Firebrand tomes nerf: pick one?

[The Boz.2038]

Firebrand gets to add three whole skill bars to their loadout, along with two weapons, while retaining passives. It's a straight-up buff in power and utility, at ~no cost.
Bladesworn was released recently. It's a warrior that gets two additional skillbars, but loses weapon swap, and the utility provided is pretty bad, honestly.

What if we do some creative trait-making so that Firebrand base loadout is somewhat lessened, but the entire set becomes easier to manage and balance?
Firebrand loses the whole three tomes thing. The first trait they pick expands one of their virtues into a tome; the other virtues stay as they are.
Want to play offensive? Pick "Unrelenting Justice - Gain Tome of Justice. Axe skills gain 33% chance to inflict 3s bleeding. Symbol of Vengeance inflicts 1s Daze." Like to grant quickness? Take "Quickening Resolve - Gain Tome of Resolve. Allies you heal or grant regeneration to gain 2s quickness, 5s cooldown." Need to be tanky? Grab "Stoic Courage - Gain Tome of Courage. Inflict 5s burn and 2.5s slow when you gain aegis or stability, 2s cooldown." 
All tomes get a 40s cooldown, their skills are kinda rejiggered so they make sense that way. Renewed Justice affects all tomes equally: 6s cooldown or instant 1 page if already in.

[Antina.5973]

You serious? Oh it's not 1sat April. Still had my laugh. Go check out mechanist.

[The Boz.2038]

1 hour ago, Antina.5973 said:

You serious? Oh it's not 1sat April. Still had my laugh. Go check out mechanist.

Do you think Firebrand is in no way deserving of a nerf, and that, in contrast, Mechanist is OP and is the infantile mode class?

[Xaylin.1860]

I love my Firebrand but I'm pro for either "no weaponswap" or "only one Tome via traits" for the sake of game balance. Personally I prefer the latter because it has greater impact on playstyle and could finally lead to buffs for Tome skills again. It's also the best option to move Firebrand away from its eierlegende Wollmilchsau (egg-laying, milk-bearing wooly sow) state.

 

But... you won't find too many supporters for something like this in the Guardian subforum. 😆

[Ragnar.4257]

41 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Do you think Firebrand is in no way deserving of a nerf, and that, in contrast, Mechanist is OP and is the infantile mode class?

In PvP, no it isn't, which would suggest that the issue is one of numeric balancing between game-modes, and is not an intrinsic design problem. If it was intrinsically OP, then FB would be OP in PvP, but since the numbers are so trimmed, it is infact one of the worst specs in PvP.

[The Boz.2038]

6 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

In PvP, no it isn't, which would suggest that the issue is one of numeric balancing between game-modes, and is not an intrinsic design problem. If it was intrinsically OP, then FB would be OP in PvP, but since the numbers are so trimmed, it is infact one of the worst specs in PvP.

But you do see, I hope, how this affects the PvP balance? Base firebrand has such a huge utility set baked into the foundation of the spec, it's impossible to touch any of the knobs and switches without making sure that the context of that free utility set doesn't create a monstrosity.
This approach could easily pave the way to some buffs in PvP and WvW formats.

[Ragnar.4257]

6 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

But you do see, I hope, how this affects the PvP balance? Base firebrand has such a huge utility set baked into the foundation of the spec, it's impossible to touch any of the knobs and switches without making sure that the context of that free utility set doesn't create a monstrosity.
This approach could easily pave the way to some buffs in PvP and WvW formats.

Exactly how likely do you think it is that ANet would make an appropriate buff at the same time as reworking tomes? Or is it more likely that they shove in a half-baked idea that kinda works for PvE, and then leave it 3+ years before remembering PvP exists? See: Mantras

Edited April 4, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Trejgon.9367]

I will take a moment here to point out the issue I have pointed out in a number of similar idea - your idea makes "mechanical shift" of espec happen on major trait selection, which is contrary to espec design.

Bladewsorn gets their stuff on proficiency trait, the closest to your idea - daredevils, get's F1 change and third dodge on proficiency, and only use major traits to already elaborate on those mechanical changes. Even mechanist, which is kinda irrelevant to the topic of balancing firebrand, replaces toolbelt with mech on proficiency trait, and then use rest of them to customize that further.

Also technically speaking the "tradeoff" of firebrand is that pulling out a tome has cast time, while core guard virtue actives are instant-activation skills. While sure it is relatively tiny tradeoff comparatively, issue is that, well guardian's cor profession mechanic on itself is so simplistic that it is difficult to create meaningfull tradeoff for it, without resorting to lazy things, like druid's pet nerf, or berserkers toughness penalty.

The way I could see addressing of "three tomes are too much" argument, would be to instead of replacing virtues with tomes, firebrand get's basic tome at proficiency level (either F4, or replaces virtues for that one single tome, latter would need more work on balancing passives and trait interactions) this basic tome would have a mix of damaging skills, healing skills and support skills, then at one section of major traits, firebrands would choose to specialize their tome, with justice being tome of justice we have, courage being current tome of courage and resolve as current tome of resolve. Important note in here would be that the "basic tome" would have to be balanced to be inferior to either of those three, only good enough to teach a new player the concept of how it works before player can get access relevant traits, but not good enough for anyone to consider not selecting any of three "selection" traits, to retain it after access is there. This would be a challenge for AN to overcome in terms of balancing and design.

Alternatively, the "base tome" would be lesser tome of justice, and the trait would enhance that tome, this way it would be less of design work for 4th "mixed" tome.

 

Whatever is current balancing state of mechanist, it does not belong to firebrand balancing discussion. it could be the most broken in the history of game for all I care and it would still not invalidade discussion on wether or not firebrand is where it should be, or how to improve it. If you have issue with curent state of mechanist, feel free to go over to engineer class subform and discuss nerfs there.

[The Boz.2038]

At the same time? Eh. 
But they did show recent signs of "accelerating" stuff. Easier to remain hopeful than not.

[Ragnar.4257]

2 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

At the same time? Eh. 
But they did show recent signs of "accelerating" stuff. Easier to remain hopeful than not.

No, they made lots of "words" but there has yet to be any change in track-record. FB mantras still unusable.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[The Boz.2038]

10 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

instead of replacing virtues with tomes, firebrand get's basic tome at proficiency level (either F4, or replaces virtues for that one single tome, latter would need more work on balancing passives and trait interactions) this basic tome would have a mix of damaging skills, healing skills and support skills, then at one section of major traits, firebrands would choose to specialize their tome, with justice being tome of justice we have, courage being current tome of courage and resolve as current tome of resolve. Important note in here would be that the "basic tome" would have to be balanced to be inferior to either of those three, only good enough to teach a new player the concept of how it works before player can get access relevant traits, but not good enough for anyone to consider not selecting any of three "selection" traits, to retain it after access is there. This would be a challenge for AN to overcome in terms of balancing and design.

So, this either sounds exactly like my idea (one tome that replaces a virtue) or an additional skill that straight up buffs the brand that gets to keep all core virtue effects, *and* the new tome? Am I reading it right?

But, in the end, we can agree that "all three super utility tomes baked into the basic framework of the spec" is kinda too much, it seems. Nice.

[celestia.3829]

Tomes are only a balence issue in wvw. In pve tomes are just throwaway - you will basically always be using the same 3 "good" skills in a tome.  Firebrand should have better traits though, most of them are incredibly boring number increases or just completely usless

[Xaylin.1860]

2 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

No, they made lots of "words" but there has yet to be any change in track-record. FB mantras still unusable.

They do have a bad track record and of course they would have to adjust traits and Tome skills accordingly. But they did reworks for Scrapper and they also changed how Berserker works. The big patch in June/July (forgot which month...) might as well include similar reworks. The only con against that is them already working on Banner and Spirit so they might be busy with that.

 

35 minutes ago, celestia.3829 said:

Tomes are only a balence issue in wvw. In pve tomes are just throwaway - you will basically always be using the same 3 "good" skills in a tome.

They are throwaways and have been nerfed exactly because they are all accessible within one build. They no longer matter much in PvE because damage has been nerfed so much. The utility is still insane, though.

 

2 hours ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

Also technically speaking the "tradeoff" of firebrand is that pulling out a tome has cast time, while core guard virtue actives are instant-activation skills.

If that's the story one wants to tell... sure. But hardly relevant especially since you get Quickness at the same time. And what about DH vs. FB then? If we are being honest, there only is a cost of opportunity for using a Tome because you can't access your weapon skills. But that's not a trade off. And it's also not like you have to "finish reading the book" to get back to you weapons.

[Fueki.4753]

I'm definitely in favour of restricting Firebrands to only have one Tome available at a time.

[draxynnic.3719]

This idea gets thrown around a lot. It underestimates the opportunity cost of using a tome (sure, it's extra skillbars on paper, but it's not like kits where you can swap in and out freely, and as long as you're in a tome you're not using other skills), to the point where replacing the tomes you usually don't use with instant-activation core virtues might honestly be a net buff. 

I was considering this the other day, though, and it struck me that one problem with firebrand is that the same traits buff all three tomes. You don't specialise in one, any tome trait you choose buffs all three. Obviously your gear will still affect which ones are most useful, but traits taken with the intent of primarily buffing, say, Justice will still improve the other two.

Changing that is probably the approach I'd be willing to take, forcing specialisation without tearing the elite spec up at the roots. Virtually nobody ever takes the grandmasters instead of Loremaster anyway, so scrap or move them. Instead, Archivist of Whispers, Legendary Lore, and Loremaster get rolled into one trait... and then separated out again into a GM trait for each tome. So you can have, for instance, Tome of Justice with 8 pages, extra burning damage, and retaining the Justice passive while on cooldown... but Resolve and Courage would then be baseline. Or you could choose the Resolve or Courage trait, but Justice would then be baseline.

 

You'd then need to replace Archivist and Legendary Lore with general-purpose traits, since the middle line traits assume you're a quickness provider, and the top traits assume you're using axe or mantras. Stoic Demeanor could probably be moved to master tier (firebrands are always going to have SOME CC through tomes if nothing else), but Quickfire assumes a quickness build, so something else would have to go in the adept slot.

[Trejgon.9367]

5 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

So, this either sounds exactly like my idea (one tome that replaces a virtue) or an additional skill that straight up buffs the brand that gets to keep all core virtue effects, *and* the new tome? Am I reading it right?

But, in the end, we can agree that "all three super utility tomes baked into the basic framework of the spec" is kinda too much, it seems. Nice.

No it's either flat out F4 and get's to keep core virtue effects, or replaces all three of them with single tome (with more work to "fix" the traits/passives vacuum that would create).

The first one would still have yer tradeoff issue, but would not have quite the same amount of versatility as current firebrand.

Second one is alot of work.

As for agreement on wether three tomes are too much or not - well I did not say I agree that it definitelly is "kinda too much" I just noted what I would do to this whole family of suggestions, to make them agreeable with what we saw so far in terms to espec design. And for the record, I do not think that three tomes themselves are inherently unfixable issue with firebrand. They definitelly make it harder to balance the espec, but that's about it. In the long run question is, what less resource intensive - continuing throwing nerfs every second patch untill players stops whining, or reworking whole espec to make it easier to balance.

3 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

If that's the story one wants to tell... sure. But hardly relevant especially since you get Quickness at the same time. And what about DH vs. FB then? If we are being honest, there only is a cost of opportunity for using a Tome because you can't access your weapon skills. But that's not a trade off. And it's also not like you have to "finish reading the book" to get back to you weapons.

well I did mention it is tiny, but again what kind of more meaningfull tradeoff you want to do on a class with core class mechanic that is essentially "you get three more signets but with different skill label"?

as for DH vs FB - last time I checked "tradeoff" between especs was literally not having access to the traits and skill from the other one, and concept of espec enforcing tradeoff was to ensure that core class stays relevant. So in the case of DH vs FB, FB looses alot of mobility, huge amount of power spike potential, and the abilities dragonhunter has (there is no equivalent in firebrands tomes for spear of justice of wings of resolve, you could argue that tome of courage has a sort of equivalent for shield of courage in a form of dome, but that dome only reflects projectiles while iirc shield of courage blocks melee attacks from that angle as well).

[The Boz.2038]

5 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

In the long run question is, what less resource intensive - continuing throwing nerfs every second patch untill players stops whining, or reworking whole espec to make it easier to balance.

Betting option 2 is less resource intensive, considering the goal.

[Sonork.2916]

Only people left complaining about FB prob don't play it.  2/3 of the tomes decrease your dmg to zero and all make weapon skills unusable.  Which mode do you think FB is still OP in? Cause it's bad in PVP, and in WVW it's just a stab/boon bot.   So that leaves PvE, so it raids you want them nerfed in?  Cause all other PvE doesn't really matter.

[Xaylin.1860]

21 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

well I did mention it is tiny, but again what kind of more meaningfull tradeoff you want to do on a class with core class mechanic that is essentially "you get three more signets but with different skill label"?

Sooo... it is not really a relevant trade-off then? 😜

 

There are always ways. They did come up with something reasonable for WB, didn't they? And I can at least see some merit in the casttime arguement for DH. Not so much for FB. Looking at the OP, there are two suggestions that have been mentioned for years. It is unpleasent, sure. But it is probably better for game balance.

 

Now, if the core mechanic is too weak, it has to be buffed. However, this hardly justifies what's going on with FB.

 

23 minutes ago, Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

as for DH vs FB - last time I checked "tradeoff" between especs was literally not having access to the traits and skill from the other one, and concept of espec enforcing tradeoff was to ensure that core class stays relevant. So in the case of DH vs FB, FB looses alot of mobility, [...]

That is not what I've meant. Only looking at Virtues, DH already covers the "it has a cast-time" storyline - where it is actually kind of believable. For Firebrand not so much. Most other things you mention, especially the spike damage, do not come from Virtues but from Traps and other traits. It is not directly connected to the class mechanic, or to phrase it differently, the change to the class when selecting the espec.

 

2 minutes ago, Sonork.2916 said:

2/3 of the tomes decrease your dmg to zero ...

Because two Tomes are focussed on support 🤫

 

4 minutes ago, Sonork.2916 said:

... and all make weapon skills unusable. 

Does that mean that Necro, Reaper, Harbinger, Druid, Holosmith and Bladesworn are unplayable? Heck, you don't even have to build up pages or anything. If your Tome skills don't fit the situation anymore, just drop the book. It's not an ankle cuff.

[oscuro.9720]

So, Mr. Boz, your “pathway to buffs in pvp/wvw” would be something like this I presume;

Grand master trait decides which time you get. 

Tomes no longer have cool downs, but page count recharge rates (like an ammo skill) of, say, 5 seconds a page. (Note, skills still do have cool downs)

You can freely enter and leave a tome (as you would a kit) so long as there are pages left. 
Increase the impact of time skills (Buffs!)

Perhaps give mobility to one skill in each tome? (Leap, dash, and teleport respectively)

This allows for a faster gameplay that frequently goes in and out of tomes to have the maximally advantageous effect, but restricts the breadth of application of a single FB build. 

Is something like that what you were thinking of Boz?

Edited April 4, 2022 by oscuro.9720

[Hotride.2187]

I mean why not.

In wvw you take the stab tome, scrappers already take care of heal and cleanses; you will miss fire tome pull but I doubt its a big hit. In spvp you don't exist. In pve for cfb/qcfb you take the burn tome. The only thing the nerf achieves is to nerf hfb in fractals (I assume hfb got deleted from raids with the aegis mantra nerf).

I'm not sure how impactful of a nerf it would be for fractals.

It might push groups into heal+alac mech and some build for quickness (especially in CMs?), which you can fill as qcfb (stab uptime would get hurt, but your dps will go up). Or maybe you can still do well enough by always picking the heal tome, and only sometimes picking the stab tome. Especially if you go stunbeak mantra instead of the quickness elite shout. Effectively you would lose only some projectile hate and some resistance, which could be up like 1/5 of the time... Both of which are good in some fights, but you can probably live without them overall. It could of course turn out that you can't sustain the group well enough in some fights, unless your group is good.

Since "at best" you'll be replacing hfb with healmech in fractals... I don't exactly see what the change will achieve. Technically it would reduce the toolbox feel of fb... but that is already only marginally useful as listed above. There is a reason you stay in tomes only for a short duration in pve - your weapon and utility skills are already very strong.

It could of course end up as one of many nerfs that eventually push the spec from OP to the trash bin, since you never know what the last straw is (or the devs don't know, looking at e.g. war in competitive).

Edited April 4, 2022 by Hotride.2187

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

9 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

In PvP, no it isn't, which would suggest that the issue is one of numeric balancing between game-modes, and is not an intrinsic design problem. If it was intrinsically OP, then FB would be OP in PvP, but since the numbers are so trimmed, it is infact one of the worst specs in PvP.

Bear in mind that this would also be an opportunity to BUFF the three tomes considering you would only get to use one.

Buffs like removing the cast time which has been mentioned several times already. What @oscuro.9720suggested would all be fun buffs to add in at that point and I would be completely on board with them, as they would be balanced unlike the  current FB.

For the record I'm on team Single Tome, but that has more to do with the fact that some specs get "tradeoffs 😉" and others get massive tradeoffs 🤬 like Bladesworn and Berserker. This kind of change would create an actual tradeoff for FB rather than something that amounts to the tiniest slap on the wrist gameplay wise.

[Ragnar.4257]

20 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

BUFF 

What is this word

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

What is this word

It is this mythical thing that as a warrior I have only heard whispers of from the other professions.

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Because two Tomes are focussed on support 🤫

 

But it's a valid point. If you're a DPS Firebrand, you really don't want to have to press F2 or F3 unless something has already gone terribly, terribly wrong. Granted, it's a panic button that many other DPS builds don't have, but it's not something you really want to have to do, and picking the right time to do it if you do have to is a bit of an art.

The tradeoff of tomes bringing more to the table is that you have to switch into the tome for an extended period. You can drop the tome early, sure, but don't get any refund on your cooldown if you do.

Every time this comes up, I wonder if the people bringing it up have ever really tried to see what you can do with instant-activation virtues. Instant-action F3, combined with Indomitable Courage, makes it actually effective as a stunbreak (elite specialisation F3s are vulnerable to being interrupted before you actually get the stability stacks), gaining aegis, stability, resolution and protection in an instant, potentially without even interrupting your rotation if you use it before a potential CC lands... and you can activate it during a stomp in competitive (or to help someone ELSE secure a stomp). Instant-action F1 is something that you can potentially activate just before something dies, splashing out a blind, might, resolution, and burning essentially for free. F2 is probably the weakest, but being instant activation, you can still use it to self-cleanse a blind mid-swing, or just press it freely whenever you're not feeling under too much pressure but where your team could use a boost because it doesn't interrupt your rotation. And, in general, ripple-firing F2 and F3, or even all three, can be an effective panic button.

Does this completely match what firebrand tomes can do, in isolation? Probably not. But you also have to remember that core virtues aren't competing with firebrand on their own. You have to consider the entire package, including core guardian being able to take a third core traitline. Those core guardian traitlines are pretty good - there's a reason core guardian remains a valid choice in pretty much every game mode. (Although I do note that core power guard has been removed from Snowcrows - I guess power willbender replaced it.)

Forcing a single tome would, I think, make firebrand less interesting since you have less options, but from a power perspective, trading two tomes for the core virtues would be a bit of a "don't throw me in that briar patch" scenario. For a DPS firebrand, it's probably more convenient to throw the occasional core F2 or F3 to help the healer out than to try to judge when the situation justifies breaking out a support tome. Similar for healbrand - they might lose a bit of DPS for not having tome 1, but who really cares, and they can still add a bit of damage through F1 without risking interrupting their healing at a bad time (which can happen when using Tome of Justice on a healbrand build). Losing Tome of Courage might be more of a blow, but if access to Tome of Resolve is increased, they'd probably consider it a net win, especially since there's a shorter recharge on-demand aegis (and possibly more) available. WvW support firebrands really mostly care about stability, so they'd probably happily trade Tome of Justice and Tome of Resolve for core Justice and Resolve if it meant even a small shortening of the recharge for Tome of Courage.