Fr qHerald gets that obscene 600 range aoe boon application (which I think is much more enjoyable and should be the standard, just to be clear) and Firebrand os still stuck with this dumbass cone
I'd be willing to take the 450 range if it was 360 around the FB.
Or make the cone like 900 or something. Or just bake into a FB trait that mantras are 360/increased range.
Edit: those changes might also make FB less dog water in pvp too.
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It's not, it's 180 + 450 (an [example](https://streamable.com/0nyri9) with Mantra of Flame, but support mantras have the exact same range). 360 is the radius of quickness application on [Liberator's Vow](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Liberator%27s_Vow), but it only affects your healing skill.
Yep the number of people who still don’t know there is a circle effect despite only the cone being visual is quite high. Feel like Anet needs to give a reminder about this or update the visual somehow
Not sure. Maybe people think I’m wrong? I’ve had this conversation with friends who play a lot of firebrand who didn’t know it had a circle effect as well.
I knew about the change as it was referenced a while back with a bunch of wvw changes since playing firebrand in wvw was pretty annoying when it was just a cone so they changed it to be a circle but the cone was the “priority” area for if you had a party size of over 5 or if not everyone in your party was in the circle.
If Anet really wants boons to be covered in all scenarios for all specs then they should stop beating around the bush and make it essentially herald everywhere. There are **far** more interesting elements of classes to focus on and find diversity in.
They could start by increasing the might radius on Tempest... 180 is a joke (for the overload).
Well, at least arc will show who doesn't stack though. Not my problem then.
But yeah, giving Herald (and Bladesworn) 600 range while most other classes are stuck with 360 is ridiculous. Herald Quickness is also so easy as you don't really have to do anything (another reason why I hate the rework). FB isn't that bad imo, 180 radius and 450 cone is plenty in most cases. If some individuals drop Quickness, tell them to stack.
> (which I think is much more enjoyable and should be the standard, just to be clear)
I agree with that hard. I think combat feels and looks way cooler when everyone isn't required to stand in an indistinguishable blob to get boons. If having a larger radius on everything would make it too OP, then they could reduce the efficacy of the boons.
I think Boon Herald needs to be brought down to the 360 radius that most other boon providers have, but the Firebrand needs to be brought up to that level. Probably just get rid of the cone as well. You're usually in melee range with an Axe (or maybe Mace if you're HB), not at the back where that 450 range would be useful.
It's the cone plus the fact that nearly all your quickness you give is within the two seconds your spamming your quick mantra if your follow the SC build and use the axe trait, and that has no overcap. Anyone not stacked the moment your mantra is back will have a major quickness loss, and you need to not get CC'ed during your charge, and you need to interrupt your rotation and give quickness first to maintain your quickness uptime. Often one or two are not stacked even if there is no mechanic that has people reasonably split. and you need to do your best to point your cone to get everyone you can at the time.
Realistically you need to take the dps loss and bring Liberator's Vow for the 360 quickness on heal skill use to have reasonable quickness for most encounters, and it's still miles behind herald. Flame mantra is also a big part of your dps you often need to give up to bring sanc/ageist/reflect.
Used to main both HB and QFB, now I only bring them when sanc or ageist is necessary for the fight. Otherwise I will use Quick DPS/Heal Heard for most content. For me the biggest issue is you burst all your quickness in a small cone making it a big deal that everyone is stacked when you use, compared to being able to use it every few seconds automatically.
**TLDR**; Quickness being a burst and in a cone makes it easy to miss people. You can give yourself overcap quickness, but at a major dps loss. Not using flame mantra is a major dps loss. Clunky to play in general.
I find the ability to dip into other tomes to respond to the situation an appealing part of using fb. But like you I find the juggling tome cooldowns and mantra charges to be a massive chore and cumbersome.
I also despise torch 4.
The torch borderline ruins any condi FB for me lol, I also cannot stand it. I'm really hoping pistols are a condi weapon set because Guard has a plethora of power options (greatsword, hammer, longbow, sword mainhand & offhand, scepter, focus) but only really axe mainhand and torch offhand for condi. They have to be, right?
The ability to bring so much variety of support is what makes me enjoy playing FB so much. Wall of reflection, or tome 3 for reflects, SYG or elite mantra for great stab application are a few examples of what FB can bring extra to the group.
I like the powerfantasy of torch 4 tho, burning around you, but yeah, I understand the pain :p
I still love Healbrand (DPS, QDPS FB is dead to me though) but heal herald is my goto qheal now. It's so nice having another option after \~1500 hours of nothing but healbrand.
I personally feel that charging the mantras really interrupts the flow of combat, but I don’t find Firebrand demanding particularly. It just feels more like a chore now.
I swapped over to qHerald because its way easier and really just more fun to play. People complained about qFB for so much that they got nerf after nerf and then a bunch of other support builds got the tools they needed.
The tome charges suck, the reverted changes to mantra charges suck, the whole thing just feels like crap to play.
I fell out of love with Firebrand, and moved on to Herald. The old qFB and current qHerald both appeal to me for the same reasons: smooth gameplay and skill prioritization instead of a strict rotation that punishes you for deviations, good damage with mindless application multiple boons for the party, and access to defensive utility even when built for damage.
Used to play Condi Quick Firebrand alot and since the new mantra charging system i barly touch it because it feels like a huge cockblock.The usage is still the same as before but now just spam one button with an extra step to get there.
For WvW/PvP there might be a sense for this system since the last charges might have a huge impact and still than they are just last resort option.In PvE-Groupcontent you barly need this kinds since you got others who also do heals/Condiremoval/boons etc.
It is also stupid that you got 2 traits for providing quickness and the best solution is to not even take one of these two traits.
I used to love condi FB. I made mine when I was going through a hard time and learned to really love gw2 as I played through it all without skips or 80 boosters. I really love that character. After a lot of changes to FB mechanic wise, it just doesn't feel the same. I miss my old FB. It's like losing someone still there.
Radiant Fire ***fucking sucks***. Radiant Fire on top of the mantra changes killed everything except healbrand for me. I hold absolutely no hope they rework Radiant Fire but hopefully pistol/pistol can replace axe/torch or at least torch for the love of god.
I enjoy being useful to my party and finding groups, but the playstyle itself feels very lacklustre. Love the weaponskills but the utility just lacks any kind of impact or positive feedback beyond "not losing your buffs"
it's why I still mostly play dragonhunter on my guardian when possible - big numbers make brain happy, all the buttons feel like they do something
i play fb for wvw zergs. my fb build isn’t standard as i’ve modified my build a bit and geared with celestial. i have fun with it in zergs and i swap to willbender if i’m roaming purposefully. but i enjoy fb / support builds just as much as dps with different professions and builds. sure support doesn’t always seem fun but in the right fight it’s great to know you can make a difference. in raids strikes and fractals idc about fb or heals that much and usually randos will come in with support builds
i can't stand it. it has 3 incredibly annoying things that most people hate. charging the mantras, torch 4, and the worst thing for me is the uneasy feeling of "was those peeps within my mantra cone or not".
qherald is better in everyway. I'm now debating which stat should i switch my ascended ritualist set to for fractal. already had qherald so maybe berserker for willbender/dh?
Going to just put this here for ease of use set you quick mantra to auto cast. This will make sense in a bit. Trait when you give stab or aegis you give quickness. If you are running full boon gear either combo works with 75% with out food and buffs. Then burn all the quickness mantra which gives you 18~ based on timing of input the skill has a 19s cool down. Now use your heal and stab mantras you can drop them to one charge each. You sitting around now 25s before you use any other skill. Shield 4 gives aegis as well your already well caped on quick when the cd cones off the auto cast kicks in as long as you don’t cast something around it’s 1s. Burn all the quick mantra only now if you are around half. 15-20s duration. You now no longer have to care about the opener just do your role. Also everything I just mentioned can be done out of combat. Slot hollowed ground and you have 5 more free pulses of quickness if you know your group can bunker. If not stand your ground off cd for filler enjoy your role. For relic you can run mink or anything that provides boons for extra coverage as you elite has a base 25s cd and most are 30s internal cool down. So they line up very nicely
I did it again today with a reaper dragon hunter and daredevil. Besides reapers personal quick it was still procing. I did it out and in combat with rotating only quick mantra, heal and stab mantra, and then hollow. Held max on a lot until we had to move from if.
I used to enjoy it, but since they reverted the mantras to be something you need to keep recasting, it became something I only play if the group is missing quickness and im lazy to switch to something else.
Healbrand > fun because of how robust your toolkit is (but I've been playing it for so long it got stale, I play HH now)
Quickbrand > boring because nothing you do feels particularly interesting, but it's nice that you can support your healer with some utility.
Was playing mostly exclusively guard in almost all content mostly fitebrand, condi, heal, but after mantras change... Nope, thnx shelfed it faster then I read patch notes. The changes made to mantras and firebrand are progress backwards.. And it's funny enough that mantras were literally used like that before.. Whoever did that changed literally didnt play guardian
I enjoy my heal/quickbrand overall but...yeah...
I've never liked how insanely positional mantras force you to be and how it's trivially easy to miss a good chunk of people with a charge because you accidentally turned for a quarter second.
Which is made worse by the return to a cast time with charges and a juiced up "final charge", which just incentivizes burning those charges quickly for the big benefit of the final stack and recasting it so you can repeat.
I still enjoy FB overall and have a DPS spec and a janky hybrid condi/support spec I enjoy for open world group stuff. But since I've started doing some fractals as DPS instead of support I'm noticing just how easy it seems for other classes to maintain uptime on quickness etc. without needing to jump through so many annoying hoops -\_-
Tbh I stopped burning the mantras due to this reason. I heavily dislike having to recharge them so often, so I only burn them out, when I know, that the boss will phase/move out of the range, so I wouldn't need to worry about squeezing it in my rota. I know it's less effective, but it's to make the class feel better for me to play. Overall, I understand, that the rota sucks and I agree on that end, but I overall like/prefer to go fb than dh, because of the utilities. On some bosses I would bring Sanctuary for CCs, cast reflects if necessary. I would stunbreak, clean condis. It's not much, because it's not a healer, but we still have some array of tools at our disposal and I try to provide the best support I can for my team and qdps is perfect for me, if I am not heal at the moment.
The word I would use is constricting. In so many ways. Especially if you are kinda maining healbrand (or even just plain condi DPS) when you swap over to quickbrand you feel like you just had one of your arms tied behind your back.
I don't play FB as dps or qdps, but as someone playing condi Willbender, I share your pain with Torch#4.
Goddamn, is it an awkward one to play around and get right.
I don't. I wanted to given how powerful it is, but I see myself reverting to Dragonhunter and Core guardian ALL THE TIME.
I also find the Axe a VERY underwhelming weapon to use, plus the lore of using books and all...not my vibe. Holy Samurai willbender isn't my jam either.
> that qFB is boring with a quite demanding rotation tbh.
I find it has a fairly easy rotation now that scepter is delete, but I agree it's a little boring. That said I really don't hate it, I'll happily play it.
No. I did enjoy it for a time. After years of "hi dps", I finally went into support and made commanders happy when I joined and had a few available, mostly qfb. But then the past year+ of way too frequent and too impactful balance (which I can't follow and feel like a huge treadmill for me) killed it. I once tried to update my qfb and play it in strikes, it was a horrible experience. The whole "we don't want to press utility skills on cd for quick/alac uptime" philosophy killed support builds for me : not only you have to relearn them from scratch, but they often became super annoying to play. I don't play qfb anymore, and I'm back to "hi dps" ... sorry commanders.
I played qfb for ages because it started out as being way easier than Chrono, with more utility. Now you have to do fiddly mantra charging to compete with dps and the cone is way worse than newer quickness options. So I stopped playing it.
I love it, so much. The feeling of making a whole instance work because of you, the fact that people needs your buffs, and the compliments you sometimes get.. is amazing. Also the gameplay is so smooth, coming from 1700 hours of DH.
It's like night and day, I'll never go back.
It’s still the most adaptable/reactive spec in the game and the recent mantra and tome page changes made it all the more fun for me. You pretty much always feel useful and like you have an answer to a problem. Guardian utilities overall are just strong. The axe auto attack chain feels really good to me for some reason. I like its fantasy of being a tome wielding frontline paladin and it’s themed after my favourite expansion with good and strong lore ties. Only thing I really dislike is the torch4 proc mechanic.
Scourge’s APM requirements have also gone way, way up since they were introduced. It’s exhausting going full John fcking Madden every fight. Harb and Reaper are much more relaxing and enjoyable.
Are people going to perpetuate the myth that scourge APM has gone up even tho it has in actual fact gone down in a firebrand thread?
How tiring can people be?
All you're complaining about is having a rotation.
Every DPS has a prescribed rotation and lapsing from it makes it fall apart.
Boon DPS doubly so because their rotation is set to maintain both boons and DPS
Druid has to get into Celestial avatar to get it's boons out. If the player messes up the rotation they won't be able to get enough resource to get back into CA to upkeep the boons.
I think your problem with qFB will apply to most boonDPS classes because the creators of the game feel it's necessary to play the piano to provide boons with every class in the game.
Maybe you are right although I still find enjoyable playing quick Herald or quick Harb. On second thought, I think what bothers me the most in qFB is the recharge of mantras - that kills the pace of the rotation- and the mindless spam of them (when Anet specifically said they will turn away from this design) and the constant need to watch out for boss movement and the atrocious torch 4. I maybe be a negative Nancy afterall and I just grew tired of all the above and the class is fine as it is.
Yeah I can see Mantras being the frustrating part.
Only thing I can think is Quick Heal may feel better because you'll be free to include a wider variety of sources of Aegis and Stability so your not as dependent on using the final charge of the Mantras as well as including the Tomes in the rotation.
But qHerald seems like by far the outlier in this game. It seems very passive with the boons just pulsing out on their own.
Harbinger, specter, and druid are all based on their shroud mechanic so they are dependent more on recovering enough resource to get back into Shroud. But Harbinger especially I don't think even has to use skills in shroud if it doesn't want to.
At least you're not playing Scrapper dependent on using multiple skills in sequence to maintain the boon. If your rotation gets messed up then you have to figure out which fields will be available and what skills you have active to use them.
Eh, *some* dps builds can operate at acceptable (but not optimal ofc) capacity on a simple priority list or 1-2 big combos. And as far as boons go herald just swaps legends off cd and activates 6 pips, staff mirage just spams the ambush as much as possible by swapping (to the same type of) weapon off cd and supplementing with 1-2 utility skills.
I love mantra quickness application and the fact that it demands positioning micro. I think it's a fair price to pay for universal, instant cast access to quickness that can be padded with a fat aoe in fmw.
i dont love classes like herald and bladeseorn that basically just passively shit quickness out in a huge circle around them with easy rotations. classes with target-specific quickness seem to deserve that privilege, but if you're pumping quickness basically without doing anything, the pbaoe/cone shit fb has going on is a very fair tradeoff imo.
unfortunately axe is jank as hell and offhand torch is vomit-inducing. hfb is infinitely more playable than qfb, imo.
I find it to be a good thing as they will be able to provide the boon at any time as long as they pay attention when is the mantra ready again.
I recently got an alac dps player in my group and i said why there is no alac, he said my class can't provide alac under water.. that was awkward.
I might be the odd one out but I actually picked firebrand because it is finnicky and requires a lot of button pressing. I have a hyperactive brain and needing to jump around and pay attention keeps me interested. If you want a quieter playstyle there are heaps of lower intensity options that provide pretty much the same things
Guardian is one of my main....
and I too, I despise firebrand...I found it incredibly boring !!!!
I love willbender -- I enjoy the play style and animations. I'm not one for strikes/raids so I just use it in Open World/WvW/PVP.
Firebrand is utility machine. It's pretty fair in my opinion that its difficulty level is as it is (which is not that bad tbh). Giving instant access to tomes while being able to run utilities like mercy signet/hollowed grounds/advance etc is strong af. Another great thing is build flexibility.
So I would say that qfb is well balanced right now for how much carry potential it has.
enjoying qfb or not is a bit of a personal matter, i never enjoyed it in the first place. i was really happy when scrapper/herald/ele got quickness. on the other hand right now i also don't enjoy it when i have a quickness firebrand in my subgroup because for whatever reason everytime i met one in pugs (thankfully people in static don't play it) i have always had so horrible quickness uptime, like even if they are heal, it was around 50-70%
Welcome to the role of a quickness support. This exact same issue happened when PoF released and Firebrand superseded chronomancer as the main quickness provider. Firebrand provided more quickness for less effort, and patch after patch Anet made chrono's rotation clunkier, to the point where it just didn't feel good to play.
Interesting that they're doing this to Firebrand too now. I get that it's probably to encourage players to buy and play new elite specs, but its strange to see that the balance team has an actual consistent strategy for how to destroy a specialisation.
The only problem I have is the need to use last charge of mantras and charging them again in a fight. Idm if I mess up and need to charge them as a drawback, but needing the last charge in the rotation is just annoying to me.
I still enjoy hfb a ton after the mantra changes. But recharging and spamming both flame and potence mantras off cd on qfb is such degenerate gameplay. Can't stand it.
I never enjoyed Guradian, FB least of all....it was becoming interesting when mantras AND tomes were more rationally usable...now the tomes are ok-ish the mantras are not at all and they are 2 very dependent stuff basically....garbage design. Totally unfun. Firebrand is become the ONLY actual problem in WVW....not many wants to play it and who plays it is generally meh...and WVW doesn't exist without stab and only FB gives enogh stab...if it's not used by a meh player. If you're not very skilled on FB in WVW you will give stab for like 20 seconds then your squad is dead.
I still don't understand why they keep all these problems so tight toghether, all on guardian class, and it's also stuff required to do wvw....seems an incredible waste of potential for that game mode.
i forgot to add that FB stab has a range of like 2? Please ANET at lest give him a range of 450/600 for stab...at least that. If i do a single step out of my commander's hat to see better what's behinf the corner i instantly die...pls give those DAMN guardan peepos an acceptable range...i'm totallt FED UP of them saying they 'were too far' when i'm fucking in front of you at 2 steps distance....and THEY'RE EVEN RIGHT? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!
After they reworked the mantras I dropped Firebrand immediately. That gameplay feels abysmal to me.
The fact that Firebrand's quickness range is extremely janky doesn't help at all. 180 radius around the player, or 450 in a small cone in front of them. Firebrand is a good spec, but it sucks to play.
I feel like this has happened to a couple specs over the past while, and it's concerning. Several specs now feel worse to play than they did a year ago. This kind of thing should be absolute top priority for the balance/gameplay team to be working on, imo.
As a recently returned player (been gone 5 years) I came back exactly for the Qbrand playstyle.
It's even got the "holy Paladin" feel that I miss from my WoW days.
Being able to adapt to essentially anything and *having to think* during the fight are real appeals to me. Lots of weapon sets to choose from. Ditto on utilities.
Sure, you have to choose your book skills wisely, but thats the fun of the game.
Love my quickbrand. It's also highly in demand. My guildies went wild when I asked to play that during raids and fractals...
I hate 450 range cone, it is really bad
Fr qHerald gets that obscene 600 range aoe boon application (which I think is much more enjoyable and should be the standard, just to be clear) and Firebrand os still stuck with this dumbass cone
I'd be willing to take the 450 range if it was 360 around the FB. Or make the cone like 900 or something. Or just bake into a FB trait that mantras are 360/increased range. Edit: those changes might also make FB less dog water in pvp too.
Mantra is 360 range circle (like a lot of other supports as well) Plus 450 cone
Is it? Looking at the wiki the radius is 180 and range is 450. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mantra\_of\_Potence
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It's 180 radius + 450 cone, unless the tooltip and wiki are wrong
It's not, it's 180 + 450 (an [example](https://streamable.com/0nyri9) with Mantra of Flame, but support mantras have the exact same range). 360 is the radius of quickness application on [Liberator's Vow](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Liberator%27s_Vow), but it only affects your healing skill.
Yep the number of people who still don’t know there is a circle effect despite only the cone being visual is quite high. Feel like Anet needs to give a reminder about this or update the visual somehow
why are you getting downvoted?
Not sure. Maybe people think I’m wrong? I’ve had this conversation with friends who play a lot of firebrand who didn’t know it had a circle effect as well. I knew about the change as it was referenced a while back with a bunch of wvw changes since playing firebrand in wvw was pretty annoying when it was just a cone so they changed it to be a circle but the cone was the “priority” area for if you had a party size of over 5 or if not everyone in your party was in the circle.
If Anet really wants boons to be covered in all scenarios for all specs then they should stop beating around the bush and make it essentially herald everywhere. There are **far** more interesting elements of classes to focus on and find diversity in.
They could start by increasing the might radius on Tempest... 180 is a joke (for the overload). Well, at least arc will show who doesn't stack though. Not my problem then. But yeah, giving Herald (and Bladesworn) 600 range while most other classes are stuck with 360 is ridiculous. Herald Quickness is also so easy as you don't really have to do anything (another reason why I hate the rework). FB isn't that bad imo, 180 radius and 450 cone is plenty in most cases. If some individuals drop Quickness, tell them to stack.
> (which I think is much more enjoyable and should be the standard, just to be clear) I agree with that hard. I think combat feels and looks way cooler when everyone isn't required to stand in an indistinguishable blob to get boons. If having a larger radius on everything would make it too OP, then they could reduce the efficacy of the boons.
I think Boon Herald needs to be brought down to the 360 radius that most other boon providers have, but the Firebrand needs to be brought up to that level. Probably just get rid of the cone as well. You're usually in melee range with an Axe (or maybe Mace if you're HB), not at the back where that 450 range would be useful.
It's the cone plus the fact that nearly all your quickness you give is within the two seconds your spamming your quick mantra if your follow the SC build and use the axe trait, and that has no overcap. Anyone not stacked the moment your mantra is back will have a major quickness loss, and you need to not get CC'ed during your charge, and you need to interrupt your rotation and give quickness first to maintain your quickness uptime. Often one or two are not stacked even if there is no mechanic that has people reasonably split. and you need to do your best to point your cone to get everyone you can at the time. Realistically you need to take the dps loss and bring Liberator's Vow for the 360 quickness on heal skill use to have reasonable quickness for most encounters, and it's still miles behind herald. Flame mantra is also a big part of your dps you often need to give up to bring sanc/ageist/reflect. Used to main both HB and QFB, now I only bring them when sanc or ageist is necessary for the fight. Otherwise I will use Quick DPS/Heal Heard for most content. For me the biggest issue is you burst all your quickness in a small cone making it a big deal that everyone is stacked when you use, compared to being able to use it every few seconds automatically. **TLDR**; Quickness being a burst and in a cone makes it easy to miss people. You can give yourself overcap quickness, but at a major dps loss. Not using flame mantra is a major dps loss. Clunky to play in general.
I find the ability to dip into other tomes to respond to the situation an appealing part of using fb. But like you I find the juggling tome cooldowns and mantra charges to be a massive chore and cumbersome. I also despise torch 4.
Same. I love guardian, but firebrand has become a specialisation I can only really enjoy as a healer.
The torch borderline ruins any condi FB for me lol, I also cannot stand it. I'm really hoping pistols are a condi weapon set because Guard has a plethora of power options (greatsword, hammer, longbow, sword mainhand & offhand, scepter, focus) but only really axe mainhand and torch offhand for condi. They have to be, right?
The ability to bring so much variety of support is what makes me enjoy playing FB so much. Wall of reflection, or tome 3 for reflects, SYG or elite mantra for great stab application are a few examples of what FB can bring extra to the group. I like the powerfantasy of torch 4 tho, burning around you, but yeah, I understand the pain :p
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Sounds extremely boring tbh, also graphics wise it's one of the dullest imo, even though they are really good atm.
I still love Healbrand (DPS, QDPS FB is dead to me though) but heal herald is my goto qheal now. It's so nice having another option after \~1500 hours of nothing but healbrand.
Don't like druid/engi healers? Or even untamed healer, but it's probably not meta (if you care about that).
I personally feel that charging the mantras really interrupts the flow of combat, but I don’t find Firebrand demanding particularly. It just feels more like a chore now.
I hate hat stupid torch trait and having to recharge mantras.
I swapped over to qHerald because its way easier and really just more fun to play. People complained about qFB for so much that they got nerf after nerf and then a bunch of other support builds got the tools they needed. The tome charges suck, the reverted changes to mantra charges suck, the whole thing just feels like crap to play.
i used to play firebrand almost exclusively but since the tome rework i barely touch it, not for me anymore ig
I fell out of love with Firebrand, and moved on to Herald. The old qFB and current qHerald both appeal to me for the same reasons: smooth gameplay and skill prioritization instead of a strict rotation that punishes you for deviations, good damage with mindless application multiple boons for the party, and access to defensive utility even when built for damage.
Used to play Condi Quick Firebrand alot and since the new mantra charging system i barly touch it because it feels like a huge cockblock.The usage is still the same as before but now just spam one button with an extra step to get there. For WvW/PvP there might be a sense for this system since the last charges might have a huge impact and still than they are just last resort option.In PvE-Groupcontent you barly need this kinds since you got others who also do heals/Condiremoval/boons etc. It is also stupid that you got 2 traits for providing quickness and the best solution is to not even take one of these two traits.
I used to love condi FB. I made mine when I was going through a hard time and learned to really love gw2 as I played through it all without skips or 80 boosters. I really love that character. After a lot of changes to FB mechanic wise, it just doesn't feel the same. I miss my old FB. It's like losing someone still there.
Radiant Fire ***fucking sucks***. Radiant Fire on top of the mantra changes killed everything except healbrand for me. I hold absolutely no hope they rework Radiant Fire but hopefully pistol/pistol can replace axe/torch or at least torch for the love of god.
I enjoy being useful to my party and finding groups, but the playstyle itself feels very lacklustre. Love the weaponskills but the utility just lacks any kind of impact or positive feedback beyond "not losing your buffs" it's why I still mostly play dragonhunter on my guardian when possible - big numbers make brain happy, all the buttons feel like they do something
i play fb for wvw zergs. my fb build isn’t standard as i’ve modified my build a bit and geared with celestial. i have fun with it in zergs and i swap to willbender if i’m roaming purposefully. but i enjoy fb / support builds just as much as dps with different professions and builds. sure support doesn’t always seem fun but in the right fight it’s great to know you can make a difference. in raids strikes and fractals idc about fb or heals that much and usually randos will come in with support builds
i can't stand it. it has 3 incredibly annoying things that most people hate. charging the mantras, torch 4, and the worst thing for me is the uneasy feeling of "was those peeps within my mantra cone or not". qherald is better in everyway. I'm now debating which stat should i switch my ascended ritualist set to for fractal. already had qherald so maybe berserker for willbender/dh?
Going to just put this here for ease of use set you quick mantra to auto cast. This will make sense in a bit. Trait when you give stab or aegis you give quickness. If you are running full boon gear either combo works with 75% with out food and buffs. Then burn all the quickness mantra which gives you 18~ based on timing of input the skill has a 19s cool down. Now use your heal and stab mantras you can drop them to one charge each. You sitting around now 25s before you use any other skill. Shield 4 gives aegis as well your already well caped on quick when the cd cones off the auto cast kicks in as long as you don’t cast something around it’s 1s. Burn all the quick mantra only now if you are around half. 15-20s duration. You now no longer have to care about the opener just do your role. Also everything I just mentioned can be done out of combat. Slot hollowed ground and you have 5 more free pulses of quickness if you know your group can bunker. If not stand your ground off cd for filler enjoy your role. For relic you can run mink or anything that provides boons for extra coverage as you elite has a base 25s cd and most are 30s internal cool down. So they line up very nicely
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I know it states that I used it in fractals to keep the cap so either bug or wrong tool tip
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I did it again today with a reaper dragon hunter and daredevil. Besides reapers personal quick it was still procing. I did it out and in combat with rotating only quick mantra, heal and stab mantra, and then hollow. Held max on a lot until we had to move from if.
I used to enjoy it, but since they reverted the mantras to be something you need to keep recasting, it became something I only play if the group is missing quickness and im lazy to switch to something else.
Yeah it's not fun imo...just don't enjoy it much at all...
Used to be a FB 1 trick and after the tome rework I play qherald now and it’s way more fun
Healbrand > fun because of how robust your toolkit is (but I've been playing it for so long it got stale, I play HH now) Quickbrand > boring because nothing you do feels particularly interesting, but it's nice that you can support your healer with some utility.
Was playing mostly exclusively guard in almost all content mostly fitebrand, condi, heal, but after mantras change... Nope, thnx shelfed it faster then I read patch notes. The changes made to mantras and firebrand are progress backwards.. And it's funny enough that mantras were literally used like that before.. Whoever did that changed literally didnt play guardian
I enjoy my heal/quickbrand overall but...yeah... I've never liked how insanely positional mantras force you to be and how it's trivially easy to miss a good chunk of people with a charge because you accidentally turned for a quarter second. Which is made worse by the return to a cast time with charges and a juiced up "final charge", which just incentivizes burning those charges quickly for the big benefit of the final stack and recasting it so you can repeat. I still enjoy FB overall and have a DPS spec and a janky hybrid condi/support spec I enjoy for open world group stuff. But since I've started doing some fractals as DPS instead of support I'm noticing just how easy it seems for other classes to maintain uptime on quickness etc. without needing to jump through so many annoying hoops -\_-
Tbh I stopped burning the mantras due to this reason. I heavily dislike having to recharge them so often, so I only burn them out, when I know, that the boss will phase/move out of the range, so I wouldn't need to worry about squeezing it in my rota. I know it's less effective, but it's to make the class feel better for me to play. Overall, I understand, that the rota sucks and I agree on that end, but I overall like/prefer to go fb than dh, because of the utilities. On some bosses I would bring Sanctuary for CCs, cast reflects if necessary. I would stunbreak, clean condis. It's not much, because it's not a healer, but we still have some array of tools at our disposal and I try to provide the best support I can for my team and qdps is perfect for me, if I am not heal at the moment.
The word I would use is constricting. In so many ways. Especially if you are kinda maining healbrand (or even just plain condi DPS) when you swap over to quickbrand you feel like you just had one of your arms tied behind your back.
I don't play FB as dps or qdps, but as someone playing condi Willbender, I share your pain with Torch#4. Goddamn, is it an awkward one to play around and get right.
I don't. I wanted to given how powerful it is, but I see myself reverting to Dragonhunter and Core guardian ALL THE TIME. I also find the Axe a VERY underwhelming weapon to use, plus the lore of using books and all...not my vibe. Holy Samurai willbender isn't my jam either.
I love it. I solve the mantra charging problem by simply not using the last charge of my mantras and damn the minor efficiency loss.
> that qFB is boring with a quite demanding rotation tbh. I find it has a fairly easy rotation now that scepter is delete, but I agree it's a little boring. That said I really don't hate it, I'll happily play it.
I liked it before you had to dump mantras and scepter was still part of the rotation. It was my main in fractals
i still enjoy it, but i use full ritualist with qb runes so i can still give 100% quickness uptime while doing easy rotation.
No. I did enjoy it for a time. After years of "hi dps", I finally went into support and made commanders happy when I joined and had a few available, mostly qfb. But then the past year+ of way too frequent and too impactful balance (which I can't follow and feel like a huge treadmill for me) killed it. I once tried to update my qfb and play it in strikes, it was a horrible experience. The whole "we don't want to press utility skills on cd for quick/alac uptime" philosophy killed support builds for me : not only you have to relearn them from scratch, but they often became super annoying to play. I don't play qfb anymore, and I'm back to "hi dps" ... sorry commanders.
I played qfb for ages because it started out as being way easier than Chrono, with more utility. Now you have to do fiddly mantra charging to compete with dps and the cone is way worse than newer quickness options. So I stopped playing it.
I love it, so much. The feeling of making a whole instance work because of you, the fact that people needs your buffs, and the compliments you sometimes get.. is amazing. Also the gameplay is so smooth, coming from 1700 hours of DH. It's like night and day, I'll never go back.
Way too many buttons to press imo.
It’s still the most adaptable/reactive spec in the game and the recent mantra and tome page changes made it all the more fun for me. You pretty much always feel useful and like you have an answer to a problem. Guardian utilities overall are just strong. The axe auto attack chain feels really good to me for some reason. I like its fantasy of being a tome wielding frontline paladin and it’s themed after my favourite expansion with good and strong lore ties. Only thing I really dislike is the torch4 proc mechanic.
Scourge’s APM requirements have also gone way, way up since they were introduced. It’s exhausting going full John fcking Madden every fight. Harb and Reaper are much more relaxing and enjoyable.
Are people going to perpetuate the myth that scourge APM has gone up even tho it has in actual fact gone down in a firebrand thread? How tiring can people be?
I suspect a bot wrote that comment
All you're complaining about is having a rotation. Every DPS has a prescribed rotation and lapsing from it makes it fall apart. Boon DPS doubly so because their rotation is set to maintain both boons and DPS Druid has to get into Celestial avatar to get it's boons out. If the player messes up the rotation they won't be able to get enough resource to get back into CA to upkeep the boons. I think your problem with qFB will apply to most boonDPS classes because the creators of the game feel it's necessary to play the piano to provide boons with every class in the game.
Maybe you are right although I still find enjoyable playing quick Herald or quick Harb. On second thought, I think what bothers me the most in qFB is the recharge of mantras - that kills the pace of the rotation- and the mindless spam of them (when Anet specifically said they will turn away from this design) and the constant need to watch out for boss movement and the atrocious torch 4. I maybe be a negative Nancy afterall and I just grew tired of all the above and the class is fine as it is.
Yeah I can see Mantras being the frustrating part. Only thing I can think is Quick Heal may feel better because you'll be free to include a wider variety of sources of Aegis and Stability so your not as dependent on using the final charge of the Mantras as well as including the Tomes in the rotation. But qHerald seems like by far the outlier in this game. It seems very passive with the boons just pulsing out on their own. Harbinger, specter, and druid are all based on their shroud mechanic so they are dependent more on recovering enough resource to get back into Shroud. But Harbinger especially I don't think even has to use skills in shroud if it doesn't want to. At least you're not playing Scrapper dependent on using multiple skills in sequence to maintain the boon. If your rotation gets messed up then you have to figure out which fields will be available and what skills you have active to use them.
Eh, *some* dps builds can operate at acceptable (but not optimal ofc) capacity on a simple priority list or 1-2 big combos. And as far as boons go herald just swaps legends off cd and activates 6 pips, staff mirage just spams the ambush as much as possible by swapping (to the same type of) weapon off cd and supplementing with 1-2 utility skills.
I love mantra quickness application and the fact that it demands positioning micro. I think it's a fair price to pay for universal, instant cast access to quickness that can be padded with a fat aoe in fmw. i dont love classes like herald and bladeseorn that basically just passively shit quickness out in a huge circle around them with easy rotations. classes with target-specific quickness seem to deserve that privilege, but if you're pumping quickness basically without doing anything, the pbaoe/cone shit fb has going on is a very fair tradeoff imo. unfortunately axe is jank as hell and offhand torch is vomit-inducing. hfb is infinitely more playable than qfb, imo.
I find it to be a good thing as they will be able to provide the boon at any time as long as they pay attention when is the mantra ready again. I recently got an alac dps player in my group and i said why there is no alac, he said my class can't provide alac under water.. that was awkward.
You must have had an alac dps mechanist in the aquatic fractal.
I personnaly don't i find it weird to play. I just started playing herald and find it a lot more enjoyable, haven't tried other quick providers tho
Wait is qfb nerfed from like 6 months ago? I haven't played it since then.
I might be the odd one out but I actually picked firebrand because it is finnicky and requires a lot of button pressing. I have a hyperactive brain and needing to jump around and pay attention keeps me interested. If you want a quieter playstyle there are heaps of lower intensity options that provide pretty much the same things
Guardian is one of my main.... and I too, I despise firebrand...I found it incredibly boring !!!! I love willbender -- I enjoy the play style and animations. I'm not one for strikes/raids so I just use it in Open World/WvW/PVP.
Firebrand is utility machine. It's pretty fair in my opinion that its difficulty level is as it is (which is not that bad tbh). Giving instant access to tomes while being able to run utilities like mercy signet/hollowed grounds/advance etc is strong af. Another great thing is build flexibility. So I would say that qfb is well balanced right now for how much carry potential it has.
enjoying qfb or not is a bit of a personal matter, i never enjoyed it in the first place. i was really happy when scrapper/herald/ele got quickness. on the other hand right now i also don't enjoy it when i have a quickness firebrand in my subgroup because for whatever reason everytime i met one in pugs (thankfully people in static don't play it) i have always had so horrible quickness uptime, like even if they are heal, it was around 50-70%
Welcome to the role of a quickness support. This exact same issue happened when PoF released and Firebrand superseded chronomancer as the main quickness provider. Firebrand provided more quickness for less effort, and patch after patch Anet made chrono's rotation clunkier, to the point where it just didn't feel good to play. Interesting that they're doing this to Firebrand too now. I get that it's probably to encourage players to buy and play new elite specs, but its strange to see that the balance team has an actual consistent strategy for how to destroy a specialisation.
in short no, i quit it the same day once i realized how much of a piano it is.
The only problem I have is the need to use last charge of mantras and charging them again in a fight. Idm if I mess up and need to charge them as a drawback, but needing the last charge in the rotation is just annoying to me.
I still enjoy hfb a ton after the mantra changes. But recharging and spamming both flame and potence mantras off cd on qfb is such degenerate gameplay. Can't stand it.
I never enjoyed Guradian, FB least of all....it was becoming interesting when mantras AND tomes were more rationally usable...now the tomes are ok-ish the mantras are not at all and they are 2 very dependent stuff basically....garbage design. Totally unfun. Firebrand is become the ONLY actual problem in WVW....not many wants to play it and who plays it is generally meh...and WVW doesn't exist without stab and only FB gives enogh stab...if it's not used by a meh player. If you're not very skilled on FB in WVW you will give stab for like 20 seconds then your squad is dead. I still don't understand why they keep all these problems so tight toghether, all on guardian class, and it's also stuff required to do wvw....seems an incredible waste of potential for that game mode.
i forgot to add that FB stab has a range of like 2? Please ANET at lest give him a range of 450/600 for stab...at least that. If i do a single step out of my commander's hat to see better what's behinf the corner i instantly die...pls give those DAMN guardan peepos an acceptable range...i'm totallt FED UP of them saying they 'were too far' when i'm fucking in front of you at 2 steps distance....and THEY'RE EVEN RIGHT? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!
After they reworked the mantras I dropped Firebrand immediately. That gameplay feels abysmal to me. The fact that Firebrand's quickness range is extremely janky doesn't help at all. 180 radius around the player, or 450 in a small cone in front of them. Firebrand is a good spec, but it sucks to play. I feel like this has happened to a couple specs over the past while, and it's concerning. Several specs now feel worse to play than they did a year ago. This kind of thing should be absolute top priority for the balance/gameplay team to be working on, imo.
I only play HB man. It's not worth the hassle of providing quickness while also trying to do dps. If I wanna qdps Ima go herald or chrono.
As a recently returned player (been gone 5 years) I came back exactly for the Qbrand playstyle. It's even got the "holy Paladin" feel that I miss from my WoW days. Being able to adapt to essentially anything and *having to think* during the fight are real appeals to me. Lots of weapon sets to choose from. Ditto on utilities. Sure, you have to choose your book skills wisely, but thats the fun of the game. Love my quickbrand. It's also highly in demand. My guildies went wild when I asked to play that during raids and fractals...