Guild Wars 2

VIDEO EDITION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoFlDPlVH64

I really do feel like the Firebrand is lacking soul. The thing that makes it different to the core profession and even much preferred than the other Elite Spec. It lacks a lot and needs (as one of the most hilarious youtubers would say) shark cartillage pills.

Step 1 – to fixing the Firebrand is to make Tomes like Attunement swaps but they consume pages and the pages have a 10s cooldown to recharge. They activate instantly and release an AoE of some sort when used. You have access to all the skills as you do now, everything is just made faster and snappier.

Step 2 – Mantras are cool but the healing Mantra is a bit naff. How about having a trait that gives mantras passive effects when charged?

Step 3 – The Axe is actually quite fun but the pull is sometimes hilarious to land even when the person is right in front of you. If that could be fixed then we’d be one step closer to a great profession.

What do you guys think will make the Firebrand better? Let’s Discuss!

Yea I agree with you regarding Tomes, they are locked behind 4 resources, BIG CD of Tomes, CD of skills, Books and Long Cast times.

Very bad for melee supportive/condi dmg.

Plus very bad mobility.

Ragnarox.9601:

Yea I agree with you regarding Tomes, they are locked behind 4 resources, BIG CD of Tomes, CD of skills, Books and Long Cast times.

Very bad for melee supportive/condi dmg.

Plus very bad mobility.

Yea, without the Tomes being instant, our reaction time to certain things are always going to be 2 seconds too late. We need a faster activation time and more access to the things that make the Firebrand, the Firebrand, which are the Tomes.

Every forum has some sort of post like this. How are people making reliable judgements on the class in ither modes besides pvp? This class brings amazing visuals along with pve power if perma quickness. Whivh could replace a mesmer in high lvl content. Firebrand bas great aegis application. You cant really tell what the dps will be like due to pvp gear but i was able to keep perma quickness with vipers and just 15% boon duration. The tomea are fine. With quickness the cast times are pretty much gone so it doesnt matter to much. I do not think this will be good in spvp. I do believe it will be great in wvw. But only time will tell. People have been making negative judgements to quick.

TheShniper.1852:

Every forum has some sort of post like this. How are people making reliable judgements on the class in ither modes besides pvp? This class brings amazing visuals along with pve power if perma quickness. Whivh could replace a mesmer in high lvl content. Firebrand bas great aegis application. You cant really tell what the dps will be like due to pvp gear but i was able to keep perma quickness with vipers and just 15% boon duration. The tomea are fine. With quickness the cast times are pretty much gone so it doesnt matter to much. I do not think this will be good in spvp. I do believe it will be great in wvw. But only time will tell. People have been making negative judgements to quick.

this is good on paper, beautifull visuals do not make elite better. So if I am using Sunrise you think I am better player cause of it? haha. I tested it in wvw and pvp, same thing while you get wrecked more often in wvw. I am not negative, I tested it and it sucks. (and Ive seen 95% ppl have negative judgement too so they dont know to play their class? yea right)
Tomes are not fine.

The best way to make firebrand better, and the only thing it needs, is a slight boost to the cone ranges, other than that Firebrand is pretty good.
I don’t think tomes are a problem at all, I think they achieve what they are meant to do very well.

You can’t really compare tomes to attunements, attunements are a basic concept of the Elementalist, and is the reason they only have 1 weapon set.
With tombes you as a Firebrand have access to 2 weapon sets and 15 tomes spell, I’d say that is a very big kitten nal.

You can also boost tomes abilities with other trait lines making them even stronger (you can have every spell cast in defensive tome apply Aegis, I mean with 8 pages up, that is 8 instances of Aegis!! I mean, that is so strong.

A lot of people like yourself just need to spend more time on the Firebrand to realise its full potential.

We’ve spent a quite of bit of time on Firebrand during the demo weekend and Tomes missed the mark on having 3/4 cast times along with 3/4+ cast times on abilities.

And they’re locked behind long cooldowns and non-regenerating pages. So we are then essentially locked out of the basis of Firebrand until the cooldowns are refreshed (including RF).

Firebrand has the potential to be a great elite spec but in its current state, it needs a few adjustments.

Tomes are fine. Cds, cast times and resource limitation allows counterplay. the tome on f1 ans f3 are also valuable. what other guardians need to stop doing is going in and fighting as if they were dh and diving right into the point. guardians players unfortunately also tend to be lower in skill because they’ve grown used to the simple game mechanics guardian and dh allowed, so they’re not used to actually having to think when using a specific tome might be a good idea rather than spamming tomes during combat like a madman in a rush to use up all cds (because that’s all they ever did on dh).

The only tome that needs work is the f2 since it feels like a waste of time to use it. it’s supposed to be for condi cleanse and healing, but the heal values are too low for skills with so much cast time and resource limitations while the condi cleanse isn’t impactful enough to make it worth using over spamming resistance from f3 while you use mantra of lore. They need to at least considering putting more tools to handle conditions such as resistance on f2

Another problem on firebrand is the mantra range as far as support is concerned. mantras work well for yourself but for supporting allies it’s way too difficult to land them correctly. additionally while i like the mantra heal, i would also have the heal apply to allies near you and not just the aegis to further emphasize the role of firebrand as support/condi.

Finally, axe symbol needs work. it either needs to be faster or it needs a better payoff, whether that comes in the form of higher bleed stacks, quickness or burns i leave to the balance devs.

TheShniper.1852:

Every forum has some sort of post like this. How are people making reliable judgements on the class in ither modes besides pvp? This class brings amazing visuals along with pve power if perma quickness. Whivh could replace a mesmer in high lvl content. Firebrand bas great aegis application. You cant really tell what the dps will be like due to pvp gear but i was able to keep perma quickness with vipers and just 15% boon duration. The tomea are fine. With quickness the cast times are pretty much gone so it doesnt matter to much. I do not think this will be good in spvp. I do believe it will be great in wvw. But only time will tell. People have been making negative judgements to quick.

While WvW balance is always an exception, if something does not work well in sPvP or PvE it must be adjusted. I do not need to play 500 sPvP games to figure out that something would not work, considering that I already played thousands of sPvP games on various classes.

And TBH, somethings are self explanatory. I cannot support allies using a frontal cone. You do not need any testing to figure that out..

Kuya.6495:

Tomes are fine. Cds, cast times and resource limitation allows counterplay. the tome on f1 ans f3 are also valuable. what other guardians need to stop doing is going in and fighting as if they were dh and diving right into the point. guardians players unfortunately also tend to be lower in skill because they’ve grown used to the simple game mechanics guardian and dh allowed, so they’re not used to actually having to think when using a specific tome might be a good idea rather than spamming tomes during combat like a madman in a rush to use up all cds (because that’s all they ever did on dh).

The only tome that needs work is the f2 since it feels like a waste of time to use it. it’s supposed to be for condi cleanse and healing, but the heal values are too low for skills with so much cast time and resource limitations while the condi cleanse isn’t impactful enough to make it worth using over spamming resistance from f3 while you use mantra of lore. They need to at least considering putting more tools to handle conditions such as resistance on f2

Another problem on firebrand is the mantra range as far as support is concerned. mantras work well for yourself but for supporting allies it’s way too difficult to land them correctly. additionally while i like the mantra heal, i would also have the heal apply to allies near you and not just the aegis to further emphasize the role of firebrand as support/condi.

Finally, axe symbol needs work. it either needs to be faster or it needs a better payoff, whether that comes in the form of higher bleed stacks, quickness or burns i leave to the balance devs.

If tomes are fine we need skill 3 to be blast so we can blast those fields. Its stupid use #4 combo field and then go out to blast with hammer while 60,90 sec cd.

Tomes are not made good.

Kuya.6495:

Tomes are fine. Cds, cast times and resource limitation allows counterplay.

If you were to remove the cooldowns on entering a Tome, this would happen;

The skills in the tomes would still have cooldowns of their own, are you going to say that doesn’t allow for counter-play? The Pages you consume will have to recharge, are you going to really say that doesn’t allow counter-play?

If that’s what you’re saying then we definitely do not agree AT ALL.

Kuya.6495:

Tomes are fine. Cds, cast times and resource limitation allows counterplay.

Lol no.

The tomes do have counterplay. Having a cast time plus having cooldowns are counterplay, but there is a point at which those numbers are too high. If it was 1.25s to enter a tome, and 120s cd on f3, would that still be fine? Lets keep going up. 2s cast to enter a tome, 180s cd on f3. Still fine? Obviously not; and 0.75s & 90s cd are also still not fine.

Seasoned players know where to draw that line for balance purposes, and that line is at 0.25s (or instant cast) to enter a tome, and cd for f3 being around 30-50s (MAX).

i kinda like the tomes as they are. small twicks needed but the idea behind them is great. more 15 skills to use.
courage with a trait gives aegis with every skill which can be traited to heal or do dmg amazing , and reflect which counter deadeye completely.

resolve – need bit more healing but good conditions cleanse

justice – i would make it more interesting like with more range, 1 more kb,

axe bit more direct dmg but seems ok.

same burning guard, and another support guard build which is nice

Dirame.8521:

Kuya.6495:

Tomes are fine. Cds, cast times and resource limitation allows counterplay.

If you were to remove the cooldowns on entering a Tome, this would happen;

The skills in the tomes would still have cooldowns of their own, are you going to say that doesn’t allow for counter-play? The Pages you consume will have to recharge, are you going to really say that doesn’t allow counter-play?

If that’s what you’re saying then we definitely do not agree AT ALL.

Removing cooldowns on tomes depends on whether you are comfortable with the alternatives or not.

If you remove the cds then you either have to change the page mechanic or you have to increase individual chapter cds to be larger. If you choose not to change chapter cds aand instead change pages, how do you work with that?

The cds gave you a justification for having your pages refresh instantly when you enter a tome. Without the cd then the devs need new alternatives. If they decide that pages should refresh over time they gotta decide on two things: should the same page resource limitation apply to all tomes or have each individual tome have its own page counter. If each tome has its own page cd, then how do you keep track of how many you have before you activate the tome? if you decide to use a global page mechanic to make it more intuitive, then you run into the problem of having the share the page mechanic between tomes that do very different things.

And additionally, should firebrand be able to switch from condi burster to healer to stability and resistance bot all in less than 3 seconds? Is that balanced? The page mechanic would have to be more restrictive in order to keep it from getting out of hand and I’m not sure how many of you are really willing to accept a more restrictive page mechanic if you take tome cds away.

Kuya.6495:

If you remove the cds then you either have to change the page mechanic or you have to increase individual chapter cds to be larger.

The tomes are already too heavy on balancing mechanics, so no, you don’t have to nerf anything if you improve them a little. They pretty much should be buffed.

Removing tome cds is not a little buff by any stretch. Now if we are talking about reducing the cd instead, then that’s a different matter all together and is far more reasonable.

Kuya.6495:

Removing cooldowns on tomes depends on whether you are comfortable with the alternatives or not.

If you remove the cds then you either have to change the page mechanic or you have to increase individual chapter cds to be larger. If you choose not to change chapter cds aand instead change pages, how do you work with that?

The cds gave you a justification for having your pages refresh instantly when you enter a tome. Without the cd then the devs need new alternatives. If they decide that pages should refresh over time they gotta decide on two things: should the same page resource limitation apply to all tomes or have each individual tome have its own page counter. If each tome has its own page cd, then how do you keep track of how many you have before you activate the tome? if you decide to use a global page mechanic to make it more intuitive, then you run into the problem of having the share the page mechanic between tomes that do very different things.

The original post already answers this question (turns out the original post doesn’t answer this question. I was imagining that I already did, sorry). Giving Tome pages a 10s cooldown and having them share pages across each book would actually do a lot more to make the Firebrand feel more like a Firebrand.

Kuya.6495:

And additionally, should firebrand be able to switch from condi burster to healer to stability and resistance bot all in less than 3 seconds? Is that balanced? The page mechanic would have to be more restrictive in order to keep it from getting out of hand and I’m not sure how many of you are really willing to accept a more restrictive page mechanic if you take tome cds away.

I’ll gladly take a more restrictive mechanic if it actually made me feel like I’m playing a different class. And I assure you, making the Tome switching instant and with no CD would go a long way to make that feeling a reality.

Tomes are fine.
You can always play an Engineer if you want instant kits…

Skuzz.6580:

Tomes are fine.
You can always play an Engineer if you want instant kits…

dude go back to your ranger forum section and qq about soulbeast, leave guardian subforum alone.

Skuzz.6580:

Tomes are fine.
You can always play an Engineer if you want instant kits…

With CDs that long and healing abilities that weak, Tomes will never make it into any meta. Players will just run firebrands as a burn guard; if we wanna play as a burn guard, we can already do it on the core specs, the mechanics and rotation are almost similar, trigger VoJ and use torch 4 when it’s up… Yawn.. As a condi fireguard, u can maintain those burn stacks without even activating tome of justice. Tomes felt so tack-on and did not feel like it’s an integral part of the spec.

Tomes are definitely not fine and will need alot of tweaking.

TheShniper.1852:

Every forum has some sort of post like this. How are people making reliable judgements on the class in ither modes besides pvp? This class brings amazing visuals along with pve power if perma quickness. Whivh could replace a mesmer in high lvl content. Firebrand bas great aegis application. You cant really tell what the dps will be like due to pvp gear but i was able to keep perma quickness with vipers and just 15% boon duration. The tomea are fine. With quickness the cast times are pretty much gone so it doesnt matter to much. I do not think this will be good in spvp. I do believe it will be great in wvw. But only time will tell. People have been making negative judgements to quick.

You are right about the damage, you have to test it in pve to know how it performs. But you don’t need to test the support.

If you managed to maintain perma-quickness with only 15% boon duration, then you made use of Stand Your Ground with Stalwart Speed, which is not intended behaviour. When this is fixed, you will need 64% boon duration.

Second, you ignore the radius of effect of those quickness skills and traits. It’s extremely small, to the point that it cripples the whole spec. Then, replacing a chrono is not just a matter of having quickness. Chrono brings alacrity, distort, portal and they are the best tanks. Just the last point alone means that in raids, the best firebrand can hope for is replacing the second chrono as a 1 in 10 class.

It’s also quite ironic that if chronos are gone, Dragonhunters take a significant DPS hit, by losing perma retaliation.

As for the cast times, you cannot take quickness for granted, especially in competitive modes. It’s also idiotic design to make quickness mandatory for the spec to work, when it’s supposed to be a buff, like it is for every other class in the game, not a requirement.

You bring stab, you will always be wanted in WvW, now it’s just about making it useful outside of being a boon bot.

The best tome was the F1 tome but it’s hard to make use of it as a support boon tank. The only thing i really used in it was the grav well effect because being a support tank ur all boon duration and healing power.

The F2 tome was just bad from a healing point of view, the condi clear is nice though. It’s kind of sad that passive healing from your boon tome outstrips active play from your healing tome.

The scaling on Eternal River is garbage, this seems like it was meant to be our big heal for the tome. at around 1225 healing power i gained something like 358 healing to the skill. So it went from 1200 or so at zero healing to 1558 with 1225 healing power. Our support tome(F3 tome) heals better than it with PoH traited and the trait that gave each of it’s abilities aegis.

At around 1130 healing power one PoH heals for 1211(no icd). This is with 0% outgoing healing, the skill five on courage tome is 600 radius the skill four 360 radius. If these are hitting max player and getting popped in a large wvw battle thats over 12k passive healing. Without considering the other tome skills like the dome or the slot one ability cone with 600 rng which also grant aegis to everyone.

I kind of like tomes the way they are. Renewed Justice from Radiance seems like an easy pairing with the Tome of Justice. It’s a Minor skill that ought to auto-recharge the tome if you drop it before something dies from all the fire you throw out. Renewed Focus should help with Tome upkeep also. Are they perfect? No, but I’d like a little more time to play with them before writing them off.

Mercurias.1826:

I kind of like tomes the way they are. Renewed Justice from Radiance seems like an easy pairing with the Tome of Justice. It’s a Minor skill that ought to auto-recharge the tome if you drop it before something dies from all the fire you throw out. Renewed Focus should help with Tome upkeep also. Are they perfect? No, but I’d like a little more time to play with them before writing them off.

You should go play Holosmith if you thing FB is fine. I think ppl tested it enough and pretty much everyone had same answers and suggestions = FB is not that good, tomes and mantras are bad.

Dirame.8521:

VIDEO EDITION: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoFlDPlVH64

I really do feel like the Firebrand is lacking soul. The thing that makes it different to the core profession and even much preferred than the other Elite Spec. It lacks a lot and needs (as one of the most hilarious youtubers would say) shark cartillage pills.

Step 1 – to fixing the Firebrand is to make Tomes like Attunement swaps but they consume pages and the pages have a 10s cooldown to recharge. They activate instantly and release an AoE of some sort when used. You have access to all the skills as you do now, everything is just made faster and snappier.

Step 2 – Mantras are cool but the healing Mantra is a bit naff. How about having a trait that gives mantras passive effects when charged?

Step 3 – The Axe is actually quite fun but the pull is sometimes hilarious to land even when the person is right in front of you. If that could be fixed then we’d be one step closer to a great profession.

What do you guys think will make the Firebrand better? Let’s Discuss!

The attunement suggestion doesn’t fit the virtue traits, which leads to more changes to core guardian. Seems like a lot of work. I think with tome skills CD that page recharge is a good idea. Instant swap between tomes doesn’t seems necessary.
I don’t think tomes are designed to be constant in use, they are more supplementary.
Passive effects when fully charged mantras(similar to signets) is also neat idea.
About the axe, I couldn’t test it much, but on paper its condition duration felt way to short, especially the bleeds.

mazut.4296:

The attunement suggestion doesn’t fit the virtue traits, which leads to more changes to core guardian. Seems like a lot of work. I think with tome skills CD that page recharge is a good idea. Instant swap between tomes doesn’t seems necessary.

The changes to Core guardian won’t be significant. Just looking at the virtues trait line, if they were to add CDs to traits like Absolute Resolution and Indomitable Courage, it won’t affect core guardian because core guardian F1s already have Cooldowns. Might be a nerf to Renewed Focus users but those guys need a nerf anyway.

Dirame.8521:

Might be a nerf to Renewed Focus users but those guys need a nerf anyway.

Qft, that single skill and its relative strength is blocking build diversity

Chorazin.4107:

You bring stab, you will always be wanted in WvW, now it’s just about making it useful outside of being a boon bot.

You know who else brings stability? Base guardian.

And firebrand fails to be an upgrade over base guardian when it comes to stability uptime, because VoC has half the cooldown of ToC, which means you can proc Indomitable Courage twice as often.

The only other source of stability for Firebrand is the elite mantra, which is both unusable in wvw due to its range, but it also competes with Renewed Focus, which can act as AoE stability by proccing Indomitable Courage a second time.

The only other benefits Firebrand has is aegis spam, which is useless in wvw, especially compared to barrier, and quickness, which you can’t use because mantra area coverage
is garbage.

If it weren’t for the staff nerf, firebrand would be inferior even in condi damage. Now with all our mid- and long-range weapons being trash, Tome of Justice is a reason to go FB, at the price of being a worse support.

Brutaly.6257:

Dirame.8521:

Might be a nerf to Renewed Focus users but those guys need a nerf anyway.

Qft, that single skill and its relative strength is blocking build diversity

Meanwhile, other classes get invulnerabily as a weapon skill or a profession mechanic, and they can freely cast while invulnerable.

The only thing that makes Renewed Focus so good is that all other elites suck, and guardian only has RF and Shelter as panic buttons.

I’d prefer buffing signet of courage instead.

RabbitUp.8294:

You know who else brings stability? Base guardian.

And firebrand fails to be an upgrade over base guardian when it comes to stability uptime, because VoC has half the cooldown of ToC, which means you can proc Indomitable Courage twice as often.

The only other source of stability for Firebrand is the elite mantra, which is both unusable in wvw due to its range, but it also competes with Renewed Focus, which can act as AoE stability by proccing Indomitable Courage a second time.

You do realise the Tome of Courage has two sources of stability as skills within the tome? Unbroken lines grants 5 seconds of stab on a 12 sec icd, 600rad. Unflinching Charge grants 4 seconds of stab to everyone in a cone 600rng in front of you and can be spammed as long as you have pages left. These numbers are with 0% boon duration any support Firebrand will be rocking around with decent boon duration.

So in 90 seconds you have
Opening the tome: Indomitable Courage stab 4sec
Unbroken Lines stab 5sec
Unflinching Charge stab 4sec

This is also assuming you use these tome skills once only whilst the tome is open within that 90 second interval. You could easily get multiple activations out of Unflinching Charge.

Compared to two uses of the 45 seconds Indomitable Courage stab 4sec for base guard within that 90 second interval.

You still get the indomitable courage stab from opening the tome and renewed focus will still reset the tome.

while you give up the most important part in this game, damage.

Stability isnt worth spamming, stabiliy is situational so it is of very little interest from a balancing perspective if a FB can spam stab.

Spamming stab with ToC means you are effectively one player down.

Brutaly.6257:

while you give up the most important part in this game, damage.

Stability isnt worth spamming, stabiliy is situational so it is of very little interest from a balancing perspective if a FB can spam stab.

Spamming stab with ToC means you are effectively one player down.

From a WvW perspective your support classes are not there to do damage, they are there to provide support for the group. You certainly arnt going to be seeing big DPS numbers from a minstrel Firebrands staff autos lol.

DPS will come from your DPS specced classes, however the group is set up. Epi reapers CoR Rev’s etc.

A full healing/minstrel Tempest does virtually 0 damage, you are hardly a player down having one in your group.

Chorazin.4107:

You do realise the Tome of Courage has two sources of stability as skills within the tome? Unbroken lines grants 5 seconds of stab on a 12 sec icd, 600rad. Unflinching Charge grants 4 seconds of stab to everyone in a cone 600rng in front of you and can be spammed as long as you have pages left. These numbers are with 0% boon duration any support Firebrand will be rocking around with decent boon duration.

So in 90 seconds you have
Opening the tome: Indomitable Courage stab 4sec
Unbroken Lines stab 5sec
Unflinching Charge stab 4sec

This is also assuming you use these tome skills once only whilst the tome is open within that 90 second interval. You could easily get multiple activations out of Unflinching Charge.

Compared to two uses of the 45 seconds Indomitable Courage stab 4sec for base guard within that 90 second interval.

You still get the indomitable courage stab from opening the tome and renewed focus will still reset the tome.

Yes, I know Tome of Courage has skills with stability. So, you get more stability out of a skill that’s already granting stability, and the price you pay is it having double the cooldown.

You lose stability frequency to gain a bigger burst of stability, in a meta that stability will be stripped by boon removal/corruption, which remove all stacks.

The tome skills also have noticeable cast times, so you will be spending 3+ seconds being effectively removed from the fight, when base guardian insta-casts F3.

Anyway, just the fact alone that there are arguments that can be made about guardian vs firebrand speaks volumes. You would never have a serious discussion about whether mesmer or ranger are better supports than chrono and druid.

Chorazin.4107:

Brutaly.6257:

while you give up the most important part in this game, damage.

Stability isnt worth spamming, stabiliy is situational so it is of very little interest from a balancing perspective if a FB can spam stab.

Spamming stab with ToC means you are effectively one player down.

From a WvW perspective your support classes are not there to do damage, they are there to provide support for the group. You certainly arnt going to be seeing big DPS numbers from a minstrel Firebrands staff autos lol.

DPS will come from your DPS specced classes, however the group is set up. Epi reapers CoR Rev’s etc.

A full healing/minstrel Tempest does virtually 0 damage, you are hardly a player down having one in your group.

Every point of damage counts. You are also unable to do anything else, like healing and cc.

And who said you have to use Minstrels gear? You can use Commander, Wanderer, Celestial, or even condi gear.

RabbitUp.8294:

Yes, I know Tome of Courage has skills with stability. So, you get more stability out of a skill that’s already granting stability, and the price you pay is it having double the cooldown.

You lose stability frequency to gain a bigger burst of stability, in a meta that stability will be stripped by boon removal/corruption, which remove all stacks.

The tome skills also have noticeable cast times, so you will be spending 3+ seconds being effectively removed from the fight, when base guardian insta-casts F3.

Anyway, just the fact alone that there are arguments that can be made about guardian vs firebrand speaks volumes. You would never have a serious discussion about whether mesmer or ranger are better supports than chrono and druid.

Every point of damage counts. You are also unable to do anything else, like healing and cc.

Well the Tome of Courage potentially heals better passively than active healing with the Tome of Resolve if you trait Legendary Lore and Pure of Heart. It’s why i thought our Resolve tome was poor due to the scaling on Eternal River compared to say something like Lunar Impact.

RabbitUp.8294:

And who said you have to use Minstrels gear? You can use Commander, Wanderer, Celestial, or even condi gear.

With the strength of the F1 tome i think some settlers/apothecary could make an appearance. Even with a dip in condi dmg you will give ppl pause for thought with the amount of burn stacks you can apply. I feel the F1 tome is the best out of the tomes, with the Tome of Courage being average and the Tome of Resolve being poor.

The Mantras I doubt will change unfortunately. The Mesmer’s power break is still on a 240 radius around the mesmer. Guess how many mesmers slot this utility?

Chorazin.4107:

Brutaly.6257:

while you give up the most important part in this game, damage.

Stability isnt worth spamming, stabiliy is situational so it is of very little interest from a balancing perspective if a FB can spam stab.

Spamming stab with ToC means you are effectively one player down.

From a WvW perspective your support classes are not there to do damage, they are there to provide support for the group. You certainly arnt going to be seeing big DPS numbers from a minstrel Firebrands staff autos lol.

DPS will come from your DPS specced classes, however the group is set up. Epi reapers CoR Rev’s etc.

A full healing/minstrel Tempest does virtually 0 damage, you are hardly a player down having one in your group.

Even though thief is my main now adays i dabble around with war/ele/mes in wvw and i play all of those as support.

Seriously, i dont give up damage on either of those when i play support.

I run banner/shout war in condi gear and it pretty much tears people to pieces.

The only thing i give up on my mes is that i use boon duration runes, which i also do when roaming. So basically i dont give up anything, its my prefered build.

On my ele i dont give up anything when playing support, infact playing wvw support with my ele makes me do more damage.

FB gives up 100% of its damage whn chosing to support no matter what gear you have. I havent seen a single profession in this game that has to do that.

Is there a single player in wvw that actually will run ministrel and why should you ever use ministrel on FB? It effectively renders F1 uselesss to.

Full traiblazers with boon duration runes, and Retreat/SyG and Purging flames/hallowed ground as utilities is probably the best support you can get out of this elite. Quickness and stability is what FB brings to the battle field.

Bring a banner/shout war in apothecary’s gear if you want a healer/condidealer. They have the health pool to use it, FB hasnt.

Brutaly.6257:

Is there a single player in wvw that actually will run ministrel and why should you ever use ministrel on FB? It effectively renders F1 uselesss to.

For support, tempest Minstrels is pretty much meta for any comp GvG guild like [KEK] I mean in zergs you do whatever you want. Hell bring that Minion Master or Signet thief.

As for the Firebrand as i stated earlier due to how good the F1 tome is i could def see some Settlers/Apothecary creeping into templates.

But power DPS, probably not, if you want power DPS you would just choose DH. But i think for a burn build you would definitely look to FB.

As support id say you would take a FB over base Guard, I will definitely give it a try in a small havoc group environment.

I do think the F2 tome is poor and the F3 average due to the timer, I think 90 is a bit excessive. What is that traited, like 77seconds? and im not sure how many mantras will see play due to them being far too restrictive for support.

Chorazin.4107:

Brutaly.6257:

Is there a single player in wvw that actually will run ministrel and why should you ever use ministrel on FB? It effectively renders F1 uselesss to.

For support, tempest Minstrels is pretty much meta for any comp GvG guild like [KEK] I mean in zergs you do whatever you want. Hell bring that Minion Master or Signet thief.

As for the Firebrand as i stated earlier due to how good the F1 tome is i could def see some Settlers/Apothecary creeping into templates.

But power DPS, probably not, if you want power DPS you would just choose DH. But i think for a burn build you would definitely look to FB.

As support id say you would take a FB over base Guard, I will definitely give it a try in a small havoc group environment.

I do think the F2 tome is poor and the F3 average due to the timer, I think 90 is a bit excessive. What is that traited, like 77seconds? and im not sure how many mantras will see play due to them being far too restrictive for support.

The issue is even with ministrel FB wont be healer meta so why even go down that lane.

Very few will use ministrel with FB and even less in GvG since its not competitive.

21k health pool, 3400 armor, maxed out condition damage and purging flames hitting for 10k while cleansing conditions and hallowed ground giving quickness to the team is superior to any wanna be healer that heals less than a DH.

The only reason to stack/have healing power in any guardian build is actually in honor, the only trait or skill worth investing healing power in is in honor, selfless daring. The rest is just a loss of effeciency.

Chorazin.4107:

The Mantras I doubt will change unfortunately. The Mesmer’s power break is still on a 240 radius around the mesmer. Guess how many mesmers slot this utility?

And that would actually be an improvement, compared to the stupid cones. At least you would be able to melee and cast mantras at the same time.

And it just so happens that Liberator’s Vow is 240-radius circular AoE, so now it’s very possible to hit an ally with your melee mantra, but not grant them quickness.