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Massimoni.9453

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  1. It CAN, yes, but you are a lost cause if you actually do so in the current meta. The rest is correct, Willbender is currently by far the most flexible guard variant. I am - however - fine with some builds specializing in a certain type of DPS, DH just has many things that make it unattractive, which is the biggest problem imo.
  2. Also don't forget how the last patch nuked cFB and qFB damage so hard that both builds get outclassed by basically every alternative there is to them - which in turn makes both builds obsolete in 99,9% of situations - and they apparently feel like that is totally fine seeing how this patch does nothing to fix this.
  3. You could perhaps have a look into Power Spellbreaker with Hammer. It is an incredibly strong build that is very easy and fluid to play and comes with many insanely strong advantages built right into the kit (like giga CC, self-stability and awesome sustain). It is my personal go-to since firebrand first had the fun and now the numbers sucked out of it. The 0-kit/1-kit version of condition Mechanist may also be something to look into. Check the Hardstuck website for those builds if interested. If you want to go a more supporty route or big DPS in more solo oriented scenarios maybe quickness Harbinger might do the trick for you. It deals almost the same DPS as the selfish pure DPS condi firebrand (even more if the firebrand decided to bring any utility) while offering many benefits, especially permanent quickness. Otherwise you may look into things like Reaper or Herald but personally there is something about those specs I don't enjoy too much, maybe you do though. There are also some LI weaver builds around with crazy high benchmarks but those are most likely quite squishy and therefore won't really align too much with your expectations. TLDR: There are quite a few builds around that you may like, however there is no way of telling in advance if they fill the void which the competitive death of firebrand created. Maybe have a look into the benchmark videos at first and see if there is something which might turn you off about the playstyle of the build. You can also just try the builds without getting pretty much any gear at all except the weapons (you can simply grab white weapons off of NPC vendors if needed). This way you can't check your final performance but you get a near-free initial idea if this is the path you want to pursue. Final Note: Don't delete the guardian especially if you invested quite a few resources into it. At best it gets some uplift in the far future, at worst it may serve you as a storage character.
  4. While I do agree with basically everything you said, could you perhaps go into more detail about what you mean by this? My PoV is the following: Going for maximum damage - as every cFB should anyways - your utility is actually practically nonexistent except for a neat little pull and maybe the odd condi cleanse here and there if people actually camp inside the boss hitbox. When trying to integrate any sort of group support, you already lose a noticeable chunk of DPS, balancing yourself in the progress (and I am talking the previous 42k DPS version here, in its current form nobody in their right mind would even consider playing it over anything else). Letting the support aspect aside, the build just by virtue of its playstyle actually needs a high golem bench to keep up on real encounters (I know this won't happen but its just wishful thinking, the current meta makes absolutely zero sense with all the power builds dominating condi builds even on sustained DPS as the balance team actually haven't got a single clue about balance in the first place).
  5. I am actually completely baffled by that statement. Are you actually saying that full DPS Firebrands can f*ck themselves right from the get-go because they could potentially bring some nice utility?? First of all if you look at the kit cFB has to use to even achieve that pathetic and unrealistic benchmark of <37k, you'd see that it is one of the worst in the game, bringing nothing besides tiny amounts of CC and an okay-ish pull, and don't even start with muh Tomes 2 & 3, after the tomes sharing pages change that argument is completely dead. Secondly FB already drops down to non-competitive DPS if you - for whatever reason - decided to use any of the utility (in which case I'd rather tell my supports to maybe do their job). As far as I remember, even switching out your signet drops you by ~2k DPS which would currently place you at roughly 34,8k DPS... I'd be completely fine if the decision was made harder by shifting more to stuff like the signet, as me as a pure DPS cFB doesn't care about the options of utility. How is that an argument that your guild mate apparently is too bad to play other quickness builds? If he/she doesn't even manage that I highly doubt that he/she takes care of not blasting the quickness cone through the boss into nothingness. The instablast mantras are balanced by their inferior application area which is made harder by the build being melee. There is no going AFK on the boss with 360 radius, you actually gotta pay attention to your positioning if you want your sub to get nice quickness coverage if they aren't all perfectly stacked on the boss. Hmm, maybe the ones that aren't playing HFB, which is basically what this whole thread is about??? Also how is it OP that the build had better gameplay flow before the change? The build required the same amount of button presses if not even more before the change just that its gameplay was very fluid and fun. Why are you even refering to the build in the state before the removal of utility on the tomes? That was a separate step before the gameplay change and literally no one here except for you had even talked about how we wanted that back. As the absolute majority of your answer targets qFB and HFB while the thread is solely about cFB, I don't see how this even belongs here.
  6. I can't tell you how much I love those bubble accusations. If you actually saw my account stats, you'd retract that statement in an instant mate, especially as I can't even remember the last time I've actively played cFB. I AM playing completely different specs, that doesn't mean I can't argue for having my love cFB as a viable alternative. I've had many builds I played and enjoyed on different classes nerfed over the years, yet almost none of them were nuked into oblivion like cFB was the last few patches - that doesn't just refer to its DPS - for absolutely zero reason aside from pleasing the hyper-casual open-world event farming crowd who have absolutely no clue about the build and its downsides.
  7. Well, that explains everything. HFB is the one and only variation of Firebrand I can see where the tome change would be welcome. On DPS specs it gutted the rotation and made it extremely unfun to play thanks to completely unnecessary clunkiness. Everyone I've talked to or been in contact with one way or the other is greatly disappointed in the tome rework and I've yet to meet a single other person except yourself apparently that likes cFB now better than before with the classic, clear and smooth rotation where having to balance pages and guessing cooldowns wasn't a thing.
  8. Besides that I personally don't believe Virtuoso to be borderline OP, those two specs are nowhere near comparable. Let alone that Virtuoso can actually hit the benchmark in real fights thanks to being like 95% ranged and doesn't have to pray for the boss not moving, that it has alot more utility on the full DPS kit than cFB does (which is basically none), has great passive HP regen and stuff like instant, passive invuln which together puts it into a completely different league from cFB - the list goes on, this was just from the top of my head -, which at most can slot one great utility while sacrificing even more of its already extremely lackluster and unworthwhile (if this is even a word) DPS. Heck, Virtuoso probably loses less DPS than cFB when you wanna slot CC or Stability with mantras.
  9. Then that would be a rework that'd actually make sense. Not too sure if that would actually affect cFB tho as you only dip into the Virtue 1 traits anyways and HFB (and potentially qFB - depending on how that'd be implemented exactly) can still use the other tomes and therefore trait effects. Dead traits also aren't anything unseen, more like the opposite. That apparently doesn't result in the optimal DPS though, otherwise the benchmarks would do so also. Now it's just more or less guessing when your skills are back - unless you wanna couple it with Purging Flames off cooldown which you do NOT want to do thanks to boss movement - and if you wanna max DPS you have to dip in and out at what feels random times to get your Tome 1 Skill 2 going. As a cFB main who perfected the playstyle and hit benchmark on a regular, the class just didn't feel fun anymore after the rework, even when just using the old playstyle. Well, circumstances were completely different back then. First of all you still had your other unnerfed tomes back then and also 37k was much more competitive than it is now with everything shooting up to 40k+. Stating the absolute number makes no sense when you don't factor in the alternatives. if everything was doing 5k and cFB 37k it'd be OP as all hell, yet nowadays people just smirk at it. I can just play e.g. Spellbreaker or the likes and have a straight up much better spec. I don't see how that point holds any relevance when the theoretical maximum sucks already. Killing a build when played competitively but saying the LI variant is still okay (which I kinda doubt with all the LI variants around) doesn't help at all. Heck, there are 40k+ LI weavers around which are so easy I doubt anyone would have problems with them.
  10. From what I've seen and my personal opinion, the old QoL mantras were much more liked. Also you are definitely in the minority with your view on the new tomes. Question for personal interest: Do you raid? There doesn't seem to be a kp.me connected to your tag.
  11. Not much to say here for anyone that follows the latest updates and numbers. The last patch ended the life of cFB in instanced content. Now we have a build that is absolute a** to play after they "reworked" aka sucked the fun out of the spec by leaving us with a clunky combination of Engi kits and Thief initiative - probably two of the most disliked mechanics in the game - and a REVERT of QoL (I'm actually curious what has to go through a persons mind to think that this is a good idea) regarding mantras while sitting on a laughable benchmark of sub 37k. The best thing of all is that this benchmark is unrealistically high thanks to the build being melee and relying on long-lasting small-area AoE pulsing - in turn making it probably one of the if not THE worst meta DPS right now. I just don't get what's so hard about decoupling qFB and cFB if you felt that the former was too strong despite its benchmark also being super unrealistic - you would never take the full DPS setup that was taken when producing the benchmark. Like just rearrange the traits so that you'd have to choose between quickness or a big chunk of burning damage boost, easy fix yet you prefer to just nuke the spec as a whole, completely ignoring what else is affected by it. What I therefore want to see assuming you actually want people to enjoy all aspects of a spec: - Revert the gameplay "overhaul" -> IMO a WAY better approach would've been to make you "unlock" the tomes through traits and just keep their mechanics as they were pre-patch. This way you could lock supports out of big damage and make cFB as a DPS do what it's supposed to do with it only being able to access the F1 tome - Reintroduce the QoL on mantras -> not much to say here, I think everyone except hyper casuals that wanna look at some fancy casting animations will agree. There is zero fun in sitting there and doing nothing while your mantra recharges - Decouple qFB and cFB to prevent situations like now -> extremely easy fix yet still not considered. qFB and cFB are too close to each other in DPS which is purely to the detriment of the latter
  12. Wait, so... 38.4k is really all we get after the long awaited patch? I guess it's time to think about quitting the game as a guard main, at least for me after having a first glance of where a few of the other specs land after this update in comparison. If they really wanna get rid of both support tomes for cFB and - at large - qFB (which I guess is R.I.P. now anyways due to Herald buff), your idea of locking the tomes altogether instead (as they weren't used much or even at all, despite what alot of people say) and just reverting the spec to normal playstyle with some juicy DPS buffs would be far better, create a very similar balance yet wouldn't suck the whole fun out of it. Literally no reason to overthrow cFB mains because they had access to some support tomes and now have to adapt the whole rotation.
  13. Did you actually test that or do you just say so? I've done a bit of testing and with full Alac uptime, 100% BD in "Honorable Staff" variant AND blasting tome 1 skill 4 with staff 2 for Area Might, I was still unable to sustain 25 Might. Taking "Honorable Staff" (which you want as it puts you at 100% BD and clearly provides you with more healing output) has regular drops down to ~12-14 Stacks. "Empowering Might" is clearly better in the isolated aspect of Might uptime, plateauing at 25 Might for a few seconds but still drops down noticeably at times of bad RNG, having 30% crit chance just isn't great for such a trait. All tests were done WITHOUT using tome 2+3, which undoubtably would result in even lower numbers.
  14. Well, the monopoly is actually gone now for a while, there are alot of classes which can also provide it. Sure guardian has the highest amount of skills and stacks to do it but does it really matter that much when all you need is one single piece of stability for the utmost of content? I'd much rather just have one piece of stability but get stuff like superspeed or 10 man boon extension like other classes have. The "monopoly on stability" was the only thing that even made it survive for so long, take that away and you will see a whole class die, because - as you said correctly - that's the one thing it has.
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