[PvE] Quickbrand

I'm seriously looking at making the switch from Core Guard to Quickbrand. What kept me in Core was I disliked DH, loved GS, and really liked the added group utility the Virtues trait line provided. Now FB has way more utility to bring to the table, but I didn't want to go condi, and I read that power GS FB was a waste of time...until now apparently.

So while the attack rotation for Quickbrand is pretty similar to DH/Core, I have a lot to learn about FB, mainly which chapters of which tomes I should be using.

From what I can see, the obvious ones to use would be:F1 - Chap 4F2 - Chap 2F3 - Chap 3 (when needed) and Chap 5

But there seems to be so many others that look good. Like F1 Chap 3 for an extra pull when binding blade is on CD, or F2 Chap 5. What about just using F2 Chap 3 for group swiftness? Is that better than putting F3 on cooldown to use Chap 1?

I assume I should be getting in and out tomes as quickly as possible as I'm DPS/support, not full support, so I'm trying to get a feel for what tomes/chapters I'm supposed to weave into my attacks.

TLDR: What tomes do you use and when and why?

Thanks :)

Unfortunately, I think Tomes are the worst part of FB. Not because they aren't useful, but because I don't feel you have many play options with them.

For example, if you use F2 ... why would you NOT faceroll all the skills? ... the CD on the Tome is longer than the skills themselves. Same with F1 ... just faceroll to maximize burning ... no one in their right mind would use F1, use only ONE of the pages, then leave it. There might be situations where you want to play optimally and just use a single or couple skills, but in the end, that's not very many.

People used to complain about the illusion of choice ... I feel this is really what they mean ... if you aren't using all the pages in the Tome, you simply aren't getting the best value for that CD rotation on the Tome ... and that means blind execution in most cases.

There is a reason to use only one skill in tomes. Why waste time when you can get more damage when only using one and returning to weapon?

@Obtena.7952 said:Unfortunately, I think Tomes are the worst part of FB. Not because they aren't useful, but because I don't feel you have many play options with them.

For example, if you use F2 ... why would you NOT faceroll all the skills? ... the CD on the Tome is longer than the skills themselves. Same with F1 ... just faceroll to maximize burning ... no one in their right mind would use F1, use only ONE of the pages, then leave it. There might be situations where you want to play optimally and just use a single or couple skills, but in the end, that's not very many.

People used to complain about the illusion of choice ... I feel this is really what they mean ... if you aren't using all the pages in the Tome, you simply aren't getting the best value for that CD rotation on the Tome ... and that means blind execution in most cases.

I have to disagree here.

Tome 1: primarily damage tome, thus sees use most of the time in burn builds like quick brand. Yet still you can use Tome 1s skill 3 to pull enemies together while playing a support build. Do you want to stay in tome 1 for the entire duration? Depends on how much damage your group eats.

While on a burn build, there are specific priorities in skills to use. Tome 2, 4 and 5 take precedent over 1 and 3.

Tome 2: healing tome. Tome 2 cleanses, absolutely useless when no need for condition cleanse is required, can be used by non support builds though. Tome 3 is of little use in a meta where you already have those boons. Once again, there is a priority system in place, tome 4 and 5 should be cast before tome 1 to maximize its efficiency.

There is no reason to use all 5 charges as dps if all you needed was some condi cleanse for example.

Tome 3: the aegis and utility tome. Useful abilities like a reflect bubble on tome 3 (once again of use to any build), aegis spam on 1, stability, aegis and protection on 5. Resistance on 4 and a taunt on 2. This tome especially can be used very differently depending on which situation calls for which utility. Most often people simply use skill 5, then spam skill 1 (which is fine if aegis is all you wanted).

Once again, if all you wanted was the reflect bubble or some stability, why linger when playing a dps.

While face-rolling the skills certainly might work, tomes can be used efficiently and specifically aimed at achieving specific goals. Using all the pages of a tome often only makes sense when this relates to the role you have in the group (tome 1 as dps, tome 2 and 3 as support), and makes less sense when switching to a tome which does not lend its self to your role for short term utility.

I'm not disagreeing you can play the tomes optimally, but their isn't much incentive to do so either, especially on F2. There isn't a 'bonus' to only using one skill within a tome and the individual skills don't have enough flavour to make them very interesting to play as separate skills. Tomes are designed (unintentionally) to be used up. There are priorities but you're still not just using a tome of just that one skill and leaving it. I mean, we have a trait that adds pages ... why? How does that trait make sense in how tomes are designed if the intention is to use only the pages you need? It doesn't. It's a bad trait that reflects a bad implementation.

I mean, the time argument doesn't work for me. That's a few seconds. That's relevant to people doing speed runs on instanced group content and that's not many people.

Anyways, I think FB has alot to be desired for how it's implemented; nice concept though. If there was more variation of effects on the individual skills, there would be more reason to consider how they are used. Or maybe they could have considered mixing some of the effects; for example, I don't see any reason why skills in F1 can't do other things than burn foes. We got a pull (checkmark)... and then 4 other burning skills. BORING. F2 is about the same ... actually my big problem with F2 is that it's loaded with healing/cleansing ... is a there really a place in this game for a burst healing/cleanse effect once every tome ICD? I want healing cleansing when it's needed, not only when the CD is down. Same with F3 (or sorry, I can't give us reflect, I just blew the tome for that one other thing and left for that 2 extra seconds of DPS ... and we have to wait 50 seconds).

I guess people make it work for them anyways; I just think it falls short.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Tome 3: the aegis and utility tome. Useful abilities like a reflect bubble on tome 3 (once again of use to any build), aegis spam on 1, stability, aegis and protection on 5. Resistance on 4 and a taunt on 2. This tome especially can be used very differently depending on which situation calls for which utility. Most often people simply use skill 5, then spam skill 1 (which is fine if aegis is all you wanted).

Not like it matters that much but Tome 3 has been changed like 2 patch ago where the aegis on skill 1 got removed. There you go! Glad to help you <3

@Nath Forge Tempete.1645 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

Tome 3

: the aegis and utility tome. Useful abilities like a reflect bubble on tome 3 (once again of use to any build), aegis spam on 1, stability, aegis and protection on 5. Resistance on 4 and a taunt on 2. This tome especially can be used very differently depending on which situation calls for which utility. Most often people simply use skill 5, then spam skill 1 (which is fine if aegis is all you wanted).

True my bad, wasn't paying attention that much since I often only every need to use tome 2 when on heal FB but that leaves tome 3 skill 1 as stability source only. Makes the entire tome 3 less focused on skill 1.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Nath Forge Tempete.1645 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

Tome 3

: the aegis and utility tome. Useful abilities like a reflect bubble on tome 3 (once again of use to any build), aegis spam on 1, stability, aegis and protection on 5. Resistance on 4 and a taunt on 2. This tome especially can be used very differently depending on which situation calls for which utility. Most often people simply use skill 5, then spam skill 1 (which is fine if aegis is all you wanted).

well skill one gives swiftness and stability still ... and resistance (number 4) is still a stun break ... plus aegis and retaliation on skill 5 ... that's very good.

My issues with the tomes is three folds:

1) to use the sustain tomes (resolve and courage) you cannot do damage. This maybe okay for support builds, but for damage builds it is a serious issue in your ability to pressure opponents in PvP or doing damage in PvE.

2) the sustain offered by the tomes requires investment in healing power and boon duration. If not, the tomes are relatively not effective. That is not due to the tomes being weak, but the time needed to use the tome skills plus the constant pressure from opponents makes the tomes not effective under pressure without massive investment in support stats.

3) outside of PvE, tomes damage capacity is limited. Using ToJ, even with full condi investment is largely ineffective. It is heavy melee and too much casting of 1-2 condis. A smart opponent can simply eat it then just hit cleanse once. It is also very easy to avoid or dodge.

Due to these limitations FB is regulated to condi builds in PvE and support builds in PvP. I really wish sometimes I could play FB with core virtues. For damage builds (outside condi in PvE) this will be much better.

@otto.5684 said:My issues with the tomes is three folds:

1) to use the sustain tomes (resolve and courage) you cannot do damage. This maybe okay for support builds, but for damage builds it is a serious issue in your ability to pressure opponents in PvP or doing damage in PvE.

2) the sustain offered by the tomes requires investment in healing power and boon duration. If not, the tomes are relatively not effective. That is not due to the tomes being weak, but the time needed to use the tome skills plus the constant pressure from opponents makes the tomes not effective under pressure with massive investment in support stats.

3) outside of PvE damage capacity is limited. Using ToJ, even with full condi investment is largely ineffective. It is heavy melee andtoo much casting of 1-2 condis. A smart opponent can simply eat it then just hot cleanse once. It is also very easy to avoid or dodge.

Due to this limitations FB is regulated to condi builds in PvE and support builds in PvP. I really wish sometimes I could play FB with core virtues. For damage builds (outside condi in PvE) will be much better.

Well the build is aimed for Fractal play, keeping up Quickness @ 100% using some Diviner gear., and that's actually the easy part, so long as people stack. What I'm struggling with is while my virtues used to be as simple as pressing F1-F3 before, and running Core I had the Virtues traitline to boost them even more, now I have these tomes to juggle, all the while trying to maintain my own DPS and survivability.

Last night was pretty rough, as I was downed more times during last nights dailies than in the past few weeks combined., but I'm going to keep practicing and see if I find it enjoyable, and if not, I'll just switch back to Core Guard :)

@otto.5684 said:Due to these limitations FB is regulated

regulated my ass. not everything is a speed clear world record. I was playing zerk fb a while ago and it was fine.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:Due to these limitations FB is regulated

I really wish people would stop defending poorly designed and/or optimized crap. This “ohh I used and it worked for me” means absolutely nothing. If statistically it does not work well do not defend it and the devs need to fucking fix it.

There is no optimal power FB build in PvE. It does not exist. There is no optimal any dps build for FB in PvP. These are major design issues that require devs to address. All they have been doing is fucking nerf support FB in PvP (rightfully so) with no consideration of anything else, for almost a year now (okay the killed hammer last patch).

And you know, I play condi core guardian in sPvP with success. Does that mean that condi core guardian works fine? (no it doesn’t)

@otto.5684 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:Due to these limitations FB is regulated

While I have no interest in engaging in a pissing match over this, that a guild like Discretize lists Quickbrand as a 'meta' build would appear to contradict you.https://discretize.eu/builds/guardian/hybrid-firebrand

But perhaps we are talking about different things, as Quickbrand is technically a Support build, not pure DPS. If we were talking pure DPS FB vs. DH or Core, I'd agree with you, but Quickbrand is about sacrificing a small portion of Power Guard DPS for 100% quickness uptime.

EDIT: To further clarify, before I would open LFG with my Druid friend and LF Chrono/Firebrand + DPS. Now playing Quickbrand, my LFG is just "LF DPS". We have no source of alacrity, but I honestly feel that quickness has more of an impact on DPS at the fractal level, and if we score a DPS Chrono we'll get portals and focus pulls.

@Turkeyspit.3965 I agree with that FB power providing quickness for a small group (like fractals) is very useful. But you also have to take in consideration that you can do the same thing with condi dps while doing far more damage.

Not saying power support is useless, but FB needs much work to open diversity beyond being condi damage centric in PvE and only support in PvP. And the primary issue is the tome design. It is severely limiting.

@otto.5684 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:Due to these limitations FB is regulated

With this I agree. Tomes just aren't executed well, even if people figure out how to hack them into decent gameplay. It makes little sense for Anet to give us a significant volume of mostly reactionary, focused skills that are rendered useless if you lock yourself out of using the tome for the duration of the CD. It sounds great to have the variety in a tome, but in practice, it's worthless to execute a single focused skill behind a tome you might need and not have access to the rest. Your previous post nailed the problems that exist with these tomes. I won't sing their praises; Anet traded good play-ability to give us banks of facerolling skills.

Here are the rotations I use for each Tome:

F1: 3,5,2,1,4 - Just pull and lay down massive burns. Little to think about here since every skill does pretty much the same thingF2: 5,2,1,4,3 - You can skip 2 if there aren't enough conditions on your group, otherwise, why would you do anything else?F3: 4,5,3,1,2 - Basically, get everyone up, buffed, and back in the fight.

Honestly, I see no reason to do anything else with these Tomes except execute them in that order. F1 is purely offensive where little affects alternate rotations, F2 is purely healing with a slight variation depending on conditions, F3 is just a massive buff.

I'm open to anyone that wants to suggest alternate rotations for different situations but since burns, heals and boons stack ... I see almost no real impact on alternate roations.

I don't get why they lengthen the CD of tomes in pvp. Instead for both Pve and PvP they should lower the duration of some boons or look at the CD of chapters, it's a nonsense to have boons or effect that last longer than the CD itself.

PvE. Personnaly I have Zerk, Viper and Harrier; all "quickness bot" builds are okai. Zerk is an option in a static group, with everybody zerk or diviner and great burst. Otherwise if you have healer or semi-afk members in the group and can't really burst, Viper will give you more DPS.I still favor Harrier; it allows to loop stab too, fury, protection, etc. And afer many attempts, because of new instabilities, like mobs enraging, - 30% HP, conditions/toxic trail everywhere etc, you can't run PUG without a healer/boon spam.It functions better than Ren with a Chrono or other supports; and also because Ren are a very rare creature in fractals, so a diviner/harrier ren is like a shiny unicorn.

PvP. You still have core and DH, of course you have the bunker FB but you also have the mantra mender/harrier FB that is just broken in 2v2 (may be more boring than weaver vs weaver : FB vs FB with 25 might, retal, fury, quickness, protection, stab, aegis, heals .... ) Condi Fb is also a thing, I've never look at it but I assume this is like core condi.

Otherwise, SC did it in december before patch https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/a8v9a8/sc_qt_cm100_shattered_observatory_firebrand/ And FB+Ren have been a thing in raids and fractals in some guilds since months, before "uber" guilds drop it after last patch and everyvody talk about it like a revolution. There is no "statistically weaker poorly designed" or idk, just people experimenting by themself before others give them the "sacred" compo to follow eyes closed.

@otto.5684 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:Due to these limitations FB is regulated

I guess if youre doing a raid it matters but for most pve content as long as you do decent dps and can dodge lol its not rocket science. just cuz something is not 100% optimal doesn't mean it cant work. its not on metabattle?! omg cant use it!

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:Due to these limitations FB is regulated

It is the same issue for open world PvE though. If I can deal significantly more damage with DH, using the same exact weapons, then why use anything else? For fun? I mean, ya sure, but then why do any class balance? Anyone can claim they like a specific underperforming build, and by default that makes it a good build cu it is a fun build.

You can see how illogical this is. Why not give FB tools (like changing an absolutely useless trait like Stoic Demanor) to open up diversity.

@otto.5684 said:

It is the same issue for open world PvE though. If I can deal significantly more damage with DH, using the same exact weapons, then why use anything else? For fun? I mean, ya sure, but then why do any class balance? Anyone can claim they like a specific underperforming build, and by default that makes it a good build cu it is a fun build.

You can see how illogical this is. Why not give FB tools (like changing an absolutely useless trait like Stoic Demanor) to open up diversity.

Fun is not logical. It's based on an emotional reaction and is different for every one of us.If optimal/good DPS is fun for you, I can see why you would have an issue with that. Just don't put all of us into that same box.

That said, Stoic Demeanor needs to be changed. Nobody uses it, and it's just a dead-on-arrival trait.

@otto.5684 said:@"Turkeyspit.3965" I agree with that FB power providing quickness for a small group (like fractals) is very useful. But you also have to take in consideration that you can do the same thing with condi dps while doing far more damage.

Not saying power support is useless, but FB needs much work to open diversity beyond being condi damage centric in PvE and only support in PvP. And the primary issue is the tome design. It is severely limiting.

Fractals isn't about DPS though, it's about burst, which makes Power Quickbrand better in Fractals than Condi Quickbrand. It's also not "far more damage" to run condi.

As Power Quickbrand, you still use Justice 5 to prebuff, and you can dip into the tome in combat for Justice 4 and then drop it, as it has decent power damage and provides a Firefield for people like the BS to spin in for a DPS increase. Justice 3 can be useful for small pulls/interrupt at trash, or finishing off a breakbar.Resolve can be useful to dip into for 5+4 for a quick mass condi cleanse and some heals, especially in no heal groups.Courage is extremely useful in a variety of situations, mostly for the Reflect bubble, be it at MAMA when going to burst the first Knight and she's shooting out orbs or Artsariiv for obvious reasons, it's nice to dip in and drop a 3+5. Or for 5 + 1 spam at the last phase of Ensolyss.

Power Quickbrand is as far from useless as it gets, it's Meta.

@otto.5684 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:Due to these limitations FB is regulated

FB has so much that DH doesn't have though. Power Quickbrand can basically carry groups of randoms in bosses or whatever through perma quickness, and application of stab & protection & healing if you spec for it.

I hate DH and I will never play it outside of fractals and raids, so I'm biased, but FB is way more fun IMO and brings different things. I run around in open world with a mix of Harriers and Celestial gear that I use in WvW roaming with FB, it has more than enough DPS due to perma quickness to do solo content easily and can support a group where DH offers nothing but personal DPS.

Is it ideal? No. But who cares? It's open world. I don't believe a support oriented spec like FB should have the same personal DPS as a DH anyway. We need to stop obsessing over this because it will ultimately lead to specs all being DPS bots with no unique strengths and weaknesses.

What FB does and how well it does it isn't related to how it's implemented. Just because it's the best spec for carrying noobs or doing condition damage doesn't change the points that Otto and I have presented. Our arguments aren't about how ideal it is (well, mine aren't). It's basically about Anet giving FB the illusion of having 'depth' as an espec because of the 'variety' of skills you get in Tomes; F1 isn't variety and neither is F2.

Jeez, I got more variety from the mantras than I do the 15 'different' skills in all the tomes. Kinda sad.

I am very surprised no one has mentioned the difference of viability comparing Vanilla Guard F1-3 to FB F1-3. Damage wise in PvP where vanilla and DH both are better at doing their job than a FB damage build which is mostly caused by the difference in F1-F3 skills.

In PvE, my burning Fire Brand feels so vulnerable w/o a useful f2 and f3 to use when compared to how he used to play as vanilla burn guard in PvE.Also, another thing about condi FB is that when switching from axe, a huge dps loss is taken. Combining these two facts and cons makes using FB very clunky in general. It's very unrefined.

I am in agreement with Obtena and Otto on the whole subject. It is execution that is gimmicky. The whole reason to compare Vanilla Guard to DH to FB F1-3s is that while Vanilla Guard and DragonHunter can use their F2+3 while doing damage, and FB can not. This renders FB F2-3 almost useless.

@Tormod the Fox.2368 said:I am very surprised no one has mentioned the difference of viability comparing Vanilla Guard F1-3 to FB F1-3. Damage wise in PvP where vanilla and DH both are better at doing their job than a FB damage build which is mostly caused by the difference in F1-F3 skills.

In PvE, my burning Fire Brand feels so vulnerable w/o a useful f2 and f3 to use when compared to how he used to play as vanilla burn guard in PvE.Also, another thing about condi FB is that when switching from axe, a huge dps loss is taken. Combining these two facts and cons makes using FB very clunky in general. It's very unrefined.

I am in agreement with Obtena and Otto on the whole subject. It is execution that is gimmicky. The whole reason to compare Vanilla Guard to DH to FB F1-3s is that while Vanilla Guard and DragonHunter can use their F2+3 while doing damage, and FB can not. This renders FB F2-3 almost useless.

Firebrand is support-oriented spec, of course it's hard to play it like pure dps guard or DH... but that doesn't means tome skill is useless. Anet give guardian an option to play support role, so why do u care about dps when you're support ? Insist to play quickbrand then tell everyone that FB sucks, lol

@Obtena.7952 said:

@otto.5684 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@otto.5684 said:Due to these limitations FB is regulated

3 is a pull, absolutely no use in using it first unless you actually want to pull enemies. Using 2 first makes it available as final skill making the rotation go 2,4,5,1,2. You have now optimized your damage.

@Obtena.7952 said:F2: 5,2,1,4,3 - You can skip 2 if there aren't enough conditions on your group, otherwise, why would you do anything else?

Going 5, 4 first over 1 provides group wide healing without having to worry about players being in front of you and will generate more healing for the remainder of the tome if you spam 1.

@Obtena.7952 said:F3: 4,5,3,1,2 - Basically, get everyone up, buffed, and back in the fight.

Going 5 first provides aegis and stab which will protect the group for the next 1-2 seconds if under pressure. 4 is only useful when condis are involved. Using 3 back to back can make certain fights go a lot smoother (Ice Elemental in the Ice fractal for example).

@Obtena.7952 said:Honestly, I see no reason to do anything else with these Tomes except execute them in that order. F1 is purely offensive where little affects alternate rotations, F2 is purely healing with a slight variation depending on conditions, F3 is just a massive buff.

I'm open to anyone that wants to suggest alternate rotations for different situations but since burns, heals and boons stack ... I see almost no real impact on alternate roations.

Again, while within roles the tomes might be very strait forward (with slight variations depending on specific fights and mostly if conditions are involved or not), the main variation comes from using off build tomes correctly. Using a reflect bubble to protect your group even while running a DPS build or providing resistance/stability can be of a ton of use. Dropping an Eternal Oasis as a DPS can help out your healers and remove condition pressure.

The same applies to heal builds and Tome of Justice even if less useful (since Tome 2 and 3 are support tomes).

I just don't get what people expect. Tomes are expanded upon the base guardian F1-3 skills. Beside the Dragonhunter F1 which can be used as a pull, I don't see those skills see more than a singular use. The alternative would have been to mix and match skills in-between tomes which would make the system unnecessarily convoluted.Most tome skills are insanely overpowered, within those overpowered skills, some are stronger and see priority use.