Firebrand WvW question.

I mainly roam, and was wanting to play Firebrand. Will Trailblazer's with Dire work well? I mean is roaming Firebrand even a thing also? It just looks like it'd be awesome.

Thanks for any replies :D

You can roam on FB, but it can be a little slow. Dire/trailblazers works well. You new to guard, or just FB?

EDIT: saw you posting about fractals in another thread for guard. JI plus burning tome works really well if you get the drop on people, FB doesn't have many escapes though, and no DH leap, so if things go south, you have less tools to recover with imo.

I haven't seen any roaming Firebrands yet. Thieves (Daredevil) and Rangers (Soulbeast) are pretty common due to how many escape and engagement options they have. Mesmers (Chronomancer) and Necromancers (Reaper & Scourge) seem like solid options if you understand all the mechanics. DragonHunter is probably viable still due to sheer DPS.

Firebrands are pretty squishy, and while they can dish out pain in group battles, i'm not sure they have enough single-target damage to be reliable for roaming. - All that being said, i'm new and i've played WvW for all of 2 weeks. Daredevils have made up 90% of the roamers i've seen so far, but i've watched plenty of WvW videos.

There was a Daredevil last night who reliably kept hitting the back door of a base, while evading 10+ defenders trying their hardest to kill him. He'd wade through the crowd, attack a guard at the backdoor and run away. He wasn't able to engage 1v1, but nobody could touch him. I think over the course of him doing it for 2 hours he was killed twice, with up to 15 people trying their hardest to kill him. It was pretty amazing and hilarious. I think Thief is pretty broken in WvW at the moment.

I agree group battles are where the FB shines. As for the DD you saw... in a situation like that the defenders should have left one or two people to drive him off or keep an eye on him and then the rest leave and do something more productive, lol.

@FnkyTwn.3875 said:I haven't seen any roaming Firebrands yet. Thieves (Daredevil) and Rangers (Soulbeast) are pretty common due to how many escape and engagement options they have. Mesmers (Chronomancer) and Necromancers (Reaper & Scourge) seem like solid options if you understand all the mechanics. DragonHunter is probably viable still due to sheer DPS.

Firebrands are pretty squishy, and while they can dish out pain in group battles, i'm not sure they have enough single-target damage to be reliable for roaming. - All that being said, i'm new and i've played WvW for all of 2 weeks. Daredevils have made up 90% of the roamers i've seen so far, but i've watched plenty of WvW videos.

Been roaming with FB and having an absolute blast. You're right though, they aren't very common and even rarer is the power FB. Despite its decent 1v1 potential it's definitely not a solo roamer like DH mainly because it can not peel from fights at all. Also, FB is not something you can face roll. You have to know the skills very well, watch for certain big hitters and read your opponents to even be effective. It doesn't have any one rotation that works for a plethora of scenarios like DH so you have to be very conscientious of your skills, cool downs and the situation. All of these factors combined means you likely wont see FB roamers unless the player is very knowledgeable of the guardian class. I will say this though: if played well, I think a FB brings more to 2v2s (and up) than a DH.

Firebrand as a roamer is a huge disappointment for me. If someone is really great with fb just think how good they would be on something strong like holosmith.

There's some power roaming videos done by DoNotD you can find on youtube. The gameplay is fast paced with the tomes (elementalist/engineer esque) and it can deliver some devastating AoE bombs. However, it's....so......dam.....slow and you have zero disengage ability.

that donotd is a cut above the rest. In wvw, firebrand as a roamer, much like in small groups, is not a viable option. Its attack is sacrifised to try and get above thief level hp and toughness, Stability gets stripped and it is left defenseless. I hate firebrand right now. which is funny to say because it is the first character I geared when pof came out. warrior and scourge are the frontline now, and firebrand barely a viable mid. unless you have 20 firebrand with full soldier like gears, the warrior/scourge is a better option. Really, I'm supprised guilds do not just try full warrior/scourge because firebrand is trash, I don't know how else to say it. I know there will be haters to my comment, there are always that. but truthfully, you probably will not catch them dead on a firebrand, or they are diehards that get steam rolled unless other toons are carrying them....

DoNoTd would probably be a god on other toons. either he lives down the street from the server, with the top internet connection, and has a $5k computer, or he is anet with some bot helping him. Right now, in the group of 20 I am in, there are no firebrand. No one wants to play it unless a guild leader forces them because he wants stab. But firebrand is garbage. Plain and simple.

I have roamed pretty extensively on FB since PoF release, here are some thoughts and recommendations:

First off, I'd like to say, do NOT rely on Indomitable Courage as a stunbreak. It's currently bugged and seems to be aggressively ignored by devs. My salt on that aside, power FB roaming can work just as well as you see in DoNotD's videos. I use a build fairly distinct from his (traits and utilities are different) and still find decent success. Your weapons are important though. You NEED sword and/or greatsword for mobility.

For a condi-based firebrand: It can work very well. Your build looks great on paper, but TRUST me: It has some major shortcomings. I know because I've tried this exact build (same gear, various trait setups). The major issue lies in the fact that your build is completely hardcountered by any build that can remove > 1 condi at a time as well as 100% of warriors. The warrior hardcounter is so bad that I've stopped running condi for solo-roaming entirely.

My recommendation to you: I would honestly try and find a way to incorporate healing power into your build. If you run the honor traitline, aegis heal mantra, energy sigils, about 1000 hp & 1400+ condi damage and you're going to add a metric butt load of sustain while still maintaining great damage output.

I've been using this build to roam as a condi build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQRAnd8ensADNCjlDBeDB8DhlECDrBkBWBXLrAQCYPgeQboA-jFiAABccEAA4BAAz+DNqEMR9Ddq+THnEgyU+FA4AY8iX8iHc/93f/9332jP+4jPexHf8kCQadaA-w

Works alright solo and works great as part of a group. The best part for a group is you can change around a couple traits and utilities and this build becomes a support monster that can still dish out a heavy damage spike through f1 tome.

I have started messing around with firebrand roaming myself and find it not to be too bad.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAreRnsADNCjVDBmDBkCjlBC76a9BqAWBgqVbafhGRzoA-jFCEABvpPIn9H6SJoUK/I4IA4v6PG8IAA4EA0O4A4re1rvC81Xf91Xf1Ae91Xf91Xf91XfVKABlpB-w