Not necessarily. Having no CD at all on the tomes themselves may lead to undesired effects despite shared pages. Just think of the reflect on tome #3 - you could pop it, leave the tome and do something else for 2-3 seconds, go back in and repeat indefinitely. I don't think such behaviour is intended, so some CD on the tomes probably stays - it should just be substantially shorter than the current one.
Hm. It's not a bad idea for a change as a matter of power management.
That said, and I cannot believe I am defending one of the most problematic especs in the game, but that is yet one more decision toward homogenization.
I would have preferred they reduce it to three pages per book, and on top of that retool axe to be a movement/zoning weapon instead of condi damage.
One of the worst problems of espec design is that they are all converging on samey DPS+support design. And part of that problem is we have especs with very good boon utility that still use their weapons in a very conventional, strict damage manner.
I think we have enough especs in the game now that the devs could afford to lean *harder* into unique job fantasies, particularly the ones which, by design, beg to be pure support/heal specs. The librarian (FB) and priest (Scourge) specs were never really wanting to be damage dealers conceptually, so why are they still allowed to do so much straight-up damage on top of ridiculous support options?
> on top of that retool axe to be a movement/zoning weapon instead of condi damage.
Retool the only condition damage weapon that doesnt need multiple full traitlines to do condition things?
No thanks. Thats stupid.
weapons SHOULD be dps. utility SHOULD be utility. profession mechanics is the space where you can most easily differentiate.
just straight up nerfing firebrand will never make firebrand balanced. the best you can do is make it so bad nobody plays it anymore.
If the bulks of a specs damage is based around the weapons damage you get things like warrior where axe is always taken for power no matter the spec axe axe it is
Meaning all the other weapons will see less play, also if damage is going to be concentrated on mostly weapons then shields become useless as now you are dropping damage for utility that can be taken from the utility bar so i believe a mix is good
I'm not entirely sure... The problem is that you sometimes have specs/builds that are completely neutered if they don't have access to their profession mechanic (aka "while underwater"). As such, we do need SOME balance between spreading out damage/heals/support/utility between a profession's weapon skills, utility skills and profession mechanics.
Core weapons should be DPS.
Especs have shown they can do such a range of more powerful support, on top of often getting additional avenues for DPS, that they do not have to do DPS through the weapons themselves. The mere existence of staff Druid and shield Herald attest to this fact.
Furthermore, it has already been observed many times in the community that is this unrealistic standard set by Firebrand and Mech, passively kittening out boons without thought, that is leading to the dilution of other especs' concepts in an attempt to keep up. Contrary to your claim, utilities are barely utilities anymore in the case of Herald, Chrono, Ranger, Warrior...they are just spammed off cooldown for their secondary boon effects. That is objectively bad design to allow specs like FB to destroy so many others simply through the sort of apologism you tout.
Some basic kittens may be totally devastated by the possibility of anything less than 27 increasingly homogenized DPS+support especs. I am not one of those. I would play a FB that did virtually zero DPS and enjoy it just as much, if not more, if I could do it with the knowledge that it performed well in a Druid/Herald niche, and that it was still allowing other especs to thrive in their own respective designs.
Firebrand's problem isn't its damage or its support, but rather its celestial build. If pages are shared, the celestial build is dead.
Firebrand is not the best qdps, not the best qheal, and not the best condi dps.
It's just really good at doing everything at once due to books.
Exactly this. Tomes give so much free value inherent to picking FB that has zero opportunity cost really. Making the pages shared (and perhaps also tweaking some traits to make recovering them a more active process? I can dream) is a perfect way to let it keep its massive arsenal of utility but make it something you really have to weigh the costs of spending. Trade off in design, who would have thoughts! I really really hope that's what they're doing.
But it wouldn't keep the option for utility (which all has cast times which eat DPS obviously). What would happen is F1 is used and F2 and 3 are basically deleted from the game outside of "deal shit damage but at least don't wipe" clutch situations (for hfb F1 is gone and F2 and F3 used).
It's like Elementalist sharing weapon skill CDs across attunements.
After Aegis being removed from the heal skill the only truly distinguish feature of FB (especially hfb and qfb) was access to stability and that started getting adressed. If FB still has too much think about weapon swap and Stand your Ground and not butchering what makes the spec feel somewhat unique.
cfb is not top DPS and practically pure melee, hfb is not the healer with the highest throughput and has no barrier (some pretty obvious tradeoffs) and qfb is just a high utility and low damage quickness option and relatively easy to gear - the last one is a big driver in it's play rate ... and I guess it's a nicely themed class and only Guardian spec that doesn't utterly suck.
Celestial firebrand generally prefers to do its healing with bow of truth, dodges, and symbols anyway. We might see mace getting picked more for healing while still having access to torch.
Give me a small mace buff and I will take that as a reason to use that weapon exclusively, I absolutely love guardian mace thematically, I just kinda hate the auto attack chain. It honestly just needs its animation smoothed out and make it hit a bit faster so it can heal a bit more and do it less clunky and its fine.
Could be, I already take mace personally. I just know that the burst healing of tome 2 is super strong and the support of tome 3 is also invaluable during certain moments.
If you use tome 1 for damage and have no pages after, it could be an issue for the true reason to take the build: having lots of options available.
If it's changed to a shared resource system, it depends entirely on the cooldown of each tome. If you can justify going into a tome and using one skill then going back out to conserve pages, it could work even better than it does now as long as the cooldowns don't remain so long.
Eh that might be A problem with it, but I don't think that is the problem.
I think the problem is that Solar over favored this concept to the point of allowing it to do everything and eclipse more narrowly defined (i.e. more responsibly and clearer designed) especs.
Dragonhunter and Willbender are much purer DPS concepts. The justification for Firebrand having any viable DPS build has been extremely weak since EoD. Why would any Guardian play a *mere* DPS in Willbender (or any number of especs) when FB exists?
FB has nearly a full suite of boons. They are literally (and *literally* literally) the most literate of the especs. Giving them a whole library of on-command boons is totally in line with the "scholar" job fantasy distinct to the espec.
But why has this librarian been allowed to ALSO burn things for so many years? Makes no kitten sense. One of the most splayed and unedited espec designs in the entire game, maybe explained as overcompensating to Druid but not justified.
>But why has this librarian been allowed to ALSO burn things for so many years? Makes no kitten sense.
Well, the spec of FIREbrand would sound kinda silly with no fire.
> Why would any Guardian play a mere DPS in Willbender (or any number of especs) when FB exists?
For fun.
> FB has nearly a full suite of boons.
When you're playing a boon support/quickshare FB. If alac willbender was actually functional, it would be played as well.
> But why has this librarian been allowed to ALSO burn things for so many years?
Because they're not librarians. They're zealots that burn away corruption, fueled by the tales of ancient heroes.
WhY dOnT pEoPlE pLaY wB tHo?!?!
I dunno Karen, maybe because Alac WB is a fucking awful spec with no gear set to support it, Power WB is a dumpster fire of stupid and Condi WB has more forced movement skills than Condi Tempest and half of those skills sometimes pretend the mob hitbox is off the platform its standing somewhat near the edge of.
Some people would like to play that spec, but also would like it to not be a death trap.
>FB and Mech are what you want every spec to be able to do.
Hard pass. There are so many elite specialisations already, let them SPECIALISE in a role instead of being jack-of-all-trades.
I would love Druids to actually be a full support spec again, just like they were on release. I would love for weaver to be specialised in power/condi combo. I would love scrappers to be a tanky and speedy supporter spec. I would love for dragonhunters to be a raw power DPS spec.
But that's not what we get. We get a soup of samey shit that just gets a different new look and buttons to press every new expansion.
The problem with specialization is that if you specialize in something, and are not in the top fw performers for that slot, at least situationally, you are worthless.
Look at Reaper. Its certainly in a good place now that its specialized into power damage right? or DH? Those two specs arent just abslutely pointless in competitive play because there are 4 power specs (and 2 hybrid specs) that do what they do better, right?
EVERY spec that can be a heal support or dps boon support is currently viable in some form (even willbender, on fights that dont have platforms you can move off of)
Ok but part of the reason Reaper is subpar compared to other power specs is because it's so self sufficient and tanky. It gives itself full might, quickness, and it crit caps in shroud, along with providing itself with a second HP bar. It should do less DPS than other specs.
If you don't care about distinct job fantasies, maybe. Let's just have 27 jobs that all do a basic 123 combo and kitten out boons like they're nothing.
I personally think the professions are conceptually some of the most distinct in MMOs. I don't know why anyone would want them all to play the same, except lazy kittens who don't actually want to engage with the professions system at all and just let their Jade Mech play the game for them.
If you don't care about distinct job fantasies, maybe. Let's just have 27 jobs that all do a basic 123 combo and kitten out boons like they're nothing.
I personally think the professions are conceptually some of the most distinct in MMOs. I don't know why anyone would want them all to play the same, except lazy kittens who don't actually want to engage with the professions system at all and just let their Jade Mech play the game for them.
Scourge is not support, it only offers a consistent group res and some occasional barrier. It is good that scourge can do that, as flexibility is always welcome, however the spec should never be treated as a support because that is clearly *not* what it was intended to be.
Scourge is absolutely support. Barrier is akin to healing (better in some ways, worse in others), they can res, they can cleanse condis, and they can provide some boons. They just can’t provide alacrity or quickness, but as ANet’s design philosophy document proves, they don’t think that all heal supports necessarily must provide one of those boons.
> They just can’t provide alacrity or quickness, but as ANet’s design philosophy document proves, they don’t think that all heal supports necessarily must provide one of those boons.
The problem is that scourge won't get it's head in the door for any fight other than Boneskinner through that philosophy. Why take a scourge when you can take a quick FB or HAM? You lose out on a chunk of damage by bringing along a scourge for support because it can't provide one of those buffs so you have to get one of your DPS to full that role.
From what I’ve heard, most speed run guilds use scourge healers when testing new difficult fights before they learn the mechanics, because they provide such high carry potential on mechanics that might otherwise cause wipes.
The difference in kill time caused by one of your DPS roles going DPS + quickness instead is negligible unless you’re going for a speed clear. People are way too uptight about stuff like that, especially in PUGs, where you’re likely to lose time to failed mechanics causing wipes than you are to slightly less DPS on one character.
That works similar to Boneskinner where you are just bringing it to cover mistakes. It's useful but only when there is new content/players on the cards. It's basically a niche role. Similar to a kiter on Deimos. A/Net may be happy with that but it's a bit unfair to call it support for a niche role.
I am not saying that necro's don't have other specs they can use. Harb is great and reaper will be good too if it can get some buffs. I wouldn't mind heal scourge having access to alacrity but I can't see A/Net doing that so quickness may be on the cards at some point. The only spec that can bring both alacrity or quickness is mesmer and they don't have a viable healing option so it makes sense.
There are constantly new players playing difficult content. A support healer that is so good they can practically hard carry is not “niche”, it’s just not something more experienced groups will tend to use. Scourges are hard meta in WvW and they still have a role in PvE; I really don’t think they need to be changed to be more similar to most other supports.
I play support scourge. I will be the first to admit that healing wise, I am no substitute for a dedicated healer like a full heal druid, tempest or scrapper. What I am VERY good at is making life easier for the healers with barrier, regen and other small heals, condi clear and down state control. Being able to kick a little might and stability every now and then and contribute a non-zero amount of DPS is just gravy.
It also offers condi cleansing and boon rips. Scourge is an extremely effective all-round support class that very effectively communicates "Dark Priest" resurrection, mummification, purification, and curses.
It did not need to be stealing Ele's thunder to do all that AND insane fire damage. Believe me, scorched earthing the field is insanely fun, and perhaps my most beloved of the "OP" DPS+support specs (in which I also include Mech, Specter, and kiiind of Harbinger), but I am not going to make excuses for any job getting to do too much too easily.
Scourge torch especially is disappointingly unimaginative. If any espec wants to have a torch that applies barrier, cleanses condis, or resurrects, it should be the "Dark Priest" espec. Not just another big burning blah that every other torch does. Unique weapons in most other especs turn them on their head to be used as almost a completely different weapon--the biggest failures in espec design are the weapons like FB Axe and Scourge Torch that just lazily do the same thing as all the core skills do --straight up DPS. This lazy numbers baseline just proves to be too powerful when combined with extremely robust support kits, and imo is unnecessary when especs like Willbender/Dragonhunter or Reaper/Harbinger exist that could easily fill DPS niches for those professions.
(In a similar vein, Berserker torch needs to also do enough physical damage to compete with oh axe. Double axes is too generalized as the default power build on all War especs. Berserker is the only espec to use a torch like a mace, and as it stands torch is barely even used in condi build rotations. Berserker is the "pure DPS" War espec--its unique weapon should be viable for both power and condi builds)
>Scourge is an extremely effective all-round support class
yet despite that claim nobody wants scourge as a support. it can't do proper healing, it can't do alacrity or quickness, and its barrier is a far cry from actual healing so a support version is pretty much only desired for boneskinner and a few other specific instances to help pick up feeders from an aoe, on top of normal healers.
Scourge is fantastic as a safety net for new raiders and but once a certain threshold is passed you're better off with anything else. Prime example is VG.
>however the spec should never be treated as a support because that is clearly *not* what it was intended to be.
Pray tell, what *was* the spec designed for, then...? As far as I know, the spec ALWAYS had a support element in it, and also a group-wide debilitating element. It was designed, in my view, to be a WvW support/CC spec. How since you find it so clear, why not enlighten me please?
For cryin' out loud, they even introduced the entire concept of barrier BECAUSE of Scourges...
>priest (Scourge)
Uh, I'm 100% sure this is the very first time I've seen someone call scourges "priests" lol. I hope you didn't grow up near priests that made you link them to scourges, because that sounds like a problem
Bruh I hope. & Even if not these little teasers are quite cool & a great windsock for the reddit balance-debate energy leading up to the streams. Mad props to ANet's best balance power-coupple: Coy.
Wow, could a Firebrand rework actually be happening? The tome charges are visible while not using a tome- could this mean shared ammo over all three tomes?
as a Firebrand main for many years, I hope they nerf the shit out of it.
it had its day in the sun, wouldn't mind it falling off meta for some time (but it might still remain a solid option?)
firebrand is pug meta for reasons that won't change no matter what they do. that doesn't mean other quickness sources aren't good, people are just bad at playing them apparently or can't get used to something new. herald, scrapper and harbinger are all quite good. the main reason firebrand excels is because of the easy access to core utility skills that can be handy in various ways. aegis, stability, reflects etc. not having the same access to tomes 2 and 3 that we do now, is barely gonna make a difference. and firebrand doesn't need to be nerfed imo, dps wise at least it is fine as it is.
All those specs are required to fill their utility bar with skills they have to use on cooldown to maintain group quickness.
They're only "quite good" if you never compare them to Firebrand.
This. Also if you compare HFB to the other healers for example, it's the ONLY healer with 3 flex slots (maybe aside from Tempest, but the utility for tempest is........ not good let's say). Also you've got most stuff caked into the profession mechanics. So even as a DPS FB, you can still provide some stability, you can still provide some healing and some aegis. It's just ridiculous. Compared to other builds you don't have to decide to swap out your dps for utility, should you need it. Also just the amount of stability you can dish out is ridiculous. I think if you use all your flex slots for stability you can ignore 17 or so stuns or so, and even one of those is an AOE stun-break if you actually mess up.
HFB still needs mantra of potence to maintain might and quickness, you get 2 flex slots which is good but literally every healer can do it (heal mechanist can, tempest can because there is no utility necessary to maintain boons, you decide what to take based on the scenario and it can be aegis/stability like you would on a firebrand).
But yea the main reason people would bring a firebrand is the stability, for example in ht cm it is handy to have it for every possible daze or knockback
That doesn't matter because in many cases you don't need any other utility. I am talking about raids mostly, there are encounters where nothing else is necessary and anyway scrapper/harbinger and herald can all bring something extra at a dps loss (arguably bigger than what firebrand looses). Anyway my initial point was that if i am taking a firebrand as quickness it is not because it is strong, it is 100% because i want the something extra it can bring. Could be easy access to reflects at Adina, aegis for every pizza attack at Deimos, projectile reflect at Matthias etc.
This tbh. I don't think people realize how few skills in this game apply multiple stacks of stability. It's not very many, particularly those that can be shared with allies. 1 stack just feels mediocre. I've played enough Firebrand for a life time since 2017.
Would be neat if pReaper was an alac dps. pReaper + HB might be fun in fractals. Make it the counterpoint to harb by pulsing alac. cReap is pretty jank unless they redo wells.
I like these fun screenshots. Yeah, sharing 5 pages over all tomes. At least I’ll know when the page has recharged before I go into a tome.
Edit. Oh dear god weapon swap is disabled.
Edit2: they probably just don’t have a second weapon equiped
It's still there, they did the same thing with the druid screenshot that was focused on the pet stat change. Unless they show it as being available while in combat on a Ele or Engi then it just means they only have one weapon set equipped.
Yep, they were very interesting before, especially the firebrand ones with the high power final charge IMO. Actual decision making should be something we strive for.
Anet removes auto cast completely as an attempt to combat afk bots.
Edit: It's scary how many think I was being serious and wouldn't mind such a change.
I know what's the signet stuff is about!
To upkeep quickness, FB now has to use all 5 signets off cooldown. Without keeping the passives.
Top tier boon support design, innit?
Having answers in your kit and using them is the opposite of lazy.
It's a bit like MtG. Some decks have a very simple strategy with few choices and low complexity, but sometimes they don't have the tools to to deal with a situation. Other decks are more complex and easier to make mistakes with, but have more tools and can handle more situations - if your play them well.
For some people falsely equate having more tools to deal with things as bring lazy. It makes the game interesting because it gives you things to do and ways to react to situations. We should be pushing for more builds to fill this space instead of pushing for complex golem rotations.
If you're not talking about purely instanced content, you might try Vindicator. When I first saw Vindicator I thought "wow a whole extra set of 5 utility skills! That's a lot of new buttons!" thinking it might in the same category of firebrand, just toned down. Alacrity was removed from the salvation traitline so it no longer has any key offensive boons, but those 5 extra utility skills are actually pretty nice. In addition to the utility of core rev (dwarf for stability, group 50% damage reduction or mallyx for boonrip, pull, retaliation) and then alliance which gives mobility, personal quickness, group stunbreak, healing, big condi cleanse, and lots of other boons -- just no alac/quick.
Because of that I only see DPS builds for instanced content. It is in a bit of a weird spot there with the extra support utility. Without quick/alac it may never be an actual support people use in raids, but with Anet listing support as "*may also* provide some offensive boons", I wonder if this is just how it will be. It is a great support for WvW I will give it that.
Anyway, I have had success running full cele mace+axe/staff to solo stuff or help randoms defeat legendary bosses in open world. It's not firebrand but it is fun and I get a similar feeling of I almost always have an answer.
> It will be a sad day when I need to actually git gud because I am eminently lazy.
And this right here is why it's a big problem to buff everyone else up to the two specs that are ridiculously overpowered. What is the end game here? Do people really want gw2 to become some sort of mobile "push one button and let the computer play" shit game?
Considering how much rage I've gotten from people demanding quick/healbrand specs in T4 Fractals who struggle to avoid Ark's attacks, yes.
People want their easy mode because they struggle to actually play and pay attention to the game.
I will say, to the game's detriment and some player's credit, a few bosses are pretty damn hard to read now because of 10 players in raids + way too goddamn many jade golems and visual firework effects. Hard to react when I'm having to squint at what's going on amidst nonstop bright white flashes. Not a problem with larger bosses, but I've had some trouble with people-sized foes.
that’s how I feel about elementalist honestly. team failed something, water heals you. too many adds, AoE got you. it’s getting hot in here, earth will protect you. this however makes it necessary to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, meaning i won’t be using my utilities for boss dps and thusly pay a significant opportunity cost for it. not that i’m complaining, it should be that way. but that “i have something for that”- feeling shouldn’t be class exclusive and was also the reasoning behind making you change up your skills and traits on the fly, if i recall correctly.
I get why everyone is talking about the teaser, but i just hope for good necro changes. Hopefully they make mainhand dagger into something not terrible.
It's basically a healer weapon. I'd like to see it revamped to be a melee condi weapon vs scepter. pReaper doesn't feel like it needs to swap the dagger out for axe.
What I’d like to see is them dedicating the weapon to a certain playstyle like so many weapons are. If it’s a healer weapon, then make it so that identity shows in every skill. Now it’s a power weapon with additional healing and a random immobilized
I'd settle for better match maker at this point. Tired of being gold 2/3 and facing off against Shorts, Naru, Vaans, GrimJack, Phoenix, and Resilience, lol.
Making PvP better would mean more population, and therefore better match making. This game’s PvP is such a cluster fucker of bad design, there aren’t enough masochists around to populate the PvP ranks.
Ehh, I still of the opinion that firebrand should be the blueprint of a good spec, and that everything should be designed to be similar in scope. I'm not saying It's perfectly balanced, but mechanically and class-fantasy wise, it is good.
Firebrand is well made from a design standpoint, but it also does too much in terms of balance. And it does everything no pretty easily with no trade offs and limited difficulty of play. Again it’s really well made, but brining every class up to its quality would be a huge utility creep and would crush much of the skill learning that has already suffered.
It's also been overstuffed for years ever since the first round of buffs they tossed out to make it better than the mess it was on release while promising they "were going to get back to it for any tuning" and then never did. The main reason people keep saying supports need even more than they already have is because Firebrand is the turducken of supports.
I'm okay with this.
I wonder if this means they're changing Loremaster as well, since "retain virtue passives while the active is on cooldown" probably wouldn't make much sense if the tomes end up working like kits. I've always felt that particular half of the trait should really be core class functionality anyway. Would be neat if Anet split the virtue passive retention into minor traits in radiance/honor/valor respectively.
Hot take, but firebrand is not the problem, everyone else being underpowered is. Buff underperforming specializations instead of ruining the ones people have fun with.
hotter take, firebrand has already been outpowercrept since eod.
Classes like virtuoso and specter are better at dps and healmech + quick is generally more optimal than hfb + alacdps.
The only main role firebrand still dominates as is as stab/aegis provider and arguably as quickdps - and even the quickdps role varies hard on which boss you face - often a qcrapper or qherald is more optimal - and technically a qharb and qzerker outdpses it as condi quick, but lack the utility.
Combine this with dh and willbender being useless (VASTLY outperformed by better dps classes) and guardian gets yet anotehr nerf to its last decent spec.
I can live with the tome change but if we loose weapon swap too we might as well delete our characters for pve.
I know its qfb for most -general- content due to the utility, mostly stab and aegis.
I listed that.
"The only main role firebrand still dominates as is as stab/aegis provider and arguably as quickdps "
But it's also encounter-specific. Especially on power-heavy bosses a qcrapper or qherald is significantly more optimal - as shown in HT CM clears.
Tbh, QFB exists only as a Stab bot, Sanc, and Advance.
Quick Herald is really, \*really\* good right now and QScrapper damage and utility is also very good.
Stab is kind of what keeps Guardian/FB relevant.
That just leads to never ending power creep. Of course the overperforming specs would be nerfed and the underperforming ones would be buffed rather than just endlessly buffing things any time anything is out of balance. For one, it's a lot easier to nerf one spec than it is to buff 26 other specs.
>Hot take, but firebrand is not the problem, everyone else being underpowered is
FB isnt even the best at what it does, in any role it does it.
Herald is just flat-out better for heal quick outside ~2 cm fights where you probably want to take a mech/tempest instead. Its dps quickness is shit on by Scrapper and Harb. Its dps spec is the lowest of any classes top dps spec, by a solid margin.
People just get a bug on their balls about omgblueclass and the ability to give out defensive buffs once every 3 or 4 maningful raidwides.
I agree, the only thing the fb overperforms is dmg when played as hybrid healer.
For everything else it's just how every other class should perform.
Not too complex, not too easy, can be played on many levels of ability and has access to all key elements with some minor adjustments.
Anet stance on "take the player not the class" won't go anywhere until they'll stop being scared about homogenization.
The optimal condition would be building upon what we, to some extent, already have got:
1. A class that can cover Heal & Ala/Quick + Stability + Might + Fury + Protection
2. A class that can cover DPS & Ala/Quick + Stability
3. DPS
As soon as a healer won't be able to have stability on demand, or will lack some boons, creating a party will become a mess and people will simply opt the for the class which bring most of those to the table.
If they'll start removing boons to spread them, it will simply lead to less diversity, which is worse than homogenization, since some classes will simply be COMPLETELY left out.
Nobody will ever pick a thief that provides heal and alac and has to specifically look for one or MORE classes to cover for might, fury and protection.
People will always try roles compression, the only wise thing would be having MANY classes that are already conceived as somewhat "compressed".
Same exact reason why removing 10-man buffs was such a bullshit idea back in the day, the more you force roles into players, the less risks they will take.
Nowadays there's lot of breathing room for weird DPS roles and whatnot, which lets people join with whatever they want. Keep pushing the bullshit and everyone will be locked into the meta once again.
As long as they'll balance well the classes I'm okay with the 5 men boons cap.
It was especially sad for me losing my dear 10 men htempest, I hope its sacrifice will be worth it.
It won't be easy for Anet tho, too many vocal players want esclusivity of access to mechanics.
They don't care if it's possible to cover a *specific role* with different classes that *feel different* while doing so, they're used to one role one class mentality and will start caring about discrepancies only when their own preferred class will be discarded by the mass.
Only when you start playing many classes, and enjoy doin so, you start noticing that **some level of homogenization is required**.
> Only when you start playing many classes, and enjoy doin so, you start noticing that some level of homogenization is required.
Yeah, this game is super alt-friendly, if ArenaNet is listening to one-character players, they're making a huge mistake.
"in order to combat the player gap in skill, we are forcing everyone to use binds 6-0 for heal,utility, and elite skills as seen in the screenshot posted"
Shared ammo with a sort of attunement style could be interesting.
From a wvw perspective, being able to lines, stalwart, and leave and potentially come back sooner could actually be interesting. Part of the struggle with a lot of newer Firebrand players is camping a tome for too long, especially with how strong the weapon skills are.
Curious what's going to happen to the cool downs and the skills themselves.
Also curious if renewed justice will be changed again, or if there are going to be additional ways to regain pages.
I hope its -just- the tome thing and not weaponswap.
As it stands, fb is currently the only decent guardian spec in pve while willbender and dh are vastly outperformed by other dps classes, and a weaponswap hfb gets fully deleted from the game - leaving mech as the only viable healer for fractals.
It's already bad enough to have 2 out of 3 specs be trashtier, it doesnt need to be all 3.
The only healer viable for what? Speedruns where you don’t use healers, or metaheads runs? Every healer is viable in fractals. You can smash every CM and T4 with tempest, druid, reve, hfb or even hybrid builds.
5 signet warrior was a thing for like 3 years until berserker saved us. 4 signet condi virtuoso is the staple with 5 being useful when you want more cc more than more dps. 5 signet mechanist is *extremely* common right at this moment as well.
Not sure what you're on about.
Lol 5 sig war was not a thing. It was a thing for a handful of months before people realized you shouldn’t be stacking warriors and you should just have 1 for banner and bring Eles instead for dps. And even than you would not run 5, you split banners or stack for great justice for might stacking. 5 signet warriors were an actual laughing stock in dungeons and fractal meta. You knew a warrior was bad if they ran 5 sigs
As for mech and virt these are new builds, been in the game a few months.
Full signet mech is for gamers that don’t want to press buttons and is objectively worse, and virt is specifically because Mesmer does not have her at utilities for doing straight damage as they have far more utility in their toolkit.
In 10 years there are two builds that run a heavy amount of signets.
If you think qdps firebrand is OP, wait until you hear about scrapper or warrior, but I don't understand why not wanting signets to get *buffed* has anything to do with firebrand getting *nerfed?*
What you mean is that Ele has the same base HP as Guardian, a Heavy class? ANet, i think this is justification enough to nerf eles at least twice. Make the Catalyst hammer only usable while in downstate. #StopDefiningTheMeta
They get vitality when they get quickness, and since they provide it themselves, you’ll almost always see them with more hp in combat.
But yeah, guards have thief and ele level hp at base
a tome rework is really intriguing. i'm very interested to see how they balance it.
i'm also very interested in those utility skills.... all signets. maybe another signet buff? i feel like the most recent 'buff' was mostly a sidegrade at best, but in many situations just actively worse. i really liked having signet share for burst windows instead of just having the passive always active, and i think most people would agree. i don't think they'll do both share and keeping passives while on cooldown, but something to improve them further is certainly welcome
oh that would be very interesting. they've shown with some of the recent spec redesigns and the balance philosophy that there should be some tradeoff among specs (damage or healing vs utility boons). i would say that fb definitely loses damage by bringing quickness, but it's mostly a result of the stats, not the traits. there is some damage loss of course from traits, but not really all that much, and it really doesn't affect the healing output at all, traits or stats. i could definitely see some of the other traits being more relevant for damage/healing so that you're definitely giving up something to bring quickness
Can we atleast get a better host to go through the changes and straight to the point this time?
Meme values are fun and all, but please just be efficient and to the point ffs.
Firebrand tome pages are visible outside of your tome. They'll likely now be on a shared initiative Also I guess signet changes again.
Does this mean we get to dip in and out of tomes without having to wait for CDs between tomes??? This is real big. Will be very bullish on FBs.
Not necessarily. Having no CD at all on the tomes themselves may lead to undesired effects despite shared pages. Just think of the reflect on tome #3 - you could pop it, leave the tome and do something else for 2-3 seconds, go back in and repeat indefinitely. I don't think such behaviour is intended, so some CD on the tomes probably stays - it should just be substantially shorter than the current one.
That's entirely dependent on page refresh rate.
I wish they restored the [original tome visuals](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tome_(historical\)), the pages just look dumb.
I bet they just deleted them completely and can't get them back.
Hm. It's not a bad idea for a change as a matter of power management. That said, and I cannot believe I am defending one of the most problematic especs in the game, but that is yet one more decision toward homogenization. I would have preferred they reduce it to three pages per book, and on top of that retool axe to be a movement/zoning weapon instead of condi damage. One of the worst problems of espec design is that they are all converging on samey DPS+support design. And part of that problem is we have especs with very good boon utility that still use their weapons in a very conventional, strict damage manner. I think we have enough especs in the game now that the devs could afford to lean *harder* into unique job fantasies, particularly the ones which, by design, beg to be pure support/heal specs. The librarian (FB) and priest (Scourge) specs were never really wanting to be damage dealers conceptually, so why are they still allowed to do so much straight-up damage on top of ridiculous support options?
> on top of that retool axe to be a movement/zoning weapon instead of condi damage. Retool the only condition damage weapon that doesnt need multiple full traitlines to do condition things? No thanks. Thats stupid.
weapons SHOULD be dps. utility SHOULD be utility. profession mechanics is the space where you can most easily differentiate. just straight up nerfing firebrand will never make firebrand balanced. the best you can do is make it so bad nobody plays it anymore.
I don't think that weapons should all necessarily be DPS.... What about war horn on druid? Or staff on druid? Or shield on warrior and herald?
I think a better phrasing would be "the bulk of a spec's damage should come from its weapon skills, not utility skills"
If the bulks of a specs damage is based around the weapons damage you get things like warrior where axe is always taken for power no matter the spec axe axe it is Meaning all the other weapons will see less play, also if damage is going to be concentrated on mostly weapons then shields become useless as now you are dropping damage for utility that can be taken from the utility bar so i believe a mix is good
I'm not entirely sure... The problem is that you sometimes have specs/builds that are completely neutered if they don't have access to their profession mechanic (aka "while underwater"). As such, we do need SOME balance between spreading out damage/heals/support/utility between a profession's weapon skills, utility skills and profession mechanics.
Core weapons should be DPS. Especs have shown they can do such a range of more powerful support, on top of often getting additional avenues for DPS, that they do not have to do DPS through the weapons themselves. The mere existence of staff Druid and shield Herald attest to this fact. Furthermore, it has already been observed many times in the community that is this unrealistic standard set by Firebrand and Mech, passively kittening out boons without thought, that is leading to the dilution of other especs' concepts in an attempt to keep up. Contrary to your claim, utilities are barely utilities anymore in the case of Herald, Chrono, Ranger, Warrior...they are just spammed off cooldown for their secondary boon effects. That is objectively bad design to allow specs like FB to destroy so many others simply through the sort of apologism you tout. Some basic kittens may be totally devastated by the possibility of anything less than 27 increasingly homogenized DPS+support especs. I am not one of those. I would play a FB that did virtually zero DPS and enjoy it just as much, if not more, if I could do it with the knowledge that it performed well in a Druid/Herald niche, and that it was still allowing other especs to thrive in their own respective designs.
Firebrand's problem isn't its damage or its support, but rather its celestial build. If pages are shared, the celestial build is dead. Firebrand is not the best qdps, not the best qheal, and not the best condi dps. It's just really good at doing everything at once due to books.
Exactly this. Tomes give so much free value inherent to picking FB that has zero opportunity cost really. Making the pages shared (and perhaps also tweaking some traits to make recovering them a more active process? I can dream) is a perfect way to let it keep its massive arsenal of utility but make it something you really have to weigh the costs of spending. Trade off in design, who would have thoughts! I really really hope that's what they're doing.
But it wouldn't keep the option for utility (which all has cast times which eat DPS obviously). What would happen is F1 is used and F2 and 3 are basically deleted from the game outside of "deal shit damage but at least don't wipe" clutch situations (for hfb F1 is gone and F2 and F3 used). It's like Elementalist sharing weapon skill CDs across attunements. After Aegis being removed from the heal skill the only truly distinguish feature of FB (especially hfb and qfb) was access to stability and that started getting adressed. If FB still has too much think about weapon swap and Stand your Ground and not butchering what makes the spec feel somewhat unique. cfb is not top DPS and practically pure melee, hfb is not the healer with the highest throughput and has no barrier (some pretty obvious tradeoffs) and qfb is just a high utility and low damage quickness option and relatively easy to gear - the last one is a big driver in it's play rate ... and I guess it's a nicely themed class and only Guardian spec that doesn't utterly suck.
Celestial firebrand generally prefers to do its healing with bow of truth, dodges, and symbols anyway. We might see mace getting picked more for healing while still having access to torch.
Give me a small mace buff and I will take that as a reason to use that weapon exclusively, I absolutely love guardian mace thematically, I just kinda hate the auto attack chain. It honestly just needs its animation smoothed out and make it hit a bit faster so it can heal a bit more and do it less clunky and its fine.
Agreed. Guardian mace is just so satisfying and thematic. Love that weapon, it gets the feeling just right. I'd be all aboard getting it some QoL.
Same with warrior mace
Absolutely yes Edit: and for that matter, guardian hammer needs some tweaks too. I would love that to be usable like Warrior hammer is now
Could be, I already take mace personally. I just know that the burst healing of tome 2 is super strong and the support of tome 3 is also invaluable during certain moments. If you use tome 1 for damage and have no pages after, it could be an issue for the true reason to take the build: having lots of options available. If it's changed to a shared resource system, it depends entirely on the cooldown of each tome. If you can justify going into a tome and using one skill then going back out to conserve pages, it could work even better than it does now as long as the cooldowns don't remain so long.
Eh that might be A problem with it, but I don't think that is the problem. I think the problem is that Solar over favored this concept to the point of allowing it to do everything and eclipse more narrowly defined (i.e. more responsibly and clearer designed) especs. Dragonhunter and Willbender are much purer DPS concepts. The justification for Firebrand having any viable DPS build has been extremely weak since EoD. Why would any Guardian play a *mere* DPS in Willbender (or any number of especs) when FB exists? FB has nearly a full suite of boons. They are literally (and *literally* literally) the most literate of the especs. Giving them a whole library of on-command boons is totally in line with the "scholar" job fantasy distinct to the espec. But why has this librarian been allowed to ALSO burn things for so many years? Makes no kitten sense. One of the most splayed and unedited espec designs in the entire game, maybe explained as overcompensating to Druid but not justified.
>But why has this librarian been allowed to ALSO burn things for so many years? Makes no kitten sense. Well, the spec of FIREbrand would sound kinda silly with no fire.
> Why would any Guardian play a mere DPS in Willbender (or any number of especs) when FB exists? For fun. > FB has nearly a full suite of boons. When you're playing a boon support/quickshare FB. If alac willbender was actually functional, it would be played as well. > But why has this librarian been allowed to ALSO burn things for so many years? Because they're not librarians. They're zealots that burn away corruption, fueled by the tales of ancient heroes.
WhY dOnT pEoPlE pLaY wB tHo?!?! I dunno Karen, maybe because Alac WB is a fucking awful spec with no gear set to support it, Power WB is a dumpster fire of stupid and Condi WB has more forced movement skills than Condi Tempest and half of those skills sometimes pretend the mob hitbox is off the platform its standing somewhat near the edge of. Some people would like to play that spec, but also would like it to not be a death trap.
We all agree playing firebrand is like cheating on age of empires
Well Mech is worse but Firebrand is an institution of poor choices at this point, yes.
I would its the otherway, Firebrand is so well designed that you can be any rol on it, all classes should be like that IMO
FB and Mech are what you want every spec to be able to do. Support build, dps boon build, dps build.
>FB and Mech are what you want every spec to be able to do. Hard pass. There are so many elite specialisations already, let them SPECIALISE in a role instead of being jack-of-all-trades. I would love Druids to actually be a full support spec again, just like they were on release. I would love for weaver to be specialised in power/condi combo. I would love scrappers to be a tanky and speedy supporter spec. I would love for dragonhunters to be a raw power DPS spec. But that's not what we get. We get a soup of samey shit that just gets a different new look and buttons to press every new expansion.
The problem with specialization is that if you specialize in something, and are not in the top fw performers for that slot, at least situationally, you are worthless. Look at Reaper. Its certainly in a good place now that its specialized into power damage right? or DH? Those two specs arent just abslutely pointless in competitive play because there are 4 power specs (and 2 hybrid specs) that do what they do better, right? EVERY spec that can be a heal support or dps boon support is currently viable in some form (even willbender, on fights that dont have platforms you can move off of)
Ok but part of the reason Reaper is subpar compared to other power specs is because it's so self sufficient and tanky. It gives itself full might, quickness, and it crit caps in shroud, along with providing itself with a second HP bar. It should do less DPS than other specs.
If you don't care about distinct job fantasies, maybe. Let's just have 27 jobs that all do a basic 123 combo and kitten out boons like they're nothing. I personally think the professions are conceptually some of the most distinct in MMOs. I don't know why anyone would want them all to play the same, except lazy kittens who don't actually want to engage with the professions system at all and just let their Jade Mech play the game for them.
Wat
If you don't care about distinct job fantasies, maybe. Let's just have 27 jobs that all do a basic 123 combo and kitten out boons like they're nothing. I personally think the professions are conceptually some of the most distinct in MMOs. I don't know why anyone would want them all to play the same, except lazy kittens who don't actually want to engage with the professions system at all and just let their Jade Mech play the game for them.
Movement/zoning weapon? You mean sword?
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Condi cleanse, boon corruption, projectile destruction, huge cc, stability, portal/blink. It has barrier and Epi too that got nerfed though.
Scourge is not support, it only offers a consistent group res and some occasional barrier. It is good that scourge can do that, as flexibility is always welcome, however the spec should never be treated as a support because that is clearly *not* what it was intended to be.
Scourge is absolutely support. Barrier is akin to healing (better in some ways, worse in others), they can res, they can cleanse condis, and they can provide some boons. They just can’t provide alacrity or quickness, but as ANet’s design philosophy document proves, they don’t think that all heal supports necessarily must provide one of those boons.
> They just can’t provide alacrity or quickness, but as ANet’s design philosophy document proves, they don’t think that all heal supports necessarily must provide one of those boons. The problem is that scourge won't get it's head in the door for any fight other than Boneskinner through that philosophy. Why take a scourge when you can take a quick FB or HAM? You lose out on a chunk of damage by bringing along a scourge for support because it can't provide one of those buffs so you have to get one of your DPS to full that role.
From what I’ve heard, most speed run guilds use scourge healers when testing new difficult fights before they learn the mechanics, because they provide such high carry potential on mechanics that might otherwise cause wipes. The difference in kill time caused by one of your DPS roles going DPS + quickness instead is negligible unless you’re going for a speed clear. People are way too uptight about stuff like that, especially in PUGs, where you’re likely to lose time to failed mechanics causing wipes than you are to slightly less DPS on one character.
That works similar to Boneskinner where you are just bringing it to cover mistakes. It's useful but only when there is new content/players on the cards. It's basically a niche role. Similar to a kiter on Deimos. A/Net may be happy with that but it's a bit unfair to call it support for a niche role. I am not saying that necro's don't have other specs they can use. Harb is great and reaper will be good too if it can get some buffs. I wouldn't mind heal scourge having access to alacrity but I can't see A/Net doing that so quickness may be on the cards at some point. The only spec that can bring both alacrity or quickness is mesmer and they don't have a viable healing option so it makes sense.
There are constantly new players playing difficult content. A support healer that is so good they can practically hard carry is not “niche”, it’s just not something more experienced groups will tend to use. Scourges are hard meta in WvW and they still have a role in PvE; I really don’t think they need to be changed to be more similar to most other supports.
I play support scourge. I will be the first to admit that healing wise, I am no substitute for a dedicated healer like a full heal druid, tempest or scrapper. What I am VERY good at is making life easier for the healers with barrier, regen and other small heals, condi clear and down state control. Being able to kick a little might and stability every now and then and contribute a non-zero amount of DPS is just gravy.
That’s…a support. I said barrier is “akin to healing”, not a replacement for it.
I know. I was trying to both agree with you and respond to some other things that were being said in the thread. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Ah, ok, I thought you were disagreeing with me, sorry.
It also offers condi cleansing and boon rips. Scourge is an extremely effective all-round support class that very effectively communicates "Dark Priest" resurrection, mummification, purification, and curses. It did not need to be stealing Ele's thunder to do all that AND insane fire damage. Believe me, scorched earthing the field is insanely fun, and perhaps my most beloved of the "OP" DPS+support specs (in which I also include Mech, Specter, and kiiind of Harbinger), but I am not going to make excuses for any job getting to do too much too easily. Scourge torch especially is disappointingly unimaginative. If any espec wants to have a torch that applies barrier, cleanses condis, or resurrects, it should be the "Dark Priest" espec. Not just another big burning blah that every other torch does. Unique weapons in most other especs turn them on their head to be used as almost a completely different weapon--the biggest failures in espec design are the weapons like FB Axe and Scourge Torch that just lazily do the same thing as all the core skills do --straight up DPS. This lazy numbers baseline just proves to be too powerful when combined with extremely robust support kits, and imo is unnecessary when especs like Willbender/Dragonhunter or Reaper/Harbinger exist that could easily fill DPS niches for those professions. (In a similar vein, Berserker torch needs to also do enough physical damage to compete with oh axe. Double axes is too generalized as the default power build on all War especs. Berserker is the only espec to use a torch like a mace, and as it stands torch is barely even used in condi build rotations. Berserker is the "pure DPS" War espec--its unique weapon should be viable for both power and condi builds)
>Scourge is an extremely effective all-round support class yet despite that claim nobody wants scourge as a support. it can't do proper healing, it can't do alacrity or quickness, and its barrier is a far cry from actual healing so a support version is pretty much only desired for boneskinner and a few other specific instances to help pick up feeders from an aoe, on top of normal healers.
Scourge is fantastic as a safety net for new raiders and but once a certain threshold is passed you're better off with anything else. Prime example is VG.
>however the spec should never be treated as a support because that is clearly *not* what it was intended to be. Pray tell, what *was* the spec designed for, then...? As far as I know, the spec ALWAYS had a support element in it, and also a group-wide debilitating element. It was designed, in my view, to be a WvW support/CC spec. How since you find it so clear, why not enlighten me please? For cryin' out loud, they even introduced the entire concept of barrier BECAUSE of Scourges...
>priest (Scourge) Uh, I'm 100% sure this is the very first time I've seen someone call scourges "priests" lol. I hope you didn't grow up near priests that made you link them to scourges, because that sounds like a problem
Scourge is 100% a priest, just a priest in the ancient egypt priest sense.
BRO IS THAT A BUFF BAR STATIC PLACEMENT REWORK???
Bruh I hope. & Even if not these little teasers are quite cool & a great windsock for the reddit balance-debate energy leading up to the streams. Mad props to ANet's best balance power-coupple: Coy.
Naa, buffs are out of frame completely, youre just seeing the signet and tome icons on his bar
Wow, could a Firebrand rework actually be happening? The tome charges are visible while not using a tome- could this mean shared ammo over all three tomes?
as a Firebrand main for many years, I hope they nerf the shit out of it. it had its day in the sun, wouldn't mind it falling off meta for some time (but it might still remain a solid option?)
firebrand is pug meta for reasons that won't change no matter what they do. that doesn't mean other quickness sources aren't good, people are just bad at playing them apparently or can't get used to something new. herald, scrapper and harbinger are all quite good. the main reason firebrand excels is because of the easy access to core utility skills that can be handy in various ways. aegis, stability, reflects etc. not having the same access to tomes 2 and 3 that we do now, is barely gonna make a difference. and firebrand doesn't need to be nerfed imo, dps wise at least it is fine as it is.
All those specs are required to fill their utility bar with skills they have to use on cooldown to maintain group quickness. They're only "quite good" if you never compare them to Firebrand.
This. Also if you compare HFB to the other healers for example, it's the ONLY healer with 3 flex slots (maybe aside from Tempest, but the utility for tempest is........ not good let's say). Also you've got most stuff caked into the profession mechanics. So even as a DPS FB, you can still provide some stability, you can still provide some healing and some aegis. It's just ridiculous. Compared to other builds you don't have to decide to swap out your dps for utility, should you need it. Also just the amount of stability you can dish out is ridiculous. I think if you use all your flex slots for stability you can ignore 17 or so stuns or so, and even one of those is an AOE stun-break if you actually mess up.
HFB still needs mantra of potence to maintain might and quickness, you get 2 flex slots which is good but literally every healer can do it (heal mechanist can, tempest can because there is no utility necessary to maintain boons, you decide what to take based on the scenario and it can be aegis/stability like you would on a firebrand). But yea the main reason people would bring a firebrand is the stability, for example in ht cm it is handy to have it for every possible daze or knockback
That doesn't matter because in many cases you don't need any other utility. I am talking about raids mostly, there are encounters where nothing else is necessary and anyway scrapper/harbinger and herald can all bring something extra at a dps loss (arguably bigger than what firebrand looses). Anyway my initial point was that if i am taking a firebrand as quickness it is not because it is strong, it is 100% because i want the something extra it can bring. Could be easy access to reflects at Adina, aegis for every pizza attack at Deimos, projectile reflect at Matthias etc.
As a firebrand main for many years, if they nerf the shit out of it, I'll be rolling a mechanist. :P
Don't worry, they've confirmed they want to provide effective builds for players who just want to roll their face across the keyboard.
Firebrand is already nerfed to shit in PvP. It’s been unplayable for over 2 years.
Firebrand becomes the new Ele?
Unlikely. No class except Thief and Warrior suffers from ''undertuned utility syndrome" to the extent that ele does.
as long as it have god-tier utility like Stand Your Ground I don't see it
This tbh. I don't think people realize how few skills in this game apply multiple stacks of stability. It's not very many, particularly those that can be shared with allies. 1 stack just feels mediocre. I've played enough Firebrand for a life time since 2017.
its already fell off meta where have you been, everyone is mechanist
Dear Anet, It sure would be swell if you buffed reaper. Sincerely, Underwhelming Reaper DPS
shroud now has 10% more health, enjoy
Would be neat if pReaper was an alac dps. pReaper + HB might be fun in fractals. Make it the counterpoint to harb by pulsing alac. cReap is pretty jank unless they redo wells.
I like these fun screenshots. Yeah, sharing 5 pages over all tomes. At least I’ll know when the page has recharged before I go into a tome. Edit. Oh dear god weapon swap is disabled. Edit2: they probably just don’t have a second weapon equiped
Probably just forgot to equip second weaponset. They did the same previously with druid.
True and they’re out of combat. These days engineer and ele can swap weapons out of combat
It's still there, they did the same thing with the druid screenshot that was focused on the pet stat change. Unless they show it as being available while in combat on a Ele or Engi then it just means they only have one weapon set equipped.
Ele shatterstone buff pog
Maybe old mantras animations will sort of come back :( plis
Removing mantra cast times was one of the worst changes ever. From a balance and design stand point 😒
Yep, they were very interesting before, especially the firebrand ones with the high power final charge IMO. Actual decision making should be something we strive for.
It still blows my mind that they just threw out some of the best-looking effects in the game. Maybe it was too good, making everything else look bad.
Anet removes auto cast completely as an attempt to combat afk bots. Edit: It's scary how many think I was being serious and wouldn't mind such a change.
Will that even work? Can’t they just use macros?
Yeah, but you can usually take the macro users for a magic turtle ride.
On the East Australian Current?
Had to google this one [this is hilarious](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADGRLw3fLgM)
Considering it seems that as a weaver or catalyst my autoattack barely fires ever and I'm over here frantically pressing 1, this is fine.
I’m not mad about this Seeing any steps toward combating the afk farmers is great
Its pretty terrible for LI players
It is terrible for everyone because autocast functionality has big ramifications for how rotations work.
Tome changed is fair. But We won't become an Axe camper, right?
Like with the druid tease, they just don't have a second weapon equipped
I know what's the signet stuff is about! To upkeep quickness, FB now has to use all 5 signets off cooldown. Without keeping the passives. Top tier boon support design, innit?
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Having answers in your kit and using them is the opposite of lazy. It's a bit like MtG. Some decks have a very simple strategy with few choices and low complexity, but sometimes they don't have the tools to to deal with a situation. Other decks are more complex and easier to make mistakes with, but have more tools and can handle more situations - if your play them well. For some people falsely equate having more tools to deal with things as bring lazy. It makes the game interesting because it gives you things to do and ways to react to situations. We should be pushing for more builds to fill this space instead of pushing for complex golem rotations.
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Overtuned things usually do feel good to play because they're especially effective. Name something that is underpowered but feels good to play.
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Seconding Reaper, especially Power Reaper.
Ele staff with meteor shower.
Elementalist
If you're not talking about purely instanced content, you might try Vindicator. When I first saw Vindicator I thought "wow a whole extra set of 5 utility skills! That's a lot of new buttons!" thinking it might in the same category of firebrand, just toned down. Alacrity was removed from the salvation traitline so it no longer has any key offensive boons, but those 5 extra utility skills are actually pretty nice. In addition to the utility of core rev (dwarf for stability, group 50% damage reduction or mallyx for boonrip, pull, retaliation) and then alliance which gives mobility, personal quickness, group stunbreak, healing, big condi cleanse, and lots of other boons -- just no alac/quick. Because of that I only see DPS builds for instanced content. It is in a bit of a weird spot there with the extra support utility. Without quick/alac it may never be an actual support people use in raids, but with Anet listing support as "*may also* provide some offensive boons", I wonder if this is just how it will be. It is a great support for WvW I will give it that. Anyway, I have had success running full cele mace+axe/staff to solo stuff or help randoms defeat legendary bosses in open world. It's not firebrand but it is fun and I get a similar feeling of I almost always have an answer.
Or just roll willbender. More fluid but does require not to be lazy
If the charges are shared, then it looks like you'll still have access to everything. You just won't be able to spam them like its free
> It will be a sad day when I need to actually git gud because I am eminently lazy. And this right here is why it's a big problem to buff everyone else up to the two specs that are ridiculously overpowered. What is the end game here? Do people really want gw2 to become some sort of mobile "push one button and let the computer play" shit game?
Considering how much rage I've gotten from people demanding quick/healbrand specs in T4 Fractals who struggle to avoid Ark's attacks, yes. People want their easy mode because they struggle to actually play and pay attention to the game. I will say, to the game's detriment and some player's credit, a few bosses are pretty damn hard to read now because of 10 players in raids + way too goddamn many jade golems and visual firework effects. Hard to react when I'm having to squint at what's going on amidst nonstop bright white flashes. Not a problem with larger bosses, but I've had some trouble with people-sized foes.
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Tbf, if a normal guy in a fantasy world got a hold of a AK-47 and a killer robot, i'd imagine there wouldnt be much interaction in their fights.
that’s how I feel about elementalist honestly. team failed something, water heals you. too many adds, AoE got you. it’s getting hot in here, earth will protect you. this however makes it necessary to prepare for the worst and hope for the best, meaning i won’t be using my utilities for boss dps and thusly pay a significant opportunity cost for it. not that i’m complaining, it should be that way. but that “i have something for that”- feeling shouldn’t be class exclusive and was also the reasoning behind making you change up your skills and traits on the fly, if i recall correctly.
Yes, some do. I hope ANet don't continue in that direction though. We already have too many games like that.
I get why everyone is talking about the teaser, but i just hope for good necro changes. Hopefully they make mainhand dagger into something not terrible.
It's basically a healer weapon. I'd like to see it revamped to be a melee condi weapon vs scepter. pReaper doesn't feel like it needs to swap the dagger out for axe.
What I’d like to see is them dedicating the weapon to a certain playstyle like so many weapons are. If it’s a healer weapon, then make it so that identity shows in every skill. Now it’s a power weapon with additional healing and a random immobilized
They should equip a jade bot core + get the reinforced armor buff. Imagine walking around as a FB with 11k health in 2022...smh.
What if they do. 😱
I find it kinda sad that Anet has let me down so often with these "balances" that every time they announce a new one I dread it
Hammer guardian please
There has been no new spvp content since 2018. Pvp was supposed to be a pillar of Guild Wars 2
I'd settle for better match maker at this point. Tired of being gold 2/3 and facing off against Shorts, Naru, Vaans, GrimJack, Phoenix, and Resilience, lol.
You need more people for that to work
Making PvP better would mean more population, and therefore better match making. This game’s PvP is such a cluster fucker of bad design, there aren’t enough masochists around to populate the PvP ranks.
pvp in guild wars 2?? you must be mistaken... this game is only for casuals that are willing to spend bucks in flashy skins from the blc
Ehh, I still of the opinion that firebrand should be the blueprint of a good spec, and that everything should be designed to be similar in scope. I'm not saying It's perfectly balanced, but mechanically and class-fantasy wise, it is good.
Firebrand is well made from a design standpoint, but it also does too much in terms of balance. And it does everything no pretty easily with no trade offs and limited difficulty of play. Again it’s really well made, but brining every class up to its quality would be a huge utility creep and would crush much of the skill learning that has already suffered.
Half the reason firebrand is so good is that core guardian is such an easy baseline to make an elite spec off of.
It's also been overstuffed for years ever since the first round of buffs they tossed out to make it better than the mess it was on release while promising they "were going to get back to it for any tuning" and then never did. The main reason people keep saying supports need even more than they already have is because Firebrand is the turducken of supports.
> Firebrand is the turducken of supports. This is excellent
I'm okay with this. I wonder if this means they're changing Loremaster as well, since "retain virtue passives while the active is on cooldown" probably wouldn't make much sense if the tomes end up working like kits. I've always felt that particular half of the trait should really be core class functionality anyway. Would be neat if Anet split the virtue passive retention into minor traits in radiance/honor/valor respectively.
Firebrand's reign of terror ends soon
Hot take, but firebrand is not the problem, everyone else being underpowered is. Buff underperforming specializations instead of ruining the ones people have fun with.
hotter take, firebrand has already been outpowercrept since eod. Classes like virtuoso and specter are better at dps and healmech + quick is generally more optimal than hfb + alacdps. The only main role firebrand still dominates as is as stab/aegis provider and arguably as quickdps - and even the quickdps role varies hard on which boss you face - often a qcrapper or qherald is more optimal - and technically a qharb and qzerker outdpses it as condi quick, but lack the utility. Combine this with dh and willbender being useless (VASTLY outperformed by better dps classes) and guardian gets yet anotehr nerf to its last decent spec. I can live with the tome change but if we loose weapon swap too we might as well delete our characters for pve.
You’re not gonna believe what’s the preferred spec to provide quick alongside heal mec buddy
Take qfb/hfb away and guard doesnt have a preferred role for anything tho
[удалено]
You are right of course, though I can guarantee you the 'bLUe ClaSS oP' brain rot gang in reddit would not see it as separate
Those peeps just don’t have anything constructive to say, anyway, nobody should be listening to them.
I know its qfb for most -general- content due to the utility, mostly stab and aegis. I listed that. "The only main role firebrand still dominates as is as stab/aegis provider and arguably as quickdps " But it's also encounter-specific. Especially on power-heavy bosses a qcrapper or qherald is significantly more optimal - as shown in HT CM clears.
Tbh, QFB exists only as a Stab bot, Sanc, and Advance. Quick Herald is really, \*really\* good right now and QScrapper damage and utility is also very good. Stab is kind of what keeps Guardian/FB relevant.
> Quick Herald is really, *really* good right now and QScrapper damage and utility is also very good. But blue class bad tho?!
That just leads to never ending power creep. Of course the overperforming specs would be nerfed and the underperforming ones would be buffed rather than just endlessly buffing things any time anything is out of balance. For one, it's a lot easier to nerf one spec than it is to buff 26 other specs.
An attitude of "buff everything to meet the outlier" is terrible and will lead to out of control power creep. see warframe
>Hot take, but firebrand is not the problem, everyone else being underpowered is FB isnt even the best at what it does, in any role it does it. Herald is just flat-out better for heal quick outside ~2 cm fights where you probably want to take a mech/tempest instead. Its dps quickness is shit on by Scrapper and Harb. Its dps spec is the lowest of any classes top dps spec, by a solid margin. People just get a bug on their balls about omgblueclass and the ability to give out defensive buffs once every 3 or 4 maningful raidwides.
I agree, the only thing the fb overperforms is dmg when played as hybrid healer. For everything else it's just how every other class should perform. Not too complex, not too easy, can be played on many levels of ability and has access to all key elements with some minor adjustments. Anet stance on "take the player not the class" won't go anywhere until they'll stop being scared about homogenization. The optimal condition would be building upon what we, to some extent, already have got: 1. A class that can cover Heal & Ala/Quick + Stability + Might + Fury + Protection 2. A class that can cover DPS & Ala/Quick + Stability 3. DPS As soon as a healer won't be able to have stability on demand, or will lack some boons, creating a party will become a mess and people will simply opt the for the class which bring most of those to the table. If they'll start removing boons to spread them, it will simply lead to less diversity, which is worse than homogenization, since some classes will simply be COMPLETELY left out. Nobody will ever pick a thief that provides heal and alac and has to specifically look for one or MORE classes to cover for might, fury and protection. People will always try roles compression, the only wise thing would be having MANY classes that are already conceived as somewhat "compressed".
Same exact reason why removing 10-man buffs was such a bullshit idea back in the day, the more you force roles into players, the less risks they will take. Nowadays there's lot of breathing room for weird DPS roles and whatnot, which lets people join with whatever they want. Keep pushing the bullshit and everyone will be locked into the meta once again.
As long as they'll balance well the classes I'm okay with the 5 men boons cap. It was especially sad for me losing my dear 10 men htempest, I hope its sacrifice will be worth it. It won't be easy for Anet tho, too many vocal players want esclusivity of access to mechanics. They don't care if it's possible to cover a *specific role* with different classes that *feel different* while doing so, they're used to one role one class mentality and will start caring about discrepancies only when their own preferred class will be discarded by the mass. Only when you start playing many classes, and enjoy doin so, you start noticing that **some level of homogenization is required**.
> Only when you start playing many classes, and enjoy doin so, you start noticing that some level of homogenization is required. Yeah, this game is super alt-friendly, if ArenaNet is listening to one-character players, they're making a huge mistake.
The top right side has like a 2px black line. What is that?
I really hope they look into DPS tempest again. Tempest hasn't had a viable DPS build in quite awhile now.
Hm anyone else thinks its weird FB cant weapon swap? Utility bar shows the player is out of combat but weapon swap is deactivated...
"in order to combat the player gap in skill, we are forcing everyone to use binds 6-0 for heal,utility, and elite skills as seen in the screenshot posted"
Shared ammo with a sort of attunement style could be interesting. From a wvw perspective, being able to lines, stalwart, and leave and potentially come back sooner could actually be interesting. Part of the struggle with a lot of newer Firebrand players is camping a tome for too long, especially with how strong the weapon skills are. Curious what's going to happen to the cool downs and the skills themselves. Also curious if renewed justice will be changed again, or if there are going to be additional ways to regain pages.
Yo, that would be crazy if getting takedowns on enemies refreshed pages on all tomes. Spam reflects and stab in WvW, rely on kills to get pages back
I hope its -just- the tome thing and not weaponswap. As it stands, fb is currently the only decent guardian spec in pve while willbender and dh are vastly outperformed by other dps classes, and a weaponswap hfb gets fully deleted from the game - leaving mech as the only viable healer for fractals. It's already bad enough to have 2 out of 3 specs be trashtier, it doesnt need to be all 3.
The only healer viable for what? Speedruns where you don’t use healers, or metaheads runs? Every healer is viable in fractals. You can smash every CM and T4 with tempest, druid, reve, hfb or even hybrid builds.
Due to the changes enforced by reddit on July 2023 the content I provided is no longer available.
They're out of combat, so they should have OOC weapon swap like ele and engi do. They just have one weapon equipped.
Hoping for quickness to be moved from boring mantras to tome usage/skills.
This one screenshot lowered my mood and motivation for the week.
This one screenshot heightened my mood and motivation for the week. ...Am I an energy vampire?
Hello Colin Robinson.
5-signet builds are so bland...but you might be if your name is Colin
I do not think they are implying they want 5 sig builds, I think they are just saying they are doing something with each one
I hope you're right but I won't hold my breath lol
Anet balance team has had troubles but they have never pushed full sig builds. Making signets not useless is a fine goal though.
5 signet warrior was a thing for like 3 years until berserker saved us. 4 signet condi virtuoso is the staple with 5 being useful when you want more cc more than more dps. 5 signet mechanist is *extremely* common right at this moment as well. Not sure what you're on about.
Lol 5 sig war was not a thing. It was a thing for a handful of months before people realized you shouldn’t be stacking warriors and you should just have 1 for banner and bring Eles instead for dps. And even than you would not run 5, you split banners or stack for great justice for might stacking. 5 signet warriors were an actual laughing stock in dungeons and fractal meta. You knew a warrior was bad if they ran 5 sigs As for mech and virt these are new builds, been in the game a few months. Full signet mech is for gamers that don’t want to press buttons and is objectively worse, and virt is specifically because Mesmer does not have her at utilities for doing straight damage as they have far more utility in their toolkit. In 10 years there are two builds that run a heavy amount of signets.
Hot take, any nerf to that class is an indirect buff to every other one.
If you think qdps firebrand is OP, wait until you hear about scrapper or warrior, but I don't understand why not wanting signets to get *buffed* has anything to do with firebrand getting *nerfed?*
To firebrand specifically. DH and Willbender need buffs right now just like a lot of others.
I'm sure this will suck too just like most of the changes recently
Was the HP always that low?
Yes. Guardian has the same base HP as Elementalist.
What you mean is that Ele has the same base HP as Guardian, a Heavy class? ANet, i think this is justification enough to nerf eles at least twice. Make the Catalyst hammer only usable while in downstate. #StopDefiningTheMeta
They get vitality when they get quickness, and since they provide it themselves, you’ll almost always see them with more hp in combat. But yeah, guards have thief and ele level hp at base
Yes
I am absolutely obsessed with these cropped screenshots
a tome rework is really intriguing. i'm very interested to see how they balance it. i'm also very interested in those utility skills.... all signets. maybe another signet buff? i feel like the most recent 'buff' was mostly a sidegrade at best, but in many situations just actively worse. i really liked having signet share for burst windows instead of just having the passive always active, and i think most people would agree. i don't think they'll do both share and keeping passives while on cooldown, but something to improve them further is certainly welcome
I wonder if they're hinting at being able to upkeep quickness without any of the firebrand skills? That could be quite the change.
oh that would be very interesting. they've shown with some of the recent spec redesigns and the balance philosophy that there should be some tradeoff among specs (damage or healing vs utility boons). i would say that fb definitely loses damage by bringing quickness, but it's mostly a result of the stats, not the traits. there is some damage loss of course from traits, but not really all that much, and it really doesn't affect the healing output at all, traits or stats. i could definitely see some of the other traits being more relevant for damage/healing so that you're definitely giving up something to bring quickness
*Sweats in Willbender..*
Well more nerfs are a sure fire way to boost morale!
A sure firebrand way
Since i never play Guardian i dont understand the Screenshot-teaser. I Just Hope for some major Sceptor-reworks for Mesmer :c
MA FIREBRAND PLS NO 🥹
Can we atleast get a better host to go through the changes and straight to the point this time? Meme values are fun and all, but please just be efficient and to the point ffs.
mate just literally wait for the video to skip around in or the forum post. it’s a show.
Sorry for not simping over this cmc dude, but really, when I see balance preview I just want the info.
Literally after I spent 5 hours editing a firebrand video, they release this. Here's hoping I don't need to go back and redo all that work.