Why is Firebrand not that popular in WvW - [Merged]

I mostly play Firebrand when I am with a squad. I noticed that this squad that I play with has very few firebrands although they are very good as a pug and I sometimes play as a ranger and they never run out of rangers. We win most of our fights eventhough we only have like two or three firebrands in our squad. Just today, the commanded suggested to the squad to practice playing metaclasses now that we are moving up and a lot of the squad members said that they find Firebrand very boring. I wonder why people think Firebrand is boring. What do you guys think?

I mostly play Firebrand when I am with a squad. I noticed that this squad that I play with has very few firebrands although they are very good as a pug and I sometimes play as a ranger and they never run out of rangers. We win most of our fights even though we only have like two or three firebrands in our squad. Just today, the commanded suggested to the squad to practice playing metaclasses now that we are moving up and a lot of the squad members said that they find Firebrand very boring. I wonder why people think Firebrand is boring. What do you guys think?

It's a pure support class so no less bags. When in tomes, you can't use weapon skills so it is a bit boring. But it is necessary to have against other organized zergs because stability so some people have to switch to it somewhat begrudingly.

Firebrands are popular with good players. Just because new players want to play ranger thinking WVW is PVE doesn't make them more useful.

Firebrands actually tag more things than support scrapper which in med kit has no decent way to tag things = less bags / WXP.

The only tome where you get nothing is Tome of Resolve. You can reflect in Tome of Courage and retaliation counts as damage (use "Stand Your Ground" and Daring challenge).

All or most commanders i see in WvW are firebrands and they're excellent support that i also see a lot in squads so idk. Seems to me Firebrands are represented quite well in WvW. Maybe people like mentioned don't want them cause less bags? But they can still tag pretty well considering they're support so idk.

playing FB now and then is really chill, while in the heat of pushes you have the most to do acutally. keeping up all the rambos is uwu. people who don't understand that FB is the core of every squad are either too newbie, too bad and therefore ignorant, too focused on smallscale, etc.

i only don't like to play firebrand when i expect or see that our damage isn't on point, bc then u basically sustain for nothing. a good FB should give his group basically most of the time stability and heals when needed, that's why it is mainly useful in groups. if ur formation is too open, you don't have the same effect. i think pug firebrand is only 10% as effective. surely, u get your participation even as that, but it's kinda pointless, and u won't get any bags, bc ur not actively kill stuff.

people mainly don't like to play them bc of the bag-issue i guess. u just don't get as many bc u don't tag as many people as a rev/necro/ele just automatically does

@ArchonWing.9480 said:It's a pure support class so no less bags.

You can tag a lot if you use Ashes of the Just and then just heal your team, as long as the engagement lasts longer than like 20 seconds.

@PrinceValentine.9320 said:I mostly play Firebrand when I am with a squad. I noticed that this squad that I play with has very few firebrands although they are very good as a pug and I sometimes play as a ranger and they never run out of rangers.

That is weird. Ranger isn't a squad class.

Anyway, as explained by others, the fact that you are getting significantly less loot, less XP, and are constantly doing the same routine rather than participating in the action per se is less attractive to many.

Because Firebrands are expected to use their Tomes and utilities to spam buffs, and not DPS.Not DPSing = no xp no bags less rewards.

No one wants to be the Support which spends their entire raiding session spamming Tomes and Buffs and finish up their session with their inventory being emptier than a roamer.

Ah yes those poor firebrands. The unpopular class thats the most requested class everyone plays. We all weep for the firebrand. Just like thieves being the worst duelists, the worst roamer and the least mobile class, firebrands have no CC, no support and no survivability.

We have some dedicated FB players in our guild who enjoy supporting the zerg in big fights, keeping us alive. They get satisfaction that they made it possible for us to sustain and take down the enemy. One thing that some of us do is give some of the bags we get on damage classes to our healer types.

Side note: Some of the bag drops for healers are affected by the damage that their mini-squad(party) does during the fights in WvW. so if your damage dealers are putting out tons of damager and getting kills the FBs and other healers will get more bags. Of course, FBs can always say "switching to book one" when it looks like we don't need to much healing.

less bags, less exp, less gold

They seem pretty poplar to me from what I seen over the years.I play one in Zergs just they are Quite a boring class well to me.The Satisfaction is also not that amazing yes I kept the team alive but when I feel like am spine of the team but I only get feed grains of rice its bit deflating.

The foremost thing has already been mentioned several times over by now: bags, WXP however much people claim it isn't important for WvW, it does seem to motivate people.

Then there are a number of socially driven issues tied to how important stab is:

• Players may resent you for the attention a commander gives your class/build
• Players may not own up to their own mistakes and may be prone to blame you for their own losses
• It may many times feel unthankful to play support if no one else steps up to form a pairing or if players do not let themselves be helped as you try

Things like that quickly takes the fun out of playing something selfless and makes you more prone to bring something self-reliant next time (or just farm your bags like everyone else who cares little).

Many of these socially driven issues are interesting in a larger context as they seem to have grown larger in recent years as many guilds with very experienced players leave and drop off and as many pickup squads have established norms of carrying their players around more than before. Very experienced players are less prone to take you for granted, rely on you or navigate the balance between making plays and taking plays better. Midtier players seem more prone to bully inexperienced players and the loss of many experienced players has hit the inexperienced players dually in that sense since there are fewer players around to set or statuate examples for both the lower- and mid tiers (ie., promote good examples and smack poor examples into their place). Some of that makes it understandable why it may seem daunting for new players to pick the class up (even though it is very well suited to learn WvW on for a number of reasons from weight to calls) and why it may be difficult to motivate players to pick it up beyond donating your bags to the greater good.

Ed. I'm not sure if I would call it unpopular, like others have said, it is fairly popular but these things at least puts some light on why it may be hard for commanders to motivate players into picking up the class and why some servers always seem to struggle to fill their support spots even if those roles are proven powerful.

@ASP.8093 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:It's a pure support class so no less bags.

Sure, but it's more involved than pressing 231111111, and of course there's more responsibility, assuming you want to be useful, and it's generally more evident if you screw up than if you just do mediocre dps as not having stab is quite noticeable. And taking responsibility for one's gameplay is simply not something people do in 2020 (just read this forum as a whole)

Other support classes like tempest and scrapper need only push a few buttons and be on top for cleanses. On the other hand if you accidentally pull out book 3 when you're under a bubble, then bad times. There's only so many stab complaints one can take from party members in Narnia as well. The existence of Firebrand has caused players in both WvW and PvE to become very dependent on them and they forget to play their own classes.

Though I guess it is more bags than pew pewing into reflects though.

People ought to realize that bags are pretty worthless in wvw, and anything of value comes from reward tracks. Nevertheless, the kill count will be lower than on dps classes.

@Dawdler.8521 said:Ah yes those poor firebrands. The unpopular class thats the most requested class everyone plays. We all weep for the firebrand. Just like thieves being the worst duelists, the worst roamer and the least mobile class, firebrands have no CC, no support and no survivability.

Well, duh, that's what the forum posts told me.

I remember the guardian subforum a few years ago whining about not being able to heal in wvw and being too squishy and not mobile enough. And now we have the nonsense that is firebrand, though yes guardians are still rather slow, but get no sympathy from necros.

Its a boring class truth be told if it was any weaker then it is now no one would play it. As its effect the more op supporter in the game you have group make ppl play it or live with the lost vs groups who do.

If only anet change how support work so like if you give allies buff/heal then your ally kill opponent you also got credit I think firebrand will be more popular to use.

@DKRathalos.9625 said:If only anet change how support work so like if you give allies buff/heal then your ally kill opponent you also got credit I think firebrand will be more popular to use.

It be cool to see that, But depending how the buff system is implemented this can effect all classes that give the slightest buff can end up with mountain lot bags even as DPS class if they give buffs if went off buffs + Kills, You need a system in place as well that would know if your support or not to switch off bags or no bags from buff healing.But yeah it be cool if they can do something like this but it be big ask I think.

I dont think is FB alone, Guardian overall bacame a very boring gimmick no matter if core, or one of the elites specs....

DH with traps was awfull concept imo. FB should had been the class that have barrier not the scourge, more burn control, quickeness is stupid on this spec another gimmick to spam n stack...to catter the low effort players.

After playing FB on PoF It was actually what made be start playin as rev main, and start use my 1st toon and main as a mule..

I guess they are good mules :) as any other good mule, besides that... for those who need gimmicks to be "efficient" i think it works as well...

Most interesting part about playing firebrand is placing lines of warding. Thats the thing. Other than that only thrill you get is walking to bombs as you yourself will never go low HP playing correctly as you're playing minstrel and some others marauder or something.

The reflects aren't killing anyone. You have no leap to get out after going for stomp/ress and superspeed meta makes so that helping people behind will just get yourself killed. Condition tracking is pretty much irrelevant in this non condi meta with 4 cleansers per party (FB, scrap/temp, Spellbreaker, scourge).

Guardians were definitely most popular class until Path of Fire. But before that it was Cele meta. Tbf other minstrel builds like Heal Rev and Scrapper are both even more boring, tempest is pretty fun due to the leaps and overload stunbreaks.

So you stand on tag, spam mantras and mace 3s. Thats pretty much life of a Firebrand. So you play Firebrand just to win or comfort so you can eat chips or listen to music while having easy time. Not for gameplay thrills.

Having to keep track of other guardian stab usage in party was pretty fun too.. Unfortunately the class was just dumbed down.

@"ArchonWing.9480" ok, u joking here? "People ought to realize that bags are pretty worthless in wvw, and anything of value comes from reward tracks..." ... what exactly at rewards tracks has any value? bags have the chance of deldrimor ingots at least. rewards tracks have absurdly small chances of ascended drops, but u still mostly have to change their stats for another ~5 gold. and it's like what, 5 ascended boxes in 50-60 reward track finishes? even with all kinds of buffs.

@kamikharzeeh.8016 said:@"ArchonWing.9480" ok, u joking here? "People ought to realize that bags are pretty worthless in wvw, and anything of value comes from reward tracks..." ... what exactly at rewards tracks has any value? bags have the chance of deldrimor ingots at least. rewards tracks have absurdly small chances of ascended drops, but u still mostly have to change their stats for another ~5 gold. and it's like what, 5 ascended boxes in 50-60 reward track finishes? even with all kinds of buffs.

@kamikharzeeh.8016 i never colect bags, unless is a wooden chest "wich probably will be a useless legendary spike".

Not every one is there for trashy bags....

collecting? its autoloot anyways, unless u didn't unlock that yet. u do realize u can get precursors and lion chest keys from every drop? i got one from there yet.

@"kamikharzeeh.8016" said:collecting? its autoloot anyways, unless u didn't unlock that yet. u do realize u can get precursors and lion chest keys from every drop? i got one from there yet.

I hate that actually.... i did that mistake....yesThat should be removed from provisions master we had a option like that on the game options already to check and uncheck for those who dont want it,.,., Dumbnet! >_>Must have been the same person who made the FB who remembered "what if we add autoloot where u cant avoid it into wvw".

@Threather.9354 besides the commander no one should be using a minstrell rev .. (still wanderer stats would be far better than minstrell for commander ..)

i only hate that i have nothing bigger than 20er bags. but that's not autoloots fault.