Quickbrand: Power or Condi?

I have a healbrand I use for wvw and strikes, just started venturing into fractals and I noticed healing isn't that required so I wish to help with the DPS.

I see there are two variants of quickbrand, condi and power. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

Quickbrand go for power, Guardians dont use Condi in fractals and the dps elitist will kick you if you dont generate enough damage to add to the group overal damage.

Also, as a Healbrand main I can tell you heal is very necessary in fractals T4, specially in reactor Sirens reef and others.

I think these two guides explain it pretty well:https://discretize.eu/builds/guardian/hybrid-firebrandhttps://discretize.eu/builds/guardian/condi-firebrand

"Power Quickness Firebrand is very strong when phases and encounters do not last long. For various T4 fractals, long fights or if you happen to be in a slower group (most PuG groups), you want to run Condition Quickness Firebrand (Build ) as it provides much better DPS for longer fights."

"The Condi Firebrand provides permanent Quickness to the party while dealing high DPS consistent DPS. In organized teams this build is inferior to Power Firebrand because it takes too much time to ramp up the damage. For slower groups however you can achieve very high damage making your DPS players sweat."

"One main downside of Condi Firebrand is that you lack CC (Crowd Control), and missing the unique party wide +216 Power buff provided byBane Signet."

~

My own advice:

If you end up playing Condi, pay a lot of attention to Tome 1 management. Any time you can get a free recharge off a kill, it's a sizable DPS boost. Use Termite Shovels to compensate for any group CC issues. https://discretize.eu/guides/consumables

If you end up playing Power, pay a lot of attention to boss breakbars — your goal is to use Bane Signet to both set up the CC and give your team the +216 Power boost just as the ~5 sec stun phase activates, and drop your biggest personal damage at that time as well.

The difference between condi and power QFB ?Power : Bane signet, better burstCondi : small delay for burst, better dps, bane signet but at the cost of dps loss. The virtues variant over Zeal is not so bad either, for fractals with a lot of mobs, adds etc, and offers the related trait to the wall or the hallowed ground; it depends of habits, playstyle, needs...

If you're playing with good players, a guild, for a fanzy record of speedrun, you should go power.If you pug, who cares really ? cFB is bursty by nature, the 1-2 sec to tick the burning is negligible in most of groups, and more than offset by the DPS. I have already seen Condi QFB, top dps in short fights/phases, but players were still complaining "power > condi" ... come on ... really ?

Otherwise, DPS isn't everything ; because you don't play "healer" it doesn't mean you can't support, you can't cast the oasis, or f3 bubble, stab etc.

For me the condi variant is always superior.And people call it condi, but it is actually hybrid.

There is a version that helps with quickness called "Quickbrand" which goes full viper gear.

The more dps version uses viper with few grieving and sinister gear.

You can find both builds in Snowcrows.

For me being hybrid you have much more versatility, while power is good only on certain situations.

I ended up with the Power variant, I felt it was smoother and the rotation is easier. Condi variant felt too much like playing whackamole

Raids condi is better.

Fractals, condi is also better unless in a very good group because they kill the boss too fast. But if you're playing with randoms, this is probably not the case. If your renegade is mediocre, it is quite suffering to do qfb. Cfb carries much more easily.. Although randoms would probably prefer a healbrand.

Note that getting power gear is not a loss, because you can always switch to power DH if quickness is not needed. (eg, there's another Firebrand)

Unless you're thinking of getting together a static, go with condi,

As others have said, play cqb in average CM/T4 pug groups, and pqb in the 1st percentile groups that can do stuff like phase Skorvald p1 in ~5s. Most pug groups will be better off with a cqb or hqb, with pqb being a mostly statics-only build.

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Quickness_Seraph_DPSyou get to heal and do condi damage at the same timebut between power and condi quickbrand, I feel power rotation is more easier wheras condi there is so many buttons to push and things to keep track of.

@"aaron.7850" said:https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Quickness_Seraph_DPSyou get to heal and do condi damage at the same timebut between power and condi quickbrand, I feel power rotation is more easier wheras condi there is so many buttons to push and things to keep track of.

Strongly disagree with power being easier to play. Condi rotation is just axe-camping until tome is up, then swapping to scepter, pressing 2, and going into the tome. Scepter 2/Torch 5/Sword of Justice until you can weapon swap back to axe. Camp axe until tome is up again, etc.

Weapon swaps on power are much tighter usually.

Power quickbrand is too niche a build for me to recommend. Condi quickbrand is just better.

It's simple, really. Play cfb in pugs, cqb in pugs that don't want a hfb (and have garbage dps somehow), and pqb in statics (and rarely in pugs that have good dps).