They don’t function like tomes either. They don’t play like tomes, and they don’t look like tomes, so I really don’t know why they’re being called “tomes”.
On second thought, I think I’m pretty happy with this change just for the sake of spiting people who wanted it to be a farming tool rather than a support weapon.
That seems to be the purpose of the change. I am WvW illiterate, so I cannot say what the impact will be there. The change is non-existent from PvE standpoint and for sPvP, if you are playing support or bunker, you should be standing on the point anyway.
Guardians can’t really bunker, but generally a staff guardian deals no damage anyway, so there was no point to using using the auto in the first place in PvP.
How come FB is wose than core?
FB is even superior to DH…Have u checked what the skill offer and the CD’s??? its a 2012 core guard on steroids!
Meanwhile DH is useless in my view, only works against mobs and players on power creep momments.. outside that its useless….
It can enjoy pushing out perma-quickness and perma-stability while getting 100-0’d by thieves and necros because it has no real self-defense, mobility, or range.
On second thought, I think I’m pretty happy with this change just for the sake of spiting people who wanted it to be a farming tool rather than a support weapon.
I find it humorous that people lost their loot stick, but personally I always thought it was completely useless and didn’t care about the farming aspect. I always wanted it to do something supportive at range, but 0 divided by 2 is still 0 to me, so I’m indifferent.
I’m pretty sure the original tomes sucked. I’ll go through each skill, one by one, and even show the skill templates to see how they scale ingame.
Firstly, Tome of Wrath and its subskills. [&BgMkAAA=]
A pathetic 30 seconds and 180s cooldown. 1s cast time where we had to stand still. What’s in it, exactly?
“Pretty sure” when you probably haven’t even used them once, and then you have the gall to act like you know anything about them, just like most people.
How exactly is a 30 second duration “pathetic” when other transforms are 20 seconds or less?
Conflagrate. [&Bv4jAAA=] A bad autoattack which has very bad direct damage and a mere 2s of burn with viper gear. Note this skill was pre-burn change, making it even worse of a skill.
Affliction [&Bv8jAAA=] Surprisingly powerful if facing exactly 2 targets, since it can bounce 5 times. However, if facing only 1 target or more than 2, it quickly falls to mediocrity as a low duration cripple and weakness of only 4s with full viper gear. Context-sensitive skills like this that provide advantages in specific situations can be really good additions, so long as the rest of the kit is balanced. However…
Smiter’s Boon [&BgAkAAA=] It applies might to allies. Can mantain 10 stacks of Might if used off cooldown. Nice on paper, but I really don’t recall others using it.
Zealot’s Fervor [&BgEkAAA=] It’s like a bad version of Feel My Wrath. You can only use it twice during the entire tome duration (180s cd), and it has a 2(!!!) second cast time.
Judgment [&BgIkAAA=] The only skill on the entire kit that actually does decent damage outside the context-specific skill #2. However, it has a MASSIVE, and I mean MASSIVE cast time that just doesn’t justify the damage. Perhaps its combination with stability and huge radius means it might have use in PvP, but in retrospect it really wasn’t worth the risk.
Tome of Wrath was definitely the weaker of the two tomes (convenient that you didn’t talk about Tome of Courage), but it still wasn’t weak. The biggest flaw about it, like both tomes, was the insanely high cooldown.
1. That’s a 2 second burn duration without condition duration actually, and all burning was relatively bad before the condition changes, so I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove there. Also the damage it inflicts is stronger than most auto-attacks, has a large AoE, and also inflicts burning, so no, I don’t see how it was weak.
2. Generally pointless to use over Conflagrate, but yes it did deal a lot of situational damage. The cripple was nice for landing Conflagrate.
3. Was meh honestly.
4. That’s because it is Feel My Wrath. The cast time didn’t really matter because tomes pulsed stability.
5. Again, Tomes pulsed stability, and the cast time wasn’t that bad with quickness.
Design-wise, there was absolutely nothing wrong with tomes. There was no reason they should have been completely removed. What exactly was stopping them from being appropriately balanced by lowering their cooldowns?
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I guess they didn’t want the staff to have an auto-attack at all.
Hey, if you’re right, by your own admission and provided examples, Anet will change it to something reasonable. What’s the problem here?
That’s under the assumption that ANet are perfect beings incapable of making any real mistakes; which is probably somewhat how you view them. I think most people know that’s far from the truth though.
That literally makes no sense, as the premise that Anet would be changing Firebrand at all would mean they’ve already made a mistake and are willing to change it. Obtena has never said Anet can do no wrong, but you definitely seem to support the idea that Anet can do no right.
What he does is use the argument that GW2 is ANet’s game so there’s no point in discussing it because they’re just gonna do whatever they want anyway. What he doesn’t understand is that most people don’t give a kitten , and that most people come to forums to give their viewpoint and to discuss or debate it regardless of what ANet thinks, even if it won’t necessarily cause a change in the game.
Complete rubbish really. I’ve defended ANet quite a bit and I’ve pretty much applauded their most recent patches which balanced underpowered skills and nerfed the overpowered elite specs even though most people were complaining that their precious elite specs weren’t becoming more overpowered. I even defended skills like Signet of Courage in the face of all of the obnoxious metaclowns on this forum, but when ANet doesn’t understand basic game design, don’t expect me to not to criticize them.
Also let’s be real, ANet aren’t changing Firebrand. The only thing they did to DH way back when everyone was complaining about it was give it a bunch of buffs when most of the time people were complaining about the design of DH and not necessarily its strength. If Firebrand is weak, they’ll buff it, but that won’t stop it from being a badly designed mess.
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There’s a difference between using skills selectively and pushing everything at once.
You’re a negative person and a huge whiner that jumps to massive conclusions all the time and posts personal attacks against the devs with your whiny bitter rants.
Karl didn’t even design this spec, he designed the Weaver only.
Irenio designed Firebrand, Soulbeast, Renegade and Scourge.
You’ve seen only a glimpse of the spec, we’re missing the runes, the 4th Mantra (with a winged icon) and an actual feel of the spec with proper traits and options selected.
Are you this negative about everything in life or just here? It must be utterly awful for those who have to suffer your presence and attitude every day.
Quite frankly you seem like a clueless white knight who is still trying to insist that we’ve only seen a “glimpse” of the spec despite having seen all traits and skills, and only missing a few details on some skills.
The old tomes sucked big time. Huge cooldowns, a pathetic duration, and abilities that weren’t even useful.
Ditch your nostalgia goggles.
The abilities were definitely useful, and they had a longer duration than other transforms. The reason they weren’t used that frequently is because they had high cooldowns, and RF was and is easier to use and still effective even if you’re bad.
Ditch the strawman argument.
Cone abilities are trash sigh.
tagging -> loot
Only thing that is superior on Guard compared to any other class, if they change staff to not be a lootstick anymore it would be more than pathetic and just another kick in the chest of all Guardian players.
/s?
Maybe next xpac, bois
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
It’s a decent mid-long range support weapon, but you might as well pretend that it doesn’t have auto-attack.
We need to summon Karl for an AMA and see why he didn’t include any type of movement modifier when we desperately need it more than ever.
This spec needs a lot more than just a movement modifier to survive in close range though.
I’d be happy to give up Renewed Focus if we were given other mitigation options.
RF will be more necessary than ever with this spec. No RF, no Shield of Courage, and no mobility from Wings of Resolve means it’s not going to have much self-defense despite being close-ranged, besides Shelter. What Feel My Wrath offers is purely offensive, and Signet of Courage only really functions at long-range to support others. There’s no good reason to give up invulnerability for some stability from the new mantra either, because there are easier ways to get stability than giving up your elite skill.
PvP-wise, even with RF this spec looks like it’ll run on point, get focused, RF activates and runs out, and then it’ll get focused again and die. It can’t support at long-range because all of its skills including tomes are close-ranged, it can’t run away if it gets focused because it has no mobility, and it has no real self-defense so it can’t tank on point (rightfully, because it’s a dps/support spec which shouldn’t be tanking).
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Lol, they are not going to give barrier to guardian until next expansion. But we will know in 2 days, though, so if I’m wrong, feel free to rub it in my face.
What’s happening in two days? There’s probably a balance update but I doubt that’s changing much (although I’m hoping it does).
They are changing core traitlines.
Sounds mildly promising. Source?
Woodenpotatoes made a video about barrier and said they are giving barrier to core ele (Earth traitline). The changes were in the server they tested the expansion on, and he also saw necro and Reaper changes.
Also, preview of warrior changes on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6ruxy8/upcoming_warrior_strength_trait_changes_ripped/
I’m not holding my breath for anything substantial, but I suppose it’ll be interesting to see what they do.
Lol, they are not going to give barrier to guardian until next expansion. But we will know in 2 days, though, so if I’m wrong, feel free to rub it in my face.
What’s happening in two days? There’s probably a balance update but I doubt that’s changing much (although I’m hoping it does).
They are changing core traitlines.
Sounds mildly promising. Source?
Hey, if you’re right, by your own admission and provided examples, Anet will change it to something reasonable. What’s the problem here?
That’s under the assumption that ANet are perfect beings incapable of making any real mistakes; which is probably somewhat how you view them. I think most people know that’s far from the truth though.
There is no gameplay theme. The base of the spec is “loremaster” which has nothing to do with the gameplay. The spec is a bunch of random skills that are dressed with fancy tooltips about the lore of Elona to pretent like they belong.
Exactly what I thought. All of that “fun facts about Elona” stuff kind of made me cringe a tiny bit to be honest.
The tomes are tacked on like an afterthought. Nothing synergizes with them, they could be removed and the spec would be exactly the same. You could have DH virtues there, and they would belong more, since they are themed after Paragon. They also have huge cooldowns to make sure they are as ignorable and forgettable as possible.
As much as I hate them, DH virtues really would fit a lot better on this spec, mechanically I mean.
Most people have no idea how the spec will play…
I dont understand all this negative vibe..
I can read, I mained support guardians in all modes since the game was released, and I’ve seen all of the skills, so I’m pretty sure I know how it’s gonna play. I’m pretty sure other people can read too.
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Lol, they are not going to give barrier to guardian until next expansion. But we will know in 2 days, though, so if I’m wrong, feel free to rub it in my face.
What’s happening in two days? There’s probably a balance update but I doubt that’s changing much (although I’m hoping it does).
It’s 5 pages, 8 with the trait.
Also, don’t understand how they’re comparable to shouts; some of the skills on the tomes are cones, others are similar to weapon 1 autos, others are ground targeted. It’s a powerful temporary kit that doesn’t take up a slot on your utility bar; giving guardians extra flexibility in the form of 15 new weapon skills, in addition to their utilities and 2 weapon sets.
Also, I don’t understand why people dislike the effect on the tomes themselves. I think it’s pretty cool that we get this open handed caster look that has been entirely absent from the game until now. Not to mention, it’s pretty kitten cool how you magically rip the pages you need out of the tome when you cast it. No need to keep the whole book when you just need a few pages.
For the most part they’re >600 range support, and most of those skills are point-blank AoEs. A lot of the time they have even less range than shouts, but with cast times, so I bet that won’t be clunky at all. /s
Frankly, the effect looks like a buff rather than a weapon. Old tomes looked way better.
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How exactly does a power-creeped version of the base guardian have “purity of purpose”?
Frankly I’d be shocked to see tome-based builds in PvP. Builds focused on damage and support do not work in close-range against living opponents that have brains.
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The old tomes were far more interesting to me and actually offered something guardians didn’t already have. Current tomes are just power-creeped shouts as far as I’m concerned.
I’m with you. I wouldn’t even be mad if they just copy/pasted the old tomes.
They were my favourite skills; I doubt I’m even going to continue to play unless something like them comes back. I don’t care if the two elites that replaced them get reverted, or if the new tomes get replaced by the old tomes, I just want them back.
The 33% trait affects tome skills. The tomes themselves are virtues, they don’t have the tome skill tag.
Lel, looks like you’re right, nevermind then.
The old tomes were far more interesting to me and actually offered something guardians didn’t already have. Current tomes are just power-creeped shouts as far as I’m concerned.
It can be reduced by 15%, down to 38.25s. Hardly any difference. Then the tome itself have very minimal healing. You might as well play DH and use Wings.
The only perk is the trait that lets you keep Virtues’ passive effect, which should have been a core class trait.
I mainly pve, so I mostly judge the spec for that content, but I don’t see anything promising. It’s the same thing they did with alacrity on Ventari, the bare minimum, with Chrono still being the better choice for both buffs.
Their cooldown can be reduced by 15% by the trait in virtues (assuming it reduces the cooldown of the tomes and not their skills) and reduced by a further 33% in the Firebrand line, but yes, the healing that the healing tome offers looks kind of garbage, but I suppose its possible that it has absurd scaling with healing power or something.
For PvE, it just offers condition cancer and quickness, so nothing particularly special as far as I can tell. For PvP, it puts a squishy damage/support spec with longish cast times into close range without instant-cast virtues to get them out of trouble (or the DH’s Wings of Resolve/Shield of Courage), so that’s probably as bad as it sounds. For WvW, it’s probably a good boon bot since the tomes are better versions of shouts now and mindless stacking is all that’s needed in that so range isn’t as necessary.
If you wanna deal damage and heal at the same time you can use Zealot stats. Bow of Truth’s active scales decently with healing power if I recall correctly.
If you’re just talking about the longbow and not BoT, then damage stats is all you need there, although I’m not sure how much the bow is used in PvE (or any mode since it got nerfed).
If you want something similar to Bow of Truth that isn’t garbage, use Sanctuary (assuming you’re using BoT for the active).
healer guard is kind of a niche forebrand brings it in line with druid tempest and scourge.
The only healing firebrand has is locked behind a 45s cooldown tome, good luck with that.
That cooldown can be reduced quite a bit via traits I think.
The main issue is that healer guardians are not even remotely tanky, and thus will not be able to function with the minimal range from the new tomes. If you’ve ever played a healer guardian in PvP, it becomes clear that standing in close-range for too long will get you killed almost as fast as a glass staff ele. If something is squishy, they either need mobility or long-range to survive. The Firebrand has neither and doesn’t look remotely tanky to me.
A damage/support spec will never, ever function in close range (outside PvE) unless it’s also tanky, in which case it’s broken because it just excels at everything. Bad design is bad, as usual.
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I can actually agree that the community’s obsession with the meta is absurd, probably to the point that it ironically actually hinders the meta in some cases.
^someone who actually knows something about what tomes were and why they were used.
Edit: It had a ground targeted heal, a bouncing blind, regen and protection, ae cone daze, and the long cast full heal. Still, it’s not that great since I seem to recall the tomes locking you out of your utilities, meaning that if you were focused or stunned you could do nothing about it. Taking an elite just for a 3 second cone daze and protection seems pretty weak too when compared to renewed focus.
I’ll be frank, Tome of Courage was used for Heal Area, but the rest of what it offered was good too. The tomes also offered pulsing stability and protection (and a toughness/vitality buff) so being interrupted wasn’t much of a concern especially if it was used at long-range.
^
Any elite that needs more than one button pressed is too “clunky” for this community.
The old tomes also weren’t “patched out” in my opinion. They were stripped down to the only things they were used for… tome of wrath was changed to just the AE quickness and fury, the main reason anyone ever used that tome… and the tome of courage was changed to just the AE full heal and an AE passive health per second, also the only reason anyone ever used that tome…
Well then you, like most people, don’t actually know why Tome of Courage was used, because it wasn’t the full heal.
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- Personal sustain looks to be abysmal: Since everything has a cast time, you are very susceptible being rendered useless, even in your desired role as support for the team. You may have more stability, but if you get locked down (a spellbreaker warrior with boonstripping + thief on you) you’re pretty much done for. While it’s true that FB will gain increased access to aegis and perhaps 2-3 instant aoe blinds using that one mantra, these aren’t going to do much for you when you’re the focus of 2-3 players.
It’s almost like being a glass support in close range without mobility is a terrible idea in any game mode where your opponent has a brain (PvP).
Guardians have always had the lowest health pool alongside eles and thieves, even in the beta as far as I’m aware of.
There’s only one 600 range PBAoE skill per tome.
Ah yes, a lot of the skills actually have way less range. Much better, thanks for pointing that out.
Tomes were one of the few real instances of full long-range support in a game filled to the brim with 600 range point-blank AoE support. As someone who likes caster supports (like monks, who were also removed), it’s insulting to see a such a rare form of support in this game just removed and then turned into more shouts two years later.
How are the Tome skills like shouts?
I think the better question is how are they not like shouts. They’re both just 600 range point-blank AoE support with a few exceptions in tomes.
Reminds me of the sonic cycle. For one thing, I know this cringy fanbase will defend this elite spec to the death.
One that you’re a part of. Thank you for participating.
Oh don’t worry about that, I’m pretty sure I’m already outies.
I am not saying that it was obvious tomes were going to become shouts.
I am saying that waiting for two years for them to bring back tomes into the game and then quitting when it doesn’t look like how you wanted them to is the craziest thing I’ve heard today.
Tomes were one of the few real instances of full long-range support in a game filled to the brim with 600 range point-blank AoE support. As someone who likes caster supports (like monks, who were also removed), it’s insulting to see a such a rare form of support in this game just removed and then turned into more shouts two years later. Honestly I should’ve quit two years ago the moment they were removed, because in retrospect that was a clear indicator of the direction they were going in with support in this game.
I wanted something back in that I really liked, and it wasn’t put back in, and it’ll never be put in now because the “tome” label was taken. The way I want to play isn’t an option so I don’t want to continue playing anymore. Doesn’t seem like that should be crazy or hard to understand for most people.
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You kept playing for two years because you were expecting to see tome skills come back in the specific way you wanted them to?
Guys, really?
“Hurr durr you’re crazy, tomes were obviously going to become shouts!”. Please don’t pretend that assuming tomes were going to be tomes was an unreasonable assumption. I know most of the community are clowns and white knights but come on.
They might work in PvP as a condition build, but any real support guardian build in PvP that isn’t tanky will never work in close range. The DH is more tanky just with shield of courage and support builds for DH still don’t pop up frequently.
It is ridiculous that people here are requesting the new tomes act as kits when these tomes can give area wide stunbreak, stability, projectile reflect, condi removal, healing, burning, and resistance. Engi kits come nowhere near the power that these tomes have and being able to switch back and forth between defense, healing and dps with tomes would not be balanced. A more reasonable request is to lower the cooldown on tome of courage to at least 40-50 sec.
I don’t personally care about them having cooldowns, but I’m not remotely satisfied with the shouts skills that they offer. Tomes went from the reason I played this game to the reason I’m likely going to quit. Can’t believe I waited two years just to see my favourite skills get butchered.
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F skills does look like kits but maybe you can go into them wherever you like but you would not have stunbreak and stability at F3 if you used it once. (Thats a really good thing if its true).
Nope, they definitely have cooldowns.
The amount of shouts available is insane too.
Playing a Guardian, who is ment to be a Support, Tank Protection Claas and u Flame because u got no dps specc. Classic
The Firebrand isn’t a tank. It’s basically the core guardian powercreep edition and doesn’t actually offer any new way to play the class.
I wanted it to be support as much as the next person, but not a similar but identical version of core guardians.
Criticise pre-release: “You can’t know already cause you didn’t play it, yet.”
Criticise on release: “Try figuring out the spec before you trash it.”
Criticise post-release: “Too bad it sucks, but now it’s too late to change anything, come earlier next time.”
Reminds me of the sonic cycle. For one thing, I know this cringy fanbase will defend this elite spec to the death.
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nobody forces you to use such skills without stability or inside of a thick battle.
You’re holding an axe and all your skills are 600 range.
Where do you see yourself standing?
This. Why the hell are tomes 600 range, even the staff literally has more range on its abilities. If they have such a hard-on for shouts then why didn’t they just buff them.
They’re not even tomes really, they’re just a bunch of shouts.
I don’t understand how a spec entirely focused towards damage and support would function in close range. I just don’t understand why not make tomes full range like they used to be.
Tomes are nothing but virtues shouts.
Which is funny because virtues are already basically just shouts (especially when they arbitrarily lost their 1200 range).
I wouldn’t call them a resell because they’re like tomes; I’d call them a resell because they’re just better versions of shouts.