Whys every guardian firebrand ? Pls fix willbender especially alac! (pve perspective only)

[Luna.6203]

Willbender:
1) Condi willbender is inferior and clunky version of condi firebrand without utilities.
2) Power willbender got poor damage no utilities to group as well.
3) Willbender was obviously designed to be alac support yet it doesnt work.
    a) If you are alac dpswilly and you are in phase where you cant hit. You wont generate alac and boons falls off. Also damage is really bad.
    b) If you are alac healbender you dont hit target that often. You mostly rely on symbols while casting staff 4 or shout heal and so on you are not hitting!
    FIX: Make it so F2 just pulse alac regardless if you hit or not.

 

-> Also besides of inconsistent alac its doesnt bring anything else just poor damage/heal. Noone even gives you chance. If i say im experienced alac-willy and i can do well. Nobody invites me. They think im trolling.

 

Im not going to even talk about dragonhunter as alternative. There is only power dps build and its laying dead somewhere at bottom of benchmarks.

 

That leave us firebrand as only viable option. Not because its superior dps or superior heal.. not even close. But because this does this for whole group:
[25 x Might] [Fury] [Quickness] [Resolution] [Stability] [Regeneration] [Swiftness] [Protection] [Aegis] [Resistance] [Vigor]

 

People still saying. Guardian is blue favored anet child.. There is new thread to nerf firebrand every 14 days or so. Most overpowered class since start of game.. 10 years! Non of it is true. In fact except firebrand boonboting there is nothing.

 

I know feedback from forum is probably pointless. But i still hope that maybe just maybe there is 1% chance something will be done. At least i can say i tried. Please Fix alac willy this game could use more alac supports. Its EoD spec it should be your priority!

[ThunderX.6591]

What you have wrote is the status of the class guardian + their elites; as i wrote about the status of FB as healer (not the top healer at all, the top healer is Tempest), and why people normally use healer FB instead of Tempest (because FB can also give quickness and some other nice boons without big change to healing considering heal concentration stats are more easy to use for healer than for a dps oriented class) so in a party, you can get an extra dps instead of a "Boons build", and that is why FB is preferred to Tempest in many high level party (because extra dps is considered more usefull then a better healer in high end party).

But no matter what you do, for some people, FB would be OP forever, even if isn't OP at all (but only a build that could do 2 job at once, healer and quickness).

Noone check on power Willbender or Power DH........... (or that pure condi FB is really low on the dps ranking)

[cat.8975]

2 hours ago, Luna.6203 said:

3) Willbender was obviously designed to be alac support yet it doesnt work.

Alac share was an afterthought, it was never meant to be competitive with the top-dog alac builds, but is instead just something you can play in a pinch if you can't find someone else to provide it, or if you just want to play it for fun.

I do hope we can get some pwb/cwb buffs though, it should definitely be parsing a couple thousand above CFB. Power guardian builds in general need some love (core, dh, and wb).

[Infinity.2876]

Q: Why is everybody firebrand

A: tome 1 skill 4 Scorched aftermath kills everything in the surrounding visinity

And lots of heal and quickness for meta events

Edited August 7, 2022 by Infinity.2876

[ThunderX.6591]

46 minutes ago, Infinity.2876 said:

Q: Why is everybody firebrand

A: tome 1 skill 4 Scorched aftermath kills everything in the surrounding visinity

And lots of heal and quickness for meta events

To be precise is because they use normally healer quickness FB, 2 roles in one; even though the healer isn't the best (tempest is the top healer), party take it so an extra dps spot can be taken. Totally normal optimization thinking that was literally ok until the june balance patch come........ after, thinking for an optimazed party changed (at least for some people who post on the forum).

[otto.5684]

I do not think WB was designed as alacrity support. Though it could end up providing that, but some traits will need rework. In PvE condi WB is decent, but is dealing less damage than it should. The power variant thought, terrible. It seems all guardian power options are bad right now. It seems with latest adjustments even DH fell behind.

 

I think that all WB master and GM traits need rework.

[Luna.6203]

About alac willy...

If it were afterthought that you can throw some alac for fun here and there than its cute but it doesnt work that way in competitive pve environment. You either keep 100% alac or you doing as much damage as possible and dont bother with alac traits and F2. Simply u are alac support or pure dps.

Also i doubt thats the case cuz in theory you can keep 100% alac. Even as healer who simply cannot hit as much as dps. Thanks to heal gear with concentration, boon sigil and rune with boon duration. You can keep 100% alac.

If you can constantly hit something and thats the problem and only problem!

 

It can be easily fixed !

Similar to F1 trait that can pulse aoe burn. F2 should pulse aoe alac. Its easy as that... problem solved.

Sure there can be more tweaks like:

Increase initial F2 alac boon duration little bit like 1 sec.

Alac master trait could increase alac duration by some %.

Maybe you guys can come with even better solution.

But alac willbender is almost there just small tweak and it will work. Please make it happen.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Luna.6203
typo

[Justine.6351]

On 8/7/2022 at 2:30 PM, Infinity.2876 said:

Q: Why is everybody firebrand

A: tome 1 skill 4 Scorched aftermath kills everything in the surrounding visinity

And lots of heal and quickness for meta events

Love it in open world. I play it full celestial because I am too lazy to try anymore. 

[Valisha.8650]

If willbender is to be good at alac, then I want scourge's shades to apply alac as well.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Support Willbender is crazy strong in PvP, where Firebrand isn't played. Its mostly suplanted Core Guardian in this role though some players still stick to core for a slightly better trait lineup.

 

Its problem in PvE is the same as all other non-FB healers. Even Druid and Tempest, who have Alacrity share, can barely compete with Firebrand despite them both having better healing capabilities. This is because the game isn't about healing, but utility, and FB brings the most utility possible to every encounter.

 

This is because of the Firebrand tomes, which let them sacrifice utility slots for every situation without losing something critical. Basically there's no trade-offs whatsoever.

 

Did you know that there's no configuration for Elementalitst that has more skills than FB? Tempest with 4x attunements (20x weapon skills), 5x utility skills, and 4x overloads (29 skills total) still comes out lower than  FB with 30 skills total. Firebrand always has the most skills possible in the game. Only an Engineer taking a kit in every single slot can exceed it, and just barely.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Falconwing.8105]

I've been running condi willbender as a DPS in fractals and raids recently and it's not really that bad. It does seem to struggle a bit on 100 CM (not entirely sure as to why) but it's very solid on the others. You can drop signet to bring an extra sanc, to bring SYG, to bring Advance, or even more CC like rolling light for Artsariiv. 

For raids it's solid on a number of fights. I especially like it on Xera, but it's shockingly effective on Dhuum. I imagine the power variant also works well on Q1 and doesn't run the risk of accidentally opening the lamp, though i have yet to test it. I don't like it on Conjured Amalgamate or Deimos though. 

It certainly has less utility but it isn't lacking in utility and the damage is still good even if overshadowed by virt and mech. 

[cat.8975]

3 hours ago, Falconwing.8105 said:

I've been running condi willbender as a DPS in fractals and raids recently and it's not really that bad. It does seem to struggle a bit on 100 CM (not entirely sure as to why) but it's very solid on the others. You can drop signet to bring an extra sanc, to bring SYG, to bring Advance, or even more CC like rolling light for Artsariiv. 

For raids it's solid on a number of fights. I especially like it on Xera, but it's shockingly effective on Dhuum. I imagine the power variant also works well on Q1 and doesn't run the risk of accidentally opening the lamp, though i have yet to test it. I don't like it on Conjured Amalgamate or Deimos though. 

It certainly has less utility but it isn't lacking in utility and the damage is still good even if overshadowed by virt and mech. 

Definitely agree w/ cwb being a viable dps pick for fractals. I just wish they would bump the damage up a tiny bit to push it ahead of cfb, considering the amount of baked-in utility available with tomes. Sigil of Absorption combined with Heel Crack is an underrated way to handle NPNG on the CM fights.

[Luna.6203]

20 hours ago, Valisha.8650 said:

If willbender is to be good at alac, then I want scourge's shades to apply alac as well.

Feel free to go to necromancer subforum and make suggestion about it.

 

 

11 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

Support Willbender is crazy strong in PvP,

Willbender support in pvp ?! Ive never heard of it and its crazy strong you say ? I dont wanted to talk about pvp in this thread but Im really curious. Do you have any link to build or video of someone playing it ??

 

 

10 hours ago, Falconwing.8105 said:

I've been running condi willbender as a DPS in fractals and raids recently and it's not really that bad.

 

6 hours ago, cat.8975 said:

Definitely agree w/ cwb being a viable dps pick for fractals.

 

Yeah i have multiple builds on my guard but at end of day when i join group they want heal FB or quick dps FB. Nobody never ever wants anything else than FB. Even if they looking for alac couple of minutes and cant find any so i suggest them i can swap. HELL NO! stay FB! And its kind of okay cuz i made guard specifically because i wanted to be support mainly firebrand but occasional change would be welcomed and i would love alac role as guard and its almost possible  .. almost.

 

And if group already have heal/quick support and so they want just pure dps i just switch over to virtuoso. Better damage, fully range, easy to play and mesmer utils if needed. I cant really think of one reason why play willbender.. except if it has viable alac. This is why i urge them to fix alac willbender. Because in that case damage isnt that important although im not sure if it were enough.. I just hope so.