FB Mains - Advice?

[Guest]

Looking for some help from FB mains. I had been avoiding FB for a long time because I just didn't like the way it played but I keep hearing season after season how top-tier it is. So finally I rolled a meta support FB and have been playing for a few weeks and honestly, I can't figure out what's so OP about it. I played a lot of DH for a few seasons and various WvW guardians over the years, so I do have a good handle on the guardian class. Some observations:

1. FB seems extremely fragile, especially compared to other bunkers I've played. I blink in a fight and my health is slivered.
2. Nothing is instant cast anymore so my reaction to anything seems slow and incredibly prone to interruption/CC with all the CC spam in this meta. One game I counted in the combat log being interrupted 18 times (and that doesn't even count the number of CCs that just prevented me from using skills vs. interrupted one in-use).
3. I don't have any on-demand stability, the mantra heal is garbage, and book 2 can't really outheal being focused either.
4. There's a good amount of cleanses, since I took Contemplation of Purity, but with long cooldowns, condi spam builds (druids, weavers, burn guard, mirage) can easily reapply over the cleanse or they tick so hard it doesn't matter by the time I cleanse it.
5. You don't really do any damage to compensate either - autoattack and symbols for a little pressure, that's it.
6. You have no mobility, no disengage, no ranged attack.

I spend most fights most of the games just trying to stay alive over doing anything that might pressure the node, hurt the other team, or support mine. Can anyone point me to some resources (videos of good players, guides, or your own advice) on how FB should be played? If i'm off the node, I'm not helping, if I'm on it I'm getting blown up, even if I try to do nothing but camp book 2 and spam heals.

Related but tangential - I thought this post-megabalance meta was supposed to be less damage and longer TTK, but in all my games that doesn't seem to be happening. Mid usually turns into about 4 players downed in 10 seconds and whichever team gets the first kill rolls. I'm not noticing much if any slowdown in how quickly you can go from 0 to downed, with the exception of not seeing any literal 1-shot meme builds.

[Koen.1327]

support build is not meta, dont use it its not very goodlook up naru on twitch he is the best fb player

[Ryan.9387]

You missed the fb meta. Now its kind of mediocre.

[Math.5123]

Switch class

[Buran.3796]

Look at Naru as Koen said. The support Firebrand demands fast reactions and a lot of skill to help your tem mates in advance of ongoing threats (cleansing, healing, providing stability). If you find yourself thinking "oh, would be neat if I swap to Tome of Courage and cast Unbroken Lines over my partners to provide stability protection and aegis in a 600 unit radius " and at the moment you start to click F3 your allies are already dying means that you're 2-3 seconds behind the flow of the combat, which means that you still must play A LOT of matches to learn how to intuitively predict when to switch to the tomes so when those skills are needed you're at most one second behind of what's happening (counting the casting times).

I din't play Firebrand too much since PoF due I found that despite the cool animations and effects and the appealing lore the mechanics were a bit convoluted, but I started to theorycraft hybrid burning builds for a while and this week crafted a build which made me enjoy the spec and seems to work decently. Is on the Guardian subclass forum.

[Guest]

I looked up Naru but he is only playing core necro right now from what I saw in his videos.

Support FB is the only guardian build on MB, so I guess guardian is just bad now? I see a lot of DHs in game but no builds for them.

And before anyone says something like "don't use MB" - what's the alternative? I'm not interested in theorycrafting or making PvP into a research project. I'm not looking to climb the ranks or outsmart anyone with my build. I just want a viable build that people who like that kind of stuff have already put through QA, with clear instructions on how it should be played so I can just jump in and have some fun. MB fills that slot well most of the time; I don't know of any other reliably updated sites with detailed builds like that.

[Quadox.7834]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:I looked up Naru but he is only playing core necro right now from what I saw in his videos.

Support FB is the only guardian build on MB, so I guess guardian is just bad now? I see a lot of DHs in game but no builds for them.

And before anyone says something like "don't use MB" - what's the alternative? I'm not interested in theorycrafting or making PvP into a research project. I'm not looking to climb the ranks or outsmart anyone with my build. I just want a viable build that people who like that kind of stuff have already put through QA, with clear instructions on how it should be played so I can just jump in and have some fun. MB fills that slot well most of the time; I don't know of any other reliably updated sites with detailed builds like that.

1. An alternative to metabattle which is perhaps more "curated" is godsofpvp.net.
2. If you like FB you should absolutely play it, and it is not a bad spec.

[witcher.3197]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:

Support FB is the only guardian build on MB, so I guess guardian is just bad now? I see a lot of DHs in game but no builds for them.

They haven't had a support build in a while, you should check your eyes. Not everything with Mender amulet is a support build. And I can see at least 2-3 other guardian builds listed.

If you see a lot of DHs you are in elohell.

[Psybehr.2518]

@witcher.3197 said:

If you see a lot of DHs you are in elohell.

Idk if you checked the leaderboard recently, but there’s multiple DH one-tricks in top 50.

[gluecka.4078]

I had the same issue. I havent played since HoT release and my main issue is the amount of cc I have to face and the limited amount of stability apparently everybody got?Back in the days you could pop stability and if it isnt stripped you could win a whole fight mid within the duration. Nowadays there are tons of 1-2sec buff which is hard to grasp if for somebody who doesnt know when exactly cc is going to land in your face.

I also have the same issue with survivability with FB..I always die to heavy burst if my elite is on cd. What I did was swapping out the healing mantra with shelter for quite some time to get better. Now I also use the mantra. You kinda have to play careful like a thief, dont want the whole attention of the fight. Try to stay a bit back, try to disengage before you have to pop everything so you can heal up with book 2. After sometime it gets better. Played around 20 matches with FB now and yesterday I almost won my first 1v2 on far while we were behind 100 points. I managed to survive about 60 sec, down one guy and my team had time to get close + mid meanwhile and we managed to win the game. Felt kitten good.

[Guest]

@gluecka.4078 said:What I did was swapping out the healing mantra with shelter for quite some time to get better. Now I also use the mantra.

I'll give that a try, thanks.

You kinda have to play careful like a thief, dont want the whole attention of the fight. Try to stay a bit back, try to disengage before you have to pop everything so you can heal up with book 2.

What do you do while you're hanging back, then? Your only ranged attack is focus 4 for like 100 damage per tick, or sword 3. You obviously don't have the deception and movement ability of a thief to pick and choose your fights and get out if it looks bad. Usually I get focused by 3 enemy players immediately and run around like Kermit spamming skills and dodging hoping to live long enough that a teammate gets a kill.

After sometime it gets better. Played around 20 matches with FB now and yesterday I almost won my first 1v2 on far while we were behind 100 points. I managed to survive about 60 sec, down one guy and my team had time to get close + mid meanwhile and we managed to win the game. Felt kitten good.

Well, yesterday I fought a holo 1v1 on a point and was beating him (a teammate rotated in after awhile and we finished it off together). First time I felt like I was acting instead of just reacting, which felt good yeah.

[ollbirtan.2915]

Support FB has been dead for like 3 seasons. Play either Sagebrand or power Zeal FB

[gluecka.4078]

@"Kunzaito.8169" When you hang back you can drop your symbols on the node, pop one of the three books and support your bois (or dd with book1), book 2 makes the most sense if you dropped in hp of course. You can try scepter for a ranged symbol.

[Hex.2579]

Don't play full support since the power/healing coefficient was nerfed since Feb. Not sure if people actually read the patch notes because these complaints keep on coming.Fb is not "fragile", you can't spam skills, especially mantras, nor stand still and tank damage like others. The playstyle is different.It's super easy to spot a new Fb in a PvP match, could literally farm them since they just spammy everything and ask why they die.Use your dodges, don't stand there and get cc. For real.Your mantra heal is providing aegis, which is more valuable than heal. Sword 2 is mobility. If you take Judge's Intervention, it's another mobility skill.Take scepter if you want range.I feel like this post is just a mass complaint because you don't know how to play the class. Not sure what else to comment here.

[Guest]

@"Hex.2579" said:Don't play full support since the power/healing coefficient was nerfed since Feb. Not sure if people actually read the patch notes because these complaints keep on coming.Fb is not "fragile", you can't spam skills, especially mantras, nor stand still and tank damage like others. The playstyle is different.It's super easy to spot a new Fb in a PvP match, could literally farm them since they just spammy everything and ask why they die.Use your dodges, don't stand there and get cc. For real.Your mantra heal is providing aegis, which is more valuable than heal. Sword 2 is mobility. If you take Judge's Intervention, it's another mobility skill.Take scepter if you want range.I feel like this post is just a mass complaint because you don't know how to play the class. Not sure what else to comment here.

How am I complaining by describing what I'm seeing in my games and asking for help getting better?

"Use your dodges" isn't exactly great advice, but it's better than nothing so... thanks.

Sword 2 is mobility toward a close-range target, not away if you're getting focused and need to escape or need to get to a fight somewhere quickly. I actually did take JI at first but was getting killed so quickly not having an instant condi cleanse (by the time I open book 2 and cast 2 or 5 my health was almost gone from weaver/burn guard/condi ranger). Since then I've swapped it for Stand Your Ground, because I was finding the CC spam worse than the condi spam as I got a little better.

It might be helpful if you described how to use the mantra heal more effectively. I find most of the time I'm getting focused hard by multiple players, so negating a single attack seems to do little to reduce the incoming damage, especially when faced with condi spam. I end up blowing all the charges quickly to get to the heal. What is your advice to moderate the incoming damage and make more effective use of the heal?

Might try scepter, see if it plays better for me, based on gluecka's reply.

[montecristo.1324]

I'm not a pro, but these are a couple of things I can tell you

first grab a good build like this https://www.godsofpvp.net/builds/guardian

you need to understand your heals first of all:aegis, symbols, dodge roll, shield 5, shield 4, and of course f2 and f3 tomes.but most important you needs to understand your protections (aka preprot from gw1):mantra of truth, sword 2, aegis (it is both prot and heal!), focus 5, some symbols, f3 tome

try to use protections before healing. This build has a lot of blind and aegis, on top of your "passive" dps and heal with symbols. Both aegis and blind prevent any kind of damage, if you time well these two things and your dodges enemy can't hit you for several seconds.

When you are focused never use tome of resolve (f2) because it is a good bar filler, but it has no protection at all. You want to kite enemies and force them on your symbols, where you both damage them and heal yourself. In addition to this, you want to use tome of courage (f3) which is the best protection tool of the build.If you struggle with condies you can just use 4, or if you struggle with power use 5 and 2. Of course if there are projectiles use 3.

Then when to use tome of resolve? when you want to fill your hp, or heal others. But never use it under pressure, is the same thing of using necromancer lich elite under pressure.

I mentioned symbols, here again you need to understand your symbols. You have 4 symbols on your build:

• axe 2 which is a good interrupt, dps and condi pressure
• the symbol of protection passive in your heal, which is again a good anti pressure, expecially if used when you are kiting around forcing enemies on it
• scepter or sword 2: scepter is a good dps, but sword has blind on it, which is another anti pressure
• the passive symbol from zeal which is good for retaliation but it's not really under our control

if you still struggling with this build you can do two things: bring signet of judgement over "save yourselves!". This seems a noob solution but actually Naru was playing it. It is a good passive dmg reduction but most important is a 25s break stun, which is really important.OR you can drop zeal and take valor (2,2,2) and replace "save yourselves" with Judgement intervention, note this is a huge dps loss, but it make you really tanky.

but most important remember always to kite when under pressure. there are a lot of jumping puzzles on nodes, if you learn how to kite people you will see that FB kit is really strong for both yourself and your team

REMEMBER I'm not a pro, this are just my little knowledge of this class, maybe I can be wrong, but I hope it can be helpful

[Buran.3796]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:I looked up Naru but he is only playing core necro right now from what I saw in his videos.

Arken (Arkryuken) is also a very skilled FB to follow in twitch, He only plays that class.

[Guest]

@montecristo.1324 said:(snip)

Thank you very much, this is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping for. Will try to practice some of these things.

[Hex.2579]

@"Kunzaito.8169" said:How am I complaining by describing what I'm seeing in my games and asking for help getting better?

"Use your dodges" isn't exactly great advice, but it's better than nothing so... thanks.

Sword 2 is mobility toward a close-range target, not away if you're getting focused and need to escape or need to get to a fight somewhere quickly. I actually did take JI at first but was getting killed so quickly not having an instant condi cleanse (by the time I open book 2 and cast 2 or 5 my health was almost gone from weaver/burn guard/condi ranger). Since then I've swapped it for Stand Your Ground, because I was finding the CC spam worse than the condi spam as I got a little better.

It might be helpful if you described how to use the mantra heal more effectively. I find most of the time I'm getting focused hard by multiple players, so negating a single attack seems to do little to reduce the incoming damage, especially when faced with condi spam. I end up blowing all the charges quickly to get to the heal. What is your advice to moderate the incoming damage and make more effective use of the heal?

Might try scepter, see if it plays better for me, based on gluecka's reply.

You may need to change your playstyle a bit.Even before the mantra nerf, fb support/fb hybrid playstyle is far more different than other support/hybrid classes. It's spammy somewhat, but it's very calculated.

When you get focused, kite, get out of there. You can pop F2 2 times in a row with your invul elite, it will not save you in a lot of situations.What great about sword #2 is that it's a gap close. But it teleports to the target of your choice, that's how the skill works. Switch target before you use sword #2, and you're getting ported out of the danger zone, also create a huge gap between you and the one was focusing on you.

There are a lot of traits that clean condis when you use your skills, or even your heals. You even have a mantra that cleanse condis on demand, purging flames provides 6 pulses of condi cleanses, contemplation of purity, etc. I don't know what else you could ask for. Tome 4 in F3 is also giving resistance.Not many classes that have this abundance of condi cleanses in terms of traits, skills, utilities wise.When I say "use your dodges", meaning if you see someone applying condis with certain skills, you want to dodge that, instead of being within range and eat a full stack of their burst. Most people would just dodge after they eat a full stack, die and cry. Or if they have a chance to pop their heal, it's too late because not all healing skills cleanse condis.You see this is the playstyle problem mostly. I'd just bait a few tick of condis and watch you burn all your cleanses, then I'd go full blown and you'd be dead since you already spammed and wasted all your cleanses.From moderate incoming damage, you can cancel their skills with cc, or dodge, or kite out of there for a bit. So their skill will either be in full cooldown, but they couldn't get the attack/burst going because of your cc. It's the same with interrupting heals when it comes to enemies. You kinda want to bait them into thinking you're on cd or you're running away, while you're actually peeling them out of there for your team. Then cleanse and get your burst going.

The mantra heal is powerful. But it's a two edged sword. You cannot spam all in one go. Literally.It does not provide much healing whatsoever, but it exchanges for aegis for you and all allies within your radius. Which is why it's so powerful. You could literally "tank" damage for the team if you play right. For example, imagine a warrior goes nuts and he could down everyone of your teammates within range. You could give everyone aegis to block that, or even throw in retaliation, so the warrior is just insta down with his own crazy burst instead. This, however, will not happen in higher tier matches, but work for the majority of fights. When there are just zillion things happen in teamfights, players lose tracks of reta/confusion sometimes. And they can be deadly.Instead of choosing a heal skill for 5k extra, then you'll still die anyways to enemies 8k crits, you could neglect all that with aegis. You see the difference?If you get focused hard, which you shouldn't be in a situation that you 1v2 or 1v3 anyways, pop your heal once and run. Shield #5 2 times for itsy bitsy heal, use shield #4 for an extra block if they still chase you, and use terrain or LoS so enemies can't get you.

Yeah, you may want to try scepter since it provides a safer range so you wouldn't be in certain range of condi spam skills.Scepter #3 is also giving 2s of immobilize, which is good to stop someone from closing the gap.Kite a lot more. Fb is powerful when they're alive, especially around another dps. Imagine they could give these dps block for days. That'll be a problem for the other team. So you want to use your mantras wisely.

[Guest]

@Hex.2579 said:(snip)

Thanks, this is all very useful advice and I've been trying to incorporate it into my play. I appreciate the time you took to write it out.