Firebrand nerfs

[Axl.8924]

Guardian

Firebrand is another support build that's good at a few too many things. The main aspect that we want to bring down is its ability to heal allies, and for this update we've targeted its passive healing capability via Battle Presence. This will reduce the firebrand's overall healing output while still leaving Tome of Resolve as a higher-impact healing option.

• Battle Presence: The following changes affect the firebrand elite specialization only.

o    Reduced pulse base heal from 84 to 42 in WvW only.

o    Reduced pulse heal attribute scaling from 0.06 to 0.03 in WvW only.

In this update, we're shaving down the damage output from both power guardian and revenant in WvW. Staff damage is something that we've brought down previously, but it's still higher than we'd like to see on a weapon primarily designed for support builds.

• Test of Faith: Reduced passthrough strike power coefficient from 2.52 to 2.22 in WvW only.
• Procession of Blades: Increased cooldown from 20 seconds to 25 seconds in WvW only.
• Holy Strike: Reduced power coefficient from 0.91 to 0.73 in WvW only.
• Symbol of Swiftness: Reduced power coefficient from 0.3 to 0.25 in WvW only.

Righteous Instincts has been a key piece of power guardian builds for as long as it's been in the game. Core power guardian currently sees average success in lower ranked play, but it hasn't been a major player in higher ranks or serious tournament games for quite a while. While we were looking at updates for willbender, we floated the idea of enhancing Righteous Instincts and saw it as an interesting option. This is another change that we'll be keeping a very close eye on to measure the impact and see if it's something that we need to reevaluate.

• Righteous Instincts: Increased bonus critical chance from 25% to 40% in PvP only.

While the Righteous Instincts effect is potentially a big one for willbender, we felt that there were a few other pieces that were worth adjusting. A longer immobilization on Advancing Strike gives willbender slightly more potential to set up its own damage, and lower virtue cooldowns solidify the specialization as a high-mobility roamer.

• Advancing Strike: Increased immobile duration from 1 second to 2 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Lethal Tempo: Increased damage bonus per stack from 2% to 3% in PvP and WvW.
• Flowing Resolve: Reduced ammo recharge from 30 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW. Increased initial base heal from 783 to 1,331 in PvP and WvW.
• Crashing Courage: Reduced cooldown from 50 seconds to 30 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Roiling Light: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Heaven's Palm: Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Mighty Blow: Reduced cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Zealot's Embrace: Increased power coefficient from 0.8 to 1.2 in PvP and WvW.
• Ring of Warding: Reduced cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.

[Infusion.7149]

IMO Heaven's Palm should be the lower cooldown in PVE as well. It's already in the PVE build and having more people responsible for CC is a good thing instead of having waystations outside of instanced content.

Flowing Resolve might have had an internal buff before the patch rolled out. The increase is larger than stated because the original heal was in the order of 650ish.

Not surprised one bit about the WVW changes although would have liked to see Mantra of Solace's heal actually heal the firebrand.

Edited March 29 by Infusion.7149

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3 by Acyk.9671

[Ezrael.6859]

3 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Flowing Resolve might have had an internal buff before the patch rolled out. The increase is larger than stated because the original heal was in the order of 650ish.

Incorrect.

This change is regarding the initial self heal when activating Flowing Resolve which was added at EoD launch, not the heal on trigger.

[ArchonWing.9480]

23 hours ago, Acyk.9671 said:

Does anyone get the Battle Presence nerf? FB heal hasn't been relevant for a while. Why nerf this? 

It was considered fairly standard in zerg wvw firebrand builds, though for lack of a better choice.  Indomitable Courage is very w/e since a 63s group stunbreak is pretty irrelevant when mantra of liberation is used. Other Guardians have shorter cooldown on f3 and do not have as much access to stab.

Either way, pretty irrelevant since firebrand healing in wvw  zergs is pretty inferior to other options.

Elsewhere, pretty irrelevant except maybe in very bad fractal groups or something.

I am sure that 1 heal alarcrity WB will be upset, but whatever.

Edited March 30 by ArchonWing.9480

[Valisha.8650]

This thing should get catalyst treatment.