guardian build question

[weaponwh.9810]

just lvl up a guardian, like to know whats the difference between pwr DH and FB. my understand is DH use power gear, where FB use either heal or condi gear? i'm try to use same gear set for both t4 fractal, solo pve and maybe a bit raid too. i only have enough mats for 1 set of ascended gear, so hard to decide which build to go for. i guess build with template is easy, but gear wise i only have 1 set of ascended to use in pve and fractal atm.

[dukenukem.9072]

I personally use the power, ferocity, precision and vitality set (don't remember what it's called). Then I use runes of the firebrand for the boon/quickness duration. I mainly use a firebrand build that focuses on quickness uptime and high dps but I switch to DH for some stuff

[Sifu.9745]

DH is power, while as FB you can play whatever you want: power, condi, support. Check up gw2 metabattle for more info. I would say that with Power gear you have more options.

[Infusion.7149]

> @"dukenukem.9072" said:

> I personally use the power, ferocity, precision and vitality set (don't remember what it's called). Then I use runes of the firebrand for the boon/quickness duration. I mainly use a firebrand build that focuses on quickness uptime and high dps but I switch to DH for some stuff

 

The set with Power, Precision as major stats and vitality + ferocity as minor stats is called Marauder.

Generally you don't run firebrand runes on dragonhunter because you don't have access to decent group quickness , it's more or less run on condi quickbrand exclusively instead of Balthazar's rune.

 

----

 

My advice to the original poster is to make condi quickbrand gear (full viper armor, firebrand rune) if it is meant for openworld and raid as well. See discretize. It fits into more parties than a dragonhunter would (including 100cm) and the ramp on burning is low enough that unless you are with a high power burst party it still gets damage in.

 

See :

Raid variant : https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/guardian/firebrand/condition%20quickness/

Raid variant: https://lucky-noobs.com/builds/condi-quickness-firebrand

Fractal variant (relies on AR for boon duration): https://discretize.eu/builds/guardian/condi-firebrand

 

You wouldn't want to run harrier healbrand in openworld at all ; power firebrand is not going to work well at all in raid.

[weaponwh.9810]

> @"Infusion.7149" said:

> > @"dukenukem.9072" said:

> > I personally use the power, ferocity, precision and vitality set (don't remember what it's called). Then I use runes of the firebrand for the boon/quickness duration. I mainly use a firebrand build that focuses on quickness uptime and high dps but I switch to DH for some stuff

>

> The set with Power, Precision as major stats and vitality + ferocity as minor stats is called Marauder.

> Generally you don't run firebrand runes on dragonhunter because you don't have access to decent group quickness , it's more or less run on condi quickbrand exclusively instead of Balthazar's rune.

>

> ----

>

> My advice to the original poster is to make condi quickbrand gear (full viper armor, firebrand rune) if it is meant for openworld and raid as well. See discretize. It fits into more parties than a dragonhunter would (including 100cm) and the ramp on burning is low enough that unless you are with a high power burst party it still gets damage in.

>

> See :

> Raid variant : https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/guardian/firebrand/condition%20quickness/

> Raid variant: https://lucky-noobs.com/builds/condi-quickness-firebrand

> Fractal variant (relies on AR for boon duration): https://discretize.eu/builds/guardian/condi-firebrand

>

> You wouldn't want to run harrier healbrand in openworld at all ; power firebrand is not going to work well at all in raid.

 

thx for the info, try figure something thats good for fractal T4, a bit raid and can solo open world without changing gears except some trait line.

[Sorem.9157]

I might be late to the party but here we go

 

Do not associate specializations with types of damage. Think of them by their core concept. Dragonhunter has always been a power build, but tomorrow it might not be. Six months ago, Firebrand was strictly considered a full condition build, now it is one of the meta healer builds and has aswell a quickness power variant.

 

My first advice is pick the gear for the setup that you enjoy the most.

 

Now if you wanna talk optimization or versatility, i can do that aswell.

 

For PvE, you always wanna look at the most damage possible. Survavibility comes with experience (and cleaving effectively, which will cause you to rally, if necessary). Leave the more tanky variants such as Marauder and Trailblazers for PvP/WvW, where you'll be fighting players that can outsmart you, instead of AI. Now let's dive into it.

 

For Open World, in general, Power will always be superior to condi, mathematically. Monsters die too fast for you to take advantage of all your condition damage. Most of the times mobs will die with quite a few stacks on them that would tick for awhile. That is very relevant, but the most important thing you need to look at is cleave potential: hitting a lot of things at once aka the capability to generate BIG BAD RED CIRCLES. It is more important than high personal single target dps in open world, since there are frequently quite a few things to hit and, at that, Firebrand excels. Reset on F1 tome from radiance is amazing in open world, which is what causes this specific profession to be able to get away with running condi optimally in open world. Tome of Wrath scales off both power and condition damage, but leans more to condition damage, which gives us an odd situation: condition is superior but power still being VERY reliable. Power Dragonhunter has a lot of cleave, don't get me wrong, but the Tome of Wrath being so overtuned on Firebrand and its synergy with the Radiance line, which causes it to reset everytime you get a kill (which in open world will happen a lot), is hard to pass on. Being completely frank, optimization is kinda pointless in open world. Nothing there is challenging enough for you to bother with it, unless you wanna flex at your high scores at the dps meter. Spoiler alert: nobody will care about it there, most people just spam 1s. But definetly, Firebrand will provide you with a better time, being it great at cleaving thrash mobs using both the optimal condition build or the very good power build.

 

For Fractals and Raids though, it is a whole different story. Optimization is important here. Fractals are usually faster fights, which gives power DH an edge on top of condition firebrand, dps wise. Firebrand has those nice utilities that could really help out your party, though, like reflects, resistance, stability, aegis, etc, which you can get from your mantras and F3 tome. Keep in mind though, it is not necessarily your job to use those if you're a dps, so nobody can blame you for not using them, as theoretically, every ability you use that isn't hurting the enemy, is a dps loss. Personally, even though it is not my Job to carry those, I still prefer Firebrand for your average fractal, simply because it offers better party support at the cost of being less bursty. When we are talking about raids, fights will be longer and require greater coordination, which gives condition firebrand an edge, since it has stronger dps in the long run.

 

What will be the icing on the cake for Firebrand specs though and what in the end i think you should consider when making your gear: Quickbrand. That is a very strong build, which provides strong POWER dps and even though, the "meta" build uses Perfect Inscriptions in Radiance and a mix of Assassins/Diviner armor, you can very well swap that off for Righteous Instincts in full berserker and maintain quickness for your whole party at practically the same level. This is not 100% optimal, but it is i would say 90%. The icing on the cake is that if you are running with full berserker, that is exactly the same gear setup you'd run on your full meta power DH, giving you versatility. Now, while most people prefer the condition variant of Quickbrand, Power is definetly VERY viable.

 

In conclusion: if you go Condition gear, you'll be fixed at only playing Firebrand, while if you go Power, you are able to play both. I'm assuming you are not looking for the most optimal setup for everything - that will always require multiple gear sets, but as long as you're willing to give up that 10% effectiveness on some eventual builds, you can get away with running Power on most scenarios. Firebrand is optimal with Condition gear and viable with power, Dragonhunter and core Guardian are optimal with power but NOT viable with condition.

 

Berserker gear is also easier to transitate into a more tankier variation with Marauder, which will be very welcome if you ever decide you wanna get into some WvW, where you can play DPS Guardian for Zerg Fights or Dragonhunter for Roaming/Havoc.

 

To me, the choice is clear: if you can only pick one, go berserker.

 

TL;DR: Go Berserker. You'll be able to play Power DH / Power FB for open world and Power DH / Quickbrand for Fractals and Raids.