Question about Firebrand Gear

Hi guys,I thought to make finally a support/heal gear-set for my Firebrand. I googled a bit before to open this thread, but I'haven't found a clear answer yet.I know there are two alternative: Minstrel for tanking and Harrier for having a good BD, I bet. Usually I prefer to play only PvE content, mainly Fractal and Open World Event; this last one with a friend. Often we run duo contents like champions or other hard experiences.So, which of two gear above is really valid? What actually are you playing?

Harrier. For small-scale PVE, Firebrands are one of the best buffing/healing classes in the game. That means Concentration and Healing Power. Power is just there as gravy so you're not completely useless as far as DPS goes.

If you need more survivability, mix in a bit of Minstrel or Magi. Minstrel if your group has trouble stacking (the Toughness will help pull mobs towards you at the start of a fight) and Magi if you don't.

Thank your for the answer.Mine is a real dilemma. I think Minstrel could help the duo-team to get more survivability against Champion and adds around it. But I guess that Harrier'd be the best choice, mostly because it is required for Fractal. Moreover I don't really like the mixing of uncommon stats like Magi, probably due to my trend to have always a pure full Ascended Gear (I still keep that old Infused-Attuned Sinister ring crafted for my warrior time ago).Mmh, so I think I'll give priority to Fractal and maybe I'll wait for my 3rd fellow and his minstrel-chrono.

If it's for fractals don't even bother running minstrel healing gear, just apply quickness and aegis. Use harrier if you truly need heals.

Minstrel is for WvW. Running Minstrel in PVE will mess with the aggro of the mobs around you. I went with harrier for this reason on my own healbrand.

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:Minstrel is for WvW. Running Minstrel in PVE will mess with the aggro of the mobs around you. I went with harrier for this reason on my own healbrand.

At the end I made all gear set full harrier. But I'm also doing some test using Giver's trinket and backpack. I thought: "if I'm the healer of group, then I should survive in some ways".

You can combine different gear sets for a variety of effects, you don't have to go all-in on one stat combination.See http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ for help making builds.

About half of your stats are in weapons and armor, and the other half in trinkets (not counting runes).

There are alot of viable combinations that I've used, some of my favorites are Commander/Diviner, Crusader/Zealot, and Magi/Cleric/Zealot. Please don't use Minstrel in PvE, there is no situation where it will help. If you absolutely must go full support in PvE, use Celestial.

Note that most Firebrands are expected to be Quickbrands, so you'll probably want Harrier's for boon duration for meta. If you plan to play meta content like raids you must also be aware of your armor rating, because if its too high you will end up pulling the boss. That's why you can't include too much Clerics/etc. gear in your build for that kind of content and sets like pure Magi are used instead.

Just use what works for you and have fun.

@"Hannelore.8153" said:You can combine different gear sets for a variety of effects, you don't have to go all-in on one stat combination.See http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/ for help making builds.

About half of your stats are in weapons and armor, and the other half in trinkets (not counting runes).

There are alot of viable combinations that I've used, some of my favorites are Commander/Diviner, Crusader/Zealot, and Magi/Cleric/Zealot. Please don't use Minstrel in PvE, there is no situation where it will help. If you absolutely must go full support in PvE, use Celestial.

Note that most Firebrands are expected to be Quickbrands, so you'll probably want Harrier's for boon duration for meta. If you plan to play meta content like raids you must also be aware of your armor rating, because if its too high you will end up pulling the boss. That's why you can't include too much Clerics/etc. gear in your build for that kind of content and sets like pure Magi are used instead.

Just use what works for you and have fun.

I already knew gw2skills, it is really a precious element for our build making (I hope I said it well).About me, I prefer to give priority to Meta, or at least prioritize those challenging contents like Fractal and also avoid slowing people down.In open-world is another story instead. I'm free to do whatever I want.

About the aggro system, I read gw2 wiki and I learned like it works. So now, I guess that Minstrel is good for raid contents, but only if it's used on chronomancer. In PvE (except Raid) in generally it'd be really a mess for all classes.

Keep in mind for Fractals you don't need full Harrier, as you would be overstacking Boon Duration with the extra free stats from Potions + Mastery + AR, so mixing in one or two Magi pieces for more essentially free Healing Power is a good option, but obviously not mandatory as the difficulty isn't high enough for such optimisations to matter, especially with the power level of Supports being as high as it is.

You are also already toughness tanking all the adds in Fractals (yes, most Fractal adds aggro by toughness) due to Imbued Haste, but as Heal FB you should never struggle to stay alive yourself, just can get annoying as Quickbrand.

For Raids you really want Harrier for the BD, and no Minstrel at all unless tanking, as your Tanks will already need to compensate for the 250 Toughness from Imbued Haste, with you already not being able to use skills like Epilogue: Unbroken Lines to not mess with toughness tanking.

For open world it doesn't really matter, but if you want to heal/support (although Quickbrand is probably more valuable there), full Harrier would be the best option there as well. Just keep in mind that credit for events in GW2 really only cares about damage being done. If you just stand around and heal and support people, you will not gain any rewards from Meta events and such. The extra Power on Harrier should allow you to trigger the participation flags comfortably though, should you focus on attacking the boss in question for some time as well.

As you may have figured out from these wonderful answers/suggestions, the gear you choose for your FB depends on your role. You need to decide whether you are going to play one role or several. And if you play several roles, which one will you gear first. Good luck and have fun with your FB. My guardian has the most gear sets of all of my characters, but it doesn't happen overnight. Pick the one you use the most and can be the most versatile for you atm, then expand as you are able.

Actually I played Guardian a long time ago, when there weren't still Elité Specs. But after PoF, I've played only DH for Fractal content and nothing more. However, I've always loved the healer role. At least with Druid was fun!
Firebrand made me curious and so I couldn't resist focusing on it :)

Thank you all. Every your answer has been useful to me.

@"Asum.4960" said:Keep in mind for Fractals you don't need full Harrier, as you would be overstacking Boon Duration with the extra free stats from Potions + Mastery + AR, so mixing in one or two Magi pieces for more essentially free Healing Power is a good option, but obviously not mandatory as the difficulty isn't high enough for such optimisations to matter, especially with the power level of Supports being as high as it is.

You are also already toughness tanking all the adds in Fractals (yes, most Fractal adds aggro by toughness) due to Imbued Haste, but as Heal FB you should never struggle to stay alive yourself, just can get annoying as Quickbrand.

For Raids you really want Harrier for the BD, and no Minstrel at all unless tanking, as your Tanks will already need to compensate for the 250 Toughness from Imbued Haste, with you already not being able to use skills like Epilogue: Unbroken Lines to not mess with toughness tanking.

For open world it doesn't really matter, but if you want to heal/support (although Quickbrand is probably more valuable there), full Harrier would be the best option there as well. Just keep in mind that credit for events in GW2 really only cares about damage being done. If you just stand around and heal and support people, you will not gain any rewards from Meta events and such. The extra Power on Harrier should allow you to trigger the participation flags comfortably though, should you focus on attacking the boss in question for some time as well.

Note: They changed this not long ago so that supports (heal, CC, etc.) get credit with pretty much only a single hit, maybe several on Nomad/Minstrel. You just need to "tag" the target and then the game will count your support skills as contribution to damage.

The only reason you still have to hit the enemy is to prevent passive leeching.