Is anyone as hyped for healing with the new elite spec as I am?

Because from what I saw during the beta, I was absolutely killin' it with the heals in every spvp I was in on her.That was fuego!

I would like to run a healing build on it for sPVP, even pve/wvw content with groups, but only time and testing will tell if the spec is actually useful and the play style is smooth. Feels like it needs a couple of adjustments before release, or shortly after because it's a bit clunky right now imo.

I can see Firebrand being pretty good for fractals healing. I know I'm pretty excited to have some cool support options when guardian's healing is already decent-ish. If we can just get more range on our mantras I'd be happy to heal in pvp/fractals- maybe even that stunbreak ult can lead to some good teamfights in pvp.

I'm so excited that I made a whole Seraphs set with a lot of different Seraph weapons.

I had my 20 sPvP games as Firebrand. And I have to say I had more fun using Tome of Courage than the Tome of Resolve even when healing. Pure of Heart (Aegis heals on block) is just to good when you trait for the improved tome skills.

I'm hyped about PoF in general. I'm very casual, but I'm still excited to try some new builds with the Firebrand. Once I've gained some experience with a build targeting group healer, I'd likely run dungeons/fractals with that role.

Firebrand healing will probably have a role somewhere, and I think SPvP might be it.

In raids, though, I feel confident saying that no one is going to be topping the druid, and especially not Firebrand since their healing is limited, tied to a long cooldown.

But SPvP and WvW to some extent I think it will do good.

Tome of Courage will shine in WvW. If we get to keep the close-to perma quickness, the cast time will not be an issue.

Initially I was hyped. But after playing the Firebrand I quickly noticed the limitations to the Firebrand's healing capabilities compared to a Druid or Tempest.

• No ranged healing skills
• Long casting times
• Short Radius
• No damage while using Tome of Resolve
• Long cool down on Tome of Resolve
• Lack of offensive buffs

Healing is already harder than necessary and doesn't clearly show health bars or allow specific teammate targeting. The game hasn't adjusted to the holy trinity and instead clamps on to it's aesthetically pleasing UI-free visuals. Perhaps someone else can convince me in which way Firebrand is going to be superior to a Druid or Tempest?

I've actually created a minstrel firebrand that gives off permanent protection, quickness and might. Should be more excited for boons than healing. Going to be so fun

@Farzo.8410 said:In raids, though, I feel confident saying that no one is going to be topping the druid, and especially not Firebrand since their healing is limited, tied to a long cooldown.I think that a support/healing setup may be one of the best ways for a quickness Firebrand to muscle a raid spot away from a Chrono. If you have a Druid and Chrono in one group, you could theoretically make room for a Firebrand healer/quickness bot in the other group that allows you to have 4 'real' DPS in the group because of role compression (quickness and healing from the same toon).

Firebrand healing in spvp is atrocious. Our burst heal in our heal kit is only 1398 with sages amulet. Tfw you get more healing wasting all your pages spamming your auto atk than actually using your big heals. That is HALF of dragonhunter f2, and f2 is a 5 condi cleanse + leap to disengage. The healing coefficients on everything are terrible and on top of that the cast times.

Until f2/f3 tomes are buffed massively this spec will be garbage.

Firebrand is going to be better as a hybrid support rather than an actual healer unless they greatly buff the healing power coefficients on Firebrand's Tome of Resolve, as well as literally cutting the cooldown in half. That tome is visually stunning but quite weak :(

But, if they were to get the role of a primary healer in their second tome, the rest of the spec would become too strong or would face heavy nerfs and would lose much of its identity. So, I don't think we'll see anything more than maybe some healing power buffs for the tome.

There really isn't too much need for devoted healing specs in this game compared to other MMOs with much more defined roles. Everyone has access to solid self-heals as it is, and most builds have at least some ability to heal others built in (e.g. the engineer's Heal Turret, the Necro's Healing Well, the Ranger's Healing Spring, the Guardian's Healing Shout). In the long run, throwing together a healing rotation with those shared skills is definitely possible, especially in PvE and Fractals where Stacking is still high tactics. Giving Guardians decent burst heals on a cooldown, along with some of the most combat-friendly damage buffs and defense buffs, however, makes it a useful all-round support spec. After all, the courage tome can be traited to give Aegis every thirty seconds, plus whenever you use a tome skill, plus maintaining the passive effect even while the tome recharges. And consider you can also trait to gain quickness on top of it.

I can see potential, but the range on the healing mantra and cleanse mantra are way too small to be effective for anything other than supporting yourself, and the resolve tome was the worst of all the tomes by far. It felt like you could get more healing from going into tome of courage and using pure of heart than using f2.

I am extremely excited to play around as a healer/support Firebrand (PvE), but honestly aside from granting quickness, I don't think too much will be changing in my personal playstyle. I'll take out Valor, which I was never super attached to. I see Firebrand support as an improvement to core support, but I honestly hope they revamp tomes a bit--at least ToR. I love the concept but while theorycrafting it is disappointing, largely due to the coefficients and the cooldown. The one that appeals to me most is ToR skill 5, but I would only be able to use it once every 39-45 seconds unless I camp the tome for 8.5-12 secs, which itself seems incredibly clunky and inefficient.

As a PVE player... not really looking forward to the Firebrand. It's clunky, slow to respond, lacks unique utilities, and a lot of the skills just aren't that good. Maybe there is a build that I am missing that will make the whole thing awesome, but for now the condi axe is going to sit in my bank and collect dust.

@Assic.2746 said:I had my 20 sPvP games as Firebrand. And I have to say I had more fun using Tome of Courage than the Tome of Resolve even when healing. Pure of Heart (Aegis heals on block) is just to good when you trait for the improved tome skills.

Puré of heart is by far the best healing trait we got.

The build i used in pvp and wvw could give 8 aegis in a very short timeframe, healing for over 10k. ToC is a better healing tome than ToR, imo.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:As a PVE player... , but for now the condi axe is going to sit in my bank and collect dust.

Why?

As a condi weapon its far superior to any other weapon we have. It might also be the best direct damage we have, spamming the chain.

@Brutaly.6257 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:As a PVE player... , but for now the condi axe is going to sit in my bank and collect dust.

Hanging up the axe is a metaphor for not using the Firebrand.

The healing on F2 itself is promising, but during beta I experienced nothing but dissapointment. The healing was outdamaged with a single holosmith burst and the access to F2 is situational so you can't really heal on demand as a druid would do. Thus I am fairly certain dudu and auramancer ele because not of the strength but frequency of healing they can do. Guard will heal out one semi-burst but won't provide enough reliable sustained healing if every other new dps spec keeps on blowing as much damage as during beta every bunch of seconds (which on the other hand will also butcher druid and ele's healing too).

What healing, 1000 for best F2 heal with full healing gear? Plus skill 1 cone heals. Heal is underwhelming for cost of casting times and cooldowns (60 sec).

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Brutaly.6257 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:As a PVE player... , but for now the condi axe is going to sit in my bank and collect dust.

lol, got it!

@Ragnarox.9601 said:What healing, 1000 for best F2 heal with full healing gear? Plus skill 1 cone heals. Heal is underwhelming for cost of casting times and cooldowns (60 sec).

I agree with the second sentence in your post but in pre view i played a bit with the hammer and triggered my own combo field when leaving the tome.

Also one of the reasons i cant see my self trating for tomes, i can get better heals out of it by using the 5th page on skill 4 and get out of the tome and trigger it with mighty blow.

I will probabaly play scepter/axe in my dps build and scepter/hammer in my support build.

You can bet I'm excited! Even though firebrand gets alot of criticism because it feels clunky or slow, I fell in love. Its all I've ever wanted from a new elite spec. Cant wait to finally play a good support/healing/boon share guardian in Open World and Fractals. Idc if we will be superior to other already existing healing specs.Only thing I'm still struggeling with is deciding for a stat set, but I guess I have to run some trash condi+healing power set until people discovered the best possible support set to use.

@lVanillal.4027 said:Because from what I saw during the beta, I was absolutely killin' it with the heals in every spvp I was in on her.That was fuego!

I'm enjoying healing as a bowman actually :D The new spec looks to be more of a tank build which this class definitely needed a faster weapon than the mace.