Guild Wars 2

Ghotistyx.6942:

You don’t get compensated for additions. Just… why does that need to be mentioned?

It doesn’t. But at this point it is accepted that elite specs are better than core ones. DH got little mobility but was ranged. Firebrand is a melee spec that has no way to get to targets.

I’d rework it completely like this.

Tomes are instant cast, once cast you ‘tear’ a page out. I.e. you select a skill to equip, also no cast time. That page is a skill and depending on the skill it has a number of charges. Once all charges are depleted the skill in that tome goes on cooldown, but the tome does not. If no pages are equipped the virtues are considered to be unused and the passives will happen.

Tome of Courage (skill #2) “Chapter 2: Daring Challenge”

Taunt enemies… With a range of 240???

Fashion Mage.3712:

If you’re forced to stay in close-range and you don’t have mobility or some kind of self-defense, the build will not work. It’s a very basic concept that applies to every class, and the class in question being guardians doesn’t suddenly make that concept disappear. The firebrand keeps you in close-range even more so than a normal guardian (because of tomes), except with DH you actually have significant self-defense (and more range, and more mobility) and with the core guardian you have intant-cast virtues, which make a surprising amount of difference. The firebrand gives you almost melee-range tomes that make you a sitting duck unless you’re at long-range, at which point you can’t do anything because tomes aren’t ranged weapons anymore.

To get this out of the way: I’m aware you’re kinda disappointed with Tomes not being ranged. That’s fine. But jeeee… If you don’t want something to work…

Most of the survivability DH has over FB comes from their Virtues – where FB quite obviously is more support oriented. That’s it. Don’t even start with LB which few to no (condi) DH’s use. Sure, FB is probably worse solo than DH. But that’s not what we are discussing here, or is it? Tomes do need some polish but they do work. They are pretty great especially in group fights and there are plenty ways to make sure you can get them off. New ones (Mantras) and old ones (Meditations and Shouts).

The thing which maybe baffles me the most: Especially in large scale content people were fine with 600 range on their lootstick for ages. And suddenly Tomes aren’t viable because of their range.

Ghotistyx.6942:

RabbitUp.8294:

Guardian was already a profession with limited mobility, and they dropped a purely melee spec on top of that, without any compensation.

You don’t get compensated for additions. Just… why does that need to be mentioned?

At least one sane person…

Ghotistyx.6942:

RabbitUp.8294:

Guardian was already a profession with limited mobility, and they dropped a purely melee spec on top of that, without any compensation.

You don’t get compensated for additions. Just… why does that need to be mentioned?

Problem is that its purely melee on a class with no mobility and no viable way to get swiftness (at least viable by sPvP terms).

Its like giving thief hammer and no sustain and then removing their ability to shadowstep. It just doesn’t work.

Ghotistyx.6942:

RabbitUp.8294:

Guardian was already a profession with limited mobility, and they dropped a purely melee spec on top of that, without any compensation.

You don’t get compensated for additions. Just… why does that need to be mentioned?

Tell that to the devs themselves who kept saying that Weaver needs tools to survive at melee range and gave it a ton of barrier.

Or when they gave tons of chill to Reaper so they can keep enemies at close range.

The addition has to work with the class. And if you have to jump through hoops, the reward should be greater.

The purpose of virtues is to provide instant healing or damage mitigation. Any form of casting on virtues is the kiss of death sPvP. In addition firebrand line provides little in terms of sustainability and surely nothing to the extent offered by the virtues.

In addition one of the main appeals of guardian is the lack of gimmicks. No kits or changing casting bars. If I want that type of game play I will go play elementalist or engineer. It does not fit with the guardian gameplay or style.

There is no redemption for tomes. No possible fix absent a major restructure of guardian overall gameplay and functionality.

RabbitUp.8294:

Honestly, the spec won’t be salvaged by simple number tweeks. It needs to get back to the drawing board, which won’t happen.

So what will happen is that it will be released as is, maybe with some minor tweaks. It might work as condi dps in pve, or rarely as a quickness bot in some specific group compositions.

If it doesn’t work as condi dps, a year later it will receive some dps buffs. So, to the majority of the playerbase, it will be a succesful elite spec, because it does damage.

And that will be the story of support guardian. Firebrand will forever be our “support” spec. So, for the next couple of year, if not for the rest of the game, guardian, the class advertised as the support class, will have 2 damage builds and possible a quickness bot build, that will be strictly inferior to chrono.

That’s my problem with firebrand, that it takes the spot of guardian’s support spec. That it’s our one shot and there won’t be another. With HoT, I criticised DH, but as problematic as DH was, I could look forward to the next expansions and the possibility of a supportive elite spec.

Now that the day came, I would rather get no elite spec, than know that firebrand will be it.

To be fair, fire brand will work well in PvE as condition damage spec. But in that respect it’s neither strong or unique in any form.

otto.5684:

RabbitUp.8294:

Honestly, the spec won’t be salvaged by simple number tweeks. It needs to get back to the drawing board, which won’t happen.

So what will happen is that it will be released as is, maybe with some minor tweaks. It might work as condi dps in pve, or rarely as a quickness bot in some specific group compositions.

If it doesn’t work as condi dps, a year later it will receive some dps buffs. So, to the majority of the playerbase, it will be a succesful elite spec, because it does damage.

And that will be the story of support guardian. Firebrand will forever be our “support” spec. So, for the next couple of year, if not for the rest of the game, guardian, the class advertised as the support class, will have 2 damage builds and possible a quickness bot build, that will be strictly inferior to chrono.

That’s my problem with firebrand, that it takes the spot of guardian’s support spec. That it’s our one shot and there won’t be another. With HoT, I criticised DH, but as problematic as DH was, I could look forward to the next expansions and the possibility of a supportive elite spec.

Now that the day came, I would rather get no elite spec, than know that firebrand will be it.

To be fair, fire brand will work well in PvE as condition damage spec. But in that respect it’s neither strong or unique in any form.

It’s a numbers game. Like I said, it might work on day 1, or after buffs.

But it’s not a straight upgrade to burn guardian to be sure it will be an improvement, because it looks like it has burst, but it might have lower sustained damage.

So, yes, we might have 2 dps builds to choose from, hip hip hooray, the whole point was to be able to play support.

Anyone noticed when casting F1 1# skill on enemy on little higher or lower ground there is no dmg whatsoever? kitten more and more things that dont work on firebrand. Awfull elite spec.

Cone skills are bound to x-axis, y-is non existant. If someone is on elevated ground skills wont dmg anyone, nor axe 3# pull. Thats a shame. Such limited and bad elite spec.

Ragnarox.9601:

Anyone noticed when casting F1 1# skill on enemy on little higher or lower ground there is no dmg whatsoever? kitten more and more things that dont work on firebrand. Awfull elite spec.

Cone skills are bound to x-axis, y-is non existant. If someone is on elevated ground skills wont dmg anyone, nor axe 3# pull. Thats a shame. Such limited and bad elite spec.

There is ALOT that is bugged with this spec tbh.

Here’s my opinion:

1. Bring the tomes models back, please. Just like before we use the old elite tomes, we can have a truly huge book in front us.

I believe those who ever seen the old tomes will be very happy.

2. Increase healing scale for the ToR, especial the Chapter 4: Shining River, just like the Lunar Impact of Celestial Avatar.

Making it can give a huge healing on cast, have a ground target and range 1,200.

this is from a pure pve perspective, I run a pure support tank on my guardian, (valor, virtues, honor with mace-shield)

the heal scaling needs to be buffed, alot. mace 1,2 and the heal provided by pure of heart out performs tome of restoration in both overall healing and ease of use. meditations outperform mantras and give me zero reason to use them . as a front line support, using the heals or support is not an option because of the cone effect.

replace mantra cone effects with a pbaoe, but make it a 3 second pulse. this can either be centered on the guardian or by placing a non movable mark on the ground similar to symbols.

as far as tomes, these should replace our utility skills, NOT our weapon skills. at least then, it makes combos possible when using our weapons, like the axe pull, then the tome of justice attacks. as a front line support, loosing my weapons is not an option for me.

the cooldowns need to be removed, but have the pages slowly replenish as per the ammo system, but have all tomes share the pages. this will allow us to switch tomes, create combos and still have a restrictive resource management.

as it is, firebrand should be using staff and scepter and be a rear or mid line support. it has no reason to be on the front line at all.

Delgotta.3817:

this is from a pure pve perspective, I run a pure support tank on my guardian, (valor, virtues, honor with mace-shield)

the heal scaling needs to be buffed, alot. mace 1,2 and the heal provided by pure of heart out performs tome of restoration in both overall healing and ease of use. meditations outperform mantras and give me zero reason to use them . as a front line support, using the heals or support is not an option because of the cone effect.

replace mantra cone effects with a pbaoe, but make it a 3 second pulse. this can either be centered on the guardian or by placing a non movable mark on the ground similar to symbols.

as far as tomes, these should replace our utility skills, NOT our weapon skills. at least then, it makes combos possible when using our weapons, like the axe pull, then the tome of justice attacks. as a front line support, loosing my weapons is not an option for me.

the cooldowns need to be removed, but have the pages slowly replenish as per the ammo system, but have all tomes share the pages. this will allow us to switch tomes, create combos and still have a restrictive resource management.

as it is, firebrand should be using staff and scepter and be a rear or mid line support. it has no reason to be on the front line at all.

Taking away the cooldowns from the tomes would break the F1-F3 traits completely so it won’t happen until anet reworks the guardian completely in its traits.
They can reduce them to the level of core guard or DH but that’s it.

Using tomes as utilities could be something anet can put on their testing list. At least ToR and ToC so you’re not punished if you don’t use all pages because damage is more important at that moment than support.

Xaylin.1860:

Fashion Mage.3712:

If you’re forced to stay in close-range and you don’t have mobility or some kind of self-defense, the build will not work. It’s a very basic concept that applies to every class, and the class in question being guardians doesn’t suddenly make that concept disappear. The firebrand keeps you in close-range even more so than a normal guardian (because of tomes), except with DH you actually have significant self-defense (and more range, and more mobility) and with the core guardian you have intant-cast virtues, which make a surprising amount of difference. The firebrand gives you almost melee-range tomes that make you a sitting duck unless you’re at long-range, at which point you can’t do anything because tomes aren’t ranged weapons anymore.

To get this out of the way: I’m aware you’re kinda disappointed with Tomes not being ranged. That’s fine. But jeeee… If you don’t want something to work…

Most of the survivability DH has over FB comes from their Virtues – where FB quite obviously is more support oriented. That’s it. Don’t even start with LB which few to no (condi) DH’s use. Sure, FB is probably worse solo than DH. But that’s not what we are discussing here, or is it? Tomes do need some polish but they do work. They are pretty great especially in group fights and there are plenty ways to make sure you can get them off. New ones (Mantras) and old ones (Meditations and Shouts).

The thing which maybe baffles me the most: Especially in large scale content people were fine with 600 range on their lootstick for ages. And suddenly Tomes aren’t viable because of their range.

I am disappointed, and I’m done being disregarded as a player by ANet so I’m not playing anymore. So in that regard I’m speaking pretty objectively as a result. The tomes can be melee range, fine, but if they don’t have some kind of survival mechanic to back it up besides range (mobility/defense), then it will not function. If ANet does add mobility or defense to tomes, I still won’t play. If they don’t add mobility or defense to tomes, I will bask in the tears of the same community who vetoed tomes and got them back in a completely worthless and clunky form.
Do I expect them to add range to the tomes? No. Do I expect them to overtune the Firebrand to compensate for their god awful game design? Heck yeah.

No, they don’t work. Any player with half a brain will focus down a firebrand with ease because they have no real way to defend themselves. I’ve played it, and other people have played it, and they’ve come to the same conclusion.

WvW is a completely different mode with some kind of terrible next level balance. I don’t know if it works there and I don’t care to know if it does either.

I for one like the current system and don’t think it needs too much change to achieve a great balance. Here are some minor and numerical fixes that I think are much needed:

• Tome cooldowns should be 20, 30 and 40s respectively.
• Cast time to enter a tome should be instant cast or 0.25s.
• Many of tome skill casts should be 0.5s not 0.75s. In fact, some should be 0.25s.
• Buff base healing values for ToR moderately. Buff scaling considerably.
• Radiant Recovery (ToR skill 2) should be a 0.25s cast. Nobody cares for the cutesy little animation here if it means a 1s cast.
• Add functionality to one or moreToR skills (such as blind, daze, weaken, resistance, pulsing heals, superspeed).
• Add Aegis to some of the ToC skills (rework Legendary Lore to provide protection rather than aegis).
• Buff Unbroken Lines (ToC skill 5) to grant 6 seconds base duration of each of the related boons as well as the unique buff (still only 50% uptime, not OP).

Don’t know if it’s been mentioned yet, but I feel like Legendary Lore would be better off giving us barrier on Tome of Resolve skills, rather than giving it regeneration, aswell as giving it better healing power scaling, the regeneration isnt all that great in my opinion.

Alteran.9510:

Taking away the cooldowns from the tomes would break the F1-F3 traits completely so it won’t happen until anet reworks the guardian completely in its traits.
They can reduce them to the level of core guard or DH but that’s it.

They can easily reduce them to F1 15s, F2 20s, F3 30s or 35s.

F1 would have to be nerfed a little, F2 can stay as is, it’s already weak, and F3 only needs the stability from #1 removed, it can instead apply barrier.

Then, remove the 33% cd reduction trait so that skills are not as spammable.

Tomes

A little slow when things go bad to respond due to cast time to open and cast time to use an ability. Two chances to be interrupted while trying to open and use one skill.

Opening a Tome should become instant cast, they are still balanced by their large visual tells and decent cast times.

Tome cooldown reduced by 15% for every unused page when you stow the Tome.

Tome of Resolve needs a little help when being focused. Add an AoE 360 range Daze for 3s to Eternal Oasis.

RabbitUp.8294:

Alteran.9510:

Taking away the cooldowns from the tomes would break the F1-F3 traits completely so it won’t happen until anet reworks the guardian completely in its traits.
They can reduce them to the level of core guard or DH but that’s it.

They can easily reduce them to F1 15s, F2 20s, F3 30s or 35s.

F1 would have to be nerfed a little, F2 can stay as is, it’s already weak, and F3 only needs the stability from #1 removed, it can instead apply barrier.

Then, remove the 33% cd reduction trait so that skills are not as spammable.

15s on F1 would make it a far more stronger skill than F1 on core guard. It got a damage buff every 20s. So that wouldn’t end in a little nerf but a heavy one.

Reducing the cd on the tomes is something everyone sees is the best way. They look gorgeous and give the guard something really special. But it’s a waste if you are afraid of using them because of their enormous cooldowns. Seriously, 90s on a class mechanic skill isn’t good.
I’m really afraid of what will happen with the next expansion: 60s on F1, 90s on F2 and 2min on F3??

Increase passive VoR with 100%
Increase active VoR with 200%
Fix staff as a working weapon in all game modes. Just copy some of the water skills ele has and we are good to go.
Move the passive effect from the trait “loremaster” to “Absolute Resolution”
The above would address some of the core issues and when traiting for FB/DH this will enhance the FB/DH as well.
Loremaster is changed so it reduces skills cooldown with 33% AND the cooldown on the tomes with 30-50%. Keep the tome cd as they are but give us a mean to reduce the cd.
Make tomes instant casts. Keep the skills as they are. The option to reduce cd dramatically will make the tomes stronger. And if you want the even stronger just use RF as the elite skill.
We got combofields in all the tomes but no finishers. Easy solution is to add a blast finisher to skill 2 in all the tomes. Then it would be possible to have a water field up and by swapping tomes trigger it three times. Healing issue solved, great at stacking might even though some what lackluster in the light field but i can live with that.
This solves the entire issue we have with poor healing.

Another suggestion on the same topic…

A) tomes work like engineer kit, no casting time, no cooldown…
B) the pages work like rogue energy points, you recharge one page/seccond
C) you have 8 pages (12 when specced) for all tomes together.. they also recharge
D) the chapters have no recharge time either, but each page costs a different number of pages. 1st chapter (free) 2nd (1 page) 3rd (2pages) 4th(3 pages) 5th(4pages)
E) damage Numbers and chapter skills are ballanced for the new system.
F) virtue passives, numbers are based on on number of pages..

All good support could bring some sustain damage.

Tempest from overloading fire and air.
Scrapper with hammer 2/3.
Druids form from pet…

I think the tome should have a bit more damage associated to them. Nothing dps like, but some low aoe sustains from poisons, fire, bleeds or small aoe.

Nerfing staff 1 is reducing a lot the sustaining damage of support guard, Firebrand need to have some cleave options built in into the specialization.

Fashion Mage.3712:

I am disappointed, and I’m done being disregarded as a player by ANet so I’m not playing anymore.

There is nothing about your situation that is objective and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I am disappointed, and I’m done being disregarded as a player by ANet so I’m not playing anymore.

There is nothing about your situation that is objective and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

Everyone has certain expectations from their class. Those expectations are subjective, but whether the class meets them or not is not.

RabbitUp.8294:

Everyone has certain expectations from their class. Those expectations are subjective, but whether the class meets them or not is not.

That’s true, if a bit pedantic. That reasoning only applies to the topic as seen by the individual and isn’t helpful in other situations. There’s a notable difference between thinking a class is bad and a class being bad. And then of course commenting on those thoughts and the related bias is a whole ’nother ballgame.

Ghotistyx.6942:

RabbitUp.8294:

Everyone has certain expectations from their class. Those expectations are subjective, but whether the class meets them or not is not.

That’s true, if a bit pedantic. That reasoning only applies to the topic as seen by the individual and isn’t helpful in other situations. There’s a notable difference between thinking a class is bad and a class being bad. And then of course commenting on those thoughts and the related bias is a whole ’nother ballgame.

It’s not about guardian being bad or not. This is a simplistic view that serves no purpose.

And this is not a quarrel anyhow. I never understood this need people have to take sides, you don’t need to defend guardian from criticism, neither shoot people’s arguments down.

It’s not subjective that people who prefer a supportive playstyle haven’t been able to get that out of guardian in pve these past couple of years. And now that firebrand is released as as support spec, this is more relevant than ever.

I made a post on the official Feedback thread, so I’ll post it here to keep the discussion going.

I somehow feel the person who was responsible to remove the old tomes wasnt around anymore because two main reasons to remove the old tomes were the huge cd and the feel of waste if you only needed 1 skill from the tome.
Now the tomes are back with exactly the same flaws!

I really wished for a kit system like engi that was allready suggested when the old tomes got removed.

Alchimist.4738:

I made a post on the official Feedback thread, so I’ll post it here to keep the discussion going.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Alright, I’ll try to give a more a balanced view compared to my posts on other threads, which ask for heavy rework.

Firebrand

• There are a lot of discussions out there about mantras, so I’ll try to summarize the thoughts on them. Cones are fine for offensive mantras, as you need to immobilize or impair the movement of your opponents to use them correctly, in return those offensive mantras are quite powerful, and I like that. The issue comes when you’ve supportive mantras, and four out of six mantras are support oriented, because you cannot control the movement of your allies, and in modes such as PvP/WvW your allies will spread out and constantly move, which makes cones impractical, while in PvE you’ll also have situations where you allies are spread out, such as some raid bosses, therefore mantras are really underwhelming support capabilities. In consequence I think having AoE instead of cones would make more sense for such supportive mantras.

• Tomes shouldn’t have activation time, just like Celestial Avatar/Photon Forge/Shroud (…), because the Firebrand cannot react quickly enough to threats, harming its support potential, and it also makes the Firebrand too vulnerable to CCs.

• Tome of Resolve and Tome of Courage cooldowns should be reduce to make Firebrand exist as a support compared to the low cooldown of Celestial Avatar. Tome of Justice should keep its 30 seconds cooldown as it’s very powerful, and because Renewed Justice reset the cooldown on kills, Tome of Resolve should have a 20 seconds cooldown as it would be more in line with the other skill swapping support ability of the game, Celestial Avatar with its 10 seconds cooldown, Tome of Courage should have a 35 seconds (eventually a 40 seconds) cooldown as it’s otherwise too long to be relevant.

• Tome of Resolve feels a bit weak, even if it gets a cooldown reduction, you should consider reducing the second chapter (Radiant Recovery) casting time, one second cast time for a condition remover is too high particularly when considering most condition remover have a ½ or a ¾ cast time, Nefarious Favor doesn’t even have one and could be considered as powerful as Radiant Recovery. Another issue with the Tome of Resolve is the lack of blast finisher to synergies with Shining River, unlike the Celestial Avatar which has Lunar Impact to blast Rejuvenating Tides, as it stand right now you need your allies to blast for you, which isn’t great.

• Legendary Lore is responsible for some really powerful synergy, but I think they’re too powerful. As it’s right now the Tome of Justice throw too many burning stacks at its opponents, and one reason is because of the extra burning brought by Legendary Lore, I think the extra burning should be replace by slow or cripple, in order to keep the enemies in melee. Also aegis on every skills used by the Tome of Courage is bonkers, particularly with Pure of Heart, I’d rather see protection instead, and give aegis on tome skills such as Stalwart Stand, and the Unbroken Lines lasting longer (8 seconds) to compensate the lack of protection without the trait.

• Pages accompanied with long cooldowns of tomes are leading to some awkward behavior, because stowing your tomes means going into huge cooldown you want to keep them activated until all of your pages are left, even though you won’t need your tome immediately, but if you stow to go back to your weapon rotation then you won’t have your tome when you might need it, therefore you want to keep your tome activated waiting for the opportunity to use your last pages, which means you’ll do nothing while waiting as you don’t have access to your weapons skills and your utilities might not have a use while waiting, this is clunky. One solution would be to reduce cooldowns as suggested above, but even though page would remain a clunky mechanic.

• Another solution would be to have the tomes cooldowns taking into account the number of pages left, if you have a lot of pages left your cooldown is going to be very low (as low as the cooldown on an Elementalist attunement) but if you used all of your pages then the cooldown is going to be high, in return the skills need to have different page costs, otherwise player will spam the most powerful skill carelessly, and as the skill cost goes up the number of pages also need to increase, otherwise you won’t be able to make hard choices, such as using low page cost skills to having my tome back faster or using high page cost skills to be more impactful, it’s basically how Initiative works for the Thief weapon skills, and it’s how pages should work if you want them to be meaningful.

Pretty good points here. The subject of buffing tomes has been heavily discussed so I don’t think anything needs to be reiterated there. I would like to point out something about mantras though:

Advantages of Firebrand mantras:

• Shorter count recharges – okay, this is a pretty big advantage depending on the mantra.
• Baseline ammo of 3 – Not really a great advantage when mantra-based mesmer builds can easily be traited to give 3 ammo.

Disadvantages of Firebrand mantras:

• Very poor ability to affect allies – a 240 radius aoe is much better than a 300 radius cone.
• Longer cast time – 2.75s vs. 2.25s…. for no reason whatsoever.
• Do not gain bonuses upon fully charging the mantras – again, no incentive to use that final charge unlike with mesmer mantras.
• No ranged mantras, all of them are 300 radius cones.
• All the animations are essentially the same – Some small arc with slightly different glowy effects depending on the mantra.

I never understood why we complain that skills are too spammy, yet we demand skills for the classes we like to main have faster cast times. We complain about an overabundance of stability yet we demand they add it to our classes so we don’t get interrupted. We complain about too much condi spam yet we say axe doesn’t have enough condi or that mantra of flame needs more stacks.

Maybe if we want a balanced game, we should start by having a little more perspective and actually expecting and wanting our own professions to have exploitable weaknessess.

Kuya.6495:

I never understood why we complain that skills are too spammy, yet we demand skills for the classes we like to main have faster cast times. We complain about an overabundance of stability yet we demand they add it to our classes so we don’t get interrupted. We complain about too much condi spam yet we say axe doesn’t have enough condi or that mantra of flame needs more stacks.

Maybe if we want a balanced game, we should start by having a little more perspective and actually expecting and wanting our own professions to have exploitable weaknessess.

What? That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows that stronger classes are OP and weaker classes are well balanced. Who doesn’t want all classes to be well balanced?

Kuya.6495:

I never understood why we complain that skills are too spammy, yet we demand skills for the classes we like to main have faster cast times. We complain about an overabundance of stability yet we demand they add it to our classes so we don’t get interrupted. We complain about too much condi spam yet we say axe doesn’t have enough condi or that mantra of flame needs more stacks.

Maybe if we want a balanced game, we should start by having a little more perspective and actually expecting and wanting our own professions to have exploitable weaknessess.

See, the overarching issue here isnt that FBs abilities aren’t spammy enough.

Look at it like this. Say every class’ power was represented by a simple pie chart. For the sake of avoiding a long winded discussion over details that won’t really progress the discussion, imagine every pie is literally the same size.

So a class like thief has all of their strength locked behind their ability to do their damage and avoid yours. They have their access to that locked behind initiative which has a fairly acceptable recharge time and a large pool (when traited for). This means that initiative is their deciding factor or the bottleneck for their strength. Say you moved the minor trait in trickery that increased their initiative pool to a tree they seldom used (such as shadow arts). You will see a bit of a performance drop for the good thieves and will see the bad thieves quite literally bite the dust.

Why? Let’s do a bit of math over their simple combo:

The simple black powder into heartseekerx2 costs 12/12 initiative. This means that they waste time while sitting in stealth, waiting for enough initiative to regenerate to do other things like setting up a backstab or attempting to escape.

If they were to heartseeker once, their window to backstab would decrease substantially (they’d have less than 2-3 seconds to do so, and a lot of blocks and other damage mitigation abilities last at least that long, not to mention that better players can simply bait out the backstab by judging how far away the thief and simply dodging after counting to 1-2).

Now what does the 3 extra initiative do for them?

Shadow shot costs 4 initiative. Black powder + heartseekerx2 leaves them with 3 initiative, meaning they only have to wait a single second to be able to shadowshot and backstab.

SB5 costs 6 initiative. If they wanted to escape, they can black powder+ heartseeker and still have enough initiative left for a single shot of their SB5.

I could make a similar example out of warrior and their fast hands trait that cuts weapon swap CD in half, since warriors are also super reliant on their weapon abilities as well.

The point here is that for Firebrand, too much of it’s power is locked behind the tomes and while they ARE strong (courage and justice, at least) they’re simply too inaccessible. Even removing something as simple as the cast time to equip the book and reducing the CDs for the tomes (90s untraited for courage is simply unacceptable) would go a long way to making the spec more usable.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Fashion Mage.3712:

I am disappointed, and I’m done being disregarded as a player by ANet so I’m not playing anymore.

There is nothing about your situation that is objective and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

Ah yes, because providing suggestions to improve the firebrand that won’t stop me from quitting the game is totally subjective.

I thought you quit already.

Kuya.6495:

I thought you quit already.

Yes, I did indeed. That won’t stop me from criticizing ANet’s garbage though.

You don’t play and you’re still here complaining about stuff you don’t play anymore?

Kuya.6495:

You don’t play and you’re still here complaining about stuff you don’t play anymore?

He’s complaining because he obviously still likes the game and cares about it, but can’t stomach it in its current state. Its a very mature position to take tbh. Much better than what alot of losers do when they play WHILE actively not enjoying what they’re doing.

Never understood that mentality lol. Take it or leave it is such a weak philosophy.

SlayerSixx.5763:

Kuya.6495:

You don’t play and you’re still here complaining about stuff you don’t play anymore?

He’s complaining because he obviously still likes the game and cares about it, but can’t stomach it in its current state. Its a very mature position to take tbh. Much better than what alot of losers do when they play WHILE actively not enjoying what they’re doing.

Never understood that mentality lol. Take it or leave it is such a weak philosophy.

I can understand complaining about specific aspects in a video game forum for a video game you still like and play.

I can’t understand complaining about various aspects of a video game you don’t play anymore because, presumably, you don’t like it anymore. I just can’t wrap my head around thequantity of emotional investment you’d have to have in a videogame to still whine about it in its official forum like some guy stalking his ex.

Kuya.6495:

SlayerSixx.5763:

Kuya.6495:

You don’t play and you’re still here complaining about stuff you don’t play anymore?

He’s complaining because he obviously still likes the game and cares about it, but can’t stomach it in its current state. Its a very mature position to take tbh. Much better than what alot of losers do when they play WHILE actively not enjoying what they’re doing.

Never understood that mentality lol. Take it or leave it is such a weak philosophy.

I can understand complaining about specific aspects in a video game forum for a video game you still like and play.

I can’t understand complaining about various aspects of a video game you don’t play anymore because, presumably, you don’t like it anymore. I just can’t wrap my head around thequantity of emotional investment you’d have to have in a videogame to still whine about it in its official forum like some guy stalking his ex.

So assume you love your country and the way it’s being managed by the government is poor to the point where it is an active detriment to your daily life. So you do what anyone with enough sense and enough resources does and leaves the country. Now, you really want to return, but cannot due to the circumstances that forced you to leave still persisting.

Would you berate or belittle that person’s opinion of what things should be like because they’re no longer going through those struggles? Is his opinion suddenly less valid than those who are stuck in that situation? Or yet, is his opinion worth less if there are people who are currently experiencing said situation and actually ENJOY it?

This is really not a difficult concept. It is obvious that he would very much like to return to the game, but cannot stomach it in its current state due to the opinions on what proper gameplay should look like. Whether or not his opinions are based on any real or quantifiable fact is not the point here. Simply writing off his opinions as wrong because of factors that do not relate to the argument is exactly how you avoid any differing opinion.

By your logic, you can only provide input if you’re currently playing the game (as in, have been playing sometime in the last few hours/days). If the person is playing the game and enjoying it, more power to them. If the person is playing the game and not enjoying, he’s doing himself a great disservice. Similar to my previous example, people who are in a situation they are currently not benefiting from (and benefit can be anything from material gain to simple enjoyment), they will usually opt to move on and search for whatever it is they’re seeking elsewhere, which is usually the case for many gamers, especially in an MMO community.

Bottom line is, he and many others like him will continue to voice their opinions while demonstrating action (usually by avoiding the game). Why does avoiding the game strengthen their argument? Developers of any major game have no time to sift through singular arguments while generating new and fixing old content. The developers only have metrics and numbers, usually, to draw meaningful conclusions (MOBAs do this a lot by studying win and hero pick rates, etc) usually because these are representative of solid evidence and fact based off of reality. Knowing this, then, would help you understand why avoiding the game is exactly what you should do if you don’t enjoy it. If enough people avoid the game, the devs WILL notice the drop in their playerbase. Hopefully, if any level of investigation and competence is involved, they’ll eventually reach the core of their drop and attempt to fix things.

tl;dr

Why would anyone stick to the something they’re currently not enjoying? At the same time, are they not allowed to have an opinion on what would make the game enjoyable in their opinion? If people were written off for not currently playing the game, how would the developers be forced to grind for any real change or growth? Make no mistake, change is usually the by-product of necessity. If the devs have no need to change because their bottom line is not being affected, why would anything change or improve?

He wants other players to share his misery which is absolutely not a mature position by any justification.

Ghotistyx.6942:

He wants other players to share his misery which is absolutely not a mature position by any justification.

If you’re pointing out that the manner in which he’s stating his opinion isn’t correct, we can agree on that much.

SlayerSixx.5763:

He’s complaining because he obviously still likes the game and cares about it, but can’t stomach it in its current state. Its a very mature position to take tbh. Much better than what alot of losers do when they play WHILE actively not enjoying what they’re doing.

Never understood that mentality lol. Take it or leave it is such a weak philosophy.

You’re quite right; I really wanted to keep playing the game, but I’m not going to go on when things turn out like this. If things take a turn for the better then I’ll gladly come back, but otherwise I literally have better games to play from developers who don’t consistently crush my hopes.

Ghotistyx.6942:

He wants other players to share his misery which is absolutely not a mature position by any justification.

Normally I’d feel more sympathetic to others, and I don’t really hold ill-will to the communities of other classes, so if they don’t like their elite specs then I’m sorry for them. However, this is the same community who managed to get both tomes completely removed because they wanted more overpowered but less interesting skills to replace them, and then they proceeded to use Renewed Focus anyway (so that’s about 80% of the guardian community). So you’re kitten right in that I’ll absolutely delight in this community getting exactly what they deserve with this boring, weak, and badly designed elite spec, and I especially hope it stays weak just to spite everyone who doesn’t care what they get as long as it’s broken.

scourge barrier, 10k perma barrier haha. Firebrand tomes would melt. FB is worst spec on 90 sec cd.

Ragnarox.9601:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVgxqj_-ihU

scourge barrier, 10k perma barrier haha. Firebrand tomes would melt. FB is worst spec on 90 sec cd.

What are you even complaining about here?

Kuya.6495:

Ragnarox.9601:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVgxqj_-ihU

scourge barrier, 10k perma barrier haha. Firebrand tomes would melt. FB is worst spec on 90 sec cd.

What are you even complaining about here?

I am complaining cause barrier should be guardian spec thing also, weaver got it why shouldn’t we?
Scourge is clearly better for support (you can see that in the video).

I guess there are countless options how to tweak or adapt the firebrand as it was introduced during the PoF preview weekend and from what you can read in this forum, there is anything but a consensus about it. Only that there needs to be some change appears to be agreed upon. So let’s see what Anet is making out of all of this

Here is my own account of my experiences with the firebrand.

What I like:
- More condi based
- quickness
- axe

What I don’t like:
- as already pointed out: mantra cones, tome casting time and huge tome cd
- although intended by Anet, tome mechanic a bit too much into the direction of a supporter for my own taste (although tome cd kills off much of fb’s supportive power)
- if really meant to be a supporter, offensive support skills too little in my view (although that might be intended to allow for more versatile team compositions that do not only require fb as one supporter, but also make ps or renegade (?), etc. on the offensive side more useful)

My personal idea and preference how to implement tomes would be not in a 3×5 set of skills that together with two weapon sets and utility skills adds up to 30 skills. For me, that’s somehow a skill overkill, dunno…

I would much prefer to see the tomes by default as a situational off-hand skill replacement, i.e. skill slots 4 and 5 only. Of course, selection of skills, page numbers and cds would need to be reworked significantly. This adaptation would take away some of the supportive power of the fb, but on the other hand 3×2 skills divided into three categories (offensive, heal/condi removal, defensive) and reduced tome cd would be still pretty strong and make the fb a supporter that is more actively involved. It would also allow players to use fb less supportive and more for solo pvp situations.
For those who want to focus more on the supportive skills, the trait line could include a trait that adds a third skill slot to the tomes.

Why I also like this option more is, because now the Firebrand feels too much like an off-spin of already existing mechanics of other professions. The tomes are a combination of Druid’s avatar with Ele’s elements now labelled tomes, and the mantras’ mechanics we know well from Mesmer.
Of course, it is impossible to introduce always completely new mechanics, but this off-hand style that keeps the basic weapon skills would be an additional twist that makes the Fb more unique and a more aggressive type of supporter.

Just my thoughts that came up while trying fb which I am actually really looking forward to as a cool profession (that needs some adaptation to become more competitive). Any oppinions, critique, etc. most welcome

Cheers

PS: this was mostly said from a pvp perspective. In pve, especially raids, I guess that the fb works out pretty well and can add a lot of power, since many of the current downsides don’t surface so strongly. I wouldn’t even be surprised if the fb was designed with high-end pve content in mind, not as a complete substitute for mesmers/druids, but as a strong complement that allows a bigger variety of builds and lets mesmers/durids focus more on dps. But I think especially a complementary supportive role could be equally achieved with the proposed off-hand/3 slot skill variant for tomes.

Ragnarox.9601:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVgxqj_-ihU

scourge barrier, 10k perma barrier haha. Firebrand tomes would melt. FB is worst spec on 90 sec cd.

Lol, not a single Firebrand in that squad, all guardians chose to stay base.

Nice “support” spec, anet.

Ragnarox.9601:

Kuya.6495:

Ragnarox.9601:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVgxqj_-ihU

scourge barrier, 10k perma barrier haha. Firebrand tomes would melt. FB is worst spec on 90 sec cd.

What are you even complaining about here?

I am complaining cause barrier should be guardian spec thing also, weaver got it why shouldn’t we?
Scourge is clearly better for support (you can see that in the video).

If you want barriers make a scourge.

What i don’t understand is why you’re acting as if anet killed your puppy by not giving firebrand something they never promised you.

Kuya.6495:

Ragnarox.9601:

Kuya.6495:

Ragnarox.9601:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVgxqj_-ihU

scourge barrier, 10k perma barrier haha. Firebrand tomes would melt. FB is worst spec on 90 sec cd.

What are you even complaining about here?

I am complaining cause barrier should be guardian spec thing also, weaver got it why shouldn’t we?
Scourge is clearly better for support (you can see that in the video).

If you want barriers make a scourge.

What i don’t understand is why you’re acting as if anet killed your puppy by not giving firebrand something they never promised you.

And you still defending FB and asking nerfs to f2 and f3 of DH? Guess you need to go to your class subforum.