Guild Wars 2

“They get to choose which role they want based upon the tome that they go into.”
-Irenio

Let’s go through some numbers, first without any healing power, then with 1600 healing power.

Tome of Resolve. Rotation: #5, #4, #1 (x3). Total cast time: 3.75s
Total healing (0 heal): 4548
Total healing (1600): 7868

Let’s ignore the fact that ToR has 4 times higher cooldown, and compare it to Celestial Avatar.

Celestial Avatar. Rotation: #4, #3. Total cast time: 3.5s
Total healing (0 heal): 4870
Total healing (1600): 11750

But druid is all about that healing so maybe the comparison is not fair. ToR is but one of our 3 tomes. Let’s check Dragonhunter.

ToR has 45s cooldown, Wings have 20s, so you can use them twice in the same time frame.

2 uses of Wings (2s cast time)
Total healing (0 heal): 7780
Total healing (1600) 11620

Yup, Dh is better at healing than Firebrand. Heck, DH with no healing power can keep up with a 1600 heal power Firebrand. Good job, Irenio.

Careful what you say.

You know as well as the rest of us that, when it comes to Guardian, Añets response will instead be to nerf DH’s Wings of Resolve, to bring it under the effectiveness of FB’s Tome of Resolve, rather than buff FB’s Tome of Resolve to have comparable performance to Druid’s Celestial Avatar.

yup. Nerf incoming. bleh, Anet is insane.

I would LOVE IT if the healing tome was as strong as Druid, but that’s probably not feasible considering the highly support and defense oriented utility kit Guardian has. While they have never been so good at healing, they have more support options than any other profession and that makes them quite strong in a group.

I would hope they buff the healing tome a bit to be more useful in a variety of situations, but not that they go overboard with it. I love my guardian to bits, I don’t want her nerfed to the ground

You’re not looking at the bigger picture at all. You can pop the Tome of Healing while mantaining its passive effect. Furthermore, you can boost healing by 33% for 8s, and you gain a million other buffs to compliment firebrand, as well as much more aegis.

Well, if we’re talking big picture, you could start looking at all the support a druid offers, too. As to the 33% healing from the tome, it’s already in that calculation.

Nerf DH!! Nerf traps…oh wait…nerf Wings of resolve!!!

The fact that the Guardian has SO MANY support options is why it sucks at any one type of support. The game doesn’t need a class that can spam 15 different boons, and mediocre heals; thus no one will seriously consider guardian for end game support in a specific game mode. What we needed was the Elite Spec to specialize in one thing and do it well. Burn may have done this, but support is a crap shoot.

This feels like a condition cancer spec that has a healing/protection tome (on giant cooldowns) to weakly veil the fact that support got shafted again in favour of condition cancer.

KotCR.6024:

Careful what you say.

You know as well as the rest of us that, when it comes to Guardian, Añets response will instead be to nerf DH’s Wings of Resolve, to bring it under the effectiveness of FB’s Tome of Resolve, rather than buff FB’s Tome of Resolve to have comparable performance to Druid’s Celestial Avatar.

They definitely will do that if they want to. Base virtues used to be 1200 range and then they got nerfed as soon as DH popped up.

inb4 base virtues get nerfed to 300 range because of mantras.

I think it would be nothing but reasonable to make F2 healing as good as celestial avatar. Why? Druid can go for it more frequently than we can use F2. We are locked in close range to support with healing without any chance to disengage so FB’s healing HAS to be strong in order to survive. Druid can heal from both distance and melee range in a very comfortable fashion (long radius, ground targeted skills) and if things turn grim they have a safe disengage every 18 seconds on staff. Magi amulet’s healing can’t outheal the damage that is happening so either there have to be massive nerfs to damage on all specs, even FB’s burn, or F2 needs a buff to healing if we are meant to sustain through all those 8k-10k bursts every few seconds.

The reality of Firebrand is that it’s supposed to provide buffs rather than depend on tome, since base guardian is already good enough at healing. Tome is just a bonus.

Kain Francois.4328:

The reality of Firebrand is that it’s supposed to provide buffs rather than depend on tome

Such as?

since base guardian is already good enough at healing. Tome is just a bonus.

Have you seen any healer guardians around? Tomes are not a bonus, it’s our profession mechanic, the base of the spec as a whole.

Fashion Mage.3712:

inb4 base virtues get nerfed to 300 range because of mantras.

Yep. Pretty sure that’s the number one reason for the Staff autoattack change. They want you to use it as a kind of target checker for your mantras. The idea was probably that you stand just behind the frontline and camp staff offering the real melee mantra support.

Sad truth is you’d be better off just rolling DH or Condi FB and getting stuck in yourself though (Mace/Shield or Hammer both offering better support than staff anyway). Rendering the mantras rather pointless for the most part.

guardian has alot in common with the old GW1 prot monks, sure the heals are pretty low, but the amount of dmg we are stopping with shared aegis, protection and projectile reflects/ blocks needs to be considered

You know what else monks had? Real support, and range.

These numbers had to have been randomly generated by a dev last minute, there is no way they tested the impact of f2/f3 live with those ridiculously long cast times AND cooldowns. Maybe they thought it would be alot of sustain but not only were they extremely off with the healing/defensive numbers but also with how slow casting everything is. F2/F3 don’t give us any dmg skills so we cant dps anything while in those kits, so one would assume that you’d be able to have enough sustain because you will have 0 counter pressure when in those kits.

To me, Firebrand feels like a guardian without an f2 or f3. If I’m on dragonhunter and I’m in trouble, I press f2 to reposition and heal, or f3 to block and get stab/prot . On firebrand when I’m in trouble I will start the long process of casting my ridiculously long tomes(dont forget a cast time to ENTER the tome to begin with) and 95% of the time vs decent players I just die because they know my tome kit doesn’t protect me its useless atm.

Edit: Thanks for doing the math. Its clearly taking some people longer to realize not only are the tomes very slow but very unrewarding. Needs alot of work.

LordMazdamundi.2147:

guardian has alot in common with the old GW1 prot monks, sure the heals are pretty low, but the amount of dmg we are stopping with shared aegis, protection and projectile reflects/ blocks needs to be considered

In pve, mesmers are sharing invulnerability and have just as much, if not more projectile denial.

If I recall correctly, devs said that Firebrand went through many iterations and changes during the development.
I guess they just didn’t know what to do with Guardian, but I wonder what made them stop at what we have now.

Post 1:

RabbitUp.8294:

Kain Francois.4328:

The reality of Firebrand is that it’s supposed to provide buffs rather than depend on tome

Such as?

since base guardian is already good enough at healing. Tome is just a bonus.

Have you seen any healer guardians around? Tomes are not a bonus, it’s our profession mechanic, the base of the spec as a whole.

Let’s assume a Guardian has a single proc of Invigorated Bulwark. In a practical setting they will have more, but let’s assume a single stack for now. A properly geared Magi Guardian has 57%+ outgoing healing, with tons of heals to go around.

First, let’s go over the main heal, Mace autoattack. The full chain completes in roughly 3.26 seconds, and heals 1706 hp. Let’s break down how other heals compare:

Druid’s Solar Beam heals 450hp every 1.35 seconds. Multiplied by 3, that is 1350hp every 4.05 seconds, less heals/per second despite a longer duration.

Tempest’s Water Blast heals 1038 hp every 1.2 seconds. Multiplied by 3, it’s 3114 hp every 3.6 seconds.

As we can see from the data, although there is no competing with Tempest auto, the Mace heal itself is very middle of the road, and in fast stronger than the Druid heal.

As for passive heals, Traited Virtues will give us a shareable Virtue of Resolve. Each second it heals 328 hp and increases endurance regen by 15%. Soothing Mist heals for 315 hp each second., while traited Soothing Mist heals 435 hp per second, so let’s assume they are traited to share Auras instead. Druid, do not have a reliable passive heal.

Geyser can heal 7989 hp and partially revives every 20 seconds, Bow of Truth can heal 10,314 hp every 30 seconds, with additional ammunition for emergency clutch situations. Both skills require allies to stay in an aoe for 4 seconds, and are overall similar in capability. As for Druid, yet again they come out behind, with Ancestral Grace healing only 4237 hp every 18 seconds.

Post 2:

For our Skill 6, which passes our healing to allies, Receive the Light heals allies 12,403 hp every 30 seconds, Wash the Pain Away’s heals 9246 hp every 25 seconds, and Druid’s Glyph of Rejuvenation heals 6862 hp every 20 seconds, but it applies a GoTL stack. Poor Druid yet again comes out behind, and Guardian comes out first for the crutch-burst heal.

Thus’ far, it seems the only healing capability in which Guardian is behind Tempest is the autoattack, and traited soothing mists.

Next, it becomes a bit harder to compare the data, since the rest of Guardian and Tempest capabilities differ vastly, especially how they trait themselves. A guardian can have a million different builds thanks to Honor.

If we use Honorable Staff for a Staff build, we gain extra boon duration and reduced CDs on staff, which allow us to heal 3827 hp every 6 seconds using Detonate Orb of Light, and Empower heals about 4144.8 hp in a 600 radius with blanket might. (With Full Minstrel Gear, Alacrity, and Firebrand, it is possible to solo-maintain 25 stacks of might on a group, allowing Firebrand to fill in for a chronotank, a PS, and a healer, all at once!) Note that Orb of Light is significantly stronger in PvE, since it scales sharply with the additional Healing Power of Ascended Gear and Rice Balls.

Pure of Heart heals 2092 hp every time aegis ends on someone. This essentially turns Mace #3, Shield #4, and a whole bunch of our traits, into massive heals. Retreat becomes a heal. (It also plays into Firebrand, significantly!)

Signet of Courage is a free 2348 hp heal every 10 seconds.

Selfess Daring heals allies 2361 hp with EVERY dodge!

Traited Sanctuary is the single strongest CC in the game, which heals allies 9143 hp and blocks projectiles as a bonus.

Merciful Intervention heals allies 6071 hp on a 40s cd, but it’s useful for escorting on Matthias due to its 1,200 range.

Anyway, as the data establishes, Guardian is more than capable at healing, with many options. What we lacked were buffs, which is where the Firebrand comes in.

With Liberator’s Vow and Mantra of Solace, we grant additional Aegis + Quickness to allies every 12 seconds. Mantra of Potence also applies more Quickness and Might. Keep in mind, Liberator’s Vow apples Aegis, so it procs Pure of Heart for more 2k hp heals.

With Virtue of Justice, using Ashes of Just allows us to boost ally damage without having to invest in a DPS aspect ourselves, similar to Sun Spirit. This capability is further enhanced with the Grandmaster trait Quickfire.

The real star of the show is the grandmaster trait Loremaster, which finally allows us to use our tomes without losing the passive. This isn’t too important for Tome of Justice, but is super important for Tome of Resolve and Tome of Courage.

Thanks for the grandmaster trait, we can actually use Tome of Healing while maintaining the passive 328hp we heal on allies. What’s important to keep in mind is that Tome of Healing isn’t meant to be a direct source of healing like Celestial Avatar is. Stuff like the Healing Auto is merely a bonus on top of everything else. Epilogue: Eternal Oasis improves the effectiveness of every other heal we are using, allowing things like our dodge to heal 3140 hp, and our Virtue of Resolve passive to heal 436 hp. This is something always available, lasts 8 seconds, and it’s only on a 32 second cooldown, further reduced by alacrity. However, the true beauty of Tome of Resolve is its condition removal. Thanks to Virtues, merely activating it removes 3 conditions from allies. However, once in the tome, activating Radiant Recovery will cure allies of even more conditions, on a very tiny cooldown. This will have practical uses on Slothasor and Matthias, where condition removal is necessary. Even without Virtues, the fact this is ALWAYS on our skillbar means we always have access to a condition cleanse on allies, no matter the utility skills.

Then we get Tome of Courage which, yes, it has an insane cooldown. However, we ALWAYS have access to it! Despite its high cooldown, it can be used effectively on fights like Slothasor, where we can quickly proc Epilogue: Broken Lines and Stalwart Stand in order to protect allies from the Shake attack before it even happens. We also always have access to Valiant Bulwark, which means we will be able to cover as an emergency reflect on Matthias.

As for other goodies the Firebrand brings, we also get Imbued Haste, which increases our Healing Power by a free +250, making the numbers I mentioned before even higher! In my testng during the beta, Detonate Orb of Light was able to exceed 6k on heals!

Also, need I remind you, all these calculations assume a single stack of Invigorated Bulwark. We will likely have many more stacks in raids

As you can see, Firebrand, and Guardian as a whole, isn’t exactly lacking anything in the healing department. It has yet to be seen if we exceed the Tempest, but we definitely heal much more than a Druid.

So why not just use Tempest for pure healing? Why not just use Druid for buffs? Simple: Boons. With the addition of Firebrand, we exceed the Quickness sharing capabilities of Chronomancer, we gain more consistent methods of applying Aegis to allies, and tons of stability. As mentioned before, it may be possible one day that we can tank, heal, apply 25 might, and perma-quickness, all at the same time.

It has yet to be seen how Firebrand performs in practice, but I hope to make it more apparent to you, and perhaps the forums as a whole, that a Guardian has potential to become a viable healer with Firebrand.

Nick.6972:

If I recall correctly, devs said that Firebrand went through many iterations and changes during the development.
I guess they just didn’t know what to do with Guardian, but I wonder what made them stop at what we have now.

Well there may have been(100% sure) beter iterationas but they don’t belong to our beloved “good spot” like firebrand does now

Tome of courage with legendary lore and pure of heart trait is better for healing than tome of resolve hah.

I believe they’ll buff both mantras and tomes, they feel very underwhelming.

I still don’t know why the cast time and cooldown of tomes are so high, the effects aren’t that powerful to justify that. Even if it were, I prefer higher frequency than insane effects. The effects now are “alrighty”, they only need to reduce the cast and cooldown times and maybe do some adjustment to the numbers.

I appreciate your efforts in defending Firebrand as a healing build but as someone who regularly plays Druid I feel like you’re slightly underselling the Druid.

Kain Francois.4328:

First, let’s go over the main heal, Mace autoattack. The full chain completes in roughly 3.26 seconds, and heals 1706 hp. Let’s break down how other heals compare:

Druid’s Solar Beam heals 450hp every 1.35 seconds. Multiplied by 3, that is 1350hp every 4.05 seconds, less heals/per second despite a longer duration.

Solar beam has 1200 range and therefore is much more flexible. Mace requires both the Guardian and their party to stand on top of each other and the boss in order to be effective. That means the guardian can’t heal anyone with the mace if party members are located away from the boss. Good luck healing people at Matthias or during high level fractals with Social Awkwardness. Same goes for the Tome of Resolve. It doesn’t have any ground target heals and it requires everyone to stand nearby the guardian.

As for passive heals, Traited Virtues will give us a shareable Virtue of Resolve. Each second it heals 328 hp and increases endurance regen by 15%. Soothing Mist heals for 315 hp each second., while traited Soothing Mist heals 435 hp per second, so let’s assume they are traited to share Auras instead. Druid, do not have a reliable passive heal.

Druids do have passive heal. Warhorn #5 pumps infinite regeneration that can overwrite any other source of regeneration. They can also put up a Spirit of Nature which heals 5 targets for 1 minute and can be sacrificed to revive teammates.

Geyser can heal 7989 hp and partially revives every 20 seconds, Bow of Truth can heal 10,314 hp every 30 seconds, with additional ammunition for emergency clutch situations. Both skills require allies to stay in an aoe for 4 seconds, and are overall similar in capability. As for Druid, yet again they come out behind, with Ancestral Grace healing only 4237 hp every 18 seconds.

Ancestral Grace is mostly used in combination with the water field from Sublime Conversion or the healing trap. Also when someone is in trouble you are able to reach your target simply by clicking 3 on them. Unfortunately the Firebrand only has one water field which I don’t think they can blast themselves. Even then they first have to run up to their target before it’s too late. Druid Staff is way more flexible than the Guardian staff or mace combined.

Druid’s Glyph of Rejuvenation heals 6862 hp every 20 second

You forgot to add the Seed of Life which heals an additional 1500 (plus blinds & removes conditions). Which also works on all the other glyphs.

What’s important to keep in mind is that Tome of Healing isn’t meant to be a direct source of healing like Celestial Avatar is.

I agree. Since we have Tome of Courage we should be able to prevent initial damage. Something a druid or tempest can’t achieve. But then there’s the problem that the Tome of Courage and the Tome of Healing can both be on cool down before either one is even close to being recharged. This is one of the two main flaws why Firebrand will not be a reliable support class.

The other flaw is the short range. Two of the main healing components of the druid is staff #3 and CA #3. Both these skills have ground targeting and allow to reach your teammates within a second. A Firebrand would have to walk up to their target, open up their tome (0.75 seconds) while casting tome #4 (another 0.75 seconds). The Firebrand will have a very hard time to save teammates from emergency situations.

So why not just use Tempest for pure healing? Why not just use Druid for buffs? Simple: Boons. With the addition of Firebrand, we exceed the Quickness sharing capabilities of Chronomancer, we gain more consistent methods of applying Aegis to allies, and tons of stability.

I’m still missing the comparison to Druid buffs though. Druids have spotter, GotL and spirits. I agree with the rest of your statements and it does give a nice positive view on the Firebrand that allows for interesting discussions on Firebrand healing viability.

Now let’s get back to the real world, shall we.

As for passive heals, Traited Virtues will give us a shareable Virtue of Resolve. Each second it heals 328 hp

It’s 328 every 3 seconds, or something less than 110 per second. Soothing Mist is 4 times stronger.

As for Druid, yet again they come out behind, with Ancestral Grace healing only 4237 hp every 18 seconds.

Isn’t it convenient to completely ignore Astral Wisp? Also, Ancestral Grace is a blast finisher and can be used to blast Sublime Conversion for more healing. Druid also has Verdant Etching on all their glyphs for more healing.

Tempest can blast all their Geysers and Healing Rains, too.

Pure of Heart heals 2092 hp every time aegis ends on someone.

Pure of Heart only heals if aegis blocks an attack. If it times out or you overwrite it with another application of aegis, there’s no heal.

—

To continue with the rest of your post, I have to address the ridiculousness of your comparisons. You dug up every single instance of healing skill or trait that Guardian has to try to make a point, ignoring the limited utility slots, trait choices and builds.

At the same time, you conveniently swept a lot of healing traits, like Tempest’s healing auras, Evasive Arcana, etc under the rug. And when you were talking about how awesome Tome of Resolve is because it’s always available, you forgot that Druid’s Celestial Avatar and Tempest’s Overload Water are always available, too. I only used a 2-skill rotation in the OP, but druid can camp CA and do enormous healing. And Overload Water can cleanse 4 conditions on a 20 second cooldown, on top of other sources of cleansing Tempest has.

And somehow your guardian is able to wield both staff and mace at the same time, so you include both weapons’ healing numbers in your comparisons. If you swap away from your mace/shield, you lose the mace auto, and you have less access to aegis and block to maintain Invigorating Bulwark stacks.

With Full Minstrel Gear, Alacrity, and Firebrand, it is possible to solo-maintain 25 stacks of might on a group, allowing Firebrand to fill in for a chronotank, a PS, and a healer, all at once!

I would love to see your might stacking rotation. But don’t make ridiculous claims like this. You can’t do all of these at the same time. And you can never replace chronotank because you don’t have alacrity.

If you want to make comparisons, theorycraft a build first, don’t spam random utilities with healing components in them.

Yes, Receive the Light can compete with Wash the Pain Away and Glyph of Rejuvenation. But when you are talking about a quickness stacking Firebrand, you are stuck with Mantra of Solace, you have 1 less utility because of Mantra of Potence, and you can’t use Signet of Courage, because you need to take Feel my Wrath.

Finally, and more importantly, all of these comparisons are moot. Druid is not taken for its healing capabilities, but because of its offensive buffs. Firebrand can never replace druid, or chronotank, because the fancy healing build you are describing does no damage.

Chronotank can afford to do little damage because the bring quickness, alacrity and distortion. Firebrand was given only one of those.

What’s important to keep in mind is that Tome of Healing isn’t meant to be a direct source of healing like Celestial Avatar is.

Citation needed. Also, funny you mention it, because Celestial Avatar has a daze and a powerful immobilize, as well as a cleanse, while Tome of Resolve has only healing and cleansing, with no damage or cc. But I suppose it’s not meant to be a healing tool, right?

The reason I focused on healing and want Firebrand to be a capable healer (besides theme, because Guardian deserves to be a top-tier healer), is because Magi druid is still seeing use in raids. If Firebrand without healing gear could do comparable healing to Druid without healing gear, then you could take condi quickness Guardian and condi Druid, that together would cover the healing for the group, and Chrono could switch to a dps alacrity build. So, you would take 2 classes (chrono and firebrand) to do the job of one, but you would have a chrono, druid and firebrand all doing decent damage, instead of having chrono and magi druid doing no damage.

For that to happen, we would need a much stronger Tome of Resolve, because as you said, it’s always available, and we can’t afford to spec into more healing. Even then, firebrand would have to really try to squeeze itself into the meta, and it would only be played at 1 per raid max, because chronotank is irreplaceable.

If all those numbers could be converted into healing per second, that’d be great.

Aza.2105:

Tome of courage with legendary lore and pure of heart trait is better for healing than tome of resolve hah.

This, At around 1130 healing power one PoH heals for 1211. 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. Without considering the other tome skills like the dome or the slot one ability cone with 600 rng which also grant aegis to everyone.

The F2 tome is kitten for pure healing, 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 as well, 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.

RabbitUp.8294:

Now let’s get back to the real world, shall we.

As for passive heals, Traited Virtues will give us a shareable Virtue of Resolve. Each second it heals 328 hp

It’s 328 every 3 seconds, or something less than 110 per second. Soothing Mist is 4 times stronger.

I’m not weighing in on the rest of this argument, but his number was correct. With magi gear and healing modifiers, 328 per second is accurate.

If you want to go all-in on healing, you can actually get it quite a bit higher than that. If you take the Force of Will trait and assume you get 3 stacks of the mace trait, you can get it to tick at 1350 every 3s on others (450/s). At 5 stacks of the mace trait, that gets up to 476/s.

Knox.8962:

RabbitUp.8294:

Now let’s get back to the real world, shall we.

As for passive heals, Traited Virtues will give us a shareable Virtue of Resolve. Each second it heals 328 hp

It’s 328 every 3 seconds, or something less than 110 per second. Soothing Mist is 4 times stronger.

I’m not weighing in on the rest of this argument, but his number was correct. With magi gear and healing modifiers, 328 per second is accurate.

If you want to go all-in on healing, you can actually get it quite a bit higher than that. If you take the Force of Will trait and assume you get 3 stacks of the mace trait, you can get it to tick at 1350 every 3s on others (450/s). At 5 stacks of the mace trait, that gets up to 476/s.

The base healing for traited Virtue of Resolve is 315 (0.225) every 3s. With 1600 healing, it’s 675, or 225/s.

So with +50% healing, you can get 328/s.

You would need more than +100% healing to get the numbers you claim, though.

But the whole point was to compare it to the elementalist’s Soothing Mist, so you have to apply the same healing power and heal modifiers.

Untraited, it’s 800 (1.0) every 10s, or 2500 with 1600 healing. So, 240/s.
With the trait, it’s doubled at 480/s.

With a 50% modifier, it’s 730/s, more than twice as strong.

People forget that Guard is not all about healing, but its other half is about damage prevention and mitigation.

mazut.4296:

People forget that Guard is not all about healing, but its other half is about damage prevention and mitigation.

Do you see any damage mitigation in Tome of Resolve? The tome itself is focused on healing, and it does a bad job at it. That’s why this thread is about the tome, not about the whole guardian profession.

And if we compare Firebrand to DH in terms of damage mitigation, Shield of Courage can tank hits for the whole team, the best thing Tome of Courage can do is stop projectiles or conditions after a delay.

RabbitUp.8294:

mazut.4296:

People forget that Guard is not all about healing, but its other half is about damage prevention and mitigation.

Do you see any damage mitigation in Tome of Resolve? The tome itself is focused on healing, and it does a bad job at it. That’s why this thread is about the tome, not about the whole guardian profession.

And if we compare Firebrand to DH in terms of damage mitigation, Shield of Courage can tank hits for the whole team, the best thing Tome of Courage can do is stop projectiles or conditions after a delay.

You have them on utilities and weapons. And traits*

RabbitUp.8294:

Knox.8962:

RabbitUp.8294:

Now let’s get back to the real world, shall we.

As for passive heals, Traited Virtues will give us a shareable Virtue of Resolve. Each second it heals 328 hp

It’s 328 every 3 seconds, or something less than 110 per second. Soothing Mist is 4 times stronger.

I’m not weighing in on the rest of this argument, but his number was correct. With magi gear and healing modifiers, 328 per second is accurate.

If you want to go all-in on healing, you can actually get it quite a bit higher than that. If you take the Force of Will trait and assume you get 3 stacks of the mace trait, you can get it to tick at 1350 every 3s on others (450/s). At 5 stacks of the mace trait, that gets up to 476/s.

The base healing for traited Virtue of Resolve is 315 (0.225) every 3s. With 1600 healing, it’s 675, or 225/s.

So with +50% healing, you can get 328/s.

You would need more than +100% healing to get the numbers you claim, though.

But the whole point was to compare it to the elementalist’s Soothing Mist, so you have to apply the same healing power and heal modifiers.

Untraited, it’s 800 (1.0) every 10s, or 2500 with 1600 healing. So, 240/s.
With the trait, it’s doubled at 480/s.

With a 50% modifier, it’s 730/s, more than twice as strong.

Using this build you would have a total of 1976 healing power with the Firebrand GM Minor trait, and an 77.97% outgoing healing modifier @ 3 stacks of the mace trait. (87.97% if you assumed 5 mace stacks).

That puts the base healing of VoJ passive at 760/3s = 253.3/s
After healing mods, you’d be ticking for 451 @ 3 stacks and 476 @ 5 stacks.

I’m not sure why anyone would use this particular setup, but those numbers are certainly achievable.

The rest of this argument is absurd because you’re comparing 2 totally different toolsets by picking out a piece of them in a vacuum and trying to draw comparisons based on those.

For what it is worth, I think the F2 tome is underpowered given the lengthy cooldown gating the use of it, but if you’re going to argue the point, at least don’t call BS on stuff that isn’t.

mazut.4296:

RabbitUp.8294:

mazut.4296:

People forget that Guard is not all about healing, but its other half is about damage prevention and mitigation.

Do you see any damage mitigation in Tome of Resolve? The tome itself is focused on healing, and it does a bad job at it. That’s why this thread is about the tome, not about the whole guardian profession.

And if we compare Firebrand to DH in terms of damage mitigation, Shield of Courage can tank hits for the whole team, the best thing Tome of Courage can do is stop projectiles or conditions after a delay.

You have them on utilities and weapons. And traits*

There’s no mitigation on axe, and the only mantra that has mitigation is the heal that grants aegis, but at the cost of being a very weak heal.

No, base guardian weapons and skills don’t count, because those are accessible to DH, too, and we already established that as it is, DH can heal for more.

Knox.8962:

The rest of this argument is absurd because you’re comparing 2 totally different toolsets by picking out a piece of them in a vacuum and trying to draw comparisons based on those.

I’m not the one who compared VoR to Soothing Mist.

For what it is worth, I think the F2 tome is underpowered given the lengthy cooldown gating the use of it, but if you’re going to argue the point, at least don’t call BS on stuff that isn’t.

If he was assuming some super specific healer setup to get those numbers, then he should have applied the same setup for Soothing Mist.

The point remains that Soothing Mist is a lot stronger than Virtue of Justice.

Firebrand’s support tomes have good synergy with Honor and Virtues trait lines and a heal capable of garant Aegis shouldn’t be understimated.

Core Guardian’s tankiness with the condition potential of Firebrand can give birth to a Honor/Virtues/Firebrand Sage Lore Burnker pvp build.

Easy Aegis access with Pure of Heart, general sustain and double CD reduction on class mechanics on top of empowered passive virtues that persist even with tomes on CD are real.

Anyone that actually cares about healing already knows druid isn’t wanted in pve raids and fractals for its healing its for special buffs being empower, spirits, and grace of the land. Tempests, Guardians, and Revs can all outshine druids in the healing department they just lack special buffs and because raiding honestly doesn’t require a massive amount of raw healing unless ppl miss a mech druids will remain the go to healer.

Support Revs, Guardians, and Tempests see far more usage in wvw large scale fights because they have more access not only to healing but boons and utility that are better suited for constant sustain and heavy incoming damage.

As someone else stated though Firebrand could potentially fill a role providing perma quickness perma might through staff and the quickness mantra, all while potentially having higher dps than a chrono tank. The issue remains what are you giving up, because as it stands currently ppl will always want warrior for banners, ppl will always want druids for spirits, empower, and gotl.

The big question remains though will Firebrands dps in a supportive role out pace a Chrono tank that gives alacrity and will it be easy enough access for the group to receive Firebrand buffs.

RabbitUp.8294:

mazut.4296:

RabbitUp.8294:

mazut.4296:

People forget that Guard is not all about healing, but its other half is about damage prevention and mitigation.

Do you see any damage mitigation in Tome of Resolve? The tome itself is focused on healing, and it does a bad job at it. That’s why this thread is about the tome, not about the whole guardian profession.

And if we compare Firebrand to DH in terms of damage mitigation, Shield of Courage can tank hits for the whole team, the best thing Tome of Courage can do is stop projectiles or conditions after a delay.

You have them on utilities and weapons. And traits*

There’s no mitigation on axe, and the only mantra that has mitigation is the heal that grants aegis, but at the cost of being a very weak heal.

No, base guardian weapons and skills don’t count, because those are accessible to DH, too, and we already established that as it is, DH can heal for more.

Roll eyes… Ofc they count

mazut.4296:

RabbitUp.8294:

mazut.4296:

RabbitUp.8294:

mazut.4296:

People forget that Guard is not all about healing, but its other half is about damage prevention and mitigation.

Do you see any damage mitigation in Tome of Resolve? The tome itself is focused on healing, and it does a bad job at it. That’s why this thread is about the tome, not about the whole guardian profession.

And if we compare Firebrand to DH in terms of damage mitigation, Shield of Courage can tank hits for the whole team, the best thing Tome of Courage can do is stop projectiles or conditions after a delay.

You have them on utilities and weapons. And traits*

There’s no mitigation on axe, and the only mantra that has mitigation is the heal that grants aegis, but at the cost of being a very weak heal.

No, base guardian weapons and skills don’t count, because those are accessible to DH, too, and we already established that as it is, DH can heal for more.

Roll eyes… Ofc they count

Roll them all you want, Dh is still a better healer than Firebrand and base gaurdian is a better overall support.

Lalainnia.3598:

Anyone that actually cares about healing already knows druid isn’t wanted in pve raids and fractals for its healing its for special buffs being empower, spirits, and grace of the land. Tempests, Guardians, and Revs can all outshine druids in the healing department they just lack special buffs and because raiding honestly doesn’t require a massive amount of raw healing unless ppl miss a mech druids will remain the go to healer.

I really hope that this way of thinking changes. Raids only really benefit from one druid. Grace of the Land is by far the most important buff they give, and one druid can stack it on a full raid since it affects up to 10 people. A second druid for that is redundant. Spirits are helpful but do not make or break dps, so 2 aren’t required. And with such a heavy condi dps meta, Empower is pointless to bring. It doesn’t affect condi damage; it only benefits power dps.

It’s true that Firebrand doesn’t have the same kind of direct dps-enhancing abilities as druid, but it has other huge benefits. The biggest difference is the insane amount of aegis. Aegis upkeep could do amazing things for raid groups, especially pugs. Keeping people alive and on their feet is a higher dps boost than anything a druid can do. With the tons of aegis, stability, and stun breaks, they’ll be able to do that much easier than a druid. For example, think about No Updrafts Gors – Aegis/stability upkeep means you don’t have to trust people do dodge his knockdown smash (thus greatly increasing dps), and spamable Aegis will protect against his CC phase, rather than relying on mes distorts (which I’ve seen get messed up a lot), meaning fewer people are likely to go down, which also increases dps.

Then on top of all of that, aegis doesn’t need any healing power and guard passive healing can work well with just a little healing power, so you could run more dps-oriented gear (I’m thinking run something like Seraph’s). That also increases overall dps because a condi Firebrand could pull more dps than a condi Druid.

And to get back to the post topic… My only complaint really is the CD on the Tome. I think mechanically it’s fine, but how the skills are now, it feels much more like something that should be easily and frequently swapped in and out. I’d love to see a shorter CD, or if they want to keep the CD as is, they should buff up the abilities to really make it feel like it’s powerful. Maybe have all of the skills affect 10 people rather than just 5.

I don’t see how people are having issues with healing using firebrand. I consistently got 500k+ healing every pvp match. I even managed to get up to 748k (proud of that one).

Zalarious.9168:

I don’t see how people are having issues with healing using firebrand. I consistently got 500k+ healing every pvp match. I even managed to get up to 748k (proud of that one).

This is about pve, and the numbers are up there.

REKKRAP.1759:

Lalainnia.3598:

Anyone that actually cares about healing already knows druid isn’t wanted in pve raids and fractals for its healing its for special buffs being empower, spirits, and grace of the land. Tempests, Guardians, and Revs can all outshine druids in the healing department they just lack special buffs and because raiding honestly doesn’t require a massive amount of raw healing unless ppl miss a mech druids will remain the go to healer.

I really hope that this way of thinking changes. Raids only really benefit from one druid. Grace of the Land is by far the most important buff they give, and one druid can stack it on a full raid since it affects up to 10 people. A second druid for that is redundant. Spirits are helpful but do not make or break dps, so 2 aren’t required. And with such a heavy condi dps meta, Empower is pointless to bring. It doesn’t affect condi damage; it only benefits power dps.

It’s true that Firebrand doesn’t have the same kind of direct dps-enhancing abilities as druid, but it has other huge benefits. The biggest difference is the insane amount of aegis. Aegis upkeep could do amazing things for raid groups, especially pugs. Keeping people alive and on their feet is a higher dps boost than anything a druid can do. With the tons of aegis, stability, and stun breaks, they’ll be able to do that much easier than a druid. For example, think about No Updrafts Gors – Aegis/stability upkeep means you don’t have to trust people do dodge his knockdown smash (thus greatly increasing dps), and spamable Aegis will protect against his CC phase, rather than relying on mes distorts (which I’ve seen get messed up a lot), meaning fewer people are likely to go down, which also increases dps.

Then on top of all of that, aegis doesn’t need any healing power and guard passive healing can work well with just a little healing power, so you could run more dps-oriented gear (I’m thinking run something like Seraph’s). That also increases overall dps because a condi Firebrand could pull more dps than a condi Druid.

So in the end, the only benefit is the stability, and that’s hardly useful in pve, when you can have Tempest take Gale Song.

Aegis directly competes with raw healing and now barrier. There are tons of unblockable attacks in both raids and fractals, boss auras that strip aegis, and multi-hit attacks and aoe fields that will do their bulk of damage even through aegis.

Meanwhile, a druid can keep healing their allies through any kind of damage, and a scourge can apply barrier, which has none of the drawbacks of aegis.

At the same time, you talk about pugs and how firebrand would benefit them, but you forget that in a pug situation, you cannot rely on the one druid to maintain 5 stacks of GotL by themselves, at which point, the second druid is the optimal choice.

Druid is safe and easy. Magi druid in particular makes a lot of encounters braindead easy. Firebrand will never compete with that, unless they have both good aegis output and good raw healing, and they don’t have that.

Even if it becomes an argument about dps, since magi druid has no personal damage and condi druid less healing, Scourge has both condi dps like firebrand and tons of defensive utility. The quickness of firebrand will continue to be supplied by chrono.

Zalarious.9168:

I don’t see how people are having issues with healing using firebrand. I consistently got 500k+ healing every pvp match. I even managed to get up to 748k (proud of that one).

Pics or didnt happen.

Ragnarox.9601:

Zalarious.9168:

I don’t see how people are having issues with healing using firebrand. I consistently got 500k+ healing every pvp match. I even managed to get up to 748k (proud of that one).

Pics or didnt happen.

The base guardian can already achieve that healing in PvP quite easily, if not more easily than a firebrand. Honestly I got a lot less healing when I was using the firebrand than I normally do from just playing a healer guardian.

REKKRAP.1759:

I really hope that this way of thinking changes. Raids only really benefit from one druid. Grace of the Land is by far the most important buff they give, and one druid can stack it on a full raid since it affects up to 10 people. A second druid for that is redundant. Spirits are helpful but do not make or break dps, so 2 aren’t required. And with such a heavy condi dps meta, Empower is pointless to bring. It doesn’t affect condi damage; it only benefits power dps.

If it’s true that Druid offensive support is overrated than we would’ve already been seeing occurrences of secondary Tempest/Guardian/Revenant healers. I might have seen one Tempest healer at Matthias and Cairn but definitely not a Guardian or Revenant healer.

It’s not just offensive buffs that they lack. People simply do not trust the Guardian or Revenant to supply a consistent way to heal their group. The radius is too small, the skills are not always available, the casting times are slow. Whereas the Druid and Tempest can keep a constant large range stream of healing going.

With regards to offensive support abilities, the Druid Spirits are free damage buffs of 10% damage and 2 burn ticks. They do not require any work other than putting down the spirits. Stone Spirit gives everyone permanent protection. Spotter gives everyone a CHC increase of 7%. Glyph of empowerment gives 10% damage. The guardian’s options simply fall short. The new Quickfire Grandmaster trait competes with Loremaster and is worse than the Druid’s Sun Spirit. Signet share are worse than spirits/spotter and require an investment into the Radiance offensive trait line. Shattered Aegis requires Zeal offensive trait line. Quickness is already given by Chronomancer.

It’s true that Firebrand doesn’t have the same kind of direct dps-enhancing abilities as druid, but it has other huge benefits. The biggest difference is the insane amount of aegis. Aegis upkeep could do amazing things for raid groups, especially pugs. Keeping people alive and on their feet is a higher dps boost than anything a druid can do. With the tons of aegis, stability, and stun breaks, they’ll be able to do that much easier than a druid. For example, think about No Updrafts Gors – Aegis/stability upkeep means you don’t have to trust people do dodge his knockdown smash (thus greatly increasing dps), and spamable Aegis will protect against his CC phase, rather than relying on mes distorts (which I’ve seen get messed up a lot), meaning fewer people are likely to go down, which also increases dps.

Unfortunately, aegis has never played a role in the meta because of the large amount of random cluster damage you receive from enemy sources. It’s less reliable than distort imho. Aegis can also easily be replaced with distorts from Chronomancer or Dragonhunter’s F3 & Retreat. Both classes are already part of the PvE meta. It’s going to be very hard for the Firebrand to shake up the meta simply by giving aegis. Which is a real blow back for the Guardian class since aegis is an integral part of their play style. Pure of Heart trait works well though and is placed nicely in the Honor trait line. I was hoping to see the Firebrand receive the new barrier mechanic on blocking with aegis. That would’ve made aegis a key part of the Firebrand support build.

Then on top of all of that, aegis doesn’t need any healing power and guard passive healing can work well with just a little healing power, so you could run more dps-oriented gear (I’m thinking run something like Seraph’s). That also increases overall dps because a condi Firebrand could pull more dps than a condi Druid.

An offensive support Firebrand can dish out more DPS than a condition Druid (which has been heavily nerfed) but I’m pretty sure an offensive support Druid would still be more efficient to boost the DPS of the whole group.

And to get back to the post topic… My only complaint really is the CD on the Tome. I think mechanically it’s fine, but how the skills are now, it feels much more like something that should be easily and frequently swapped in and out. I’d love to see a shorter CD, or if they want to keep the CD as is, they should buff up the abilities to really make it feel like it’s powerful. Maybe have all of the skills affect 10 people rather than just 5.

I agree with you on this.