let down by the implementation. The Tome are what drew me, but with the limited pages, long cooldowns, and very single-focus functionality make them practically unusable. The fire tome seems like a fun weapon, but you basically get one run through it and then it’s on CD forever. The heal and buff ones seem nice at those roles, but when you’re in them you can’t be doing anything else. What use is someone who ONLY heals or ONLY buffs in a solo situation?

Here’s my suggestion on how to make the Firebrand viable.

1. Reduce the cooldown on each tome to around 4s. You should be able to swap them like Ele attunements.

2. Make it so that the #1 skill burns no pages. You should be able to spam it indefinitely like any other #1 skill (maybe change the Healing and Buffing #1 skills to be minor damage abilities instead).

3. Make it so that all pages are shared between books, and regenerate over time like
Thief Initiative.

There we go, problems solved. This way, you can roll between the three tomes like an Ele would from Fire/Air to Water to Earth, buffing and healing while needed while hopping quickly back to your DPS spec. The free #1 skill give you something you do while you wait for pages to respawn. The regenerating pages allow you to keep using the books constantly, while still limiting your ability to just spam out the strongest attacks.

Make it happen.

Firebrand as a whole is deeply flawed. Mantras have no range, very small attack area and massive cooldowns. Tomes, and their skills, have four limitations (Tome cooldown, skill cooldown, cast times and pages). Justice was gutted to make up for Axe 1’s chain and other burn sources, so if you were planning on using other weapons to do burns (while playing Firebrand) good luck.

Dragonhunter, a power focused spec, brings better condition application than Firebrand does currently. Isn’t that dumb?

Well, as far as I liked it at first, you guys convinced me. I mained guard for the most part of my playtime in 4 years I have played the game but after raids I had to swich to druid cause guardian felt lacking a lot. Now it seems FB needs a deep rework and it’s only a month before release.

Eh, my hopes for maining guard again are still dead I presume. ;/

After making some tests I can safely say that FB is forced to stack quickness to be decent in a fight (in current state of testing). It’s not easy to do if you are build for mantras and tomes, but still FB in pvp has to do twice as much to perform like most classes that just have to get in there and pop a few buttons to melt faces.
However, this is important. It’s not all about how FB is weak, it’s just that some other classes (not every class, just 4-5 of them now) are just plain broken with their damage and speed of their actions. If this will get nerfed to reasonable levels, FB will do just nicely without much interference.

i don’t want to be rude , but testers was sleeping while they had to test firebrand? i mean it’s obvius after 4 min that mantra need to be aoe circle or something similar , that tomes are too slow and not soo rewarding , that axe don’t have a boon with symbol and that at the moment we don’t have a long range weapon (1200), and there are at least 3-4 major bugs btw…..

and another thing , they seems to want to push support , but we don’t have support/healer weapon : staff is just idiotic and clunky , mace is useless , the only good weapon for support is shield but it’s an offhand…. and the heal tome is just useless tou can’t only heal around you , you need something like lunar impact and some movement skill….

Ragnarox.9601:

And crying begins…i told you that firebrand is bad design, and ppl were defending it. Yes its fun fresh but when ppl start to farm you in pvp and wvw fun goes away pretty quick. Prepare for some nerfs too, cause thats guardian destiny, always in a good spot

The difference is: QQing after actually playtesting the elite for a bit is legit and fine. Calling doom and drama based on previews, on the other hand, is laughable at best. Obviously, issues should be solved to whatever is deemed as acceptable.
But yes, from the short bit I whacked on the Golem (as I don’t give kitten about PvP), it feels slow-ish. The Axe’s 2-4 skills feel as slow as the Mace, and of course the auto attack could be faster/smoother. The charge-up time from the Mantra/2-4 skills feels also too long, but I guess that’s a general issue with the new ammo system.

Mahou.3924:

The difference is: QQing after actually playtesting the elite for a bit is legit and fine. Calling doom and drama based on previews, on the other hand, is laughable at best.

Except that all the problems had been identified before the beta test. Not all of us have to press buttons to know what doesn’t work, we have been playing this game for 5 years and we had both in-game footage, and the tooltip of every skill and trait.

We knew mantras were short-range cones, we knew everything had long cast times, we knew tomes and mantras have huge cooldowns, we knew the final charges are not rewarding enough.

The only thing new is that axe auto can fail to register when you spam it with quickness, and I was under the impression that axe would have 300 range, so that’s another disappointment.

Kerivek.5740:

Doombringer BG.3740:

lol look at these people cryin’ failing to understand that this is not pvp/wvw oriented

None of the specs are intended to work in only one game mode so stop with this crap. The specs that are only used for one game mode are that way due to bad design, not intent. If they get the spec right it should have some kind of place in all aspects of the game. Obviously this isn’t as easy to achieve as we would like, but stop acting like the spec was designed for the sole purpose of PvE use.

You are wrong.

The devs have clearly stated numerous times that elite specs have niches and won’t work in every game mode and every scenario.

Look at the Warrior elite spec, purely PvP.

It isn’t “bad deign”, it is deliberately and smart, we are meant to swap our Elite specs in and out, DragonHunter should be seeing just as much play time as Firebrand this expansion, that is how this game is meant to be played, that is the entire point of elite specs.

Arnath.2319:

Kerivek.5740:

Doombringer BG.3740:

lol look at these people cryin’ failing to understand that this is not pvp/wvw oriented

None of the specs are intended to work in only one game mode so stop with this crap. The specs that are only used for one game mode are that way due to bad design, not intent. If they get the spec right it should have some kind of place in all aspects of the game. Obviously this isn’t as easy to achieve as we would like, but stop acting like the spec was designed for the sole purpose of PvE use.

You are wrong.

The devs have clearly stated numerous times that elite specs have niches and won’t work in every game mode and every scenario.

Look at the Warrior elite spec, purely PvP.

It isn’t “bad deign”, it is deliberately and smart, we are meant to swap our Elite specs in and out, DragonHunter should be seeing just as much play time as Firebrand this expansion, that is how this game is meant to be played, that is the entire point of elite specs.

Elite specs have specific niches, they are not designed to be only usable in specific game modes.

Dragonhunter is the go-to spec for long range and power dps. Firebrand doesn’t compete with DH in that at all.

But saying that DH is meant to be the pvp spec and firebrand is restricted to raids is flat-out wrong.

Even your example of Spellbreaker doesn’t prove otherwise, Spellbreaker is amazing in both pvp and wvw and we don’t know how much damage it does to judge its pve relevance.

It isn’t “bad deign”, it is deliberately and smart, we are meant to swap our Elite specs in and out, DragonHunter should be seeing just as much play time as Firebrand this expansion, that is how this game is meant to be played, that is the entire point of elite specs.

If we’re meant to swap elite specs then they need to have a “swap specs” button or something, because right now it’s WAY too much of a hassle.

Also, since the elite specs are a large selling point of any expansion, they need to be something that ALL players can enjoy, not just players of a certain mode. All specs should be fun and viable in ALL gameplay modes, so long as you tweak the traits accordingly. For example there should obviously be a Guardian support spec build available, but there should also be a more focused soloing build, in which the traits offer less team support and more solo-friendly effects. Deadeye seems to be an example of this (whether or not it’s actually any good at it), in that most traitlines are based on damage, but at least one row seems to be based on spreading buffs around to others.

And yes, if Spellbreaker is useless outside of PvP, then that is 100% pure “bad design.” I’d raised concerns that they seemed to be boon-corruption based, which would on its face be useless in PvE, but an easy way they could correct for that is to balance mobs around having simple and consistent boons, so that boon stripping would be a perfectly viable play style in PvE.

Darknicrofia.2604:

Arnath.2319:

Then don’t use Firebrand in PvP/WvW? That is perfectly ok to so and is ArenaNets design intention.

Make an entire elite spec.

Don’t use it in 66% of the game modes.

Okay.

Rather 100% of game modes. Ok, the pure condi dps part may (or may not) work in PvE, but the support part certainly won’t work at the current state.

RabbitUp.8294:

Mahou.3924:

The difference is: QQing after actually playtesting the elite for a bit is legit and fine. Calling doom and drama based on previews, on the other hand, is laughable at best.

Except that all the problems had been identified before the beta test. Not all of us have to press buttons to know what doesn’t work, we have been playing this game for 5 years and we had both in-game footage, and the tooltip of every skill and trait.

Not everyone has reading comprehension unfortunately.

Syktek.7912:

Firebrand as a whole is deeply flawed. Mantras have no range, very small attack area and massive cooldowns. Tomes, and their skills, have four limitations (Tome cooldown, skill cooldown, cast times and pages).

You forgot about the range limitations too~

Fashion Mage.3712:

RabbitUp.8294:

Mahou.3924:

The difference is: QQing after actually playtesting the elite for a bit is legit and fine. Calling doom and drama based on previews, on the other hand, is laughable at best.

Except that all the problems had been identified before the beta test. Not all of us have to press buttons to know what doesn’t work, we have been playing this game for 5 years and we had both in-game footage, and the tooltip of every skill and trait.

Not everyone has reading comprehension unfortunately.

Syktek.7912:

Firebrand as a whole is deeply flawed. Mantras have no range, very small attack area and massive cooldowns. Tomes, and their skills, have four limitations (Tome cooldown, skill cooldown, cast times and pages).

You forgot about the range limitations too~

I did, but I was wrong about justice.

Comparing Justice passive procs.
FB: 1 3/4s @ 586 – 335 /s
DH: 3 1/2s @ 1171 – 335 /s
Core: 6 3/4s @ 2,341 – 347 /s
Done in sPvP lobby with carrion stats, balth runes and smoldering sigils.

Justice got a pretty nice buff considering it burns quicker now.

Syktek.7912:

I did, but I was wrong about justice.

Comparing Justice passive procs.
FB: 1 3/4s @ 586 – 335 /s
DH: 3 1/2s @ 1171 – 335 /s
Core: 6 3/4s @ 2,341 – 347 /s
Done in sPvP lobby with carrion stats, balth runes and smoldering sigils.

Justice got a pretty nice buff considering it burns quicker now.

What does “burns quicker” mean, all conditions behave the same regardless of their skill of origin.

And you calculated it yourself that the dps is the same (nothing quicker there), but the duration is lower. So what exactly is your point?

So far, after playing it for a bit and having a chance to try out a few trait / gear combinations, axe seems completely worthless to me while the tomes and traits for them are decent.

Axe for me was utterly useless. Its lack of range + cast times make it worthless both for small scale / roaming and group play due to targets simply avoiding being hit by it.

the tomes and their traits combined with the new cleansing and stab mantras have some serious potential though, especially in organized group play. just really need to get to know all 15 new skills to become proficient at them, hehe

thats going to take a bit of time

RabbitUp.8294:

Syktek.7912:

I did, but I was wrong about justice.

Comparing Justice passive procs.
FB: 1 3/4s @ 586 – 335 /s
DH: 3 1/2s @ 1171 – 335 /s
Core: 6 3/4s @ 2,341 – 347 /s
Done in sPvP lobby with carrion stats, balth runes and smoldering sigils.

Justice got a pretty nice buff considering it burns quicker now.

What does “burns quicker” mean, all conditions behave the same regardless of their skill of origin.

And you calculated it yourself that the dps is the same (nothing quicker there), but the duration is lower. So what exactly is your point?

Very short burn duration means less time to clear it. Basically less time to stop the house from burning down. Faster burns are a good thing.

The only downside is less potential damage, but that potential damage doesn’t really matter in PvP (where the tests were done). It gives you more guaranteed damage which is great. In WvW I messed around a little and you can potentially turn FB Justice passive into a very, very deadly thing if your build revolves around it.

My take anyway.

Syktek.7912:

RabbitUp.8294:

Syktek.7912:

I did, but I was wrong about justice.

Comparing Justice passive procs.
FB: 1 3/4s @ 586 – 335 /s
DH: 3 1/2s @ 1171 – 335 /s
Core: 6 3/4s @ 2,341 – 347 /s
Done in sPvP lobby with carrion stats, balth runes and smoldering sigils.

Justice got a pretty nice buff considering it burns quicker now.

What does “burns quicker” mean, all conditions behave the same regardless of their skill of origin.

And you calculated it yourself that the dps is the same (nothing quicker there), but the duration is lower. So what exactly is your point?

Very short burn duration means less time to clear it. Basically less time to stop the house from burning down. Faster burns are a good thing.

The only downside is less potential damage, but that potential damage doesn’t really matter in PvP (where the tests were done). It gives you more guaranteed damage which is great. In WvW I messed around a little and you can potentially turn FB Justice passive into a very, very deadly thing if your build revolves around it.

My take anyway.

Are you seriously saying that less burn is better?

1 second of burning does x damage.
4 seconds of burning does up to 4x damage, but i will never do less damage than 1 second of burning, unless you cleanse it immediately, in which case both 1s and 4s will do 0 damage.

Burning is damage over time. The more duration the better, you can’t say less duration is better because you can’t cleanse it. Guess what, it “cleanses” itself, because it stops ticking sooner than the 4s burn.