Having trouble with Guardian / Firebrand survivability

Hello All,

I am obviously doing something wrong but I was hoping I could get some advice form the experts out there. I am currently running a Condi Firebrand build, and I was doing some map clearing in HoT last night and I found that I was getting my butt handed to me constantly. I was running full Condition, Vitality and Toughness gear and was using one of the more popular condition builds I found online.

I am guessing that I should probably switch to a power based DH build, but I really wanted to play the new elite spec that came out with PoF. I will admit I am not the most skilled of players, and only recently having returned to GW2 I have to learn the classes all over again, but I didnt expect to have such a hard time in HoT zones.

So far the only difficulty I have had in the Crystal Oasis is the HP in the sands where you get all the stragglers jumping you while you kill the HP boss.

I want to try to stick with my guardian since he has the most world completion (63%) but If there is a class that is better suited for Pve I might switch to that class. My main goal in GW2 is having fun -> map clearing / Fractals / Raids / legendaries.

Thanks in advance!

Heres the problem... Firebrand is a Supportive spec, while Dragon Hunter is DPS spec. Because of how its designed, FB doesn't have strong inherent offensive power, but it compounds off of your other trait lines very readily. The problem with this is you need to commit 2 other trait lines for offensive capability, while the DB itself has weak self sustain. Dragon Hunter on the other is has most of its offensive power within the spec, plus 2 fairly powerful burst healing, and doesn't require skill stacking to function (essentially the majority of the Spec's strengths are in the Virtue changes) . This means you only need to commit one trait line to offense (usually zeal), leaving 1 trait line open for either additional DPS (Radiance) or Self Sustain (Valor). Valor gives you access to extra condi cleansing and Monk's Focus trait. This is the important part- Monks focus also heals when using meditation skills. While DH has access to traps, they are mostly additional DPS rather then foundational to the build. So what a lot of players did during HOT was to take the Classic Medi guard build, and tweak it for Dragon hunter.

A Medi DH is Zeal, Valor and Dragon Hunter. Zeal and DH have Power damage multipliers, which make them a good pairing. Valor bolsters your Condi cleanse options, and gives you middling healing, which actually adds up to a lot of additional on-demand health. This allows you to run Full zerks, or Zerks with a couple of Soldiers or Valks trinkets, to keep a fairly high, but stable DPS output while covering all your short falls. Normally you'd run Healing trap for the burst heal (and condi cleanse due to Smiter's Boon), Smite Condition for on-demand condi clear, minor damage and minor healing (making it very flexible), a high damage trap, and an open utility slot for what ever you need, and the Dragon Maw trap for the CCs. While you lose some raw DPS, you gain a butt ton of sustain for Solo exploration or large map metas. If you're confidant enough, you can swap Valor for Radiance for a significant DPS boost, but your defense become more reliant on damage avoidance.

A Firebrand on the other hand is constructed in a way that it force multiplies on a group level instead of an individual level. It has a lot of sustain options, and can be triggered frequently, but you have no reliable source of burst healing on your utilities, and the Tomes require you to heavily switch gears to take advantage of them. This means if you're the victim of sustain damage, you have to choose between damage, healing, or support via tomes, or commit all of your utilities to your own self sustain (which costs you group support power). If you're the victim of burst damage, you only have one burst heal option (tome of resolve) and it monopolizes all your actions.This is the first build where Guardians have to very carefully consider the trade offs, since its extremely hard to have high end damage, high end self sustain, and high end group support in the same build. While its possible to build for self sustain, it'll prevent you from getting the super crazy burn damage from the compounded radiance/virtues Justice stacking.