if anet were to go a direction with firebrand which would you prefer

[Stand The Wall.6987]

please state your game mode in comments and possibly why you chose what you chose. i'm guessing anet would choose 1 or 2 then maybe doing both, and the player base will choose 3 cuz pls buff me i'm weak.

[draxynnic.3719]

Effectively PvE perspective here (I play other modes, but not firebrand):

The missing option of 'increase page generation and leave cooldowns as they are'. But I probably would be fine with increasing some of the cooldowns by a modest amount.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

Same as above. The current CDs look reasonable, but the crappy page regen is not.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I play OW and WVW roaming mostly. Occasionally I'll do some zerg WVW or fractals.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Gaiawolf.8261

[Sonork.2916]

6 seconds should be baseline.

[Antina.5973]

I think 8 seconds per page is insanely slow in all game modes, it certainly feels so in PvE. In competitive which is even faster paced in my mind I can't imagine this being useful with costly skills also gated by CDs.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Antina.5973

[RUS.9265]

Maybe page recharge on kill will do the trick? 1 page for every kill with 7 sec cooldown? Better than nothing at least

Edited December 3, 2022 by RUS.9265

[Antina.5973]

5 minutes ago, RUS.9265 said:

Maybe page recharge on kill will do the trick? 1 page for every kill with 7 sec cooldown? Better than nothing at least

we used to have this on a trait for last half a year or so, the Renewed Justice trait in Radiance.

[Buran.3796]

   I think that what they did making tome pages shared across all virtues was right, but increasing the cost of the skills was totally not ok, since the first change already means reducing the output in 2/3, whereas the second means halving ~55% the output again. That's crushing the total amount of pages beyond 80% of the original capability.

 

   All the new trait changes with pity effects seems artificial: a band aid for a problem which didn't exist, and the whole FB traitline now feels filled with floppers. In the last 3 years FB went from op in damage, sustain and support, to being mediocre in damage, weak in sustain and ok-ish in support. The changes greatly restraint FB's support, but none of the dps nor sustain got enhancements to balance the support potential the spc lost. FB is absolute garbage in WvW roaming compared to both core Guard, DH and WB. For OW PvE none of them would be my "go to".

[Cyninja.2954]

Keep cooldowns as is. Seem reasonable.

Consider changing page cost for some skills, 3 pages is very high at current regen rates and the high cd already limit the skill use.

Consider reworking some of the page skills. Currently the large disparity in usefulness paired with high cost and slow regen means firebrands focus only on 1-2 skills per tome at best. One possibility here would be to create synergy between tome skills, similar to Swift Scholar. This could also feel more rewarding rotation wise.

Reduce base recharge to 7 or even 6 seconds. Potentially changing the grandmaster cd reduction to 1s if need be. 2s reduction is just to strong compared to the other 2 grandmaster effects. 4s page regeneration might be to strong but would require testing (6 seconds baseline with 2s reduction).

Edited December 3, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Ragnar.4257]

At least for PvP, changing the page-recharge or cooldowns won't do anything to bring FB up out of F-tier.

You could make all the skills have 0 page cost, and it would still be trash. Equally you could make the page-recharge be 30s, and FB wouldn't be particularly any more bad than it already is.

This is because what makes FB weak in PvP is not the cooldowns. What makes it weak is the cast-times and the healing/boon-duration/damage numbers on the tome skills. The amount of time it takes to cast one of these skills is not proportionate to the amount of benefit. In the time it takes to flip into a tome and use skills 1/2/3 in ToR, the amount of damage you will take is massively more than the amount of healing you might get back.

So the actual change needed here is not to the pages, cooldowns, or recharge, but rather to the numbers on the skills themselves. If the numbers on those skills were good, the fact that they take a while to recharge would not be a problem. As we see with Heaven's Palm, simply reducing the CD on a skill that is entirely pointless doesn't make it any more viable.

The other thing holding FB back in PvP is that most of the traits are tied in to Mantra usage, and mantras have been nerfed into oblivion (199 heal on Solace!!!). Mantras also help with the cast-times on tomes by providing quickness or protecting the cast with aegis/blind/stab. But since mantras are so bad, the two can't work together.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[DarkSoul.2348]

Pve, Solo, Player mostly and groups meta and such 3 if i had to choose CD especially on tome 2 n 3 is way to high , get rid of the recharge mechanic and make it play CD based like elementalist with page counts like before trait if you want more pages, restricted use of pages is just an overcomplicated way to nerf the spec and all it has really achieved is clunky play the way weaver plays and switches between spells is much nicer  play and kinda holts me spamign inasne spells but instead i plan my attack rotations and change them on the fly if needed which is kinda how FB felt to play before. I dont care about dps just a playabable fun spec that has some strength over core skills or i might as well play core right.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Looks like I get to make the forums mad at me again.  Honestly, I am unsure of what to do.  The reason is because of this:

I am looking at this largely from a PVE perspective.  33k DPS solo with 38k DPS in a group is... pretty solid.  Reminds me a lot of condi thief, except Firebrand comes with the option to use F1-4 instead of Ashes while nobody else is around.  Because if this, I am really hesitant to suggest reducing the cooldowns of pages alone, let alone the skills themselves.  A few minor tweaks and we could end up with Firebrands being a monster.  Now, I am aware that FB suffers from a pretty hefty damage hit whenever it needs to change tomes for reflects, aegis, stability, cleanses, cc, ETC.  However, that's pretty much the industry standard when it comes to professions.  On most other classes, I have to swap out meaningful DPS for other things to solve boss mechanics.

Because of this, I suspect any changes to reduce tome skills or page cooldowns will end up being a Faustian bargain, where the price we'll pay is significantly nerfs other aspects of the e-spec.  Though we can all agree that Unbroken Lines costing 3 pages is too much.  

[Gaiawolf.8261]

36 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Looks like I get to make the forums mad at me again.  Honestly, I am unsure of what to do.  The reason is because of this:

I am looking at this largely from a PVE perspective.  33k DPS solo with 38k DPS in a group is... pretty solid.  Reminds me a lot of condi thief, except Firebrand comes with the option to use F1-4 instead of Ashes while nobody else is around.  Because if this, I am really hesitant to suggest reducing the cooldowns of pages alone, let alone the skills themselves.  A few minor tweaks and we could end up with Firebrands being a monster.  Now, I am aware that FB suffers from a pretty hefty damage hit whenever it needs to change tomes for reflects, aegis, stability, cleanses, cc, ETC.  However, that's pretty much the industry standard when it comes to professions.  On most other classes, I have to swap out meaningful DPS for other things to solve boss mechanics.

Because of this, I suspect any changes to reduce tome skills or page cooldowns will end up being a Faustian bargain, where the price we'll pay is significantly nerfs other aspects of the e-spec.  Though we can all agree that Unbroken Lines costing 3 pages is too much.  

The problem with the rework and new page regen isn't really about DPS or absolute performance. It's about capturing the concept and feel of the tomes in a fun and playable manner. See here.

Many of us have already said the spec could perform even better, and we still wouldn't want to play it, because it simply isn't fun to use. Some have even said we'd be willing to suffer less DPS if they could just recapture the fun and concept of Tome of Justice again. So no, benchmarks aren't really going to solve anything.

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Looks like I get to make the forums mad at me again.  Honestly, I am unsure of what to do.  The reason is because of this:

I am looking at this largely from a PVE perspective.  33k DPS solo with 38k DPS in a group is... pretty solid.  Reminds me a lot of condi thief, except Firebrand comes with the option to use F1-4 instead of Ashes while nobody else is around.  Because if this, I am really hesitant to suggest reducing the cooldowns of pages alone, let alone the skills themselves.  A few minor tweaks and we could end up with Firebrands being a monster.  Now, I am aware that FB suffers from a pretty hefty damage hit whenever it needs to change tomes for reflects, aegis, stability, cleanses, cc, ETC.  However, that's pretty much the industry standard when it comes to professions.  On most other classes, I have to swap out meaningful DPS for other things to solve boss mechanics.

Because of this, I suspect any changes to reduce tome skills or page cooldowns will end up being a Faustian bargain, where the price we'll pay is significantly nerfs other aspects of the e-spec.  Though we can all agree that Unbroken Lines costing 3 pages is too much.  

As has been said, there's a degree to which the dissatisfaction is less about actual measured performance, but about the playstyle and general feel. PvE Healbrand has possibly been improved when you get down to it. DPS firebrand is benching higher, but it does that by essentially camping axe and using Ashes of the Just as a glorified core Justice active that doesn't take away the passive (and using skill 4 instead if solo or facing large numbers). I think people would be happy with the same performance, or even a bit of a drop, if it actually involved more of the full set of skills.

As an example, I don't think anybody's going to mourn if the free Ashes of the Just proc on granting Quickness just dies.

[Cyninja.2954]

29 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

PvE Healbrand has possibly been improved when you get down to it.

PvE Healbrand was improved for competent HFB players. The incompetent ones are the ones here complaining.

HFB went from having big "oh kitten" buttons so save situations to having more steady support available across the board. It requires some adjustment and foresight, but beyond that it's stronger than before.

The main loss was utility on QFB, which also became stronger dps wise at the expense of becoming far more spammy and not a "fluent".

Edited December 4, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

i think that first and foremost.... pages should regenerate while mounted.

[draxynnic.3719]

7 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

PvE Healbrand was improved for competent HFB players. The incompetent ones are the ones here complaining.

HFB went from having big "oh kitten" buttons so save situations to having more steady support available across the board. It requires some adjustment and foresight, but beyond that it's stronger than before.

The main loss was utility on QFB, which also became stronger dps wise at the expense of becoming far more spammy and not a "fluent".

Basically, yes. I haven't actually played it yet (every group I've been in since the patch wanted me on mesmer instead), but for healbrand, having free access to the support tomes rather than having to treat them as emergency buttons with long cooldowns does seem to be an improvement. Firebrand can actually do reflect bubbles on Matthias now, for instance.

In the case of qfb, I think it's actually become less spammy overall, unless you mean spamming the axe autoattack. Pumping the tome is just more fun than dipping into the tome every sixteen seconds or so for a glorified Justice core activation.

It performs, no doubt about that, but it is a shame that a lot of tome 1 is going unused.

[Ruisenior.6342]

6 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Looks like I get to make the forums mad at me again.  Honestly, I am unsure of what to do.  The reason is because of this:

I am looking at this largely from a PVE perspective.  33k DPS solo with 38k DPS in a group is... pretty solid.  Reminds me a lot of condi thief, except Firebrand comes with the option to use F1-4 instead of Ashes while nobody else is around.  Because if this, I am really hesitant to suggest reducing the cooldowns of pages alone, let alone the skills themselves.  A few minor tweaks and we could end up with Firebrands being a monster.  Now, I am aware that FB suffers from a pretty hefty damage hit whenever it needs to change tomes for reflects, aegis, stability, cleanses, cc, ETC.  However, that's pretty much the industry standard when it comes to professions.  On most other classes, I have to swap out meaningful DPS for other things to solve boss mechanics.

Because of this, I suspect any changes to reduce tome skills or page cooldowns will end up being a Faustian bargain, where the price we'll pay is significantly nerfs other aspects of the e-spec.  Though we can all agree that Unbroken Lines costing 3 pages is too much.  

       Now with this build, try to go solo and actually play the game without being all your gaming sesion managing a downstate rotation

[Stand The Wall.6987]

nvm delete

Edited December 4, 2022 by Stand The Wall.6987

[Gehenna.3625]

Where's the option "None of the above"?

Edited December 4, 2022 by Gehenna.3625

[Stand The Wall.6987]

20 hours ago, Gaiawolf.8261 said:

Same as above. The current CDs look reasonable, but the crappy page regen is not.

EDIT: Forgot to mention I play OW and WVW roaming mostly. Occasionally I'll do some zerg WVW or fractals.

yeah my bad.

[Infusion.7149]

I agree with Cyninja's sentiment. It was a nerf to people that use all their pages. If you just need one skill (i.e. reflect) you can dip out of your tome immediately.

Page generation is not that great, but the way I see it as long as tome of justice skills are reasonable it would not be an issue. I'd like to see tome of justice having a power option besides Chapter 4 so I would venture into giving Chapter 1 Searing Spell some more power damage in PVE (maybe 1.5). However, if Arenanet wants firebrand to be mainly a support spec that isn't necessary. If you just use Ashes (Justice #5) in a group and Justice #4 Scorched Aftermath while solo it is decent enough as DPS or quickness DPS.

The page implementation's heaviest impact was to seraph and cele type builds. If you're under low condi pressure (meaning resolve condi clear might come in less useful) you will more or less use unbroken lines (Courage 5) since it also heals with honor's Pure of Heart.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

I agree with Cyninja's sentiment. It was a nerf to people that use all their pages. If you just need one skill (i.e. reflect) you can dip out of your tome immediately.

Page generation is not that great, but the way I see it as long as tome of justice skills are reasonable it would not be an issue. I'd like to see tome of justice having a power option besides Chapter 4 so I would venture into giving Chapter 1 Searing Spell some more power damage in PVE (maybe 1.5). However, if Arenanet wants firebrand to be mainly a support spec that isn't necessary. If you just use Ashes (Justice #5) in a group and Justice #4 Scorched Aftermath while solo it is decent enough as DPS or quickness DPS.

The page implementation's heaviest impact was to seraph and cele type builds. If you're under low condi pressure (meaning resolve condi clear might come in less useful) you will more or less use unbroken lines (Courage 5) since it also heals with honor's Pure of Heart.

I think part of the distinction is that with the support tomes, dipping into a tome is accessing something you don't normally have access to. For F1, however, skills 1 and 2 (but especially 1) aren't really doing all that much that regular weapon skills, particularly axe and torch, aren't already bringing to the table. They're better, to be sure, but are they sufficiently better to be worth a page?

It'd probably be fair to find some way to make F1 tome skills a bit cheaper. Such as, perhaps, doubling the page availability, but increasing the costs of Resolve and Courage skills.

[Infusion.7149]

22 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think part of the distinction is that with the support tomes, dipping into a tome is accessing something you don't normally have access to. For F1, however, skills 1 and 2 (but especially 1) aren't really doing all that much that regular weapon skills, particularly axe and torch, aren't already bringing to the table. They're better, to be sure, but are they sufficiently better to be worth a page?

It'd probably be fair to find some way to make F1 tome skills a bit cheaper. Such as, perhaps, doubling the page availability, but increasing the costs of Resolve and Courage skills.

If the page generation is increased then Unbroken lines probably should be more costly given it does so much honestly. I don't see a point to upping Unflinching charge (you are going to run mantra of solace which is more or less protection at will), Daring challenge (power skill with taunt), Valiant bulwark (reflect is relevant in only a few places such as in fractals, Conjure Amalgamate CM, and Adina and you can't upkeep it anymore with this only). Stalwart Stand generally isn't going to be a great stunbreak unless you are feared.

Most of the Resolve tome is typically not that important unless you run healing power. Eternal Oasis has its uses due to the condi conversion but you can do without it in most cases. I can't see Loremaster being an extremely strong trait unless you are sharing the resolve passive, on a 8 page DPS or quickness firebrand it would probably be more beneficial to put out ashes with quickness (which includes to yourself if not running quickness share). On any hybrid build that focused on healing from aegis and symbols you would drop virtues first before dropping honor which means resolve sharing wasn't present prior to this balance patch either. People still wanting to run a hybrid build (condi+heal+quick) might need to end up dropping staff for mace shield if less burst heal is wanted and more sustained healing and DPS is the goal.

[Vidit.7108]

I think maybe if every skill used 1 page that would be all you need to do. And I should say first, I am a little worried what this would do to dps builds if they were set to one page but it seems like if they hadn't touched Mantra of Flame it wouldn't be a problem. Maybe this could be resolved by increasing cooldowns too but it's hard to square it with reality because of how glitches currently impact firebrand.

As it stands, I think that each tome is competing against the other two across multiple builds. In that sense some of the weaker skills have a higher opportunity cost than they otherwise might have when they only competed against their own book for pages. Before the tome change I should stave off a lot of damage by using T3-2 Daring Challenge to interrupt ads and the cycle into T3-5 to start an encounter with a lot of defense. Doing that now would leave me with 1 page, which just isn't it worth the healing or dps i would be giving up. On resolve I don't think it's worth using T2-3 anymore most of the time, again because pages are worth so much. T3-1 is just useless now, maybe it has a point if a dps build needs swiftness between encounters but it's pretty pathetic overall. Other than buffing some of these skills I just don't think they'll ever be useful again unless the page counts were reduced. The higher page skills can only get used when the cooldown is over anyway. I don't think they would actually see more usage with access to more pages, but the weaker skills on shorter cooldowns would.

On Healbrand, being able to access tome 2 makes the healing a lot better or at least in the hands of experienced healbrands there is more a reward for page management and encounter knowledge. I think that if you take the loadout Bow of Truth, Advance, Mantra of Liberation you basically don't ever need to use tome 3 ever again, and can do the same amount of healing and cleanse as before the patch. On quickbrand, the tome 3 skills seem so costly now that I don't think it's worth using most of the time unless you know you won't need to be doing a lot of damage for a little while. Let the healer worry about aegis now.

On the Cele/Seraph issue, before this update I thought it would be dead, I think maybe now there is some room to only heal off of eternal oasis + 1 heal skill and still do decent damage though that's a little more skill involved than how the build worked before. I've kind of always thought of it as for the more experienced though anyway.