Jump to content
  • Sign Up

Firebrands, the most enigmatic class. Do they need a nerf?


EremiteAngel.9765

Recommended Posts

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:Considering how Firebrand has to my knowledge, been on literally every single winning MAT team all throughout Path Of Fire

I mean..... demonstrably false.

To my knowledge. At least one Firebrand on the winning team is basically a given. If there were months where the winning MAT didn't have a Firebrand that I am not aware of, we are talking single digits compared to the multiple dozens of MATS where it was the case.

In any case, if it's so easily demonstrable, do it. Demonstrate it.

Let me cast back deep in to the mists of time, to December 2019

Fair enough. That must be EU as I'm pretty sure both NA finalists had Firebrand. And the EU team with the Firebrand were still in striking distance of taking the win. And just a month before that double Firebrand won NA while Firebrand Double Rev won EU.

My point still stands. Firebrand is is immense dominant, the only viable support, has absolutely defined PvP during Path of Fire more so than any other build, has had plenty of top 10 representation in ranked EU and NA, and the number of wins without a Firebrand for MATs is in the single digits compared to the multiple dozens of wins.

Necromancer players were telling you guys that firebrand was dominant but folks weren't listening when we said that we were being carried later on after nerfs due to needing the sustain before we got deleted in SPVP. Sure scourge was obnoxious with its AOE fields, but firebrand was keeping them alive by protecting their weak area, and now that they are pretty much deleted you see buff spam from firebrand and how ridiculously strong it is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 109
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:Considering how Firebrand has to my knowledge, been on literally every single winning MAT team all throughout Path Of Fire

I mean..... demonstrably false.

To my knowledge. At least one Firebrand on the winning team is basically a given. If there were months where the winning MAT didn't have a Firebrand that I am not aware of, we are talking single digits compared to the multiple dozens of MATS where it was the case.

In any case, if it's so easily demonstrable, do it. Demonstrate it.

Let me cast back deep in to the mists of time, to December 2019

Fair enough. That must be EU as I'm pretty sure both NA finalists had Firebrand. And the EU team with the Firebrand were still in striking distance of taking the win. And just a month before that double Firebrand won NA while Firebrand Double Rev won EU.

My point still stands. Firebrand is is immense dominant, the only viable support, has absolutely defined PvP during Path of Fire more so than any other build, has had plenty of top 10 representation in ranked EU and NA, and the number of wins without a Firebrand for MATs is in the single digits compared to the multiple dozens of wins.

That's all true.

But I'm wondering what at all it has to do with the thread topic.

This was in reference to its 1v1 tournament performance.

Support in a 5-man composition is an entirely different matter.

I would also add that FB is barely worth taking as a support right now, if it gets taken down to the level of Tempest/Druid, you won't see more variety in supports. You just won't see any supports. Period.

1v1 capacity IS important because one of the main roles in conquest is side noding which is all about a build's capacity to 1v1 and 1vX.

This is not exactly accurate. Being able to solo contest and take nodes is very useful. But this exact same build has to be able to escape if you get outnumbered. And FB cannot. And thus cannot be played as a side noder. The 1v1 potential does not mean much of you can easily get +1 and downed.

Also, 1v1 tournaments are a bad examples. And even there FB has not exactly been owning them.

There is also a mixing between FB dps and support. FB support most definitely needs a nerf, specifically stability uptime. The dps builds not so much. As long as the remove the weakness from mantra of truth, things should be okay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some slight nerfs are definitely called for, but they aren't as broken as Weaver, Rev and Thief imo. Also 1v1 tournament really isn't very indicative, when you have two tanky builds it will always go to the gas stage, and that has literally nothing to do with normal fights. And even a build that wins a lot of 1v1s without that mechanic can still struggle in actual conquest when it dies too easily in 1vX.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think (in the current power level of the game) that support firebrand should see any nerfs.Nerfing the one viable support class won't magically make other supports see play, people will just move to a high damage - high mobility comp. We've already started to see that with double thieves and double revs.

The sidenoder variant of FB, both Sage (Virtues) and Mender (Zeal) needs to see some toning down though. Not because they are broken per say, but because it's incredibly unfun and unhealthy to play against them. Removing Weakness from Mantra of Truth will go a long way to making it less of an obnoxious spec, or even moving it some place else.

Guardian, right now is probably the easiest class to kill. Even more so than Spectral Walk, Flesh Wurm Necromancers. They have no scale-able defenses. Aegis doesn't do much of anything right now. It has very limited access to Vigor, basically only Honor (which isn't ran by most damage specs), Longbow 4 on DH and F2 on Firebrand. (I guess Contemplation can convert into Vigor too, but I'm not counting that.) They also have no evade frames or channeled blocks. By far the lowest mobility in the game.

So all in all, a class that dies very easily to +1's. A class that has no form of disengage, or chase potential. Needs to to able to actually win the fights if the enemies decides to stay. I just wish they made playing them a little bit more active and less brain-afk.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@otto.5684 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:Considering how Firebrand has to my knowledge, been on literally every single winning MAT team all throughout Path Of Fire

I mean..... demonstrably false.

To my knowledge. At least one Firebrand on the winning team is basically a given. If there were months where the winning MAT didn't have a Firebrand that I am not aware of, we are talking single digits compared to the multiple dozens of MATS where it was the case.

In any case, if it's so easily demonstrable, do it. Demonstrate it.

Let me cast back deep in to the mists of time, to December 2019

Fair enough. That must be EU as I'm pretty sure both NA finalists had Firebrand. And the EU team with the Firebrand were still in striking distance of taking the win. And just a month before that double Firebrand won NA while Firebrand Double Rev won EU.

My point still stands. Firebrand is is immense dominant, the only viable support, has absolutely defined PvP during Path of Fire more so than any other build, has had plenty of top 10 representation in ranked EU and NA, and the number of wins without a Firebrand for MATs is in the single digits compared to the multiple dozens of wins.

That's all true.

But I'm wondering what at all it has to do with the thread topic.

This was in reference to its 1v1 tournament performance.

Support in a 5-man composition is an entirely different matter.

I would also add that FB is barely worth taking as a support right now, if it gets taken down to the level of Tempest/Druid, you won't see more variety in supports. You just won't see any supports. Period.

1v1 capacity IS important because one of the main roles in conquest is side noding which is all about a build's capacity to 1v1 and 1vX.

This is not exactly accurate. Being able to solo contest and take nodes is very useful. But this exact same build has to be able to escape if you get outnumbered. And FB cannot. And thus cannot be played as a side noder. The 1v1 potential does not mean much of you can easily get +1 and downed.\

It literally won an MAT as a 1vX side noder back in November.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:I don't think (in the current power level of the game) that support firebrand should see any nerfs.Nerfing the one viable support class won't magically make other supports see play, people will just move to a high damage - high mobility comp. We've already started to see that with double thieves and double revs.

The sidenoder variant of FB, both Sage (Virtues) and Mender (Zeal) needs to see some toning down though. Not because they are broken per say, but because it's incredibly unfun and unhealthy to play against them. Removing Weakness from Mantra of Truth will go a long way to making it less of an obnoxious spec, or even moving it some place else.

Guardian, right now is probably the easiest class to kill. Even more so than Spectral Walk, Flesh Wurm Necromancers. They have no scale-able defenses. Aegis doesn't do much of anything right now. It has very limited access to Vigor, basically only Honor (which isn't ran by most damage specs), Longbow 4 on DH and F2 on Firebrand. (I guess Contemplation can convert into Vigor too, but I'm not counting that.) They also have no evade frames or channeled blocks. By far the lowest mobility in the game.

So all in all, a class that dies very easily to +1's. A class that has no form of disengage, or chase potential. Needs to to able to actually win the fights if the enemies decides to stay. I just wish they made playing them a little bit more active and less brain-afk.

This is all well and good if you're playing 3 nodes and have 1 FB, if you have 2 FB and essentially only play 2 nodes (obviously rotating the fights between different nodes as you win/lose) then the weaknesses of the current build to being +1 is mitigated in some ways while it's major advantage, which no-one is highlighting, of tomes and baseline support start to shine.

In a 2v2 the FB build starts to really shine, AoE damage, AoE dazes, AoE support it's got a very overloaded kit with the tomes and some nice kiting will do wonders given the AoE nature. Of course it depends on comps and where you're playing it, ranked, unranked, AT etc. It's still somewhat vulnerable to being 1 shot especially from stealth but a lot of things can be one shot from stealth.

What I'd like to see from the CMC patch is tomes get a rework as they give way too much even in this state of the game, maybe a little touch to some of the mantras to make them do 1 thing (in line with what I would think CMC is nerfing everyone down to) then see where it is at. The symbols might need a look at in general but maybe after FB is sorted out as the knock on effects of too many can make playing Guardian really bad for those that do play it and it could be symbol guards are in a good spot after.

Finally they need to figure out the niches for support, Tempest being a good AoE cleanse and sustain healer, FB being a weaker healer but having more important boons and hard damage mitigation through aegis instead, Druid being a high spike healer that can rotate fast into and out of fights to sustain then leave to the next group. We'll have to see what the power level CMC sets is and where ANet tell him to take it when we inevitably get the 100s of posts complaining the game is too slow and I can't kill anything because I'm used to spamming.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@EremiteAngel.9765 said:I’ve watched two 1 vs 1 finals in NA & EU recently and both were won by Firebrands.There is something odd about this class that I can’t put a finger on.It looks very balanced but thrashes almost every other class in a 1 on 1.And yet there seems to be very few complains against them.What are your thoughts on this enigmatic class?

Why should we care about 1v1 dueling balance? Should the fate of classes hinge upon what the outcome of random duels were? And where does that leave a class for team based play if we change things based on performance in duels? Should we change the entire game and professions for duels? What is this balance obsession when it come to duels?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:I think the question is that its interesting and showing of gw2 balancing when a class designed for support has also top 1v1 potential, which I think is in part due to the damage powercreep that has also been implemented on specs with insane sustain potential lol.

And what is the inherent problem with a strong support capable spec? Should it be all damage specs be given favor in all fight scenarios? And you don’t think that perhaps the human behind the controls of a spec has anything to do with it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Swagger.1459 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:I think the question is that its interesting and showing of gw2 balancing when a class designed for support has also top 1v1 potential, which I think is in part due to the damage powercreep that has also been implemented on specs with insane sustain potential lol.

And what is the inherent problem with a strong support capable spec? Should it be all damage specs be given favor in all fight scenarios? And you don’t think that perhaps the human behind the controls of a spec has anything to do with it?

No I'm saying a class that has insane sustainability/support potential should out put power or condi bursts that match the classes that have less inherent sustain. Do u think that having a support high sustain class that out puts damage like that of a damage dealing non support spec is ok?Sounds balanced to me lol. If a fb outplayed and out heals its opponent and whittled them down than that's fine but a firebrand shouldn't be a tank and dps spec all in one all while booming up their team imo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:I think the question is that its interesting and showing of gw2 balancing when a class designed for support has also top 1v1 potential, which I think is in part due to the damage powercreep that has also been implemented on specs with insane sustain potential lol.

And what is the inherent problem with a strong support capable spec? Should it be all damage specs be given favor in all fight scenarios? And you don’t think that perhaps the human behind the controls of a spec has anything to do with it?

No I'm saying a class that has insane sustainability/support potential should out put power or condi bursts that match the classes that have less inherent sustain. Do u think that having a support high sustain class that out puts damage like that of a damage dealing non support spec is ok?Sounds balanced to me lol. If a fb outplayed and out heals its opponent and whittled them down than that's fine but a firebrand shouldn't be a tank and dps spec all in one all while booming up their team imo.

There are tradeoffs when using gear in gw2, and the profession system was designed for players to make builds a bit more versatile. But if we want to follow your train of thought, perhaps we should limit the type of gear a player can use and what skills they are allowed to take? So no damage specs should be allowed to wear gear with toughness, vitality and healing... Some specs cant use gear with power, precision or ferocity... Maybe lock out all other slot skills except those given to an e-spec...

Should we ask the devs to make classes and builds like this? Damage builds win most fights. Tank builds win 50/50 against Damage builds. Support builds always lose to both Damage and Tank builds? Or should we just eliminate all tank and support builds and gears from the game, so we go back to the good old days of Damage Wars 2?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The biggest problem with FB imo, is honestly just that the graphics overlap so hard with pixel spam, and the animations ALL look the same concerning slight & tiny 1 hand weapon movements, which are covered by pixel spam. It creates an effect where you pretty much can't read what the Firebrand is doing at all. The best you can do is understand how they run the builds and try to interpret which cycles the FB is attempting to use at the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:Considering how Firebrand has to my knowledge, been on literally every single winning MAT team all throughout Path Of Fire

I mean..... demonstrably false.

To my knowledge. At least one Firebrand on the winning team is basically a given. If there were months where the winning MAT didn't have a Firebrand that I am not aware of, we are talking single digits compared to the multiple dozens of MATS where it was the case.

In any case, if it's so easily demonstrable, do it. Demonstrate it.

Let me cast back deep in to the mists of time, to December 2019

Fair enough. That must be EU as I'm pretty sure both NA finalists had Firebrand. And the EU team with the Firebrand were still in striking distance of taking the win. And just a month before that double Firebrand won NA while Firebrand Double Rev won EU.

My point still stands. Firebrand is is immense dominant, the only viable support, has absolutely defined PvP during Path of Fire more so than any other build, has had plenty of top 10 representation in ranked EU and NA, and the number of wins without a Firebrand for MATs is in the single digits compared to the multiple dozens of wins.

That's all true.

But I'm wondering what at all it has to do with the thread topic.

This was in reference to its 1v1 tournament performance.

Support in a 5-man composition is an entirely different matter.

I would also add that FB is barely worth taking as a support right now, if it gets taken down to the level of Tempest/Druid, you won't see more variety in supports. You just won't see any supports. Period.

1v1 capacity IS important because one of the main roles in conquest is side noding which is all about a build's capacity to 1v1 and 1vX.

This is not exactly accurate. Being able to solo contest and take nodes is very useful. But this exact same build has to be able to escape if you get outnumbered. And FB cannot. And thus cannot be played as a side noder. The 1v1 potential does not mean much of you can easily get +1 and downed.\

It literally won an MAT as a 1vX side noder back in November.

Ya, but that does not mean much. It is not enough statistical info. On average, it does not fill this role. Even if a team manged to do that and win, that does not mean that how it works, or even that it is the ideal setup.

This is no different that taking the highest performing player in ranked and saying whatever build they use is the best build in the current meta.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FB is not really "enigmatic" The class has always been overperforming and currently, With the shakes that we've had in the meta game, They are able to go Mender's or Sage's with the Zeal traitline for high DPS. No matter how you look at it be it a team fight,1v1,cleave,support. FB is absurdly oppresive on everything it does.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I don't post too often but I'll try my best to be as unbiased as possible seeing as how I main Guardian.

Let me just state one thing about Guardian that I will back-up to the best of my ability. It has ZERO bullshit mechanics attached to it. Meaning: no instant (short cd) invulns, durational blocks (outside of the shitty heal no one uses), stealth, evasion on skills or instant abilities that decimate your health. Just wanted to get that out of the way.

I'm all for nerfs where needed, even on my own main if someone can back up what and why it should be nerfed. There's also a plethora of crappy traits/weapon skills and utilities. Hell, I can easily make just as many things that should be buffed but then this thread would explode.

I get that fb is the main support but look at what it has, it's all active play. Name one strong passive it has going for it, you won't find it. Forgive me for ending this post on a negative note.

-Arken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It isn't a problem with FB itself, but the core gameplay of GW2. In this game a build is either really good or really bad. There is nothing in between really. To nerf FB they would probably have to nerf many things which would in turn make them very bad. Then no one would play them. What should happen (but won't). Is that they should introduce more counter play to FB playstyle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...