The guardian Nov 29 "preview".

[Beddo.1907]

1 hour ago, AdamII.2140 said:

Seriously considering just trying another MMO.  I started a firebrand recently, after much chagrin at the goofy 'Manifesto'.  I thought surely after the horrendous reception to the august patch notes, then the spectre/scrapper fiasco, these tone deaf geniuses would put the knife away and listen to players who have invested time and effort in builds to improve their gameplay experience.  However, they have doubled down with every 'balance patch' (just a catch word for idiotic nerfs and worthless surface buffs to underpowered/less durable classes. I have seen this design philosophy before....in 'mobile 'gacha' games. You weaken the meta classes prior to a new release, then you have devs 'greedsplain' it as 'balance', or as 'error correction', as if no one has a brain (and many drink the kool-aid as if the devs are somehow 'smart', or believe their vision????  Let me be clear as a scripter and modder, the only reason you ever nerf, is for future sales....'Period'.  When a mistake is found in character creation, most companies immediately address it, (it should be caught in testing but patience is a virtue these teams don't often have), and show clearly that something is bugged or incorrectly implemented and fix it.  Nerfs on characters in single player rpg games are avoided by simply not updating the game. However, paying players only avenue when dev teams continue to behave foolishly, even with paying players in an uproar, if protest fails is to play something else. Holes in roles????? Imagine a car salesman telling you that!  Doubling down after the most severe criticism for a patch the game has ever seen, is what mobile 'gachas' do after boycotts.  Implementation is seemingly the problem, but greed is the underlying root (check the decline of Soulbeast (POF) and the rise of Untamed (EOD)).  It's never for 'balance'. This game is so eclectic, that it doesn't need a lot of overhauls, just polish up what's there prior to any new DLC (no mount zones, pad support, painted on flowers in the OC, invisible walls, etc.....), anyone who has played for any length of time knows there are no humungous variances in classes in this game, just skill level  (the builds are over-wrought, due to over-thought!).  The meta will always shift to easy to play, in a casual leaning environment, as it should. But instead of working on the weaknesses of the game, these devs have decided that goofy fireside chats to explain reseilling you the same gameplay as more difficult is saleable with a wink and a smirk, because they have a 'vision', is insulting.  Dude, it's a freaking game, if you want to add difficulty, build another boss, like other freaking games. If you want to balance classes, add counters, like other freaking games.  It may just be time after this latest mess just to go play anther freaking game....one that's fun without looking over my shoulder wondering when it will be 'balanced'!

While you look for another MMO, could you also look for the one who asked.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

I think the main change visible in the teaser is the tome charges and tbh i quite like it. It removes some free utility out of Cdps/Qdps and lowers the amount of utility from HfB (while in its current design still offering plenty of that in its weapon/utility slots). On top of that i'm very glad to see the nerfs are specifically focussed on firebrand and not the core spec. I still would like to see a major nerf to SYG though, skill has been broken since release and with other classes getting some access to stability its finally time to tune it down in order to get it in line with the alternatives of the other professions. 

I also wouldn't be surprised if they reworked all signets. With the overall tendency to increase the APM/rewarding proper skill usage of most builds i wouldn't be surprised if all signets would retain their passive effect while being activated (and maybe get a slight nerf to their passive/active ability). 

[Antina.5973]

Maybe if dps gets decoupled from support tomes they could finally buff DPS builds...

I just hope it will be still perfectly playable as support. We don't have too many gamers playing that in general and last thing I'd want is to wait even longer with LFG/Group making cause nobody plays quick/alac. I personally play FB and love i for versatility, if they gut that, well, sayonara. You got one less quick/heal in LFG pool.
 

[Ya Ya Yeah.7381]

Signet rework, plus small weapon buffs would be my guess.

[Rune Darkmoor.3269]

9 hours ago, Falseprophet.1502 said:

I hope it sucks so this forum can finally see how terrible of a state Guardian is in outside of Firebrand. 

 

This.

 

After playing pretty much only Guardian for a literal decade I've abandoned it. I can't stand Firebrand and I'm not going through another Guardian kitten show for however long ANet decides the other specs are once again "in a good place" when they're clearly not.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

4 hours ago, Chaion.8341 said:

Don't know what the change will be and happy to wait. However, I would appreciate if instead of nerfing FB they would elevate the usability of any other elite specs that underperformed. We need rid of using all utilities off cooldown for boon maintenance to make gameplay more reactive. You can maintain your party boon uptime but also heal or port or something else when it is actually relevant without losing that. FB is fun to play because you can adapt to what your party needs. Maintaining quickness but also maybe throwing some condi resistance or CC out there to help out.

" Powercreep"

[NotTooFoolish.7412]

10 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Why should it nuke cqfb? Because of those few usages of scepter 2? Can just camp axe for minor dps loss. 

The only case where this hurts is cele firebrand imo (axe/torch and staff) and maybe hfb. But you can just camp staff and be done with it.

I shouldn't post before coffee. Yeah, I was thinking about celebrand.
Maybe they just didn't equip a 2nd set to troll us a bit.

[Kulvar.1239]

My two hypothesis : Signet rework, and Tome pages work like Thief Initiative.

But then there are multiple ways for tomes to go:

• Tomes become engineer kits (nerfed skills)
• Tomes have lowered cooldown (more likely)
• Tomes become a single skill that consumes pages to use (less likely than the above two)

Edited November 8, 2022 by Kulvar.1239

[otto.5684]

We are going through signets… again. Last time Anet kittened things up. And not sure about axe or tomes or even FB. Most the issues right are with WB and DH. I do not think this picture means much, if anything, but if it does, it means that balance devs are out to lunch.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

On 11/8/2022 at 4:47 AM, Dadnir.5038 said:

What shock me is that they slot the elite signet...

Hey man, I turn the tides of skirmishes in WvW with that skill.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Lan Deathrider.5910

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

My 2 Copper:

1) They are moving away from "tRaDe OfFs" so weapon swap will not be lost
2) Pages are lit without a tome equipped, so it looks like pages will now be a shared resource across all tomes, perhaps with a shorter CD on equipping a tome. Maybe they'll recharge at a certain rate or get a trait to gain pages when granting quickness on some ICD. It could be that pages decrease at a rate while a tome is equipped, and the tome skills do not cost pages. We'll see, but FB is losing a lot of its power and versatility as a result.
3) Torch buffs
4) Maybe signet changes, or it could just have been them filling up their bar for obfuscation

 

Part of the balance problem of Firebrand is that it is way too versatile and reactive. This crowds out other professions, and it hides the fact that other guardian specs need work.

[Dadnir.5038]

7 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Hey man, I turn the tides of skirmished in WvW with that skill.

I got a bad case of "heavy prejudices" due to it's previous design. I was wondering wether to remove my comment or not right after writing it but finaly choose to leave it.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

7 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I got a bad case of "heavy prejudices" due to it's previous design. I was wondering wether to remove my comment or not right after writing it but finaly choose to leave it.

Heavy predudices because you hated the original design, or that they changed it into a signet?

[Dadnir.5038]

1 minute ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Heavy predudices because you hated the original design, or that they changed it into a signet?

Nope the 2-3s cast time to a single 100% heal on 90s CD

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

6 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Nope the 2-3s cast time to a single 100% heal on 90s CD

Like I said, I've turned small scale skirmishes 100% around with that skill in WvW. Pretty underrated if you ask me. The self root on it stinks of course, not a fan of those in principle.

[Hallow.7368]

Firebrand just needs less access to aegis barfing on people. It's a badly designed boon that promoted being bad by not dodging or moving. The LITERAL only difference between HFB and every other healer is just aegis spam from the heal mantra. Remove that and HFB will be pretty much completely balanced and interchangeable with heal quickness herald and heal alac tempest/druid. The only reason they AREN'T is because of how good aegis spam in fractals is. We don't need support builds getting more aegis we just need less of it. Leave it locked behind long CD abilities like aftershock on tempest and distortion on mesmer (which is only when taking insp anyways). 

 

Ideally we shouldn't be homogenizing classes.. but anet seem pretty intent on getting alternatives to roles and this is pretty much the fastest way to do so. Plus like I said aegis is pretty op to begin with especially with it being THAT available. I just hope that once the game gets to a balanced state where baseline supports can apply more or less all the necessary basic boons and one of the big 2 boons (alac/quick) that anet will slowly start adding unique buffs and such back into the game so each class can have a unique reason to be picked without suffocating the meta instead of just leaving everything homogenized.

[Ragnar.4257]

9 minutes ago, Hallow.7368 said:

Firebrand just needs less access to aegis barfing on people. It's a badly designed boon that promoted being bad by not dodging or moving. The LITERAL only difference between HFB and every other healer is just aegis spam from the heal mantra. Remove that and HFB will be pretty much completely balanced and interchangeable with heal quickness herald and heal alac tempest/druid. The only reason they AREN'T is because of how good aegis spam in fractals is. We don't need support builds getting more aegis we just need less of it. Leave it locked behind long CD abilities like aftershock on tempest and distortion on mesmer (which is only when taking insp anyways). 

 

Ideally we shouldn't be homogenizing classes.. but anet seem pretty intent on getting alternatives to roles and this is pretty much the fastest way to do so. Plus like I said aegis is pretty op to begin with especially with it being THAT available. I just hope that once the game gets to a balanced state where baseline supports can apply more or less all the necessary basic boons and one of the big 2 boons (alac/quick) that anet will slowly start adding unique buffs and such back into the game so each class can have a unique reason to be picked without suffocating the meta instead of just leaving everything homogenized.

??

They already removed the aegis on heal-mantra in PvE?

You're complaining about something that already got removed ages ago.

FB doesn't have any more aegis access than core-guardian (in PvE).

This is why we can't have nice things; people giving opinions without even basic knowledge.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Hallow.7368]

1 hour ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

??

They already removed the aegis on heal-mantra in PvE?

You're complaining about something that already got removed ages ago.

FB doesn't have any more aegis access than core-guardian (in PvE).

This is why we can't have nice things; people giving opinions without even basic knowledge.

??

I was wrong about heal mantra and will freely admit that, but that does not discredit what I actually said. I forgot about that patch and I don't play my guard especially FB really at all. It's an extremely bland and generic class IMHO and I can never get myself to stick to it. The reason we can't have nice things or civil discussions though is actually because of people like you taking a simple, borderline unimportant mistake and blowing it out of proportion to try and dismiss my entire point. I was actually complaining about aegis as a whole not just specifically the mantra I was mistaken about the way it's applied. Gw2armory tooltips on websites shows the pve + pvp tooltip combined (so it showed all 3 boons) with no distinction between what was pve and what was pvp boon wise just fyi that's the main reason I misspoke.

 

Either way anet is moving towards homogenization right now and for as long as that's the path they want to take I'd much rather there be less aegis and possibly even stability than more. They're essentially training wheels in the same way that a heal scourge would be except they just block stuff so you don't even learn and they never come off because they're op at every stage of the game. Good or bad players. Druid and tempest have just the right amount. One ability (or pet ability in druids case) with a moderate cool down. 2 sources could be fine, but guard has shield of judgement, 2 charges of advance, and protectors strike on mace. Not to mention that protectors strike and shield of judgement also have considerably lower cool downs than the white tiger's roar or aftershock. Oh and FB does have more aegis than core guard. It's called "Epilogue: Unbroken Lines", you know, skill 5 on tome of courage. It's not a primary source over the others I listed but it's conveniently there if you happen to already be in that tome when you do need aegis and it'll always be up when you go into that tome because it's a 12 second CD. Gives stab, protection and a unique buff too. But yea, go off about "people who give opinions without basic knowledge" because you are clearly the most knowledgeable person here.

[Hallow.7368]

On 11/8/2022 at 6:02 AM, AdamII.2140 said:

Seriously considering just trying another MMO.  I started a firebrand recently, after much chagrin at the goofy 'Manifesto'.  I thought surely after the horrendous reception to the august patch notes, then the spectre/scrapper fiasco, these tone deaf geniuses would put the knife away and listen to players who have invested time and effort in builds to improve their gameplay experience.  However, they have doubled down with every 'balance patch' (just a catch word for idiotic nerfs and worthless surface buffs to underpowered/less durable classes. I have seen this design philosophy before....in 'mobile 'gacha' games. You weaken the meta classes prior to a new release, then you have devs 'greedsplain' it as 'balance', or as 'error correction', as if no one has a brain (and many drink the kool-aid as if the devs are somehow 'smart', or believe their vision????  Let me be clear as a scripter and modder, the only reason you ever nerf, is for future sales....'Period'.  When a mistake is found in character creation, most companies immediately address it, (it should be caught in testing but patience is a virtue these teams don't often have), and show clearly that something is bugged or incorrectly implemented and fix it.  Nerfs on characters in single player rpg games are avoided by simply not updating the game. However, paying players only avenue when dev teams continue to behave foolishly, even with paying players in an uproar, if protest fails is to play something else. Holes in roles????? Imagine a car salesman telling you that!  Doubling down after the most severe criticism for a patch the game has ever seen, is what mobile 'gachas' do after boycotts.  Implementation is seemingly the problem, but greed is the underlying root (check the decline of Soulbeast (POF) and the rise of Untamed (EOD)).  It's never for 'balance'. This game is so eclectic, that it doesn't need a lot of overhauls, just polish up what's there prior to any new DLC (no mount zones, pad support, painted on flowers in the OC, invisible walls, etc.....), anyone who has played for any length of time knows there are no humungous variances in classes in this game, just skill level  (the builds are over-wrought, due to over-thought!).  The meta will always shift to easy to play, in a casual leaning environment, as it should. But instead of working on the weaknesses of the game, these devs have decided that goofy fireside chats to explain reseilling you the same gameplay as more difficult is saleable with a wink and a smirk, because they have a 'vision', is insulting.  Dude, it's a freaking game, if you want to add difficulty, build another boss, like other freaking games. If you want to balance classes, add counters, like other freaking games.  It may just be time after this latest mess just to go play anther freaking game....one that's fun without looking over my shoulder wondering when it will be 'balanced'!

Ok bye.

Why are you acting like this game is made by one person? You're over here acting like the balance team gets payed more from your "future sales". ?? I guess it's technically possible the higher ups at the company force the balance team (their employees) to do nerfs for "future sales" but I highly doubt it. Why would they hire a team of people and a lead for the balance team to analyze the state of the classes if they were just going to force said team + lead to do something anyways? Waste of their own money at that point because they could just have 1 person do those things since they wouldn't actually need to collect and interpret the data about the state of the game throughout the different modes. Besides that if this was the case then why do they do buffs? Why did they buff so many power coefficients on base game weapons for multiple classes if their goal was to just nerd things so you buy "future sales". Ele staff is a core weapon. I don't have to buy anything to use and and even then they somewhat undershot on the changes. 

Oh and what "future sales"? A new expansion that may or may not have new elite specs is still probably 2 years away at minimum? How is nerfing guard now conditioning you to buy something that's not even designed yet and is years out from actually being designed? Unless of course you mean that guard nerfs are conditioning people to buy a pink scarf in the cosmetic shop (cosmetics are the vast majority of their revenue afaik)? 

Gacha games specifically rely and are created around predatory monetization styles. Gacha literally means "toy vending machine" idk how it isn't obvious enough from the literal meaning of that word that the game is going to revolve around pumping out new characters, weapons and whatever else with the express goal of power creep to more or less force you into gamble with extremely unfavorable odds because just like a claw machine you could get it after 25 cents! Or 25 dollars. While making it even more enticing to you because: "Don't worry! Here's 'bad luck' protection! You're guaranteed to get something (after $200)!!" GW2 is not comparable in any kittening way to a gacha game, lmao.

But yea hf trying to find a game that doesn't nerf things lol. Your conspiracies are W-I-L-D.

[Ragnar.4257]

56 minutes ago, Hallow.7368 said:

??

I was wrong about heal mantra and will freely admit that, but that does not discredit what I actually said. I forgot about that patch and I don't play my guard especially FB really at all. It's an extremely bland and generic class IMHO and I can never get myself to stick to it. The reason we can't have nice things or civil discussions though is actually because of people like you taking a simple, borderline unimportant mistake and blowing it out of proportion to try and dismiss my entire point. I was actually complaining about aegis as a whole not just specifically the mantra I was mistaken about the way it's applied. Gw2armory tooltips on websites shows the pve + pvp tooltip combined (so it showed all 3 boons) with no distinction between what was pve and what was pvp boon wise just fyi that's the main reason I misspoke.

 

Either way anet is moving towards homogenization right now and for as long as that's the path they want to take I'd much rather there be less aegis and possibly even stability than more. They're essentially training wheels in the same way that a heal scourge would be except they just block stuff so you don't even learn and they never come off because they're op at every stage of the game. Good or bad players. Druid and tempest have just the right amount. One ability (or pet ability in druids case) with a moderate cool down. 2 sources could be fine, but guard has shield of judgement, 2 charges of advance, and protectors strike on mace. Not to mention that protectors strike and shield of judgement also have considerably lower cool downs than the white tiger's roar or aftershock. Oh and FB does have more aegis than core guard. It's called "Epilogue: Unbroken Lines", you know, skill 5 on tome of courage. It's not a primary source over the others I listed but it's conveniently there if you happen to already be in that tome when you do need aegis and it'll always be up when you go into that tome because it's a 12 second CD. Gives stab, protection and a unique buff too. But yea, go off about "people who give opinions without basic knowledge" because you are clearly the most knowledgeable person here.

Yes you gain Unbroken Lines, but your F3 has nearly double the cooldown, and also by taking FB traitline probably also means you give up another core traitline which provides additional aegis (or cooldown-reduction to aegis skills). So it still works out that Core has just as much, if not more, aegis.

Aegis just isn't the issue here, admit the L and move on. Teams won't be clamouring for core-guard supports in PvE, not when it doesn't grant all the various other boons and other advantages that other supports bring.

Your contention that it reduces the skill-floor and requires no thought compared to more heal-oriented supports is also baffling. Aegis is by its very nature more skill oriented, as it only blocks a single attack and therefore requires careful use at the right moment. As compared to simply pumping out healing/barrier on a fixed rotation with no attention paid to what is going on around you.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Kodama.6453]

4 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

Yes you gain Unbroken Lines, but your F3 has nearly double the cooldown, and also by taking FB traitline probably also means you give up another core traitline which provides additional aegis (or cooldown-reduction to aegis skills). So it still works out that Core has just as much, if not more, aegis.

Aegis just isn't the issue here, admit the L and move on. Teams won't be clamouring for core-guard supports in PvE, not when it doesn't grant all the various other boons and other advantages that other supports bring.

Your contention that it reduces the skill-floor and requires no thought compared to more heal-oriented supports is also baffling. Aegis is by its very nature more skill oriented, as it only blocks a single attack and therefore requires careful use at the right moment. As compared to simply pumping out healing/barrier on a fixed rotation with no attention paid to what is going on around you.

Aegis requires skill from the one applying it, that is true.

But I think they also have a point that providing aegis for your team also reduces the skill floor... for the other players you are granting it to.

I remember a strike mission I once had, where basically my entire team of randoms was constantly hindered from doing dps, because they got CCed by highly telegraphed attacks. And that was mostly because these people were so used to the firebrand support meta, which allowed them to simply ignore this mechanic in alot of runs because they always had aegis and/or stab on them when these attacks happened.

No one was even trying to dodge these attacks except me. They were just standing there and then wondering why they are stunned all the time, because they simply got used to the idea that this mechanic can get completely ignored. And then they started to claim that we should look for a firebrand support, so they can keep ignoring this stuff and having it easier for themselves instead of learning to just do the mechanic and dodge it.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Kodama.6453

[PrinceValentine.9320]

Why cant they just leave Firebrand alone? Nerfs and more nerfs. It's not ending. Firebrand has its own tradeoffs, you can't say that it has everything. It doesn't have alacrity and is probably one of the worst healers. 

Edited November 9, 2022 by PrinceValentine.9320

[Antina.5973]

34 minutes ago, PrinceValentine.9320 said:

Why cant they just leave Firebrand alone? Nerfs and more nerfs. It's not ending. Firebrand has its own tradeoffs, you can't say that it has everything. It doesn't have alacrity and is probably one of the worst healers. 

Well, also almost no mobility, no barrier, no ranged boons, oh wait a minute... it's not an engi i suppose 😞

I just wonder how will the shared pages work. I have two ideas in mind, all skills in tomes stay with the same 1 page cost, since it's intuitive, but tomes hava a small CD to enter, just like Specter's shroud for example. Could also be like engi's kits where you enter whenever you want since tome skills always had cooldowns, you can't just spam one skill with exception of first in tome

[Strider.7849]

On 11/7/2022 at 8:32 PM, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

You know. I hate it when something gets killed of but Firebrand being dead would atleast be entertaining to see.

How the game would play without the godking of Elite Specs. Especially WvW.

Core guard is lacking a few things that firebrand currently is capable of giving: Quickness on heal/stab, stability/stunbreak on elite, aegis on heal, F3 tome reflects/stability and F2 tome full condi clear to boons. 

 

A few heavy handed nerfs would just push the current firebrand into core guardian - which can be almost as effective except for the loss of quickness/ranged reflect bubble. Dropping the firebrand line would see core guards taking up Valor, increasing their self sustain but lowering their offensive support. In the worst case scenario it would still be a good pick for commanders.. but stability is too critical for zerg vs zerg success and we haven't seen that given out to other supports to fill the gap.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1 hour ago, Strider.7849 said:

Core guard is lacking a few things that firebrand currently is capable of giving: Quickness on heal/stab, stability/stunbreak on elite, aegis on heal, F3 tome reflects/stability and F2 tome full condi clear to boons. 

 

A few heavy handed nerfs would just push the current firebrand into core guardian - which can be almost as effective except for the loss of quickness/ranged reflect bubble. Dropping the firebrand line would see core guards taking up Valor, increasing their self sustain but lowering their offensive support. In the worst case scenario it would still be a good pick for commanders.. but stability is too critical for zerg vs zerg success and we haven't seen that given out to other supports to fill the gap.

Now we need to ask: Why do so many people play Firebrand in WvW?

The answer would be :

1. Duck ton of loot thanks to mass reflects.
2. Insanely easy to play.
3. Answer to everything / OP
4.  Oh and the 2 wierdose that actually want to support people.

Core Guard would only apply to Nr 4. So my guess would be , IF firebrand gets totally killed, that alot of players would just drop Guard entirely.

Time to play the next best easymode and loot maschine. Necro.

Edited November 10, 2022 by DanAlcedo.3281