Firebrand hybrid

[rosento.6830]

Hi guys, looking for help to see if its possible to make a firebrand capable of providing decent support while not lacking woefully so in the dps department. I am in love with the idea of symbols and this build capitalizes on them while spreading stats around without sacrificing too much in any one respect. I am not looking for top tier dps, nore am i looking to fill a healer roll, but to support either/both. I'm currently running a condi-tougness build, and while i do good dps, it just feels lacking outside tome of justice, excpecially in boss fights This is mostly from a pve standpoint, I just recently started getting ascended, and would hate to invest in a build that just wont cut it. Looking for any advice.

Current theory craft:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAS5ensADlDhFBDOCDkCjl4BD7CkE2CVBgtU9a/leT7pA-jxhAQBoR5HAeCAh4CA0V1fKkuAYs/AkUCKKAeC-e

The celestial and marshal combo offer decent stats covering the bases of crit and crit dmg with good power dmg, while maintaining decent condition and healing stats, runes of balth and sigil of smoldering combined with food keep burn duration long,

[Rennie.6750]

Uh, no, sorry, this build doesn't make sense and will yield absolutely trash tier damage for very little support gains.

Let's start with weapons. Staff, well, ok, why not, I'm not a fan of it in pve and would rather use mace/focus for pure support, but why not. But hammer, oh, god, why? It's a power based weapon, and if you want some semi decent damage as firebrand you do need a torch, ideally as your only offhand. You certainly do not have enough power and the right runes for a power build and a hammer.

Then, instead of celestial, why not going for seraph's? Heck even apothecary or shaman would be better than that. Finally, you're throwin in traits that make no sense at all. I'm sorry, but this cannot work at all, ever, you'll do trash tier support and trash tier damage.

So here's the thing, you have two options. The first one is keeping the hammer, but then you go for commander's gear and forget any condition damage and most of your support will be condi removal from F2 and aegis/stability/swifness spam from F3 and traits. No healing, but not insufferably low damage. This implies not using F1, ever. You'll need to change all traits and go for something more traditional. The second one is trashing everything and go for a much more traditional firebrand dps build and iterate on that, and switching all trinkets for something with concentration on it for minimal support, mainly aegis and condi removal with some regen on top of that. I don't exactly have the time to write an essay on traits, runes, gear and stats so you'll have to come up with something different, commit to doing some researching on all this, and then me or someone else will tell you how you can improve or iterate on it if you want.

[Sifu.9745]

Celestial gear only supports one handed weapons: Mace as your best option (support/healing part), Axe as second the best (dmg part). With mace/focus + axe/x you have what you are looking for: support/dmg kind of playstyle. I am afraid that full celestial (with exception of weapons) is what you are looking for.

[rosento.6830]

I appreciate the responses, i really do.

I have done my research and I have looked at a lot of different builds and i guess, your response is kind of what I was expecting. I do currently run a condi based firebrand pulling out decent dps, I just sorta wished that tome of resolve wasn't so weak or that my output drops so suddenly without activating ToJ with renewed justice trait from radiance.

But what about marshals? I havnt' seen too much about this set. Burn is easy enough to cap without expertise the only thing lacking here is survivability, aside from min/maxing. You lose some condition damage compared to a full condi set, but power affects every skill in ToJ with decent scalability so overall output isnt that much different without considering ashes of the just.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAsfSnkICdBjlDBODBkCjlACzKA8AeT7R0KaH9abFByAA-jxhAQBTVfAAeCAdV9H2qEEG7PEiTBwZV+JKAeC-e