Firebrand commander alternatives?

[Zape.2094]

Hey guys,

I was just curious from your experience, are there any (and if yes, what are they) good alternatives for commanding on Firebrand? I am genuinely curious to see any builds that could match (or perhaps even out-do) the firebrand in the role of a commander.

What are your experiences? Does anybody have any "off-meta" builds they like to command on? 

I've seen some spellbreaker commanding, scourge and even elementalist so far, but Im not sure how viable they really are.

Best,
Z

[ollbirtan.2915]

Tons of chrono commanders out there as well. 

[Zape.2094]

I guess the biggest benefit of a chrono commander would be the use of veil and the pulls right?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Every class can run tag. When you're part of a squad its not about how you play its about how those supporting you play, pretty much your only objective is to stay alive to be followed, healed, etc.

 

I've even seen Rangers and Thieves leading, quite successfully might I add since they have some of the strongest survival builds in the game and rely on allies even less than Firebrand, and being able to drop into stealth freely can help prevent tag-sniping when the enemy squad has you targetted.

 

I'd even say that FB is one of the least optimal classes for tagging. They don't handle recovery from many situations very well since they have very few teleports and leaps, no portals, are easily stunlocked once their Stability is all on cooldown, and are slow in general without even Superspeed.

 

Their pulls are also not very good, which is a significant factor in fights over objectives.

 

Personally, I've found the strongest Commander potential in Scourge, which I run regularly. Sand Swell, Spectral Walk and Flesh Wurm allow you to push straight into the enemies and completely cripple them then return to the back of your group if anything goes wrong or just to confuse the enemy.

 

It makes it far easier for allies to keep you alive if there's no real chance of you dying to begin with. You have to seriously get dogpiled to die on a Scourge even if you're not on full Minstrel's.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Zape.2094]

41 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

Every class can run tag. When you're part of a squad its not about how you play its about how those supporting you play, pretty much your only objective is to stay alive to be followed, healed, etc.

 

I've even seen Rangers and Thieves leading, quite successfully might I add since they have some of the strongest survival builds in the game and rely on allies even less than Firebrand, and being able to drop into stealth freely can help prevent tag-sniping when the enemy squad has you targetted.

 

I'd even say that FB is one of the least optimal classes for tagging. They don't handle recovery from many situations very well since they have very few teleports and leaps, no portals, are easily stunlocked once their Stability is all on cooldown, and are slow in general without even Superspeed.

 

Their pulls are also not very good, which is a significant factor in fights over objectives.

 

Personally, I've found the strongest Commander potential in Scourge, which I run regularly. Sand Swell, Spectral Walk and Flesh Wurm allow you to push straight into the enemies and completely cripple them then return to the back of your group if anything goes wrong or just to confuse the enemy.

 

It makes it far easier for allies to keep you alive if there's no real chance of you dying to begin with. You have to seriously get dogpiled to die on a Scourge even if you're not on full Minstrel's.

Thanks for your input Hannah!

Honestly though, what I feel like is a very strong trait of Firebrands is the amount of stability we can put out. Cause a large part of leading your squad is avoiding CC and being able to always move forward / backwards, at least from my experience. And I am kind of afraid to run tag on other classes, since if I dont have a good firebrand in my party, things can go sideways pretty quickly.

I was thinking spellbreaker could be a decent alternative cause of the bubble and the decent amount of stab and tankiness it has.

I would probably be afraid of running a class with little to no stab access while tagging honestly. 😄

Thanks!

Best,
Z

[Chips.7968]

48 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I've even seen Rangers and Thieves leading, quite successfully might I add since they have some of the strongest survival builds in the game and rely on allies even less than Firebrand, and being able to drop into stealth freely can help prevent tag-sniping when the enemy squad has you targeted.

Strongest survival builds in the game? How so, because I'm curious how that synergises with leading groups of people (i.e. parties, and therefore overall, squads). 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

55 minutes ago, Chips.7968 said:

Strongest survival builds in the game? How so, because I'm curious how that synergises with leading groups of people (i.e. parties, and therefore overall, squads). 

Unique traits of these classes that allow extremely high regenerative or evasive capacities. For example, Ranger specifically built for it can regenerate in excess of 5k health/sec. Daredevils with the right builds and food have practically unlimited evasion. These builds aren't realistic in solo, roaming or even small scale because they have almost no damage potential, but one of key traits of being able to run tag is being able to forego damage potential entirely even if you're not a support, which leads to builds that are absolutely unimagineable under normal circumstances.

 

The tl;dr is, its the one place in the game where a true tank is acceptible, and optimal.

 

In theory Firebrand is this but they're extremely reliant on boons and if they fall into chain strips, a bubble or anything like that it can become very bad for them, very quickly. On the other hand, mechanics that can't be countered in any way are extremely strong in the hands of Commanders.

 

This is part of what makes Engi's Superspeed so strong, for example. Because its not a boon, and there's no realistic way to counter it; it powers through even crippling condtions and only Immobilize is significant. Its the same for Scourge with Spectral Walk; there's no way to stop the teleport, even if the Scourge is CC'ed.

 

Guard/FB doesn't really have anything like this. Its a good boonballer, but that's about it.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Hannelore.8153

[Littlekenny.4196]

46 minutes ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

Unique traits of these classes that allow extremely high regenerative or evasive capacities. For example, Ranger specifically built for it can regenerate in excess of 5k health/sec. Daredevils with the right builds and food have practically unlimited evasion. These builds aren't realistic in solo, roaming or even small scale because they have almost no damage potential, but one of key traits of being able to run tag is being able to forego damage potential entirely even if you're not a support, which leads to builds that are absolutely unimagineable under normal circumstances.

 

The tl;dr is, its the one place in the game where a true tank is acceptible, and optimal.

 

In theory Firebrand is this but they're extremely reliant on boons and if they fall into chain strips, a bubble or anything like that it can become very bad for them, very quickly. On the other hand, mechanics that can't be countered in any way are extremely strong in the hands of Commanders.

 

This is part of what makes Engi's Superspeed so strong, for example. Because its not a boon, and there's no realistic way to counter it; it powers through even crippling condtions and only Immobilize is significant. Its the same for Scourge with Spectral Walk; there's no way to stop the teleport, even if the Scourge is CC'ed.

 

Guard/FB doesn't really have anything like this. Its a good boonballer, but that's about it.

The issue with having masses of evasion or mobility is that it makes it hard and confusing to stick on tag. Lots of evasion also means you are unlikely to know how many dodges are available for the rest of the squad so you might dodge through damage when everyone else has no dodges and get them killed.

 

Also running an exceptionally tanky build means you have to watch everybody else's health bars to know how hot an area is.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Full gyro scrapper tank seems to be the most capable survivalist in zerg situations. 

 

Tank Spellbreaker too cause of the large number of invulns you can have. May as well run rampage as the elite lol. Assuming the idea is to be unkillable. 

[Zape.2094]

7 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Full gyro scrapper tank seems to be the most capable survivalist in zerg situations. 

 

Tank Spellbreaker too cause of the large number of invulns you can have. May as well run rampage as the elite lol. Assuming the idea is to be unkillable. 

I think you'd lose on way too much utility if you swapped the bubble for rampage honestly. I think warriors make pretty good commanders, but Id run bubble since its one of the strongest skills in the entire game for a zerg v zerg scenario, even more so when the commander is the one placing it (better coordination and map control).

Its kinda like as a firebrand you could always run the invuln meditation, but it's generally not worth losing the stability (at least in my experience).

Thanks for your input!

Best,

Z

[Chips.7968]

2 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

Daredevils with the right builds and food have practically unlimited evasion. 

I assume the entire rest of the squad you're leading while unlimited evading... dies instantly because they can't evade indefinitely?

If they don't die immediately, then one wonders why you'd take a class that evades indefinitely to ensure you can live for the duration, but supplies nothing else to the entire squad... I mean, the rest seem okay AND contribute something...

tl;dr - not seen a single thief leading. Doesn't mean they don't, but I'd question your justifications for why you would.

 

 

[RisenHowl.2419]

 

[ASP.8093]

5 hours ago, Zape.2094 said:

I guess the biggest benefit of a chrono commander would be the use of veil and the pulls right?

Mostly because Gravity Well and Focus pull are highly desirable for setting up big bombs (and you can time the follow-up DPS burst perfectly since you are telling people when to do it in voice chat).

Veil is okay but not vital. The duration is pretty weak compared to stealth gyro, so it's not essential in the FB+Scrapper boonball meta.

Just make sure you take Mantra of Concentration for personal stability (with Minstrel gear to stretch the boon duration to a useful level).

Edited October 5, 2021 by ASP.8093

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

firebrand is by far the best, as they can initiate engages like no others and are more bulky than chronos. alone the big stability reserves and reflects etc etc make FB the best pick.

 

chrono is kinda nieche option still, it's common mainly because not everyone enjoys firebrand that much.

 

FB has the advantage of roughly knowing which tome, staff etc cooldowns are actually on cooldown and which ones (should be) up and ready.

[RisenHowl.2419]

I enjoy fb plenty, but half of your skills are forward facing aoes. So you're ineffective at being your party's fb if you're in the front tagging. Chrono brings better utility and opens up play styles that aren't available to you when tagging on fb and the only loss is not seeing your squad's stab availability in real time

 

You could really tag on anything but the class you use determines the playstyle of your tagging 

[lockhart.6048]

A lot of NA commanders like to tag on Chrono, then refuse to bring Mantra of Concentration and endlessly Q_Q and rage at their Firebrands for not giving them stability.  One legit reason though is that a lot of commanders like to play safe and go range bombs - at least NA-  and still prefer pirate shipping. I've seen pirate shipping commanders lead with numbers from 15-20 squad to map queue squads. 

 

Edit: a lot of Chrono commanders also don't know or forget how CS works, so they start Q_Qing even more that the zerg is pushing ahead when they didn't take into account the re-teleport of CS. 

Edited October 5, 2021 by lockhart.6048

[Shroud.2307]

Chrono, Scrapper, Tempest, and Herald can all be extremely good tags.

Realistically, you can command with anything assuming you have competent support. But if you want to tag for pugs or just be less of a chore for your squad, the specs above are your best choices.

Why for each:

Chrono
Pulls (and other CCs), Boons, Invulns, Stealth, ports

Scrapper
Barrier, Boons, Cleanse, Superspeed, Stealth, healing

Tempest
Auras, Cleanse, high Invuln uptime, Immobilize, healing

Herald
Damage reduction, Boons (high access to Stability)

Speaking from experience in GvG's, roaming, and sniping tags, I can tell you that Tempest (or Weaver) is the hardest of the bunch to kill. I don't think a lot of people appreciate how much of an effect Auras have. 
Whether or not they contribute as much to the squad as a Firebrand, I'm not sure.

Edited October 5, 2021 by Shroud.2307

[gloflop.3510]

From the perspective of someone who pulls people, my advise would be to command on a firebrand. They are the hardest targets. They may put up stability faster and their survival is pretty high when not too much damage comes on their head at once.