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The (mysterious) fb/ren comp


Yasi.9065

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Hey,

first off, the following post(s) is NOT suited for speedclears. So please refrain from posting how one could optimize this or that to get more dps out of it at the cost of (in your eyes unnecessary) survivability. The whole point of this post is to offer said survivability to lfg squads and low to mid tier statics (Though I did include a suicide comp :) )

Ive decided to make this post in the hopes of making the fb/ren comp more accepted, more common, in lfg pug raids. Atm theres quite a lot of reservations towards it still, and Im hoping to give the more casual raiding community insight into this comp. Yes.. including builds with explanations how to play them ;)

First off, here's a (not conclusive) list of things that make this comp superior to 2 chrono, 1 druid, 1 healer comp being run by most lfg squads:

  • Easy access to nearly all relevant boons
  • Instant boon generation
  • Aegis every 10 seconds
  • On demand stability

And here's a list of things you will miss/have to consider when running fb/ren:

  • No 600 radius pulls, which means you have to bring bigger cleave or adapt your strategies on some bosses (a scourge with epidemic helps quite a bit there btw)
  • No mirror comp - so if you have to split up, it gets a bit dicey
  • No portals in raids except if you can convince some poor sucker to play power chrono with portal for you
  • Mantras are cone shaped, so positioning is very important, no more hovering at 400 distance to boss somewhere dear scourges and cBS

So, how to play this comp? Overall, not much changes tbh. Personally Id let the harrier renegade tank because he has with staff3 a quite similar block to chrono sword2. But one of the firebrands can also quite easily take over tanking.The biggest "new" mechanics to get used to are the tablet and mantras. Ive found that most players learn quite quickly that when the tablet comes rushing they shouldnt run away from it to get the big heal from it, but it is something that will take a bit of time getting used to. Mantras are imo more difficult to get everyone accustomed to. Because of the cone shape it is very important that your firebrands stand furthest away from boss (or in front of boss) so they can hit the most players with their cone skills. It also means that your dps players need to stack behind the boss properly. This sounds like a lot of work, but Ive noticed that most players learn quite fast where to stand for healing/boons, so it really shouldnt be that big of an issue. But it is something to watch out for, and correct/point out if necessary.

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Following is a list of each boss encounter, and which mechanics could be done by whom.

Vale Guardian:

  • Renegade or firebrand tank
  • Seeker control -> ventari elite knockback, shield5 or tome3 on firebrand, slb/druid with entangle

Gorseval:

  • Firebrand tank is clearly better here, but renegade can tank also
  • F1Tome3/Axe3 can be used to pull in ghosts
  • Without entangle its better to split up and send one group south, the other grp north during split phase, though renegade brings quite a bit of chill/immob as well

Sabetha:

  • Healfirebrand can kite quite easily, mantra range is far enough
  • F1Tome3/Axe3 for pulls before/during flamewall, the only 240 radius needs some getting used to, but its doable
  • A scourge helps a lot here with epidemic, but its not necessary

Slothasor:

  • Stunbreak -> elite mantra on fb
  • F1Tome3/Axe3 for pulls, also its very important to NOT drift towards wall and tank tightly on mid/towards entrance to stay on/near to spawnpoint of slublings

Matthias:

  • Condi remove mantra helps a lot, but so does also torch5 and purging flames on fb
  • Make sure to always heal up on boss after each bomb < 60%
  • Wall of Reflection for reflect, or (way more risky though) you can use F3Tome3 alternatingly, best bring 1 WoR and then use F3Tome3 for backup imo

Escort:

  • No portal means having to "escort" 3 dps players through the cave, its doable, but its easier to just log onto a chrono for this, Im sorry

Keep Construct:

  • Firebrands can push quite comfortably with axe autoattacks, using axe3 for pulling orb towards a rift is kind of risky, but not more so than using axe4 on slb/druid for it
  • Tank can be whoever likes it

Xera:

  • Tank can be whoever, theres down and upsides to each
  • F1Tome3 is quite useful for pulling in adds, also GS5 and axe3
  • You need at least 1 dedicated cleave dps (holo, scourge, any build with a bigger cleave area than sword weaver or staff daredevil does its job)
  • To not kill yourself with staff5 cc on renegade, if you need to cc xera after she was pulled to the edge, stand on the edge and use staff5 towards mid (!)

Cairn:

  • Dont think theres any mechanics, is there? Aegis helps.

Mo:

  • Renegade is best suited to take dispell imo, but it really doesnt matter much

Samarog:

  • You can stack quite a lot of cc on healfirebrands -> hammer4, bane signet, spirit hammer, shield5, axe3, F1Tome3
  • To push Rigom -> shield5, hammer4, hammer3 (immob), and if necessary followed by F1Tome3
  • Its rather beneficial to let two dps grab aggro that dont bring much cc, or have to sacrifice a lot for cc, but well... thats not really something new

Deimos:

  • If you want to play it really offensive, you can let a fb handkite, otherwise a dedicated additional one as usual
  • Tank/BK: one firebrand tank or bk, the renegade tank or bk

Desmina:

  • You can push with hammer4+hammer3 on fb if you are offtank. When golem is about to spawn, run out of the group towards edge, wait for golem to reach you, then hammer4 and hammer3... or shield5 and scepter3... whichever you like better.... or bring a druid
  • GiversFirebrands are quite good at tanking desmina, but you can also let a renegade in clerics gear do it

River:

  • Its meta already basically, just ditch the chronos and add another healer so you have 4

Eyes statues:

  • If you split up here, make sure to have 25 might on each side, fb can stack some might with scepter2 and mantras, but needs another 5-10 stacks from either bs or renegade
  • Sigil of paralyzation is the only stun-duration-increase, so you really should use that

Dhuum:

  • Imo the safest solution to dhuum with fb/ren comp is to just stack up boon duration to 100% on each build
  • Tank -> heal renegade
  • Green+Kite -> condi or harrier druid
  • Other 2 greens -> firebrands
  • You can vary that, go more offensive by bringing quickbrands and sending up bs and a dps, but the druid kiter is really too strong to change that

CA:

  • F1Tome3, axe3, GS5 for pulling in sword mobs /ccing shields
  • Renegade can use axe5, Icerazor, Darkrazor, staff5, staff2 chain for ccing shields

Largos:

  • Its better to zerg largos with this comp, though you can also go with 2x tank renegade, 2x quickbrand for a faster kill

Qadim:

  • Maintank -> either a firebrand or (in my experience better) the renegade
  • The rest really depends on the general tactic used, you can send one firebrand to babysit kiter if necessary, to do 3rd lamp, tank mat
  • You might need an additional might stacker here, since the renegade is often too far away or needs his energy for survival, but a power BS can do that with dumplings as well for those phases (hydra mostly)
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On to the funpart - the possible comps:1) Suicide comp:Grp1 -> Quickbrand + condi renegade with 80% boonduration and righteous rebel traitGrp2 -> Quickbrand + harrier druid (or condi druid for the true believers among you)

2) 2Healer comp:Grp1 -> Quickbrand + harrier/clerics renegade(tank)Grp2 -> Quickbrand + harrier druid

3) 3Healer comp:Grp1 -> Harrier/givers healfb (tank?) + harrier/clerics renegade (tank?)Grp2 -> Quickbrand + harrier druid1x givers/harrier healfb (tank?), 1x harrier/clerics renegade (tank?), 1x harrier druid, 1x quickbrand

4) 4Healer comp:Grp1 -> Harrier/givers healfb (tank?) + harrier/clerics renegade (tank?)Grp2 -> Harrier healfb + harrier druid

5) Pure comp:Grp1 -> Harrier/givers healfb (tank?) + harrier/clerics renegade (tank?)Grp2 -> Harrier healfb + power BS (to fill in missing might via PS and dumplings)

Ofc you can replace the druid with whatever provides needed might if you want to skip on spirits or have a slb providing frost spirit. These are suggestions, not a conclusive list.

/edit: Fixed typo, it 80% not 30%, sorry :(

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And at last, the builds.

Firebrand Builds:Quickbrandhttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQRArf3fnsADFBjdBDWCBEEhF/BL7BVhyQWBgKQdaviuRHpA-jxhAQB6c/BbqEEiq/AgnAAA1PASlfW8kAQKAe2VB-eRotation is quite similar to dps firebrand, you just have to use your heal and quickness mantra additionally on cooldown, as well as Feel My Wrath elite shout.You can drop boonduration down to 12%, but thats cutting it very close imo.

Healfirebrandhttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAneSnsADFBjtDBGCBkCjF+BbPj+RPpYBgZQRITG6HA-jxhXQB+T9H6pPIUPBAddKAaoSQAs/ACV+RKA/GsB-eDont let yourself be fooled by the lack of "big heals". Healfb does lots of small healing ticks, as well as provide a ton of aegis. Mainhand really depends on what you want to add to the build. Axe offers pull and fury, mace offers personal defense, more healing and yet more aegis, scepter offers immob and mightstacks, sword offers teleport, small reflect and like axe fury.You'll need at least axe and scepter as weapons for different situations. Sword really is more of a gimmick nowadays, and mace is often too much additional defense.The open utility slot you can bring whatever is needed. Hold the line for more protection, Wall of Reflection for reflects, Bane Signet and/or Spirit Hammer for cc, Stand Your Ground for even more stability/retal, Purging Flames or Mantra of Lore for additional condi clear, Merciful Intervention for the partial revive/heal, Retreat for a long lasting aegis and swiftness.As for rotation, hold your symbol on cooldown for healing and the boon it provides, same goes for heal- and quickness mantras, as well as hold the line if you bring it. The rest use situationally. Elite mantra if you need stability, bane signet for cc, WoR for reflects etc.Its also important to not forget about your tome abilities.On F1 tome, the most interesting part is skill3, which is a 240 radius aoe pull, that pulls all enemies onto one spot.For clutch heals you have your F2 tome, best place a symbol before using your F2 tome, then start there with skill5, skill2 if theres conditions and spam skill1 for the rest. You can also add skill3 for some extra boons, if you dont need to outheal some big mechanic and can spare the charge.Your F3 tome has a reflect bubble on skill3, some resistance on skill4, lots of boons on skill5. If you use it, for reflect for example, always empty your charges using skill5, skill4, then spam the rest away with skill1.

TankfirebrandNothing much changes, just bring enough givers pieces to get high enough toughness, and a mace.

Renegade Builds:Harrier Renegadehttp://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAsXmnXMnNSumzJRZzNlst5oSY38UJ4bOskFNlatJUF/B5R2ktCAA-jxhXQB+T9nGqEMUnCAAs/A90HornAACV+RKA/GsB-eTheres a very good video on harrier alacrity renegade on fennecs youtube channel, it still applies, nothing really changed there.

Important to know, and a mistake I see way too often, your mainheal on ventari is NOT natural harmony. Natural harmony is your clutch heal or if you have to outheal mechanics (VG greens, matthias when rezzing someone in well, etc.). Your main heal rather, is just moving your tablet with your healskill; just move it around minimally for the heal to take effect.As to your ccs. Staff5 is your main cc and it does around 800 defiance bar dmg to small hitboxes and >1k defiance bar dmg to large hitboxes. Additionally you have your Darkrazor summons on kalla, though its not a fast cc, and the aoe push on ventari elite. Staff2 sometimes works as a cc, but more often not since the enemy has to attack for it to unlock the skill. Axe5 is another pull.

Harrier/cleric RenegadeFor tanking you can just switch your armor to clerics with durability runes for additional toughness. Clerics because kalla elite scales with power/healing power. If you dont want to optimize towards kalla elite, then givers+monk is also fine tbh. The damage difference isnt huge, and your kalla elite uptime isnt that high if you have to tank and provide alacrity anyway. So, basically, if you are regularly tanking bosses like desmina that you really should bring > 2k toughness on, just go with givers+monk. Otherwise clerics+monk/durability is more than enough to tank.

Condi-alacrity RenegadeReplace one sigil on weapons with concentration sigil and runes with traveler. But that build I barely tested myself, and tbh, I dont think its worth it that much. It does around 20k dps on golem which is decent, but really rather niche. If someone else wants to test this further, go for it. Im not that good on condi renegade to begin with, so theres sure ways to optimize it.

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FB earns 250 toughness because of quickness; but even with the aegis spam has less, or less efficient, utilities to tank (and keep boonshare). With 11kHp it can be a bit tight.On one hand it's complicated to set an other tank, on the other hand FB is not that easy to play Tank imo, and healing FB is redundant with Renegade .... If you have a Minstrel FB for WvW, don't change the armor yet or acquaint your tank.
Renegade needs some skillful; rotation is very beginner friendly EXCEPT if you need others utility skills like Darkrazor, staff 5, panic heals... it can drain energy pretty fast.

Otherwise Renegade + Viper/support FB for the main DPS group is a very strong pillar and big DPS benefit.Con : Yes the range and moving bosses are an issue ( mantras and ventari ), CC.

The last time we have run :1)Harrier Ren + Harrier FB2)Minstrel Chrono + support Soulbeast (spirit , entangle or One Wolf Pack etc)+ PS War3 healers, because we still wanted chrono to taunt ( and harrier/commander/zerk set is a nonsense for +2k DPS ...) and to secure the energy management of the renegade; but in the end we didn't lose DPS/ DPS Classes, on contrary.

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Ran Harrier FB with regular chrono for fractals and I have to admit it's a flat out superior support compared to druid and we phased bosses fairly quickly still while noticing far better lack of interruption to DPS thanks to both the chrono and FB providing tons of aegis on top of constant stability from FB to make Skorvald and MAMA's phases a joke.

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@stone cold.8609 said:I'm starting to see more support FBs in T4 fractals as well. The constant stability the FB brings is so very useful. Only issue I've seen when playing with one is learning to stay in the cone shaped area of their boons.

Their mantra is both a circle and a cone. If you're close like you would for chrono wells you'll get the boons regardless of not being in a cone.

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Aaand like usual, this heal-FB build doesn't have Empowering Might traited which is the main might source for boon-FB builds. Pure of Heart is nice for heals, yush, but with heal/boon renegade you're already good with heals, especially if both FBs are healers. With Empowering Might+quickmantra you're already close to 20 might uptime and with scepter you're overcapping.You may want to take Invigorating Bulwark for that juicy 25% outgoing heals as you should already get enough protection with shield 4, hammer symbol (if you use hammer, you can reach full might for sub by alternating between scepter and axe off-cd) and renegade's summons. Not to mention possible herald as 4th healer (in which case you only need to worry about quickness and alacrity)...If the boss doesn't need stab, you can use Renewed Focus or Signet of Courage as elite. You get enough Stalwart Speed procs from using heal mantra. (You'll want to use it before it reaches 3 charges to avoid wasting good aegis). Or you can use elite shout for fury and guaranteed (read: excessive) quickness while allowing for ex. scepter+mace as main-hands for capped might+lots of extra blocks and regen.

These are just Kitty's thoughts on the build as long-time heal-FB player.

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@LadyKitty.6120 said:Aaand like usual, this heal-FB build doesn't have Empowering Might traited which is the main might source for boon-FB builds. Pure of Heart is nice for heals, yush, but with heal/boon renegade you're already good with heals, especially if both FBs are healers. With Empowering Might+quickmantra you're already close to 20 might uptime and with scepter you're overcapping.

With a boon/heal Renegade you are also topped off at 25 might so I am not sure which point you are trying to make?

Why would you take traits which provide you with almost 20 might, when the 2nd support provides 25 already? Your point is only interesting when playing FB+chrono. This thread is about FB+Ren.

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stone cold.8609 said:I'm starting to see more support FBs in T4 fractals as well. The constant stability the FB brings is so very useful. Only issue I've seen when playing with one is learning to stay in the cone shaped area of their boons.

Until another or new specialization that can share Aegis pops-up, till then FB will stick.

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@Eramonster.2718 said:

stone cold.8609 said:I'm starting to see more support FBs in T4 fractals as well. The constant stability the FB brings is so very useful. Only issue I've seen when playing with one is learning to stay in the cone shaped area of their boons.

Until another or new specialization that can share Aegis pops-up, till then FB will stick.

Not only aegis, stability is the big deal here.

I don't think people understand how disruptive Skorvald and MAMA's final phases are when you don't have stability; it's a massive DPS boost when your party members can plant down and turret without fear of being pinballed around.

Same principle applies to Artsariv if the elite add that spits out the knockdown balls is not dealt with.

Stability in fractal CM's and even ones like Twilight Oasis is one of the most underrated boons that actually boost performance as much as might or quickness or alacrity do.

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For a lot of fractals and bosses !Chaos, mama, Ensolyss, Ice Elemental, Snowblind, why not the ettin, captain Dulfy or even the Archdiviner.... Some people will say it's babysitting or "skillful counterproductive" but in a way this is what we're looking for in Pug, Aegis + stab cancel half the mechanicals we can ecounter, and so time saving.Obviously you lack portal, the focus pull, that help a lot in fractals, but add a Mirage or a DPS chrono, problem soved.

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@LadyKitty.6120 said:Aaand like usual, this heal-FB build doesn't have Empowering Might traited which is the main might source for boon-FB builds. Pure of Heart is nice for heals, yush, but with heal/boon renegade you're already good with heals, especially if both FBs are healers. With Empowering Might+quickmantra you're already close to 20 might uptime and with scepter you're overcapping.

I tested Empowering Might excessively. Without Commanders Gear its pointless. Yes, I tried accuracy sigil. I tried precision infusions. I tried leadership + magi. I tried precision food. You need > 50% crit chance for empowering might to become useful. And then you give up aegis heal, which is quite nice. Post patch, its just not worth it anymore, at all. Because to reach 25 with it, you need way more precision than current boonduration+healing power setups allow for. Using empowering might comes, for me, with a way too high cost in other areas. Maybe with new stat combinations... or if they change it to proc without crit. But as it is? And just to say "I can stack might!" without regards to PS trait and / or renegade might output... sorry, thats not how I build comps and builds.

@LadyKitty.6120 said:You may want to take Invigorating Bulwark for that juicy 25% outgoing heals as you should already get enough protection with shield 4, hammer symbol (if you use hammer, you can reach full might for sub by alternating between scepter and axe off-cd) and renegade's summons.

You only can bring 2 weapon sets to a fight. Which is kind of the problem I pointed out above. Scepter+Axe+Hammer -> 3 weaponsets.And tbh you only bring a healfb in a fb/ren comp on bosses you NEED him. Those are bosses you need to overstack on boons because you need that protection/fury to last for mechanics. Your axe/hammer rotation - on top of it being a really fixed rotation - can only stack up around 10-12 seconds protection - if everyone can stack on boss for several weaponswaps.

Thats another thing. For hammer to give protection you need to stand at an attackable target. Thats not always the case. Protectors Impact you can cast without a target at the spot you are standing. together with shield4 thats around 12-13 seconds of protection you can stack up for lets say Dhuum 10% phase running out, and that without adding anything to your buff up rotation. Another alternative would be to bring Hold the Line and Invigorating Bulwark, which is what Id do on Dhuum.Also, imo its not that juicy. You alread have 10 from transference sigil, 10 from buff food, 10+10 from monks runes. Thats 10+10+10+10 = 40. Your aegis trait heals for around 1250. So without invigorating bulwark thats 1750, with full stacks its 2062.5. Thats only 312.5 more. Not enough to be relevant in clutch situations, and unneeded all the other times that you are already overhealing anyway. Remember, healing modifiers arent stacked multiplicative.

@LadyKitty.6120 said:Not to mention possible herald as 4th healer (in which case you only need to worry about quickness and alacrity)...

I think everybody has enough of a brain to know to adapt them to other comps. In terms of <4 healer comps, quickbrand would be superior to a dps boon herald in terms of dps. So you'd rather take a harrier herald over a harrier fb.

If the boss doesn't need stab, you can use Renewed Focus or Signet of Courage as elite. You get enough Stalwart Speed procs from using heal mantra. (You'll want to use it before it reaches 3 charges to avoid wasting good aegis). Or you can use elite shout for fury and guaranteed (read: excessive) quickness while allowing for ex. scepter+mace as main-hands for capped might+lots of extra blocks and regen.

The only time Feel My Wrath would be useful, is if you run Monk's Focus for fury. Otherwise its unneeded and tbh, just plain a waste of a good elite slot. Renewed focus I tried, and tbh, its unnecessary. The channel takes too long as well. But yeah, except for shout, all elites can work here. Mantra is nice for adding retal though.

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@"Zhaid Zhem.6508" said:For a lot of fractals and bosses !Chaos, mama, Ensolyss, Ice Elemental, Snowblind, why not the ettin, captain Dulfy or even the Archdiviner.... Some people will say it's babysitting or "skillful counterproductive" but in a way this is what we're looking for in Pug, Aegis + stab cancel half the mechanicals we can ecounter, and so time saving.Obviously you lack portal, the focus pull, that help a lot in fractals, but add a Mirage or a DPS chrono, problem soved.

Agree with Zhaid for PUGs. So I've been looking at the builds that Yasi posted and have a question. If I am trying to maximize aegis and stability up time while still having some DPS to carry if needed, which one would I use? The quickbrand build, but with Mantra of Liberation?

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@stone cold.8609 said:

@"Zhaid Zhem.6508" said:For a lot of fractals and bosses !Chaos, mama, Ensolyss, Ice Elemental, Snowblind, why not the ettin, captain Dulfy or even the Archdiviner.... Some people will say it's babysitting or "skillful counterproductive" but in a way this is what we're looking for in Pug, Aegis + stab cancel half the mechanicals we can ecounter, and so time saving.Obviously you lack portal, the focus pull, that help a lot in fractals, but add a Mirage or a DPS chrono, problem soved.

Agree with Zhaid for PUGs. So I've been looking at the builds that Yasi posted and have a question. If I am trying to maximize aegis and stability up time while still having some DPS to carry if needed, which one would I use? The quickbrand build, but with Mantra of Liberation?

If you remove Feel My Wrath you have to up your quickness duration by quite a bit. So that means giving up dps runes and bringing firebrand runes.But, Quickbrand already puts out aegis every 10 seconds, which is quite a lot for its dps. Id try it without firebrand runes first and see if its even necessary.

For fractals, go with zerker armor, packrunes, concentration and force sigil. Basically dh build but with firebrand traitline (and traits) and some boonduration. It has greater burst and you have 1 utility slot free for for example retreat or syg or wor (compared to quickbrand). But this build only works in fractals due to fractal potions. Add to that a harrier renegade and you get a comp that offers more healing, more cc, more stability/aegis and more dps than druid/chrono.. The only thing you are missing is ports for skips (but a thief/tempest/pchrono can do that just as well) and frostspirit (slb can bring one without much dps loss). For pulls you have GS5 and F1tome skill 3.

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Elite has to be Feel My Wrath for fury/quickness, otherwise good. A guildmate that I run daily fractals with came up with that build and we have been testing it in fractals for some time now. It works very well. For skips we use a thief or tempest. Power chronos burst takes sadly way too long for fractals.

For bosses/instabilities that need more protection, you can switch out syg for hold the line. On Siax for example extra aegis is great for the aoe that spawns adds, so retreat there. With aegis up everybody can stay in melee range, which means you get a lot less poison-puke fields :)

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Can't wait to see firebrand tanks to be absolutely torn to shreds by Xera and Desmina. The problem I see with these builds is that you'd have to relog your core support framework every couple of bosses, which is annoying af, takes time, takes a lot of organization and willingness of the support players to equip and learn more classes.

I think the relogging part is the most important point. For that reason I doubt we'll see this comp in w5 and w3 any time soon. Highly doubt we'll see it in w6, because Largos portal strat is too strong, and so are portals at Qadim. They also save time at w1 gorse pre, sab pre. Which leaves w4 as a wing you can clear witht his comp. Which, to me, begs the question: Why would you play fb/ren in a fullclear in any other wing, then? Relogging takes time, reorganizing takes time. These aren't "we finish the boss 20s faster" timesaves, sadly. Maybe you could solve these problems (including escort) with a portaling Mirage / Power Chrono, but then again you'd have to relog to a tanking Chrono on Xera and Desmina or your raid will become a clown fiesta. It would also lock you into 7 fixed classes to play, lul.

I think this comp has a long way to go in raids, at least for fullclears.

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@"rabenpriester.7129" said:Can't wait to see firebrand tanks to be absolutely torn to shreds by Xera and Desmina. The problem I see with these builds is that you'd have to relog your core support framework every couple of bosses, which is annoying af, takes time, takes a lot of organization and willingness of the support players to equip and learn more classes.

I think the relogging part is the most important point. For that reason I doubt we'll see this comp in w5 and w3 any time soon. Highly doubt we'll see it in w6, because Largos portal strat is too strong, and so are portals at Qadim. They also save time at w1 gorse pre, sab pre. Which leaves w4 as a wing you can clear witht his comp. Which, to me, begs the question: Why would you play fb/ren in a fullclear in any other wing, then? Relogging takes time, reorganizing takes time. These aren't "we finish the boss 20s faster" timesaves, sadly. Maybe you could solve these problems (including escort) with a portaling Mirage / Power Chrono, but then again you'd have to relog to a tanking Chrono on Xera and Desmina or your raid will become a clown fiesta. It would also lock you into 7 fixed classes to play, lul.

I think this comp has a long way to go in raids, at least for fullclears.

Eh, portals really aren't that strong on largos. Qadim sure, largos not so much.Revenant can probably tank xera with shield or jalis, that should be fine. In an organized group dps players relog for most bosses anyway. Having supports relog wouldn't change anything.

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@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:Eh, portals really aren't that strong on largos. Qadim sure, largos not so much.

For usual statics they are. The portal strat makes it faster and much safer especially if you don't have 6 top mirage players knowing how to properly deal with every mechanic + dealing tons of dmg with that class.

Revenant can probably tank xera with shield or jalis, that should be fine. In an organized group dps players relog for most bosses anyway. Having supports relog wouldn't change anything.

Having to relog dps players isn't much of a hassle most often just a few clicks - log out with 2 click - select the other dps class in a doubleclick - wait in loading screen, click the raid wing, wait and go. Changing support classes most often means your top chrono tank needs to play fb/ren at almost the same level. Much harder than to play dps if you ask me since it isn't just playing a rotation. Furthermore the above mentioned different strategies for bosses make this composition not really smooth in terms of an organized full clear. Our team is far from being perfect or a speed run guild but it would cost too much time to specifically swap out so many classes on different players and this for almost every boss. It's very far from being optimal for us.It might work very well for pugging specific bosses or in W4 as a whole.

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@Vinceman.4572 said:

@RaidsAreEasyAF.8652 said:Eh, portals really aren't that strong on largos. Qadim sure, largos not so much.

For usual statics they are. The portal strat makes it faster and much safer especially if you don't have 6 top mirage players knowing how to properly deal with every mechanic + dealing tons of dmg with that class.

Revenant can probably tank xera with shield or jalis, that should be fine. In an organized group dps players relog for most bosses anyway. Having supports relog wouldn't change anything.

Having to relog dps players isn't much of a hassle most often just a few clicks - log out with 2 click - select the other dps class in a doubleclick - wait in loading screen, click the raid wing, wait and go. Changing support classes most often means your top chrono tank needs to play fb/ren at almost the same level. Much harder than to play dps if you ask me since it isn't just playing a rotation. Furthermore the above mentioned different strategies for bosses make this composition not really smooth in terms of an organized full clear. Our team is far from being perfect or a speed run guild but it would cost too much time to specifically swap out so many classes on different players and this for almost every boss. It's very far from being optimal for us.It might work very well for pugging specific bosses or in W4 as a whole.

Regarding the portal strat, I really don't see how this is safer. With our static we didn't think it would be safer + we didn't really save any time. We actually lost a few seconds.

I play Chrono tank myself in my static and I don't think that renegade or fb are harder to play than chrono. Renegade is really flexible since it only needs kalla. If you really need more go herald and equip a shield. FB has a lot of aegis so tanking stuff like vg is pretty easy. Sharing aegis for gorseval is probably also easier than old distort share but harder than new aegis share from chrono. I think.

If any group swaps dps classes, they can also swap support classes. That is, if you care about boss kill times of course.

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