[Request] Fractal Support Guardian

Hello everyone!

As in the topic I'm looking for a support/healing Guardian/Firebrand build for PUGging T2/T3 fractals.As You all know meta builds doesn't work with PUGs. No, just no. So after trying to pug t3 for a long time with meta builds on different proffestions (Mesmer, Rev, Dragon Hunter, Daredevil) I decided to make a support character especialy for PUGging. I found out that 99% od PUG players tend to go for max dps meta build without any support player, they die in the first 4 seconds, becouse dodge run out and they don't have any other form of damage mitigation.Support Druids are like... "OKAY I see You are healing but maybe come melee not 900 shortbow range?"

The first one I made Was Magi/Minstrel Scurge witch I found AMAZING, that Blood Magic does wonders. Barriers, Condi Clense, amazing trash CC (Fear, Warhorn 4, Torch 5, Well of 'Blind'), Might stacking.After I went with Magi/Cleric Ventari Renegade again, good but the range is not as amazing as Scurge's Sand Shroud and pugs tend to run away as soon as their HP moves from 100% to 80% they just go max range and hope they won't die... and following them with ventari tablet leaves the rest of the team without any form of healing/condi clense and they tend to die.

Now I would like to know if there are any Guardians here playing a healing/support builds for fractals, I noticed firebrand has some good tome options but I'm not a master theorycrafter tho it's better to listen to more experience players with the class. I got only a full viper firebrand so it's mostly offensive.Any advice?

I've run a Seraph Firebrand through T4 Fractals for a bit and I will say it's not for PUGs, especially those that are having trouble in T2 and T3. The build brings sustained heals (1k heal per ~1 s), burst heals, Aegis, Might, Quickness, and some DPS increase from Ashes. However, even in ideal cases, Quickness uptime is only one-third that of a Chronomancer, and a major portion of that is reliant on an invisible 450-range cone of unknown angle. The same goes with many of the utilities, including the healing from Tome of Resolve. In other words, if the majority of your PUGs run around like headless chickens, then you will very likely not be able to carry them through T2 and T3 Fractals with a support Firebrand.

There's been several threads about it, and the answer is always the same. While a bunch of silly, suboptimal builds do exist, you cannot play support guardian properly in instanced content. Your heals are too weak (on a 30s tome CD), your boons are inadequate (not enough might), and so are your profession mechanics. Your range is way too small, and firebrand mantras are merely inconvenient cones, but other players are going to move all the time due to mechanics.

The question is akin to 'can I competitively race on my 2005 random toyota car?'. The answer is no. If you want a racing car, get a racing car, ie a druid or a revenant. With a druid or rev you have the right tools, the right boons, and adequate profession mechanics. If you use a guardian yes it will work for low tiers but at high tiers you're going to cause a lot of frustration first because you're not providing enough offensive buffs, but also because your defensive ones are awfully inadequate due to the cones, and your heals are on such a long cooldown you're going to cause a lot of death unless your party simply doesn't need you.

Firebrands are best used as pure dps with emergency support. That's what they're (really) good at. If you're not good at the game and absolutely need to play support (that's fine, I don't judge) roll an alt, it's not that long.

@Rennie.6750 said:

Firebrands are best used as pure dps with emergency support. That's what they're (really) good at. If you're not good at the game and absolutely need to play support (that's fine, I don't judge) roll an alt, it's not that long.

I have a feeling You didn't even read my post.I would love to do t3 solo, but it's a waste of my time, so I need 4 other peaple right? I don't have the luxury to always play with skilled players with perfect team comps with chrono + druid so I'm forced to pug.When I go as a pure dps in a t3 pug it's sometime 5-6+ full wipes before we get a kill becouse most pugs focus on boss damage, and ignore everything else.Sometimes they just quit after 2-3 wipes sometimes not, depends.So I noticed that when I support them, we get a one shot at every single boss - YES it takes more time than a perfect meta speedclear but it works, I get it done, get the loot gg.Who cares if we all have a race car when all cars crash in a wall on every single turn, becouse the drivers can't handle them?

@"Ojimaru.8970" said:I've run a Seraph Firebrand through T4 Fractals for a bit and I will say it's not for PUGs, especially those that are having trouble in T2 and T3. The build brings sustained heals (1k heal per ~1 s), burst heals, Aegis, Might, Quickness, and some DPS increase from Ashes. However, even in ideal cases, Quickness uptime is only one-third that of a Chronomancer, and a major portion of that is reliant on an invisible 450-range cone of unknown angle. The same goes with many of the utilities, including the healing from Tome of Resolve. In other words, if the majority of your PUGs run around like headless chickens, then you will very likely not be able to carry them through T2 and T3 Fractals with a support Firebrand.

Ty, this is the knowledge that I needed.

I run this support setup a lot in raids. I find it works extremely well in that environment, but struggles somewhat in fractals due to the additional movement and spreading out that you see in less organized groups.

It does keep up 15-ish might, perma prot, perma fury, perma quickness, and can provide some level of access to every boon in the game.It pushes out 700 hp/s between Regen and Battle Presence, and an additional 285/s from standing in a symbol.It can handle condi-heavy fights better than druids, but struggles to heal people at range outside of long CD skills.

@Quam.7218 said:

@"Rennie.6750" said:

Firebrands are best used as pure dps with emergency support. That's what they're (really) good at. If you're not good at the game and absolutely need to play support (that's fine, I don't judge) roll an alt, it's not that long.

Then why don't you play druid? Protection, 25 might, strong heals, dps buffs.

Still, if you just want to carry bad pugs, support firebrand can increase dps through quickness (assuming said bad pugs don't have a good chrono, of course), provide protection, aegis, stability, 25 might, and some healing.

You will be doing 0 damage yourself, though.

Support Druids are like... "OKAY I see You are healing but maybe come melee not 900 shortbow range?"

If druid can't heal someone sitting at 900 range, what makes you think guardian will have any better time, when everything guardian does is at melee range?

@Quam.7218 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

Firebrands are best used as pure dps with emergency support. That's what they're (really) good at. If you're not good at the game and absolutely need to play support (that's fine, I don't judge) roll an alt, it's not that long.

@"Ojimaru.8970" said:I've run a

Seraph Firebrand

through T4 Fractals for a bit and I will say it's not for PUGs, especially those that are having trouble in T2 and T3. The build brings sustained heals (1k heal per ~1 s), burst heals, Aegis, Might, Quickness, and some DPS increase from Ashes. However, even in ideal cases, Quickness uptime is only one-third that of a Chronomancer, and a major portion of that is reliant on an invisible 450-range cone of unknown angle. The same goes with many of the utilities, including the healing from Tome of Resolve. In other words, if the majority of your PUGs run around like headless chickens, then you will very likely

not

be able to carry them through T2 and T3 Fractals with a support Firebrand.

Druid, revenant, elem all have better healing and utility than guardian. It's probably the worst support class, especially for pugs. In an organised group, maybe you could pull it off because the team would stack nicely and wouldn't start running around in panick as soon as they're missing 15% health. You won't have that luxury in a pug.

The only meaningful and unique support feature of guardians is stability spamming, and you can do it as a dps just fine. I did it today in chaos at the final boss, we were able to just cleave it until it died. But if you want to heal or buff, there are 3 classes doing it much better and all they take is a few tomes of XP or that lvl 80 boost you got with the expac.

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:Then why don't you play druid? Protection, 25 might, strong heals, dps buffs.Still, if you just want to carry bad pugs, support firebrand can increase dps through quickness (assuming said bad pugs don't have a good chrono, of course), provide protection, aegis, stability, 25 might, and some healing.

You will be doing 0 damage yourself, though.

Tried.Yes I'm aware he's a really powerfull support and I like to play with druids, that know how to support.Yet I've never met one that can do this. Almost all druids in pug fights at max range pew pewig arrows, while playing meta support build (I notice their buffs).

I've also tried Ele, red about auramancer.But playing those 2 professions is not fun for me. Druid is boring and Ele... Not for me ;)

Atm the builds I play do 0 damage. Magi/Minstrel/Cleric - but they keep those 4 ppl alive, so they can do their jobs and we can finish the fractal.

Also I've had maybe once a chrono in pug.And also played one, it was sad becouse no one wanted to stand near me to get buffs, so I quit playing chrono.

Support Druids are like... "OKAY I see You are healing but maybe come melee not 900 shortbow range?"

If druid can't heal someone sitting at 900 range, what makes you think guardian will have any better time, when everything guardian does is at melee range?

I wasn't clear about this, my bad - those are the support druids I met. Doing nothing. I met maybe 1 or 2 amazing Druid players.

I just want to play as many support characters as I can, compare them, get to know their strength and weaknesses in pugs.

Yet I don't have such amount of money to buy all my characters different armor stats and test them, so my max ar is only for t3.

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Quam.7218 said:

@Rennie.6750 said:

Firebrands are best used as pure dps with emergency support. That's what they're (really) good at. If you're not good at the game and absolutely need to play support (that's fine, I don't judge) roll an alt, it's not that long.

@"Ojimaru.8970" said:I've run a

Seraph Firebrand

through T4 Fractals for a bit and I will say it's not for PUGs, especially those that are having trouble in T2 and T3. The build brings sustained heals (1k heal per ~1 s), burst heals, Aegis, Might, Quickness, and some DPS increase from Ashes. However, even in ideal cases, Quickness uptime is only one-third that of a Chronomancer, and a major portion of that is reliant on an invisible 450-range cone of unknown angle. The same goes with many of the utilities, including the healing from Tome of Resolve. In other words, if the majority of your PUGs run around like headless chickens, then you will very likely

not

be able to carry them through T2 and T3 Fractals with a support Firebrand.

Thanks for the answer, I need to try Ele see how they work, never played one before, but I tried a couple of times.

@Quam.7218 said:

@"RabbitUp.8294" said:Then why don't you play druid? Protection, 25 might, strong heals, dps buffs.Still, if you just want to carry bad pugs, support firebrand can increase dps through quickness (assuming said bad pugs don't have a good chrono, of course), provide protection, aegis, stability, 25 might, and some healing.

You will be doing 0 damage yourself, though.

Support Druids are like... "OKAY I see You are healing but maybe come melee not 900 shortbow range?"

If druid can't heal someone sitting at 900 range, what makes you think guardian will have any better time, when everything guardian does is at melee range?

That's because you're at tier 3. Tier 3 is hell. It's a black hole that will suck up all of your goodwill, your nerves and your soul. Tier 4 druids are usually better, that being said, they can't heal stupid either.

If you have 150 AR, my advice would be to just find someone to open T4s for you. Don't waste time and gold carrying T3 pugs.

I don't have any asc armor.I got 105 AR at atm.That's why t3 is my limit.

I'm just not sure what armor type and stats to pick, or what profession to focus on.

That's why I'm looking for something that I can focus on, craft that armor and progess further.

Now that You help me with my Guardian questions I want to give support Ele a try and decide do I want to focus on Rev or Ele.

@Quam.7218 said:I don't have any asc armor.I got 105 AR at atm.That's why t3 is my limit.

I'm just not sure what armor type and stats to pick, or what profession to focus on.

That's why I'm looking for something that I can focus on, craft that armor and progess further.

Now that You help me with my Guardian questions I want to give support Ele a try and decide do I want to focus on Rev or Ele.

Guardian is a perfectly fine choice for tier 4s as a dps, that being said having a support character makes it infinitely easier to find groups indeed.

Eventually you're going to get some ascended armor drop, unless you want to craft it. Playing tier 4 will dramatically change your experience, it's just much better.

I did daily T4 with a guy running full ministrel FB last week. We had so many blocks and heals that sometimes it felt like I could just stop dodging and even trying to survive. The problem is that it gives little to no might, but that build makes even the most crappy pug group into an unbeatable squad.

Firebrand support is a very real thing and has more than enough healing to support ppl especially in t4s as a support role. I personally run one recently and use a mix between minstrel magi and harrier armor and trinkets sitting at 66% boon duration without peppermint oil or sigil of concentration or fractal pots. I take Honor 2, 1, 2 Virtues 2 or 3, then 2, 2 and Firebrand 2, 2or3, 3. For weapons I take scepter and shield and Staff for utility I always take the mantra heal and mantra of potence and mantra of lore 3rd utility can be whatever depending on what you need the elite is always feel my wrath.

Between f2 passive heals, regen that can beat chronos duration and symbols from scepter and staff you have more than enough sustain healing. Your burst healing primarily comes from staff 2 which can be difficult to aim but heals for about 3.5k+ on a 6 sec cd and your f2 tome skills you can also use staff skill 4 for healing if you don't need it to max out might you also have a ton of aegis which you can use to block a majority of mechanics. Between scepter symbol, staff 4, and mantra of potence it's not to difficult to consistently bounce around 20-25 stacks of might for the group. For quickness, 2 uses of mantra of potence and 1 use of mantra heal every 12 ish seconds and feel my wrath during a concentration sigil swap or by using firebrand runes over monk can get you perma quickness without alacrity. The hardest part is getting ppl to be in range of the mantra. You can give perma prot without the help of a chrono by either traiting for legendary lore or using hold the line as your 3rd utility slot and using shield 4 and f3s 5 skill.

As for damage it's not utter trash mostly thanks to scepters overall damage and f1 tome staff damage however is horrible . You can also provide one special buff with Purity of Body grandmaster increasing endurance regen by 15% that you can then share with others through the virtues grandmaster. I personally use this build to actually provide things outside of just healing which can get much higher on FB if you opt to forget remove quickness, might and Prot from the build and you can take things like "Recieve the light" Signet of mercy, Bow of truth, merciful Intervention and Signet of courage. Theres prob a bunch more I missed and others know even more but one things for certain support FB is an actual thing and a nice thing at that.

Thank you for the answers.

I'll try it out the build - now I'm curious how it will play out.

@"Lalainnia.3598" said:Firebrand support is a very real thing and has more than enough healing to support ppl especially in t4s as a support role. I personally run one recently and use a mix between minstrel magi and harrier armor and trinkets sitting at 66% boon duration without peppermint oil or sigil of concentration or fractal pots. I take Honor 2, 1, 2 Virtues 2 or 3, then 2, 2 and Firebrand 2, 2or3, 3. For weapons I take scepter and shield and Staff for utility I always take the mantra heal and mantra of potence and mantra of lore 3rd utility can be whatever depending on what you need the elite is always feel my wrath.

Between f2 passive heals, regen that can beat chronos duration and symbols from scepter and staff you have more than enough sustain healing. Your burst healing primarily comes from staff 2 which can be difficult to aim but heals for about 3.5k+ on a 6 sec cd and your f2 tome skills you can also use staff skill 4 for healing if you don't need it to max out might you also have a ton of aegis which you can use to block a majority of mechanics. Between scepter symbol, staff 4, and mantra of potence it's not to difficult to consistently bounce around 20-25 stacks of might for the group. For quickness, 2 uses of mantra of potence and 1 use of mantra heal every 12 ish seconds and feel my wrath during a concentration sigil swap or by using firebrand runes over monk can get you perma quickness without alacrity. The hardest part is getting ppl to be in range of the mantra. You can give perma prot without the help of a chrono by either traiting for legendary lore or using hold the line as your 3rd utility slot and using shield 4 and f3s 5 skill.

As for damage it's not utter trash mostly thanks to scepters overall damage and f1 tome staff damage however is horrible . You can also provide one special buff with Purity of Body grandmaster increasing endurance regen by 15% that you can then share with others through the virtues grandmaster. I personally use this build to actually provide things outside of just healing which can get much higher on FB if you opt to forget remove quickness, might and Prot from the build and you can take things like "Recieve the light" Signet of mercy, Bow of truth, merciful Intervention and Signet of courage. Theres prob a bunch more I missed and others know even more but one things for certain support FB is an actual thing and a nice thing at that.

Keep in mind that we're talking about pugs. Half the might, half the healing value, and half the uptime on protection compared to druid. Also, we're missing unique class dps buffs. Guardian doesn't have any. If you ever bring that in any respectable pug, you'll be laughed at before getting the boot. I don't think people care too much about how much you can heal, even if they often should, but lacklustre buffing will definitely get you that.

@Rennie.6750 said:Keep in mind that we're talking about pugs. Half the might, half the healing value, and half the uptime on protection compared to druid. Also, we're missing unique class dps buffs. Guardian doesn't have any. If you ever bring that in any respectable pug, you'll be laughed at before getting the boot. I don't think people care too much about how much you can heal, even if they often should, but lacklustre buffing will definitely get you that.

You can easily cap prot uptime on a FB support. It brings slightly less might, but approximately 100% more quickness uptime than a druid. It certainly isn't the best choice as a 1:1 replacement for a druid in a druid/chrono/warrior/x/x group, but to say that it has lackluster buffing is disingenuous.

100% quickness100% fury100% Prot100% Regen15-20 Might (can get above 25 stacks if you take empowering might)AegisStabResistCondi ClearSpammable reflectsProjectile DestructionAoE knockbackAoE pull

That is not a list of lackluster buffing/utility capabilities.