Why DPS Firebrand feels awful to play - Issues and suggestions

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Hope we're not too far off from some tweaks, even if I still love my firebrand post rework some of the traits feel iffy and quickfire feels really underwhelming right now. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

A tip I received from my Dragon's End commander is to sync up Purging Flames with Ashes of the Just.  When traited they both have a cooldown of 20 seconds, so if used right next to each other the moment Purging Flames goes off cooldown, Ashes of the Just becomes available.  

Scorched Aftermath's cooldown is 15 seconds, which is shorter than two pages, so once you have the page count for it, it will be off cooldown.  

[Cuks.8241]

I think the direction is not bad. But author you made some excellent points that could improve not just qfb but all kits or kit like abilities. 

I never really liked the F1 25412 very much. The only thing I like are the animations which feel impact full. You never deviated from that combo unless you wanted F1-3 for the pull. 

I know players wont like it buy maybe they just make F1 a single dps ability with CD. Maybe split F1-3 into a separate F4 ability which shares CD with F1 so you need to choose DPS or pull. And keep F2 and F3 as they are as those are the true situational utility tomes.

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Cuks.8241
typos

[Schnezzler.5742]

Did the Firebrand/QuickSuppFirebrand Build changed because of the Patch?

Edited December 3, 2022 by Schnezzler.5742

[Dr Meta.3158]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You don't have a forest without trees.

Semantics aside, the OP is implicitly accepting the premise that firebrand was too good as it was (personally, I do think it was a little exaggerated, since people mostly point to fractals and fractals has structural issues that caused people to stick to firebrand when they would switch to another character in other endgame content), but whether the rework is fun or not is valid feedback and a very different discussion to whether a rebalancing was needed in the first place. I personally think the overall design of the rework is a good one, but there are some clear problems in the details that need to be resolved.

Besides, we've had dozens of threads about people complaining about firebrand in fractals, this doesn't need to be another one.

I already get and covered that. The devs don't know what to do with firebrand because its conception was a horrible mistake. So it's down to leave it alone and dampen the experience of every other player, or axe the class to force more diversity at the expense of the firebrand players. Also firebrand wasn't just an issue in pve. It was an issue in every game mode. Its just they were axed in spvp first long before getting axed in wvw and pve. The same issue befalls mechanist who are arguably having a far worse time than firebrands are now. But, again, that requires seeing all facets of the problem outside of one's own experience. Is it right? No, is it fair? No. Is this the best way of going about things? Hell no. Is this the lazy way out that gets you the same paycheck? Yes.

[lingu.1780]

While i am not happy with the rework i understand that is was necessary.

Now that we have pagecosts on the individual skills in a tome using a page on F1-1 or F3-1 feels kinda wasted. I can see hfb's using the F3-1 for extra protection uptime, thought most players propably won't bother with it anyway.

What bothers me more is that the smooth qfb and cfb rotations feel butchered.

Cfb feels clunky with Justice 5-4-2 whenever 5 came of cooldown, Archivist of Whispers and Renewed Focus and tomedips every 8 seconds to trigger Quickfire. However for most encounters you will have at least 2-3 pages ready to use as utility if needed. You will still run out of pages with current page regen und Renewed Focus cooldown on longer fights.

- Making Quickfire autoproc every X seconds (maybe 10=?) would make the rotation so much smoother (might interfere with qfb overall dps thought). At this point why bother adding one more internal cooldown we can't track on screen. Alternative since we got the Quickfire Icon in the buffbar anyway just grey it out if its on cooldown. As a sidenote: a buffbar with 4 lines for L1=conditions, L2= offensive buffs, L3= defensive buffs and L4= traits and others with set bufficon locations and icons being greyed out or highlighted would make it WAY easier to keep track on buffs and internal cooldowns. Wouldnt need extra icon like dormant justice etc. that way as well.
- 1 or 2 more pages and/ or maybe a 7 seconds page regen will leave you with a big enough pagepool and leftover pages to use at least 1 utility skill reliable without the need to plan 10 steps ahead.

- A lower Renewed Focus cooldown and/ or tomeskill cooldown reset would also be on my xmas wishlist.

On qfb with the need to take Liberator's Vow and Feel my Wrath to provide quickness, you are pretty much stuck with one F1 rotation (5-4-2) leaving you the rest of the encounter with Autoattacks and F1-5 whenever its up. That means one out of five skills in a kit being usefull and useable. The smaller pagepool and leftover pages (usually 1 after each F1-5) further limits your flexibility with no room to use utility reactively (since most desired utility skills cost on average 2 pages and you have only 1 50% of the time). Using utility from Resolve and Courage feels extra punishing as it locks you out of a F1-5 loop. The buff to Mantra of Flame fills the damage loss from the tome rework and might work ok for cfb since they don't slot utility skills to much, however as qfb you have to take Mantra of Potence for the quickness, Purging Flames for dps. The 3rd slot was left for utility or Mantra of Flames. In my experience for many encounters in Raid and Fractal CMs Mantra of Flames has to be switched out for utility, either because its expected from you or to compensate for a slacking subgroup. With the current page cooldowns getting part of the needed utility from F2 or F3 is a punishment und not taking Mantra of Flames is a big damage loss for qfb's which further promotes selfish dps greed to keep up with other quickness classes damage wise.

- Quickfire is no issue as qfb as it procs with the normal quickness application

- More base pages and lower page regen might help mitigating the qfb's problem somewhat, will however most likely interfere with cfb performance since the two builds are similar.

Two other approaches without drifting to far from the rework:

- A Charge system to enter a tome. Less pages in each tome (like 3?) so you can not use all skills in a tome at once. And with the current skill cooldowns spaming one tome over and over won't work even if you could reenter it with the 2nd or 3rd charge.

- Or since we got an initiative system anyway, make it XX pages with a 1 second page regen and slightly higher page costs, keeping the rest as it currently is. That way it will stick closest to the rework and still give us the option to use an utility skill faster if we do not have enough pages right away without waiting 8 or even 16 seconds. 

Guess that would be to thiefish, but hey have you ever seen a tome with only 5 pages? 

Edited December 3, 2022 by lingu.1780

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I already get and covered that. The devs don't know what to do with firebrand because its conception was a horrible mistake. So it's down to leave it alone and dampen the experience of every other player, or axe the class to force more diversity at the expense of the firebrand players. Also firebrand wasn't just an issue in pve. It was an issue in every game mode. Its just they were axed in spvp first long before getting axed in wvw and pve. The same issue befalls mechanist who are arguably having a far worse time than firebrands are now. But, again, that requires seeing all facets of the problem outside of one's own experience. Is it right? No, is it fair? No. Is this the best way of going about things? Hell no. Is this the lazy way out that gets you the same paycheck? Yes.

In PvE at least, I'd contest the idea of firebrand being inherently overly strong*. Herald was already starting to eclipse it at high-level play. Firebrand remained the go-to in pugs partially due to incumbency advantage (particularly in fractals), partially because it's easier to play, and partially because it did have the defensive tomes in reserve.

That last is the usual reason it was cited as being strong by those who thought beyond 'it's used a lot in fractals, it must be OP'. So, let's look at the thread starter's points through this lens:

The benchmark of 38k (which is 2k higher than what cfb had before) is achieved by dumping all the pages once, and then dipping into tome 1 every two pages in order to throw Ashes of the Just and then swap back out. Now, if you're looking to see what the maximum you can get is, this makes sense. But in a long fight, you don't actually lose much by...just not doing that initial blast. Just treat Tome of Justice like a glorified core Justice, dipping in every two pages to share Ashes of the Just and then swap back out.

You now have at least three pages in reserve at all times - so you still have that versatility, while possibly still doing more DPS than old condi firebrand did. Sure, you can't pump out everything like you could before, but using the other tomes is no longer a use-everything-or-lose-it situation with a long cooldown: you can pop in, use a couple of clutch skills that will have the desired effect, and pop right back in again. This could even include going full blast on F1 in a phase where you really want to burst damage, or just before refilling pages with Renewed Focus (although the latter case would involve going back to only using Ashes until RF recharges in order to keep those pages in reserve).

Meanwhile, proposals to encourage DPS firebrands to use more tome 1 skills could actually result in periods of vulnerability after exhausting their pages, which would do more to solve the problem than the current situation.

So if your thesis is that the tree (of fun gameplay for dps firebrands) needed to be cut down for the sake of the forest (a more diverse meta), then it just doesn't pass the sniff test. The alleged problem still exists, although it might have been reduced somewhat, and encouraging DPS firebrand players to use more skills in tome 1 means there may be less pages to use elsewhere. (Not to mention that the consideration remains that time spent using more tome skills is time not spent autoattacking.)

 

*And in WvW, it seemed to be pretty much purely 'zergs need stab and firebrand had a lot of it'. And maybe a touch of firebrand being better at supporting a mobile group than some other supports.

[Dr Meta.3158]

I am in the guardian subforum... Ultimately, regardless of your feelings, anet looked at what firebrand was doing to the game and smashed it in a very clumsy way. That sucks but hopefully they make it play well and not overshadow others in the process. I doubt it can be done without drastically changing how firebrand operates to the point where it isn't really firebrand anymore. But it is what it is. Sorry for your loss and continue your lamenting in peace.

[Antina.5973]

8 hours ago, Schnezzler.5742 said:

Did the Firebrand/QuickSuppFirebrand Build changed because of the Patch?

Yes, on dps variants you take Quickfire GrandMaster in Firebrand traitline. But this whole discussion is about poor execution of those rework changes, and there might be amendments to builds and such.

[Kelly.7019]

Since everyone is talking about their lovely dps,  i wish anet would just make an ingame easy to read dps meter version so you don't have to do math in your head. Something simple so you can easily see what your own dps is and what it was last couple fights. (reviewing the fight notes is a HUGE advantage to improving your skills) I mean if we are going to tweak the elites why not tweak the dps meter too (Which i rarely notice as is, and seems clunky to review buried in the chat box options. pull it out of there or add a superior version of it under options as something to toggle on/off. a simple ui overlay.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Kelly.7019

[draxynnic.3719]

14 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I am in the guardian subforum... Ultimately, regardless of your feelings, anet looked at what firebrand was doing to the game and smashed it in a very clumsy way. That sucks but hopefully they make it play well and not overshadow others in the process. I doubt it can be done without drastically changing how firebrand operates to the point where it isn't really firebrand anymore. But it is what it is. Sorry for your loss and continue your lamenting in peace.

Ah, yes, a textbook "I cannot counter your points so I'm just going to throw a thinly veiled ad hominem instead of admitting defeat" response. I accept your concession.

Edited December 4, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Gaiawolf.8261]

19 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I doubt it can be done without drastically changing how firebrand operates to the point where it isn't really firebrand anymore

Actually, it can be done very easily. And could have been what many of us suspected from the preview image. Make tomes have shared pages. Increase CDs for the more powerful skills. That's it.

No instant cast engi kit mechanics, hidden skill CDs, hidden trait ICDs, page costs, virtue debuffs, or any of that complicated mess. Keep tomes on a long cooldown. Tomes operate the same way as before, but if you use your pages for DPS, they won't be available when you open your support tomes. If you save your pages for support when you need them, you can't use them on a DPS rotation. Then they could rollout additional changes as needed. 

That being said, I like the overall intent of the new structure, but they royally messed up the execution. They needed to refine those issues well before letting this go to a live server. Not to mention the rushed implementation and pitiful QA that allowed so many obvious bugs into the game. I mean, did they even bring their test FB to a low level area or put it on a mount before pulling the trigger? My goodness. 

Any of these strategies would have yielded a much more elegant process. 

[Gehenna.3625]

It's all very confusing too when you read the wiki pages with the new trait descriptions. For example, the description of the Major Grandmaster trait Quickfire says: "Retain Justice passive while it is on cooldown". What cooldown?

I suppose they're referring to Dormant Justice being active (keeping traits relating to it from having their effect) but it doesn't say that. Also the whole "dormant" thing is only relevant now because the tomes don't have a CD anymore. But these dormant debuffs are yet another thing that is added to the already lengthy buff/debuff indications above the utilities.

Wouldn't it just be simpler to have a CD that's the same on all 3 tomes, like 8 seconds, so you wont have to think of the passive CDs in the background and avoid getting these dormant things as debuffs. This is just to avoid an overly complex system that's in place now. If that needs more tweaking because it would be too powerful or something for whatever reason just tweak the traits instead rather than making it overly complicated how the system works.

I mean I'm all for nerfing a class that's too good at many things without a cost, even if it's my own. I get that, but don't do it in a way that the class becomes unfun and clunky to play. It's not actually an easier system for FB players all things considered.

[urieldhynne.2743]

My main problem is I can't see clearly when a tome active effect is on CD, also, the new longer tome skills CD and page cost, is so annoying to keep track of that, you need to keep in mind that 3 skills of the same tome gives you a extra page, is a lot to pay attention, is super annoying, you do something different and you ended wasting all pages sooner than you thought. 

 

I still, somehow, enjoy my HB, I don't care about numbers, but they kill the fun of the condi FB, and I didn't even use the rest of the tomes when I played it. Right now I am not having fun and I am not in the mood to play another class.

 

Changes like this should be done by people who actually mains guardians with tons of hours put on it, if not, you need to talk to people who actually mains guardians with tons of experience on it like the OP.

[Dr Meta.3158]

2 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Actually, it can be done very easily. And could have been what many of us suspected from the preview image. Make tomes have shared pages. Increase CDs for the more powerful skills. That's it.

No instant cast engi kit mechanics, hidden skill CDs, hidden trait ICDs, page costs, virtue debuffs, or any of that complicated mess. Keep tomes on a long cooldown. Tomes operate the same way as before, but if you use your pages for DPS, they won't be available when you open your support tomes. If you save your pages for support when you need them, you can't use them on a DPS rotation. Then they could rollout additional changes as needed. 

That being said, I like the overall intent of the new structure, but they royally messed up the execution. They needed to refine those issues well before letting this go to a live server. Not to mention the rushed implementation and pitiful QA that allowed so many obvious bugs into the game. I mean, did they even bring their test FB to a low level area or put it on a mount before pulling the trigger? My goodness. 

Any of these strategies would have yielded a much more elegant process. 

I don't think they actually playtest things more than a few minutes. Just plug it into a calculator, see if it bugs out for a few minutes and then launch. I imagine they leave it to the players to find issues for them because its far more cost effective to get free labor to do that stuff.

Worse case scenario it gets left like this for years before someone decides to look at it again. At least it isn't support specter. Yeesh.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

29 minutes ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

I don't think they actually playtest things more than a few minutes. Just plug it into a calculator, see if it bugs out for a few minutes and then launch. I imagine they leave it to the players to find issues for them because its far more cost effective to get free labor to do that stuff.

Worse case scenario it gets left like this for years before someone decides to look at it again. At least it isn't support specter. Yeesh.

Sweet Moses, if I tried to do this at my job, I'd be fired quicker than I could read all the bug reports.

[Dr Meta.3158]

17 minutes ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Sweet Moses, if I tried to do this at my job, I'd be fired quicker than I could read all the bug reports.

Machiavellianism works wonders if you don't care about morality.

[Kal Durak.2830]

On 12/3/2022 at 12:14 AM, Bagie.1438 said:

Just revert the changes and remove stability from tome 3. all the fix firebrand really needed

It's not that with me, it is I do NOT want carpel tunnel mashing keys.  I simply won't play my 2nd main anymore.  GG Anet

[Kelly.7019]

On 12/4/2022 at 9:09 AM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Keep tomes on a long cooldown. Tomes operate the same way as before, but if you use your pages for DPS, they won't be available when you open your support tomes.

 

No that's the problem -why keep something the same for an entire xpac rather then immediately fixing it years ago. These issue should have been addressed when firebrand was relased, but they weren't issues then? until new elites were made? (seems like bad planning) It seems more like every xpac when they make new elites they have to "fix" the previous ones because they weren't thinking ahead.

You have yer dps phase then if u need to self heal or give yerself stab you roll into those virtues- its the guaridans skill, like all elites before it. Without access to those virtues it plays like you are in a disadvantage like cutting off your limbs. Seems like now they never should have made firebrand to begin with. I like my legs.

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Kelly.7019

[Nezekan.2671]

Seeing how support firebrand is improved, I think DPS is what we need to primarily look at. I think DPS firebrands need an additional way to be able to recover tomes. Preferably something that only they can do, or at least it's harder for none dps builds to do. For example, something like "get a page reach time you apply X burn stacks" or something like that. 

[Raizel.8175]

On 12/4/2022 at 3:09 PM, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Actually, it can be done very easily. And could have been what many of us suspected from the preview image. Make tomes have shared pages. Increase CDs for the more powerful skills. That's it.

No instant cast engi kit mechanics, hidden skill CDs, hidden trait ICDs, page costs, virtue debuffs, or any of that complicated mess. Keep tomes on a long cooldown. Tomes operate the same way as before, but if you use your pages for DPS, they won't be available when you open your support tomes. If you save your pages for support when you need them, you can't use them on a DPS rotation. Then they could rollout additional changes as needed.

I'm all for this. The problem wasn't cFB anyways, it always was qFB and HFB and those builds - at least HFB - are even stronger now due to tomes always being accessible. cFB is just very annoying to play now.

[Axelteas.7192]

On 12/2/2022 at 2:17 PM, Dr Meta.3158 said:

Firebrand mains lamenting about 38k dps. Reaper mains cheering over 35k dps. What a world.

 Firebrand has 11k HP 

 Reaper has 19k + another healthpool from Shroud

 

Your comparison is absurd.

[draxynnic.3719]

23 minutes ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

 Firebrand has 11k HP 

 Reaper has 19k + another healthpool from Shroud

 

Your comparison is absurd.

Guardian does have a bunch of other ways to improve its survivability despite the lower base health.

More to the point, though, the comment you were responding to was a blatant strawman. The premise of this thread is not 'cfb is weak' but 'cfb is less fun'.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

When I saw the patchnote I thought I would give a shot to Firebrand because the concept looked pretty interesting for me.

 

But it turns out their implementation just sucks and I never really enjoyed playing Firebrand, but somehow they managed to make me enjoy it even less

[The Boz.2038]

Firebrand will never be fun so long as Radiant Flame exists. Trait needs deleted, yo.