Guild Wars 2

Its hard landing mantras, tomes and axe hits when almost all classes be it team mates or enemy are speeding around and away with either 25% passive mobi, superspeed, perma swiftness spam or huge gap gaining skills.
I couldn’t land the cones consistently and in a decent manner without equiping a rune with passive 25% mobi. This limits builds way too much.

Not to mention the need to kite the enemy. You put a completly teambased melee class in an arena where it cant keep up with a team, all while gettin pressured to death by insane ranged damage. It has 0 gap skills. We dont even have a decent range weapon. No, scepter wont cut it when facing snipers..

Firebrand needs a: “When equiped with axe weapon gain 25% mobility passive.” Put it on Swift scolar or Imbued haste traits.

If mantras and some tome skills are to stay as cone they need to be either the size of old staff wave 1 skill or like shield 4 is.

This is not just a problem with firebrand, but with the Guardian as a whole. While other classes continue to become more mobile with each new iteration, Guardian mobility is continuously neglected. It’s gotten to the point where playing a Firebrand makes you feel like you’re wading through tar, in contrast to the mobility other classes enjoy.

This simply does not make sense, especially for an elite spec whose entire skill set is used either in close or melee range. Enemies will simply kite us. Allies will outrun us. And we can’t disengage when we’re focused down.

Honestly, it would be nice if we had a trait for pulsing stability while we use tomes, and for a movement speed buff (I agree with your idea of a movement speed buff on Swift Scholar, however, I would not limit it to being equipped with an axe). We also need more displacement skills such as teleports or leaps. Why axe has no gap closer is beyond me, and its pull is too unreliable to count on.

Honestly, I’d really love for the developers to offer their insight on this particular topic. I’d like to know why they introduced a close ranged elite spec that completely lacks any form of mobility, and the intention behind that design philosophy. I’d also like to know if they have any intention of improving things in that regard, or if they are adamant that things remain as they are, and if so, why.

Cries in slow motion

Exactly the reason I am not able to play Guardian – no passive movement speed option = no thanx for me

I’d more like to have a 25% speed buff when using the tomes as you should spike and support with them.
Having 25% swiftness with axe only would make other meele weapons inferior to axe.

Alteran.9510:

I’d more like to have a 25% speed buff when using the tomes as you should spike and support with them.
Having 25% swiftness with axe only would make other meele weapons inferior to axe.

It would be better just to make it a base 25% movement speed, with no requirements. I’d say the same about any other movement speed traits.

I wouldn’t say mobility. I’d say they need more range on their abilities and a removal of a lot of cast times and cooldowns.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

It would be better just to make it a base 25% movement speed, with no requirements. I’d say the same about any other movement speed traits.

DH got F2 jump and is designed to fight in range (bow, 1200 range pull, 14% more damage when far away).
Core guard doesn’t need to be in 130-300 meele range as his virtues have a 600 range.
FB needs to be in meele range or 80% of his tomes spells are useless. Mantras are optional but the tomes can’t be traded in other skills obviously.

I’d really like to have it generally but it wasn’t really that needed until now.

Alteran.9510:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

It would be better just to make it a base 25% movement speed, with no requirements. I’d say the same about any other movement speed traits.

DH got F2 jump and is designed to fight in range (bow, 1200 range pull, 14% more damage when far away).
Core guard doesn’t need to be in 130-300 meele range as his virtues have a 600 range.
FB needs to be in meele range or 80% of his tomes spells are useless. Mantras are optional but the tomes can’t be traded in other skills obviously.

I’d really like to have it generally but it wasn’t really that needed until now.

You’re ignoring the fact that most of the guardian’s weapons are either melee or close range. Core guardian is included in that. So unless you’re playing dragon hunter, chances are you want to get into melee range as quickly as possible and you’ll want to be able to stick to your enemies. Even dragon hunters do most of their dps in melee range (that bonus at longer range is not going to help you catch up to the damage you can do with sword, hammer or greatsword).

Also, aside from dragon hunter, guardian has no reliable disengage or displacement tools. Sure, you could point out merciful intervention, but that requires an allied target, and if your ally happens to be in a bad position, or in melee range with you, then that’s useless.

So yes, I do think mobility is needed and always has been needed. It’s been something guardians have asked for for a long time, and I think with firebrand, it’s even more necessary than before considering how close range most of the skills are. But even if that wasn’t the case, I’d still ask for it, because I see no reason why guardians should be the only class in the game to have such poor mobility or displacement options. The fantasy of being the last one in the fight might have worked when the game launched, but it has evolved since then and things that might have looked good on paper four years ago, just don’t hold up by today’s standards anymore.

My suggestion is this:

Make the Mantra trait give you pulsing swiftness when you have a charged Mantra (Extend the range per charged Mantra so it actually works as a group support trait, 120 AoE around yourself per Mantra)

Making a class that is already heavily impaired in mobility, have skills that require mobility to connect, yet no good mobility options cept swiftness on a tome with what 45 sec cd? Guard is forced to either use runes or spec into shouts which doesn’t feel very strong. The only way to get decent healing is to either go menders with no condi dps, or give up all damage for prec healing and vit…. which makes you basically have no pressure. Sage amulet does not have the survivability needed to keep this class up. Different amulets, better mobility, and shortened cast times would help this elite but I honestly feel it needs a total overhaul with an experienced pvp guardian players advice.

SlayerSixx.5763:

I wouldn’t say mobility. I’d say they need more range on their abilities and a removal of a lot of cast times and cooldowns.

This. Something that’s supposed to be a caster should actually have range. Mobility would suffice in making it viable, but I think range would be a much better fit thematically and gameplay-wise.

A 25% movement speed trait wouldn’t do anything to make it viable though. This spec is going to need at least a blink to function properly, if mobility is chosen to make it viable.

Fashion Mage.3712:

SlayerSixx.5763:

I wouldn’t say mobility. I’d say they need more range on their abilities and a removal of a lot of cast times and cooldowns.

This. Something that’s supposed to be a caster should actually have range. Mobility would suffice in making it viable, but I think range would be a much better fit thematically and gameplay-wise.

Queue the tired old argument the devs use “but guardian is heavy armour”, because guardian can’t lift its own armour in combat, but warrior is fine dashing and hopping their way through and both rev and warrior get superspeed.

A 25% movement speed trait wouldn’t do anything to make it viable though. This spec is going to need at least a blink to function properly, if mobility is chosen to make it viable.

Maybe we can go back to that Merciful Intervention suggestion?

Axe – Needs to play more like main-hand Dagger Elementalist

Core Cleave, Bleeding Edge, Blazing Slash – all changed to 300 range

Symbol of Vengeance – becomes a 450 range leap that drops the symbol at your feet when you land.

Blazing Edge – Stays 600 range but uses the ammo system and has 2 charges.

Mantras

Too hard to land on enemies or allies right now

All become either 300 PBAoE. Or 600 range frontal cone (like old Staff wave)

Traits

Stoic Demeanor is quite weak right now, especially for a Grandmaster trait ~ add 3 second Chill in addition to the Slow to help with options to maintain melee range on enemies.

The lack of mobility/run speed was and still is the main reason I never play mine.

Fashion Mage.3712:

SlayerSixx.5763:

I wouldn’t say mobility. I’d say they need more range on their abilities and a removal of a lot of cast times and cooldowns.

This. Something that’s supposed to be a caster should actually have range. Mobility would suffice in making it viable, but I think range would be a much better fit thematically and gameplay-wise.

A 25% movement speed trait wouldn’t do anything to make it viable though. This spec is going to need at least a blink to function properly, if mobility is chosen to make it viable.

Yes, when we speak of mobility, we talk about base movement speed and displacement skills (like leaps, teleports, etc). Unfortunately, Firebrand doesn’t bring any of that to the table despite relying on us being at melee or close range to function optimally.

That being said, I don’t think turning firebrand into a ranged caster is the clear solution either. Axe was clearly intended to be used in melee range, and while you might be able to justify tomes having ranged kits, you also have to account for the fact that melee condition builds with axe will be a thing, and so mobility will be required for the spec regardless. Simply giving mobility to the axe itself might alleviate this to a degree, or as suggested above Ezrael, making the axe semi-ranged is not out of the question either.

One of the mantras (damage ones) should be a 600 teleport that could be used three times and also adding swiftness to allies. Considering the limited range on mantras and tomes it neccessay to be able to move around, especially in wvw/pvp where its close to impossible to predict enemy movements and sometimes the allies as well.

This alone would solve so many issues with the FB in its current iteration.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Alteran.9510:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

It would be better just to make it a base 25% movement speed, with no requirements. I’d say the same about any other movement speed traits.

DH got F2 jump and is designed to fight in range (bow, 1200 range pull, 14% more damage when far away).
Core guard doesn’t need to be in 130-300 meele range as his virtues have a 600 range.
FB needs to be in meele range or 80% of his tomes spells are useless. Mantras are optional but the tomes can’t be traded in other skills obviously.

I’d really like to have it generally but it wasn’t really that needed until now.

You’re ignoring the fact that most of the guardian’s weapons are either melee or close range. Core guardian is included in that. So unless you’re playing dragon hunter, chances are you want to get into melee range as quickly as possible and you’ll want to be able to stick to your enemies. Even dragon hunters do most of their dps in melee range (that bonus at longer range is not going to help you catch up to the damage you can do with sword, hammer or greatsword).

Also, aside from dragon hunter, guardian has no reliable disengage or displacement tools. Sure, you could point out merciful intervention, but that requires an allied target, and if your ally happens to be in a bad position, or in melee range with you, then that’s useless.

So yes, I do think mobility is needed and always has been needed. It’s been something guardians have asked for for a long time, and I think with firebrand, it’s even more necessary than before considering how close range most of the skills are. But even if that wasn’t the case, I’d still ask for it, because I see no reason why guardians should be the only class in the game to have such poor mobility or displacement options. The fantasy of being the last one in the fight might have worked when the game launched, but it has evolved since then and things that might have looked good on paper four years ago, just don’t hold up by today’s standards anymore.

I don’t ignore the fact that guard mostly uses meele weapons. It’s just mace and hammer are definetly no weapon to hunt an enemy if you don’t use any hammer traits that chills enemies! Also it got a 1200 atack and a ring where you can trap others. They are designed to hold a spot.
Sword got a blink and 3 skills of the greatsword use 600 range. With a leap and a pull. So mobility is there. In two ways.

And obviously you do most damage in meele range. If that wouldn’t be the case they were useless in every way. Also in pvp you don’t want to be in meele range instant if you can kite the enemy in 600-1200 range. And if you are in meele range you got as much disengage skills as the warrior. A leap and 2 blinks on sword and JI if there are other enemys in a range where you can click on their characters.
I do agree with you FB needs mobility. Swiftness, superspeed,leaps,teleports,… But only because of it’s tomes. Not because of the utilities or the axe.

Ezrael.6859:

Axe – Needs to play more like main-hand Dagger Elementalist

Core Cleave, Bleeding Edge, Blazing Slash – all changed to 300 range

Symbol of Vengeance – becomes a 450 range leap that drops the symbol at your feet when you land.

Blazing Edge – Stays 600 range but uses the ammo system and has 2 charges.

I also would be happy if axe gets something between 200-300 range. The animation clearly shows that, too. But that isn’t really so necessary in my opinion.
The leap sounds like a good idea but then the cd of the skill needs to go up for ~50%.

Two 600 pulls with 6 stacks buring sounds a bit to strong for me. I think the biggest problem was that the skill was buggy. The axe pull the enemys in front of you. So if you target an enemy to your left it will not pull him. Also if he stands a bit higher or lower than you, the skill also does nothing.

Brutaly.6257:

One of the mantras (damage ones) should be a 600 teleport that could be used three times and also adding swiftness to allies. Considering the limited range on mantras and tomes it neccessay to be able to move around, especially in wvw/pvp where its close to impossible to predict enemy movements and sometimes the allies as well.

This alone would solve so many issues with the FB in its current iteration.

If you take away the damage of the skill than it could be done. If not guardian gets a enormous pimped sword 2 blink.

Alteran.9510:

And if you are in meele range you got as much disengage skills as the warrior. A leap and 2 blinks on sword and JI if there are other enemys in a range where you can click on their characters.

I’m sorry, but we have nowhere near as much disengage capabilities as warriors, the mere suggestion that we do is absurd. And what we do have is mostly unreliable. Please don’t compare a targeted teleport skill that must be used on an enemy, to the warrior’s various means of escaping that do not require targets, from dashes, to leaps, to spins. Using sword blink on another target is not disengaging, it’s just reengaging another target and more often than not, won’t do much to save you if you’re already in a tight spot. And it’s already been discussed numerous times how Merciful Intervention is only helpful as a disengage in very niche situations, when you just happen to be lucky enough to have a distant ally to teleport to, who are not themselves already in the thick of battle, or in an compromised position. I don’t believe in the idea of having to rely on the positioning of an ally to disengage, in the first place Merciful Intervention was intended as a “save your ally” tool, not as a “save yourself by using an ally” tool.

The only two real disengages we have are Wings of Resolve and Leap of Faith, the first of which is limited to a single elite spec and the second of which is fairly short ranged.

Also, I’m not sure why you suggest mobility is only needed for tomes and not for Axe. How do we engage with axe in that case? How do we prevent ourselves from being kited to death if we don’t even have a short ranged leap or teleport?

Alteran.9510:

Brutaly.6257:

One of the mantras (damage ones) should be a 600 teleport that could be used three times and also adding swiftness to allies. Considering the limited range on mantras and tomes it neccessay to be able to move around, especially in wvw/pvp where its close to impossible to predict enemy movements and sometimes the allies as well.

This alone would solve so many issues with the FB in its current iteration.

If you take away the damage of the skill than it could be done. If not guardian gets a enormous pimped sword 2 blink.

Ofc no damage, i ment it a as a mobility skill hence the swiftness. Having damage as well would make it OP as you implicitely write.

I think it should be ground targeted btw. So it can be used effectively in a defensive way as well.

If the elite mantra also got added cd and that it resets and recharges all equipped mantras it would also be a good substitute for RF as elite skill and further improve mobility which FB lack.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Alteran.9510:

And if you are in meele range you got as much disengage skills as the warrior. A leap and 2 blinks on sword and JI if there are other enemys in a range where you can click on their characters.

I’m sorry, but we have nowhere near as much disengage capabilities as warriors, the mere suggestion that we do is absurd. And what we do have is mostly unreliable. Please don’t compare a targeted teleport skill that must be used on an enemy, to the warrior’s various means of escaping that do not require targets, from dashes, to leaps, to spins. Using sword blink on another target is not disengaging, it’s just reengaging another target and more often than not, won’t do much to save you if you’re already in a tight spot. And it’s already been discussed numerous times how Merciful Intervention is only helpful as a disengage in very niche situations, when you just happen to be lucky enough to have a distant ally to teleport to, who are not themselves already in the thick of battle, or in an compromised position. I don’t believe in the idea of having to rely on the positioning of an ally to disengage, in the first place Merciful Intervention was intended as a “save your ally” tool, not as a “save yourself by using an ally” tool.

The only two real disengages we have are Wings of Resolve and Leap of Faith, the first of which is limited to a single elite spec and the second of which is fairly short ranged.

Also, I’m not sure why you suggest mobility is only needed for tomes and not for Axe. How do we engage with axe in that case? How do we prevent ourselves from being kited to death if we don’t even have a short ranged leap or teleport?

Warrior got sword 2 leap, greatsword 3 (450) and greatsword 5. Hammer and axe got a leap on their F1skill. Also berserker got one jump and spellbreaker one superspeed skill.
So if you can’t use more than one specialisation or can’t wield more than 2 weapon sets at once, there isn’t really more.
Maybe you don’t know but you can use the guardian teleports on a range far more than 1200. So you can disengage with them. You just need to know how.

Why mobility just for tomes and not for axe? Well you are forced to play with the tomes if you play FB but you the axe doesn’t need to go automatic in your main hand. Playing without the axe is possible. Last week end I never did in pvp. But not using the tomes is just stupid.
Axe got a cripple symbol and a 600 pull. If you know how to combine those two counter mobility is there. My build just had no useage of that.

Ezrael.6859:

Axe – Needs to play more like main-hand Dagger Elementalist

Core Cleave, Bleeding Edge, Blazing Slash – all changed to 300 range

Symbol of Vengeance – becomes a 450 range leap that drops the symbol at your feet when you land.

Blazing Edge – Stays 600 range but uses the ammo system and has 2 charges.

Mantras

Too hard to land on enemies or allies right now

All become either 300 PBAoE. Or 600 range frontal cone (like old Staff wave)

Traits

Stoic Demeanor is quite weak right now, especially for a Grandmaster trait ~ add 3 second Chill in addition to the Slow to help with options to maintain melee range on enemies.

Yeah, these axe changes sound pretty good. Another thing people need to understand as well is that Anet killed your justice damage outside of the tome as compensation for the amount of burn you do with the justice tome out. We need some sort of a weapon to pressure people with without putting ourselves in immediate danger (which FB was not designed to do).

Alteran.9510:

Warrior got sword 2 leap, greatsword 3 (450) and greatsword 5. Hammer and axe got a leap on their F1skill. Also berserker got one jump and spellbreaker one superspeed skill.

So if you can’t use more than one specialisation or can’t wield more than 2 weapon sets at once, there isn’t really more.

And yet you’ve already listed more than the guardian has. However, the most important thing worth noting here, is that they have options. Most of their melee weapons except mace offer displacement/mobility skills. With guardian, only two of their weapons offer such skills and only one can actually be used to disengage reliably.

Alteran.9510:

Maybe you don’t know but you can use the guardian teleports on a range far more than 1200. So you can disengage with them. You just need to know how.

I’m well aware of that, thanks, but there isn’t always going to be an enemy or target conveniently waiting in the right position for you to teleport to. In some cases, you’d just be landing yourself even deeper in trouble. I still find the idea of trying to justify such an obscure escape mechanic in the first place to be difficult to fathom, especially when other classes have much more consistently reliable options that can be aimed or ground targeted.

Alteran.9510:

Why mobility just for tomes and not for axe? Well you are forced to play with the tomes if you play FB but you the axe doesn’t need to go automatic in your main hand. Playing without the axe is possible. Last week end I never did in pvp. But not using the tomes is just stupid.

Axe got a cripple symbol and a 600 pull. If you know how to combine those two counter mobility is there. My build just had no useage of that.

So you’re justifying a weapon being useless because we have alternatives? Sorry, I just don’t buy it. If people end up not using axe, chances are one of the reasons is because it lacks a proper engage or mobility tool.

As for your cripple and pull argument, here’s my thoughts on it:

The symbol of vengeance has such a long cast time, that actually hitting an enemy with it in PvP would be quite hard. It has a very clear tell and simply dodge rolling out of the aoe would not be difficult at all. In fact, it’s so bad that I actually stopped using it altogether.

The pull is just plainly unreliable. I used axe the entire weekend and I think I can count on one hand how many times I managed to successfully pull an enemy with it. It’s not just because the aim on it is wonky, it’s also because the pull can be negated by dodging, blocking, blinding or having stability. I’ve said this before and I will say it again, but pulls are quite simply not reliable distance closers, certainly nowhere near as reliable as leaps or teleports, and while both can be countered to some degree, it’s far easier to do so against pulls, especially when they are not unblockable.

Now, if the pull was a bit more like the spear of justice for Fragon Hunters, I’d probably feel a bit more optimistic about it, but as it is now, it’s just not that good at all.

This has ALWAYS been the primary problem with all guardian builds. Speed /mobility always seems to be our primary trade off to the devs, and its an unfair one to shoulder in an ever increasingly fast combat system, both highend PvE or in PvP.