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Number Crunch Firebrand Questions


Fargas.6251

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Long Post Ahead. I’m well on my way to my first 80 with my Guardian, having fallen in love with Firebrand’s moveset. I’ve been studying what builds I’ll be pushing towards, such as this Condition Firebrand from Snow Crows https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/guardian/firebrand/condition/

So here’s the Stat Layout, no food, no runes.

Total Stats at full Ascended Gear:4,362

Condition-1,403Power-1,377Precision-775Expertise-498Ferocity-209

Balthazar’s would put me at 1,503 Condition, and gives me 20% more burning atop the 500 Expertise.

I’ve had a realization though, that while this build is META, I am not META. I will spend half of my time dead without any survivability stats. Dead men don’t DPS.

So I’m trying to make room for Toughness. I suspect that scales better with Guardian’s self healing.

How much Toughness do I need to bring, for it to even be worthwhile? Is Vitality actually better?

I also won’t be sitting on ascended gear straight away. I haven’t calculated what my net total stats would be if my gear were all fines and masterworks. Which stats can I afford to cut? Is it worth sitting on 500 Expertise if my Condition damage is substantially lower? Is the 200 Ferocity worth bringing if my Power and Precision are way down?

I’m trying to sort out my build so that my gameplay mistakes hurt my performance less, while I’m still learning how to play.

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@Fargas.6251 said:How much Toughness do I need to bring, for it to even be worthwhile? Is Vitality actually better?

That depends on which game mode you want to play. The Snowcrows build you linked is intended for raids and fractals, so you'll be fine there. But if you find yourself dying a lot, you can mix in some Trailblazers, or the more accessible Dire or Carrion gear.If you want to do open world or WvW/PvP, you'll definitely need more toughness and vitality. Trailblazers is amazing for open world and soloing everything.As far as toughness vs. vitality, you want a blend of the two, but keep in mind that higher toughness will attract more aggro.

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I didn’t know about Toughness bringing in aggro. That’s pretty good to know. You wouldn’t happen to know a good ballpark health pool to sit on for open world would you?

I suppose the stats I can afford to lose are Ferocity and Expertise I’m guessing. Would you say that’s accurate?

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@Fargas.6251 said:I didn’t know about Toughness bringing in aggro. That’s pretty good to know. You wouldn’t happen to know a good ballpark health pool to sit on for open world would you?

For open world I use full Trailblazer's with Apothecary's trinkets (cause I haven't got the Trailblazer's trinkets yet) and I've got just over 16k hp with about 2k toughness. I have no problem staying alive and dealing decent damage.

I suppose the stats I can afford to lose are Ferocity and Expertise I’m guessing. Would you say that’s accurate?Well, you want to stay around 100% burning duration, because that's most of your damage, so expertise is important, but you can also get burning duration from traits, runes, and food. The reason that snowcrows build is able to run Sinister's and Grieving and not full Viper's is because they make up for the lack of expertise by using Balthazar runes.There's a post on here where someone did the math, but power, condition, precision, ferocity, and expertise all have a bit of a delicate balance in Firebrand and there are certain breakpoints with stats where once you have a certain amount of one stat, it's better to invest in another.Full Trailblazers is great for open world, but if you want to use that snowcrows build and not invest in a full set, I'd replace some of the Grieving gear with Trailblazers. That way, you'd keep the expertise (~100% burning duration) and add some tankiness. You cut Grieving because the ferocity wouldn't be as effective if you're running Trailblazer's gear.

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I would suggest you to run a glass build for raids and fractals if you wanna do those properly. With time, you'll get used to it.

But if you want more survivability for Open World content, another option that i'm very fond of, specially on Firebrand, is plaguedoctor. I prefer it over trailblazer, if you're replacing parts that won't cost expertise.

Firebrand is a profession that has access to a lot of utilities, in therms of both healing and boons. Plaguedoctor provides concentration and healing power to enhance that, allowing you to maintain better might uptime and quickness, which can lead to more personal dps if you don't have a support (which most times you will on higher tiers of fractals and raids) - this is mostly for open world.

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@"Fargas.6251" said:I also won’t be sitting on ascended gear straight away. I haven’t calculated what my net total stats would be if my gear were all fines and masterworks.

"Fines and masterworks?" :grimace: :grimace: :grimace: Get Exotic gear RIGHT NOW. As a starting point, Named sets ( https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Named_armor ) cost almost nothing on the TP. Dire or Carrion will work ok as an open-world "training" set as long as you don't get too complacent about it and don't try to take it on raids.

You can get 90% Burning Duration with just your traits, Balthazar runes, and a Sigil of Smoldering (throw it away when you gear gets better). Eat budget pizza for another 5%. gw2skills.net makes it really easy to see how the numbers on your gear will work out.

Also, change your utilities! If you're following the raid build, you may also get dying a lot because you have limited self-healing and no stun break. I run around in my Quickbrand gear all the time but I always bring "Stand Your Ground" outside raids.

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Trailblazer is the only reasonable gear to get. There's a build for solo firebrand on metabattle, just do that.Bladed gear is easy to get and can select trailblazer. Exotic is perfectly fine for open world so that you can get your ascended for content where it matters.

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