Confused by MetaBattle Firebrand gear

[Boogle.8204]

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Solo_Firebrand

It suggests for a Trailblazer variant to run a mix of TB and Dire. I don't understand why are there Dire pieces in it at all? Why not full TB? Or if a mix, why not a mix of TB and Viper's?

[Noah Salazar.5430]

I don't play fb, but as stat specialist i think it'c cuz Dire give you more dmg at shorter peroid of time

thats mean you will do more dmg on bursts (aoe mobs that die fast)

Lets say you do 2000 fire dmg evry 1s for 10sDire will make you 2667 evry 1s for 7,5s

Lets say mob will live only 7,5sso you not dealed 1/4dmg cuz mob died to fastin secound case you did more dmg

while on longer fights you will actualy do more on viper

so in short, ading Dire gear, will make you clean mobs before boss eazierAlso Dire give you a bit more hp pool

[otto.5684]

@Noah Salazar.5430 said:I don't play fb, but as stat specialist i think it'c cuz Dire give you more dmg at shorter peroid of time

thats mean you will do more dmg on bursts (aoe mobs that die fast)

Lets say you do 2000 fire dmg evry 1s for 10sDire will make you 2667 evry 1s for 7,5s

Lets say mob will live only 7,5sso you not dealed 1/4dmg cuz mob died to fastin secound case you did more dmg

while on longer fights you will actualy do more on viper

so in short, ading Dire gear, will make you clean mobs before boss eazierAlso Dire give you a bit more hp pool

You are not considering the power damage output difference, which is substantial.

IMO, best setup for FB is sinister + balazathar runes + smoldering, and get either food or 1-2 viper pieces to get to 100% burn. This is the fastest damage output for FB with good sustained damage. Add 1-2 pieces that have vitality so you are ~13k HP. Another good setup is viper + FB runes, where you aim for 100% quickness. While having quickness you also get 250 HP, healing power and toughness.

Dire and trailblazer are not good for open world. Most important thing for OW is damage. You should be able to solo most champions with viper, sinister or Grieving. There are things that you cannot solo regardless of gear.

[Noah Salazar.5430]

You are not considering the power damage output difference, which is substantial.

You are not considering, that i answered by point of view dif between Trailblazer and Dire answering on question :

"I don't understand why are there Dire pieces in it at all? Why not full TB? Or if a mix, why not a mix of TB and Viper's?"

and answer was to kill mobs faster that have low amount of hp

[Boogle.8204]

Oh so Dire will actually give more damage than Viper's? I guess the Power stat on Viper's doesn't really help a lot?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

@"Boogle.8204" said:Oh so Dire will actually give more damage than Viper's? I guess the Power stat on Viper's doesn't really help a lot?

Power damage helps immensely. But Firebrand (and Core Guard, to an extent) is unique in that it can just trash enemies with nothing but Burning damage, so having Power damage on top of it is just icing on the cake.

These kinds of builds are meant to be "easy mode", where you just throw 20-25 stacks of Burning on all your enemies and fumble around with absurd health and armor and heals and not even worry about anything being a threat.

The more powerful and glassy variants use Grieving, Marshal's, Sinister (or Rampager for budget), etc.

There is no point to take Viper's on Firebrand. They only really inflict Burning (the Bleeding is insignificant), and its easy to take a single damage type to 100% duration without any kind of Expertise on gear, using Runes, Sigils, traits and food.

[kermithefrog.7169]

You need the dire gear to get expertise to cap out on condi duration.

As for why dire over viper --> dire is tankier and the TB mix is a tankier mix. you can also run full vipers for more dmg like the condi FB raid variant but the idea of solo builds on MB is to maximize tankiness as "default".

[otto.5684]

@Boogle.8204 said:Oh so Dire will actually give more damage than Viper's? I guess the Power stat on Viper's doesn't really help a lot?

No it does not. Power damage relies on 3 stats:PowerPrecisionFerocity

As result, condi gear power damage output is as follows:GrievingSinisterViperAnything with power or precision, beside condi

Not to get lost in the grieving, sinister or viper overall damage output debate (they are about equal), in OW you want the highest damage output, always. Fighting trash, veterans or elites, highest damage is ideal. Dead mobs do not do damage and this is the best for farming efficiency. Against champions, highest damage is preferable (Since it is shortest time), unless you cannot solo the champion. If you cannot solo it in full dps gear, even if you can solo it with dire, you are wasting your time. Do not waste 10-15 minutes trying to solo something that can be killed in 3 minutes as a group. If you want to have another dire set, feel free. If not, go full dps. There is no reason to build gear for something you might do 1-2 times a week that will otherwise slow 99.99% of the time. Just add 150 vitality. This is more than enough sustainability for OW.

Last point, guardian is not ideal to solo things that are not meant to be soloed. No matter what gear or skills you use, there are classes that can do that much better. Guardian, condi or power, excel at nuking mobs. This is what you should be doing. Highest damage possible in the shortest time.

[Boogle.8204]

I appreciate your reply, thank you, but it's strange that you say that. The build I linked on Metabattle says it's designed for solo, and can even do solo dungeons and fractals.Are you saying that is all BS?

[kermithefrog.7169]

Guardians can solo fractals and dungeons. They do that better than OW bounties actually since in the instanced environment there are no random adds and things are more controlled to take advantage of aegis.

That being said, they're prob slightly behind on rev (and maybe scourge) in soloing OW content but still pretty good.

[otto.5684]

@Boogle.8204 said:I appreciate your reply, thank you, but it's strange that you say that. The build I linked on Metabattle says it's designed for solo, and can even do solo dungeons and fractals.Are you saying that is all BS?

It is BS and it is not. Can you solo dungeons and some bounties? Sure, but why? You can do this stuff in a tiny fraction of that time in a group. For OW your goal is to kill mobs as fast as possible. The time you spent trying to solo something not meant to be soloed you could have farmed 5-6 dozen of trash mobs for 20x the amount of loot. This is why you should never play OW with anything but dps gear. For dungeons, use group finder.

And again, guardian is not a good class to solo things like bounties or dungeons. If you are looking for a class that can solo bounties guardian is a bad pick. If this is what you looking for, and you want a heavy armor, I would advice playing rev.

[Boogle.8204]

I already have a Rev. I'm looking for some diversion, so I want to try out Guardian.

Playing solo versus finding a group to do stuff is just my choice, my playstyle.

[Aceofsppades.6873]

The actual reason is that condi firebrand only cares about burning duration so they can get a ton of it from the Balthazar rune. If you look at here https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/guardian/firebrand/condition/ that is just the meta firebrand gear where they replaced the viper with trailblazers and the grieving + sinister with dire.

[jpsssss.7530]

because burning is your main condi and you don't need much expertise to hit burning duration cap.