Need your advice for my FB build...condi or power?

[GW Noob.6038]

I've been looking forward to this day for well over a year now and I think I'm ready to start working on my Firebrand! So exciting! Ok...lemme get right to it. Here is the content that I'll be playing most often...

• All the HoT meta events and most of the small group events on each of those maps. I'll also need to be able to easily solo, and quickly dispatch, (multiple) packs of pocket raptors and small Mordrem patrols...moving from one to the next as quickly as possible. I want to be able to bring as much help, support and damage as I can to those metas because we are frequently undermanned.
• Dragonfall meta and all the group events leading up to it.
• All the events in the Bitterfrost Frontier...especially the "defend the Braziers" content!
• Farming in all maps in the game...there are a few champs, here and there, blocking nodes and chests and such, so I'll need to be able to eat their damage 'til I'm finished and use a spy-kit to escape (nothing worse than being unnecessarily locked in combat for 20+ seconds after a fight). I have soloed many champs in the past...but I don't find it fun nor entertaining; at this point they are more of a nuisance to me than anything else.

That's about all I ever do. What is the best build, overall, for all the content that I listed...condi or power? Thanks in advance!

[pninak.1069]

I think for pve it doesn't really matter. best option is propably use viper's in order to get both condi dmg and good normal dps. I focus on condi and run some trailblazer's with rabid amulets to get longer burn duration. It mostly pays out during long fights. I think if you can't get close the enemy condi is better.

[Dogempire.1026]

The hybrid condi build with viper, sinister and grieving pieces is probably your best bet, it's not as bursty as something like power dragonhunter but you get a lot of power and condi damage, lots of aoe to deal with things like pocket raptors, and since you have superior runes of balthazar you get an extra 10% hp on top of that instead of the usual squishy 11k hp, though it's more around 16-17k hp if you can keep your quickness up, and then tack on an extra 10% hp if you take the signet that reduces your received damage by 10% as a stunbreak.

[draxynnic.3719]

If you're thinking about doing group content, condition (or, rather, hybrid, since you never really want to completely neglect power damage as a guardian, but viper, sinister, and grieving all count) is the way to go. WP has a power solo build, but that works on the assumption that you're mostly fighting trash mobs out on your own. Firebrand is largely intended for support and conditions to offset the largely power-oriented DH.

The open world meta events recommendation seems to be full viper's (you could chase up Nike's condition quickbrand video, for instance) since you won't reliably be getting the same boons that you'd get in raids, but you probably won't go too far wrong if you go with the snowcrows condition and condition quickbrand builds.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Condition would be superior, because of the radiance ability to reset your tome 1 every time you kill a foe and your damage is high. In zerg fights, the bosses get scaled up and your burns have more time to tick.

However, I will warn you that there are some random enemies that are immune to burning but your direct damage component should be enough to kill them anyways. I was really annoyed when I entered the Forging Steel Mission to find so many immune to burning foes, yet my damage was still better than most in the squad anyways xD.