Firebrand Stacking - An Appeal to Not Implement Feb 25 Patch Stability-Relevant Changes

[HoneyBadger.5691]

Would like to address here at-length what I believe to be a catastrophic balancing mistake in regards to stability access via firebrand.

Not saying this because I don’t like the class. I've played it in gvg, open field, and small scale support roles extensively; it will always be one of my favorite classes. WvW team-based combat relies on constant stability to function. However, the current proposed patch notes mandate two firebrands per-party in WvW, which is class stacking, and will also force Tempest out of meta. Allow me to explain (using a meta boon duration of 62% w/ food).

Specifically, Firebrand uses Stand Your Ground (SYG), Tome of Courage Ch1/5, and Mantra of Liberation to apply stability. SYG gives 9.75s on a 30s cd, Ch5 gives 8s, and Ch1’s give 6.5s. We start with SYG, then use the combination of stacks from Ch5 and Ch1 to maintain stability as SYG fades until we are out of pages. We can use a single stack from Liberation, an ‘expensive’ but sometimes necessary play, to bide time for SYG to come back off cd if necessary.

Within this framework, some use Tenacious Defense in Valor to get courage tome back quickly, while others use Virtues for Battle Presence when they expect fights to end or be decided quickly, but either way, the party largely relies on the stab from SYG/Tome of Courage/Liberation to function. The patch proposes SYG have a 45s cd, Ch1 stacks be 1.6s, and Liberation stacks be 1.6s (sans it’s final cast, a last ditch attempt at not wiping). What this means is using one firebrand leaves you waiting on SYG for ~30s, which is completely unworkable. No, you can't pirate ship either, since there isn't a ranged bomb strong enough to stop people from gap closing on you.

The only answer to your balance changes is to run double FB per-party. Scrapper per-party is also mandatory. Why mandatory you may think? Because nerfs to Firebrand’s Tome of Resolve cleanses are so severe (1 on Ch1, 2 on Ch5) that the game is still unplayable despite now being able to maintain stability, and scrapper being great at cleansing and providing some stab, is the only workable answer.

Furthermore, because of the combined demand for 2x FB and 1x Scrapper per-party to be able to engage in our WvW combat experience, Tempest is now poor. It has no stab and moderate cleanse, leaving it unable to fulfill what’s needed in the third slot. The removal of 10-targets will make this problem even worse (such as SYG, Tempest overloads, Herald facets, Renegade alac, etc). It is a straight nerf to class variety as having a small number of something for it’s unique value will be gone.

Please reconsider the train wreck of a mistake this patch’s modifications to stability-applying skills are.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

I tried already. same disconnected anet.

! bUt EsTaBliShInG NeW PaRaDiGm

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

Yea the removal of 10 man target mechanics will only serve to pervading stack classes, which I’ve mentioned in previous posts, would be the death of tempest.

But people embrace this patch with open arms as if it wouldn’t be the death of WvW. But I guess people will find out the hard way post patch the consequences of balance changes that don’t address diversity issues,

[Infusion.7149]

Well if chrono or mirage was playable you'd have a third source of stability from the mantra of concentration (which has smaller radius of 240) but from the patchnotes core nesmer is likely preferable if you had that slot open. Right now your best bets are running scrappers' bulwark gyro toolbelt (defense field) and Inspiring Reinforcement on dwarf using revenants when at chokes (keep in mind Empty Vessel is retiring so no stunbreak on legend swap).

If playing more reactive "Eye of the Storm" also works if running tempests but tempests are probably going to be running hybrid or condi dagger since staff power damage was hit as well as the heals. The only other ally stunbreak is on rangers' "Protect Me!" but worldly impact on Soulbeast was hit as well as Greatsword overall. Warriors' "Shake it off" can cut down on stacked conditions in conjunction with scrappers to cut down stability requirements. Resistance from Mallyx's Pain Absorption would only give a 2s break.

[Justine.6351]

It's WvW, where anything that does something well is labeled op and anet decides to garbage can it, coughchronomancercough. Enjoy the FB/scourge blobs guys and small-scale can enjoy facetank mode.

[hobotnicax.7918]

I think the nerf is justified. Having to have two FBs per party will be near impossible, which is good. Hard and soft CC needs to become more important again for accomplishing focused bombs that will be required even more with the upcoming changes to damage.This will allow classes that are currently mostly unwanted in groups to offer value with CC - mesmer, ele, ranger (druid, cc soulbeast), holo...CC will become king, along with condition spam.

[Dawdler.8521]

Oh it would be horrible if zergs have some sort of gap in their defences that require them to either accept it (more dps builds) or stack firebrands (less dps builds).

Zergs have a right to have all boons all the time!

[EremiteAngel.9765]

@Dawdler.8521 said:Oh it would be horrible if zergs have some sort of gap in their defences that require them to either accept it (more dps builds) or stack firebrands (less dps builds).

Zergs have a right to have all boons all the time!

I agree with dawdler here.It’s a good time for all of us to think out of the box and invent new plays.Don’t get trapped in the “we must have perma stability” mindset.Don’t get trapped in trying to find ways to make your current play style work.Find a new play style.

I myself was trapped in the “necro must play shroud flashing” mentality for 2 years. But shroud flashing died 2 years ago. And I’ve been struggling badly since then. Losing 90% of my fights.

Again, think out of the box.Invent new play styles.Invent new compositions.

Don’t try to force your team to stack more Guards so that you can keep playing the old style.You’ll just become outdated and left behind.

Like my necro was outdated and left behind.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

@Dawdler.8521 said:Oh it would be horrible if zergs have some sort of gap in their defences that require them to either accept it (more dps builds) or stack firebrands (less dps builds).

Zergs have a right to have all boons all the time!But of course! Not just some right, but it's an obligatory to have all the boons 24/7! Same goes for 10k crits all the time on low cooldown and other fantastic stuff! After all, we're the most skilled players in the game!/s@"HoneyBadger.5691" said:WvW team-based combat relies on constant stability to function.That's what current WvW is, abuse powercreep. WvW should be about strategy, insight, prediction, positioning, planning, etc. "We're gonna push now, so use your stability wisely to not get cced!" or "We're gonna bait them into using their important cooldowns and then we're gonna push them!", but what we have currently? "YOLO USE ALL STAB AND PUSH GOGOGOGO, oh no, we failed! Don't worry and push once again 'cause our boons still over 10min duration YOLOOOOO and cd for hard hitting skills are like 10s MAX" The duck is this bs? This should never ever be in the game at all? Guys running with stacked boons all the time and never running out of them.It's kinda funny how people cry about balance patch even before its release, like seriously? These guys will need to learn how to play for once and they won't get candy so easily with powercreep.Current state of game is just a pure joke.Upcoming balance is great, but I would still nerf few outliners much harder than what we're getting.Firebrand was a mistake in the first place to be released in current form (too much of everything through tomes) like a lot of e-speces...

Sorry guys, but I really can't take you seriously when you think everything should just be roflstomp for free without any penalty for bad plays.Yesterday I went to WvW to play for like 10-20mins, got hit multiple times for over 10k(each hit) by skills that have fairly low cd, because everything is overstacked. One of the problem is abundant amount of boons that FB produce.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@TrollingDemigod.3041@EremiteAngel.9765

This has less to do with adapting, and more to do with how stability is an absolute necessity in order to have a real fight in large scale combat. It’s no mistake that firebrand is meta, and has been for years now...do you really think firebrand meta will change after this patch?

The only way to change FB meta is to change how CC works...so that stability isn’t absolutely necessary to bring. Unless you like pingpongwars2

[Strider Pj.2193]

So, like core, people ran two guard parties...

Yes, one guard (Firebrand) allows for more diversity.

But we also know this ‘balance patch’ is a resetting of many skills and classes.

It isn’t the last step.

Expect things to be borked for a bit. Play around it and adapt. If that means running two FB, then so be it.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:@TrollingDemigod.3041@EremiteAngel.9765

This has less to do with adapting, and more to do with how stability is an absolute necessity in order to have a real fight in large scale combat. It’s no mistake that firebrand is meta, and has been for years now...do you really think firebrand meta will change after this patch?

The only way to change FB meta is to change how CC works...so that stability isn’t absolutely necessary to bring. Unless you like pingpongwars2I honestly don't understand your logic if there is any in the first place, so instead of asking to nerf properly spammable cc abilities, you want to keep the powercreeped into oblivion straight-up upgrade to core Guard? Why? Why you want to answer powercreep with powercreep? What's the point in that? A lot of classes don't have such abundant access to stab, even in blob fights and they're doing fine/great. WTH?Firebrand shouldn't even be released with so many things packed into 1 e-spec, it was one of the biggest mistakes.And no, it won't change in the slightest, because you people can't see furher than metabattle.com, you don't test, you don't theorycraft, you just use whatever is most broken in the game.For once commanders and people will need to use the last two neurons to think and decide what they need most and accept that there'll be finally a COST for that decision. More damage = less survi, more survi = less damage.As far as I know, the upcoming balance patch is just a beginning.

[lunaeclipse.6843]

They already stated the stability changes are not going through with tomorrow's patch. the only change to stability theyre making is SYG to 5 targets, but all durations and cooldowns will remain.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/97626/balance-update-update-wvw/p1

[Heika.5403]

It doesn't matter how hard you try to push in your profession. If stacking firebrands is what give you advantage, that will be preferred because the final objetive is win and defeat your enemy. If stacking quaggans is dominant, then people will all be quaggans. That is. The right proportion is to be seen. And yes, people will try different combinations of professions/specializations/builds but, at the end, will end playing what is more dominant even if that means stack whatever thing.

That behavior will never change because the goal is to win. Only if there were different effective combinations in a balanced ideal world, could one see more diversification. But we all know that there is always something that discards by nature and that is why balancing is always eternal in someway or other with countless variables and more when new specializations, skills, traits and new ways of playing are added along the time, so that people do not get bored playing always more of the same throughout years and consequently leave the game. Something that, of course, they should continue adding and doing over time along with the upcoming new content in the future.

[God.2708]

@HoneyBadger.5691 said:No, you can't pirate ship either, since there isn't a ranged bomb strong enough to stop people from gap closing on you.

Why do you feel this is true when the enemy is under the same stability constraints as you?

Of course they may opt to use 2 or more FBs per party to ensure they have stability uptime when you do not, but that obviously comes with a cost as you pointed out.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

@TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:@TrollingDemigod.3041@EremiteAngel.9765

This has less to do with adapting, and more to do with how stability is an absolute necessity in order to have a real fight in large scale combat. It’s no mistake that firebrand is meta, and has been for years now...do you really think firebrand meta will change after this patch?

The only way to change FB meta is to change how CC works...so that stability isn’t absolutely necessary to bring. Unless you like pingpongwars2I honestly don't understand your logic if there is any in the first place, so instead of asking to nerf properly spammable cc abilities, you want to keep the powercreeped into oblivion straight-up upgrade to core Guard? Why? Why you want to answer powercreep with powercreep? What's the point in that? A lot of classes don't have such abundant access to stab, even in blob fights and they're doing fine/great. WTH?Firebrand shouldn't even be released with so many things packed into 1 e-spec, it was one of the biggest mistakes.And no, it won't change in the slightest, because you people can't see furher than metabattle.com, you don't test, you don't theorycraft, you just use whatever is most broken in the game.For once commanders and people will need to use the last two neurons to think and decide what they need most and accept that there'll be finally a COST for that decision. More damage = less survi, more survi = less damage.As far as I know, the upcoming balance patch is just a beginning.

You don’t understand the logic because you’re too busy getting caught up in your own emotions and assumptions by blurting our insults and inferences that are completely irrelevant to the discussion

Firstly, yes, after HoT, more spam-able CC’s were introduced...so yes it’s true that more spam was introduced into the game and made the need for stability even more necessary.

But what Is more important here is that it’s not just that fact that some CCs can be spammed, it’s that as the number of players grows, so does the number of of CC’s. It is a logarithmic growth, not a linear one (since most abilities, including CCs have 3-5 target caps)

So what we are talking about here is that for each person we introduce into a fight, the potential for a cc increases by 5x per player. To put that into perspective, it means that a blob of 80, if each player used just one CC ability, can apply 80x5 CC’s to the opposing group...That’s potentially 400 applications of Cc’s with only one use of one CC on each person...

I doubt anyone here has played large scale without stability in the party. If you have, you’d be ping ponged into the stratosphere and then subsequently defeated. And this has nothing to do with FB other than that FB has access to most of the stability in the game. I’m against giving stability to everyone, and I’m also certain that increasing CC cooldowns won’t solve the above scaling issue in large scale

The only way to solve the problem is to look into CC’s as a mechanic, in which a diminishing return on said mechanic would actually alleviate the issue of large scale, prevent spam without increasing CD’s AND lessen the necessity for stability all in a single change. That’s just how I see the issue.

[SloRules.3560]

People shouldn't have perma stab without reasonable tradeoff. And runnning double guard and scrapper it is a tradeoff as you will have soo much less damage.

[hunkamania.7561]

10 man stuff is bad.. Now guardians can't get carried by the other groups guardians and will have to do their job proper.

[roederich.2716]

please give anet the time to develope the game.its not that the game is around for long yet and still we did not have had any expansions yet.

[Excursion.9752]

@roederich.2716 said:please give anet the time to develope the game.its not that the game is around for long yet and still we did not have had any expansions yet.

7 years and 2 Expansions not enough?

[Tinnel.4369]

Has the meta mentality crowd completely forgotten that classes have personal stun breaks, cleanse, dodges, and sustain?

Losing the ability to perm 10 boon carpet bomb (and the meta that promotes it) isn't a bad thing in my opinion.

[HoneyBadger.5691]

@God.2708 said:

@HoneyBadger.5691 said:No, you can't pirate ship either, since there isn't a ranged bomb strong enough to stop people from gap closing on you.

Why do you feel this is true when the enemy is under the same stability constraints as you?

Of course they may opt to use 2 or more FBs per party to ensure they have stability uptime when you do not, but that obviously comes with a cost as you pointed out.

I'm suggesting you can't run a solo guard and stack range damage in an attempt to pirate ship, by creating a range bomb strong enough people can't survive a push into melee range. It doesn't work well atm, and nerfs to CoR, an already buggy skill, and drop the hammer will further reduce revs ranged damage.

Anet did say they were going to not implement some of the changes in that post right away, but in their final patch notes for release they all in there...

[ArchonWing.9480]

Sorry OP, most people simply can't comprehend this because they think their snowflake builds won't get one pushed just because guard/necro is getting nerfed (they still will).

Until they put a hard limit on how often you can get CC'd, this meta will live on.

[God.2708]

@HoneyBadger.5691 said:

@God.2708 said:

@HoneyBadger.5691 said:No, you can't pirate ship either, since there isn't a ranged bomb strong enough to stop people from gap closing on you.

Why do you feel this is true when the enemy is under the same stability constraints as you?

Of course they may opt to use 2 or more FBs per party to ensure they have stability uptime when you do not, but that obviously comes with a cost as you pointed out.

I'm suggesting you can't run a solo guard and stack range damage in an attempt to pirate ship, by creating a range bomb strong enough people can't survive a push into melee range. It doesn't work well atm, and nerfs to CoR, an already buggy skill, and drop the hammer will further reduce revs ranged damage.

Anet did say they were going to not implement some of the changes in that post right away, but in their final patch notes for release they all in there...

I would argue that pirateship is not formed through a powerful ranged bomb but rather through the inaccessibility of going melee. People did not pirateship in PoF because scourges and revs hurt at 1.2k range. They pirateshipped because pushing in scourges + spellbreakers boonstrip was a death sentence. Of course, having ranged damage assisted this, but there are various methods to 'jump' the gap that never really got used that would have if ranged groups actually were weak once engaged on.

[Virdo.1540]

aw booo fb isnt op anymore. Please fix!