No class in the game is bad enough that it’s not used at all. Discussion about balance are always about comparisons to other classes. So saying, oh well you can use guardian in pvp, when top teams don’t take guardian means nothing.
They are not 3 builds, they are same build, with be same skills and rotations. Only the traitline is different, and it has no impact to gameplay, you just exchange one % damage modifier for another.
Who cares about the first year? People who played during that time. As for the top damage, this is only the case as of 2 weeks ago, but you treat it as established history. Befire that, even power Engi was doing more damage, on an easier rotation and even had the utility of Pinpoint Distribution.
And even now, DH remains a weaker Tempest, as it has always been.
If you don’t know what was going on with guardian in fractals, then you weren’t around during the first year of HoT.
Guardians are in a good spot overall. You can make an argument without resorting to bold exaggerations.
Exaggerations like how you carried raids with your guardian?
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.
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.
Guardians is in the best spot IMO among all the classes. At least from a wvw perspective core guard it still a strong build, dragonhunter can also exchange the core guard a little. You have burn guard also. I just tried firebrand and honestly i think it will be very requested for wvw, so much support and boons, with staff it will probably be among the new meta, loved it. So guard is in a good spot, all 3 are usefull, core, DH and firebrand seem liek will have its place.
Remove Stand Your Ground then come tell me about that good spot.
Also consider there’s a game outside of wvw.
Remove stand your ground and it would still have an on demand stunbreak and stability to their party, still multiple sources of stability especially now with firebrand, condi clear, aegis spam and other boons ect. They would still be in a good spot and widely used.
Guard is used in pvp and pve and perform well in both.
Firebrand has less stability, not more. Yes, the mantra is cute, but you can’t hit anything with 300 range cones, and without RF you will be blown up instantly when focused. The on-demand stun break and stability you mentioned yourself is tied to F3 that has double the cooldown for firebrand.
Guardian was unwanted in pve for the the first year of HoT and actively kicked from fractals, and has barely been viable for the second. And for those 2 years it has only 1 build, power DPS, when other classes can play condi or support.
As for pvp, it’s one of the worse classes right now.
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.
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.
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.
(edited by RabbitUp.8294)
Guardians is in the best spot IMO among all the classes. At least from a wvw perspective core guard it still a strong build, dragonhunter can also exchange the core guard a little. You have burn guard also. I just tried firebrand and honestly i think it will be very requested for wvw, so much support and boons, with staff it will probably be among the new meta, loved it. So guard is in a good spot, all 3 are usefull, core, DH and firebrand seem liek will have its place.
Remove Stand Your Ground then come tell me about that good spot.
Also consider there’s a game outside of wvw.
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.
(edited by 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.
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.
(edited by 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.
The cd reduction trait is not the problem, the problem is with other traits, like blind on F1, condi cleanse on F2 and stun break and stability on F3. Those have no internal cooldowns, so you would be able to spam them. And other traits that give boon on virtue activation, you would get permanent protection, regen, retaliation without any cooldowns.
With all of the boon stealing/ boon ripping/boon corrupting this game is about to get, there will be far from perma boons stated above.
If the cooldown is 0, they will be permanent either way, because the application would have no cooldown, while the boon strips do.
You miss the point I was making. Firebrand is entirely melee focused, when guardian is not. So, the mobility is not worse, but the necessity for mobility is higher.
Yes, you can play core guardian stuff to somewhat reduce the issue, but at that point, you have the base class carrying the build, and the elite spec weighing it down.
It’s also about sacrifice vs reward. Firebrand doesn’t reward you with superior damage or superior support if you manage to pull it off.
It competes with both guardian and DH at its own game, let alone other specs that don’t have the same limitations. Hence my druid comparison.
Regarding Axe I’m not too suprised it is not the revelation of condition weapons some people were hoping for. It can’t be too efficient when it comes to condi application because Guardians – in contrast to most other classes – are designed to apply their condition(s) through other means.
The means that were nerfed? That you said they were necessary to be nerfed?
Do you think other classes spam 1 for their condi output? They have other utilities and profession mechanics that apply conditions, too.
As for how necessary the nerf was, if the devs couldn’t balance a new mechanic like Tome of Justice based on the existing parameters the class sets, it just shows their incompetence.
(edited by RabbitUp.8294)
My char gives regen behind him same with might, testning now.
What race/gender are you? Are you testing this in pvp lobby?
My char gives regen behind him same with might, testning now.
What race/gender are you? Are you testing this in pvp lobby?
Doesnt mattor what they said on the stream. I used all the mantras in pvp except the offensive ones (which do have cone damage) and all of them give boons to allies behind me. No matter what tooltips or streams have stated.
I use a burnbuild with AH use 4 mantras and SyG (extra stun break, stability, quickness and in total 7 applikations of boons that trigger. With 2 allies that heals for 1k. Add in the support mantras, the elite and healing mantra and er are talking about over 10k self heals that can be casted in 2sec.
Stop watching streams and play the game ????
They are cones. You do give quickness in an AoE when you use your heal skill with the trait, but the mantras themselves apply boons in a cone.
The mobility of Firebrands is brought up quite frequently and I really don’t get it. You – I think it was you – made a very reasonable post showing off the subpar healing values for F2. Let’s do the same for mobility. Firebrand vs. Core Guardian: No difference. Firebrand vs. DH: Wings of Resolve. That’s it!
There’s a huge range difference, especially with DH. DH gives access to our only 1200 range weapon, and F1 is another tool to help you keep your opponent in range. The utilities also are a lot more impactful and you can lure others into them, instead of having to chase them.
Guardian was already a profession with limited mobility, and they dropped a purely melee spec on top of that, without any compensation.
And I have to wonder, if I’m being forced to stay in melee range despite the devs making sure I am given no tools to help me do that, what’s my reward? Because neither the damage nor the support justify the limitation, our support is worse than chrono that has extremely strong defences, and worse than druid that has both mobility as base ranger, has range on Celestial Avatar and another 1200 dash+evade on staff. As for our damage, core burn guardian can keep up.
If you don’t like the Axe or feel it is undertuned, fair point. There might have to be adjustments. But good news for you: It is not the only weapon a Firebrand has access to.
Only that they nerfed the condi output of all our weapons by nerfing the VoJ passive. At that point, if you are to use another weapon, base guardian is better for condi, and DH is better for power.
(edited by RabbitUp.8294)
Yeah, cause boon share + condition removal + some heals isnt called support.
And you don’t need firebrand to do that. Base guardian is better at it. You might as well camp torch if you have such a hard-on for condi removal.
If you look this strictly from a wvw perspective, don’t wonder why people complain, there’s a world outside of being a stab bot.
Lmao, Yeah, not just a stab bot, support = boons + heals + condition removal= keep the damage alive long enough to kill the enemy. Im sorry i dont want to fight a npc all day rather go kill people as a group and fight outnumber.
Must be nice getting carried.
Carried? Last time i check if i wasnt keeping the group alive there wouldnt be proper comp. That like saying hey guys let do a raid with no healers and see how that goes because we dont want to “carry them.” when in turn if you didnt have them you would all die in 10 seconds flat. get real dude. people play support and people play damage. dont come bashing me because you cant accept change for new builds. stay playing your meta battle builds and ill go theory craft and make way better one.
In raids, if you don’t pull your weight, you are out. So, yes, you don’t put “healers” in your party, because they lower the dps, you use druid (and not even healer druid). So, yes, people play support, when they are to the benefit of the team.
In wvw, with no party caps, you can feel free to be there, pretending you are there for more than sharing stab.
If you look this strictly from a wvw perspective, don’t wonder why people complain, there’s a world outside of being a stab bot.
Lmao, Yeah, not just a stab bot, support = boons + heals + condition removal= keep the damage alive long enough to kill the enemy. Im sorry i dont want to fight a npc all day rather go kill people as a group and fight outnumber.
Must be nice getting carried.
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 you look this strictly from a wvw perspective, don’t wonder why people complain, there’s a world outside of being a stab bot.
Main-hand torch would have been? fun.
All the arguing about range on Tomes and Mantras: It’s a design choice, really. Saying those don’t work att all is like saying Shield #4 has no application in the game. It just isn’t true. And as others said: Making Mantras AoE or too long ranged would harm Shouts. The effects are just fine and some are pretty powerful.
Shield #4 has 600 range and is a wider cone, Mantras are 300. I don’t see the point of your argument, if mantras had the same hitbox as shield #4 they would be fine, but they don’t, they are half that.
Firebrand obviously wasn’t designed to be a full range caster – even though it would have fit the theme of Tomes, no debate there – nor to be the one leading the charge. It is best somewhere inbetween. You either like it or you don’t.
It’s not mid-range either, it’s full melee range with no defences or mobility. And they are not rewarded in any way for putting themselves at risk.
You also forget that 33 percent plus two sigil giving addition 20% plus another 10% from food and another 10%+ healing outing from utility. That 33% is also effective healing so not only going to help you but also your allies heals as well and it’s duration matches the cd so it can be 100% uptime.
Everyone has access to these runes, food and utilities, so why mention them at all? And it’s not 100% uptime when the tome itself has 45s cooldown.
Firebrand has pathetically low healing, it’s not up for debate. Dragonhunter has better healing, and between Indomitable Courage and Stand Your Ground, we have more than enough stability already.
So tomes are nice to have and the fact that it’s not on 30 second duration is amazing. You can sit in one tome forever until you use or swap
Sit in the tome and do what, enjoy the visuals? You get 5 pages either way.
I would rather have a limited duration and unlimited casts.
Another person who don’t realize it not just about HEALING but both support and condition cleansing. One why would anyone run DH oh for a wing of resolve heal that it? Core guard is great and firebrand can finally replace valor with honor and virtues as the two set traits. I don’t care for how much the more DH heals, it can’t match up to firebrand condition cleanses and oh did you forget you get 8 pages when traited? People need to learn to how to use classes then to look on meta battle for set builds. I ran core core for WvW and I would never run DH for a support/boon when AI heal and recharge on res and extra toughness for me and allies
You realise Wings of Resolve cleanses 2 conditions? And you can use it twice as often. Which also means you can use Absolute Resolution twice as often.
Condition cleansing is only useful support in pvp and wvw. And guardian never had a problem with conditions.
So yes, the tome should be about healing, because that’s what guardian needs.
As for the 8 pages, you have to choose between the extra page trait and the quickness trait, you know, the only real support Firebrand has. So, I did not forget about them.
You also forget that 33 percent plus two sigil giving addition 20% plus another 10% from food and another 10%+ healing outing from utility. That 33% is also effective healing so not only going to help you but also your allies heals as well and it’s duration matches the cd so it can be 100% uptime.
Everyone has access to these runes, food and utilities, so why mention them at all? And it’s not 100% uptime when the tome itself has 45s cooldown.
Firebrand has pathetically low healing, it’s not up for debate. Dragonhunter has better healing, and between Indomitable Courage and Stand Your Ground, we have more than enough stability already.
So tomes are nice to have and the fact that it’s not on 30 second duration is amazing. You can sit in one tome forever until you use or swap
Sit in the tome and do what, enjoy the visuals? You get 5 pages either way.
I would rather have a limited duration and unlimited casts.
(edited by RabbitUp.8294)
It was a bad idea to turn virtues into tomes, honestly.
It would have been so much simpler to turn virtues to Ele-like attunements, and add a seperate F4 button that’s a tome based on your current attunement.
So, the tome itself will be freely accesible, and all traits and cooldowns are tied to the attunements.
If you’r problem is PvE what’s your problem about Tomes?
Your main problem should be use the F1 to burst down everything AoE every lot of seconds.
Maybe that fact that Firebrand was supposed to be the support spec for Guardian?
Tome cd too long -> deal 30 stacks on burning to a whole group in a short time at an insane radius.
Have you played condi guardian before? That’s nothing new. Heck, even condi tempest can do the same.
Tome of Justice is nice for burst condi, but firebrand seems overall weaker at sustained condi damage because the passive VoJ is 50% weaker in pve and 70% weaker in pvp.
If it’s single target, the burn can go up to 50 stacks thanks to torch 4.
But the problem of Permeating Wrath shows up all over again thanks to Tome of Justice. (8 pages, virtue passive remains even using tome of justice, big radius for burning )
I won’t say it’d be a perfect pvp spec, but it’d be new meta in raid/ fractal/ wvw.
It’s not only a spectacular supporter in those contents (pulse aegis 3 times with one healing skill, pulsing group stability and so on), but also do insane damage too.
With 4 other people to proc Ashes? Otherwise, it’s impossible to do 50 stacks by yourself.
I did, but I was wrong about justice.
Comparing Justice passive procs.
FB: 1 3/4s @ 586 – 335 /s
DH: 3 1/2s @ 1171 – 335 /s
Core: 6 3/4s @ 2,341 – 347 /s
Done in sPvP lobby with carrion stats, balth runes and smoldering sigils.Justice got a pretty nice buff considering it burns quicker now.
What does “burns quicker” mean, all conditions behave the same regardless of their skill of origin.
And you calculated it yourself that the dps is the same (nothing quicker there), but the duration is lower. So what exactly is your point?
Very short burn duration means less time to clear it. Basically less time to stop the house from burning down. Faster burns are a good thing.
The only downside is less potential damage, but that potential damage doesn’t really matter in PvP (where the tests were done). It gives you more guaranteed damage which is great. In WvW I messed around a little and you can potentially turn FB Justice passive into a very, very deadly thing if your build revolves around it.
My take anyway.
Are you seriously saying that less burn is better?
1 second of burning does x damage.
4 seconds of burning does up to 4x damage, but i will never do less damage than 1 second of burning, unless you cleanse it immediately, in which case both 1s and 4s will do 0 damage.
Burning is damage over time. The more duration the better, you can’t say less duration is better because you can’t cleanse it. Guess what, it “cleanses” itself, because it stops ticking sooner than the 4s burn.
Tomes are instant casts.
Cooldown: 15s for all 3 tomes. 0 cooldown doesn’t work because of the traits.
Pages:
- You have no pages when not wielding a tome.
- When you open a tome, you don’t gain 5 pages, instead you gain 1 page every 0.5s while wielding the tome (in-combat only)
- Skill #1 cost no pages.
- You lose all pages when you drop the tome.
Remove stability from #1 of Tome of Courage and add a small amount of barrier.
Rework Legendary Lore: Now applies an effect around you when you equip a Tome
Justice: Burn foes around you
Resolve: Apply regeneration to nearby allies
Courage: Apply aegis to nearby alliesIt doesn’t ACTUALLY have to interact with the traits that reduce virtue CD (you could alternatively add a clause that converts virtue CD to tome ability CD).
Also, I think that it’d be smoother to allow you to recover pages faster when out of combat, like every other resource in the game (like HP and initiative).
The cd reduction trait is not the problem, the problem is with other traits, like blind on F1, condi cleanse on F2 and stun break and stability on F3. Those have no internal cooldowns, so you would be able to spam them. And other traits that give boon on virtue activation, you would get permanent protection, regen, retaliation without any cooldowns.
(edited by RabbitUp.8294)
Tome cd too long -> deal 30 stacks on burning to a whole group in a short time at an insane radius.
Have you played condi guardian before? That’s nothing new. Heck, even condi tempest can do the same.
Tome of Justice is nice for burst condi, but firebrand seems overall weaker at sustained condi damage because the passive VoJ is 50% weaker in pve and 70% weaker in pvp.
Tomes are instant casts.
Cooldown: 15s for all 3 tomes. 0 cooldown doesn’t work because of the traits.
Pages:
- You have no pages when not wielding a tome.
- When you open a tome, you don’t gain 5 pages, instead you gain 1 page every 0.5s while wielding the tome (in-combat only)
- Skill #1 cost no pages.
- You lose all pages when you drop the tome.
Remove stability from #1 of Tome of Courage and add a small amount of barrier.
Rework Legendary Lore: Now applies an effect around you when you equip a Tome
Justice: Burn foes around you
Resolve: Apply regeneration to nearby allies
Courage: Apply aegis to nearby allies
(edited by RabbitUp.8294)
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.
(edited by RabbitUp.8294)
I did, but I was wrong about justice.
Comparing Justice passive procs.
FB: 1 3/4s @ 586 – 335 /s
DH: 3 1/2s @ 1171 – 335 /s
Core: 6 3/4s @ 2,341 – 347 /s
Done in sPvP lobby with carrion stats, balth runes and smoldering sigils.Justice got a pretty nice buff considering it burns quicker now.
What does “burns quicker” mean, all conditions behave the same regardless of their skill of origin.
And you calculated it yourself that the dps is the same (nothing quicker there), but the duration is lower. So what exactly is your point?
Attunements, Shroud, Celestial Avatar, Berserk, Photon Forge. If every single bundle-like profession mechanic in the game can afford being instant cast, so can Tomes. This is ridiculous, it’s to the point that you start to thing the devs are doing this on purpose, like how guardian is never allowed to have a low cooldown heal, even when we get a mantra and our Resolve has 45s cooldown.
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Tomes are not meant to be Kits!
Tomes are not meant to be Elemental attunements!We are not meant to slip in and out of them, they are cooldowns we save for emergency situations, pop for big burst, burn through the pages fast, then return to our weapon.
Stop trying to make Tomes something they never were meant to be.
You seem convinced, are you in contact with a dev that explained to you what tomes are meant to be?
But let’s entertain the idea, let’s say tomes are indeed panic buttons. What use is there for a panic button that takes 3/4s to cast, that does nothing when it is cast and you have to spent more time casting the skills?
And what about the skills themselves? The only thing close to a panic button across all tomes is the AoE resistance on Courage, when you are getting focused by condi, and the cleanse on Resolve for the same situations.
The bottomline is, both base Virtues and Dh ones are much better panic buttons than tomes.
Core guardian is our support spec, you can talk about making core guardian stronger but not making new elites similar to core guard. The entire point of elite specs are them feeling like completely new classes, not the same as before.
Even if what you said made sense (core classes are not “specs”, they are the base specs build upon), core guardian in its current state is a lot better at condi dps than it is at supporting.
Heck, base mesmer is at a whole another league compared to base guardian, and they still got a support spec. Even base ranger and warrior bring valuable unique buffs, while core guardian is stuck playing with boons.
The projectile reflect is in Courage, not Resolve. Tome of Resolve brings some cleanse, but so do Virtue of Resolve and Wings of Resolve and those can be used twice as often. The regen and vigor is nice and all, but definitely not a selling point, especially in pve.
Courage is very good at what it does, only what it does is only useful in specific scenarios and game modes. And even then, for wvw for example, it might be better using base guardian for the lower cooldown Indomitable Courage.
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Too much power is indeed locked behind F1, but I don’t see the power in F2 or F3. DH’s Wings and Shield are better than the entirety of the respective tomes and on shorter cooldowns.
“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.
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The main problem with mantras is that you won’t hit any friend of your party.
The enemy is in front of you but all your allies stand next or behind you. So how do you want to give them aegis, stability, condition cleanse, quickness,…?They don’t need more range, they need to be a 360 AoE.
Turn your character and get as many as you can? I see a lot of people bringing this up and there are other games that have this mechanic and this is what you do, back up a little and turn then go back to dps.
Sure, backtrack every 12 seconds to hit people with your mantras. What’s the point of mantras being insta-cast then if you have to break your rotation to cast them?
The main problem with mantras is that you won’t hit any friend of your party.
The enemy is in front of you but all your allies stand next or behind you. So how do you want to give them aegis, stability, condition cleanse, quickness,…?They don’t need more range, they need to be a 360 AoE.
I don’t want to dumb down the skill-cap of Firebrand because people can’t position themselves correctly. The cone effect is fine as long as it works.
Playing with hitboxes is not skillful. It’s like old seaweed salad, a clunky mechanic.
Put the range on 750. This should be enough to be behind your teammates buffing them without being to far away to hop back in.
I need some clarification on mantras. I understand that correctly that mantras refill the charges over time if you do nout use the last charge?And on mantras, they even stated on the stream that they have a long cast time but more charges and the charges come back quicker, so you aren’t meant to necessarily blow them all at once and wait for the cooldown. I think the idea is that with the third charge being more powerful, it comes with a drawback when using it.
The final charge comes with a triple drawback, you lose the steady supply of charges, you have to wait a significant cooldown and you have to channel the mantra again for 2.75s.
It’s too much and just not worth it all with the current itteration. The cooldowns should be shorter, at least the healing mantra should be 20s, as the real heal is tied to the final charge. As it is, it’s only there to be used for the quickness traits.
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This idea, instant cast or 1/4s cast to enter, and 360 mantras are what are needed for this spec.
Not enough. The tome cooldowns are ridiculous.
Have you actually read the suggestion?
Nevermore, I though “this idea” meant azoqu’s own idea, not OP’s.
This idea, instant cast or 1/4s cast to enter, and 360 mantras are what are needed for this spec.
Not enough. The tome cooldowns are ridiculous.
They really need to get this back to the drawing and work on the tomes and traits.
The general feel though of where they want togo with the class seems right, proper support wich is i think, what most people are looking for in a Guardian.
You are rights proper support is what I was looking for, and firebrand doesn’t deliver that at all.
And if you, too, find the mantras underwhelming, don’t say the spec is perfect.
I’m fine with it being bad in PvP if it’s strong in PvE, which it is, so stop complaining before you make it bad in both PvP and PvE.
Oh, really? Where did you test it in pve? Do you have the benchmarks to share?
The entire point of elite specs is that it feels like a new class, they are not meant to be a replica of our core traits, not every elite spec is going to be a support/dps/tank spec.
I think they should strip ALL support from the Firebrand and focus on making it a strong condi burn spec.
Yes, after Dragonhunter, that’s what guardian was really lacking, a purely damage-focused spec with no support.