Is there a bug with mantra of solace heal in pvp?

[TalonSilver.7628]

In pve it heals like 1600 but in pvp it's only 200.

 

That's gotta be a bug because that's the worst heal skill I've ever seen

[Lightseeker.7839]

Skills and traits have different effect and strength depending on the game mode. Mantra of Solace is mostly used for aegis sharing in competitive modes, where in PvE it only gives resolution and protection. But I agree the healing is rather low in competitive modes. I don't PvP much but I'm guessing they often use the Pure of Heart trait to increase the healing amount.

[Ragnar.4257]

Nobody plays Firebrand in PvP, for exactly this reason. It's not a bug, it was intentionally nerfed into uselessness to remove Firebrand as a viable choice in PvP. Best advice is to pick another spec to play.

[Kulvar.1239]

Because the tomes were overpowered in PvP, they nerfed FB into oblivion, With the tome rework, you can expect a up in a few months.

[Hotride.2187]

40 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

Nobody plays Firebrand in PvP, for exactly this reason. It's not a bug, it was intentionally nerfed into uselessness to remove Firebrand as a viable choice in PvP. Best advice is to pick another spec to play.

Actually can you explain why shout guard works but fb doesn't? I've only played support fb in wvw and it struggles with roaming ganks. Core guard is tankier. Is it just a better traitline than the fb one that causes this?

[Infusion.7149]

This is not a bug but by design. Arenenet nerfed Firebrand in PVP significantly after the sagebrand meta. It was made even worse with the mantra changes to not need charging.

1 hour ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Actually can you explain why shout guard works but fb doesn't? I've only played support fb in wvw and it struggles with roaming ganks. Core guard is tankier. Is it just a better traitline than the fb one that causes this?

In PVP there isn't minstrel gear and also the stability on mantra of liberation is far less. With core guardian you run AH (altruistic healing) and Stalwart Defender (toughness and shield cooldown) similar to WVW before Firebrand existed which gives added personal sustain. In addition, aegis is far stronger in PVP than in WVW since in WVW you might have aegis removed incidentally from any AOE.

edit: also tomes having a cast time unlike core virtues is a huge liability in PVP but less so in WVW.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Ragnar.4257]

2 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Actually can you explain why shout guard works but fb doesn't? I've only played support fb in wvw and it struggles with roaming ganks. Core guard is tankier. Is it just a better traitline than the fb one that causes this?

Go and compare the healing/cleansing numbers on Virtue of Resolve (with Absolute Resolution), to Tome of Resolve.

They're basically the same numbers (2-3k healing + ~5 cleanses) except that VoR is insta-cast and 25s CD, while ToR takes several seconds to go through all its cast animations, and is on 50s CD.  In PvP, several seconds is all it takes to go from 100% HP to dead, its a LONG time to be casting kitten-weak heals. Being able to cast VoR while stunned is a massive advantage.

There is literally no upside to ToR over VoR.

You can do the same comparison with Justice and Courage. 

And ALL of that is ontop of the fact that FB traitline is garbage compared to Valor/Honor/Virtues, one of which you have to give up (quickness is not relevant in PvP, maintaining Justice passive is also not relevant to supports in PvP).

There are 3 reasons you might choose FB over Core. Tomes, Axe, Mantras. As this thread has already discussed, Mantras are nerfed into nothing, so Shouts is better. Axe cooldowns have been nerfed to be way too long, and Axe isn't particularly useful for support anyway, so you won't take Axe. And as we've just demonstrated, Virtues are better than Tomes.

If you're not taking Mantras, you're not taking Axe, you're not getting benefits from Tomes, and there's no key traits you're gaining in FB traitline, why would you take FB over Core?

FB got nerfed hard in March 2020, top teams kept trying to run it for a while, but were finding that their FB would just keep on getting focused and dying. FB still provided decent support, but it could simply no longer survive as well as Tempest or core-guard. See: 

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Saiyan.1704]

On 11/17/2022 at 12:23 PM, Ragnar.4257 said:

If you're not taking Mantras, you're not taking Axe, you're not getting benefits from Tomes, and there's no key traits you're gaining in FB traitline, why would you take FB over Core?

When I played FB back when it was meta for like... a week.. I chose it because you could immediately cast CC, F1 #3 and F3 #2. This was back when using FB was actually considered a decently higher skillcap class in comparison to an Engi simply because you can target people when immediately entering tombs (when cast times was shorter and quickness was higher so immediately casting F1 #3 felt rewarding to use).

If we don't use Mantras and we wont, all we can do is cast Tomb CC every 10 seconds. Firebrand will still be incapable of self-sustaining itself better than Core....nerfing the FB Mantras was the biggest nail in the coffin for FB in sPvP.