46-59K dps. Brace yourselves for the inevitable nerf sledgehammer.

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @Garimeth.8725 said:

> > @"Sorin Noroku.5342" said:

> > If a nerf was to come to firebrand, I see it in the form of nerf to AotJ. Changing the active stacks from 3 to 2, and the trait stacks from 2 to 1, would nerf the damage enough to bring it into line with other dps classes, without outright killing it.

>

> See I would just make it so the cooldown was to the target, not the firebrand's application. So any given player can only benefit from AotJ once during the cooldown period. This accomplishes two things. First, it eliminates any problem from stacking firebrands in a PVE setting. Second, it let's the firebrand in open world pve or wvw give out alot more quickfire if they want to blow their CDs, because different people would be benefitting from it each time.

 

And why is stacking firebrands a bad thing? This change would hard limit them to 2 per squad in raids, regardless of builds. Even support and dps firebrand would compete for the same spot.

 

Actually, it might even be one spot, because if Ashes runs out of targets, it would start affecting the other subsquad.

[Lalainnia.3598]

> @Nick.6972 said:

> > @"Lotheap Mitty.6103" said:

> > FB is just too strong in everyway.

>

> Not in its intended support way though.

> I for once would gladly give up some damage to get on par with Druid/Tempest in terms of healing.

>

>

 

guardain/dragonhunter/firebrand can already out heal a druid, and tempest being pretty close because they have their own version of soothing mists.

[rogerwilko.6895]

I used to play an mmorpg where a 10-15% difference between the top and bottom specs was the norm.

This thing is hilarious!

[Odokuro.5049]

I feel like with most over-performing builds, they will dial this one down to somewhere closer to say 34k to 38k DPS. Reason I say that is because currently Condi is all the craze right now, and people are pretty much putting all their focus on gearing up Condi, that it would be a foolish step by ANet to over nerf/prune something like this, or condi in general.

[Aomine.5012]

The point is f1 has such a big effect, short cd, short aftercast on such a large radius burning skill.

 

It's not just op in pve, it's broken in wvw and pvp too.

30 stacks of burning in 1.5 sec when you have quickness is just broken.

[Kuya.6495]

you can probably reduce some of this dps by making ashes of the just scale off of an ally's condi damage and not your own. afterwards we can test to see how much dps has been reduced and nerf further if necessary.

[Lalainnia.3598]

Should remove/replace the quick fire trait and nerf ashes of the just to share 1 stack of burning will be pretty darn sad if they mess with the entire tome.

[Aomine.5012]

> @Lalainnia.3598 said:

> Should remove/replace the quick fire trait and nerf ashes of the just to share 1 stack of burning will be pretty darn sad if they mess with the entire tome.

 

I think F2 and F3 are fine as is since you can't really do anything other than support while in it.

 

F1 #4 and #5 need some number toning down though.

 

Also F1 need a global cooldown of 10 sec to prevent people from recharging f1 instantly upon killing one single foe.

 

[Knox.8962]

The real problem is the Legendary Lore trait, which basically doubles the venom damage as well as the F1#4 and F1#1. That's what is making the DPS numbers go completely over the top.

[Garimeth.8725]

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> > @Garimeth.8725 said:

> > > @"Sorin Noroku.5342" said:

> > > If a nerf was to come to firebrand, I see it in the form of nerf to AotJ. Changing the active stacks from 3 to 2, and the trait stacks from 2 to 1, would nerf the damage enough to bring it into line with other dps classes, without outright killing it.

> >

> > See I would just make it so the cooldown was to the target, not the firebrand's application. So any given player can only benefit from AotJ once during the cooldown period. This accomplishes two things. First, it eliminates any problem from stacking firebrands in a PVE setting. Second, it let's the firebrand in open world pve or wvw give out alot more quickfire if they want to blow their CDs, because different people would be benefitting from it each time.

>

> And why is stacking firebrands a bad thing? This change would hard limit them to 2 per squad in raids, regardless of builds. Even support and dps firebrand would compete for the same spot.

>

> Actually, it might even be one spot, because if Ashes runs out of targets, it would start affecting the other subsquad.

 

That's not true, it would only be for the dps firebrand as they have the condition stats to get the most out of it - the other firebrand, if there is one, could still be support,. e AotJ works just as well, if not better, using quickfire if your goal is use it every 10 seconds. I can get that just using mantras, heals, or shouts without ever pulling out my tome.

 

As far as why stacking FBs is bad...

 

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

>After you get your 3 supports (cPS, chrono, druid), you have 2 slots for dps. Firebrand currently is by far the best dps in the game.

 

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> And why is stacking firebrands a bad thing? This change would hard limit them to 2 per squad in raids, regardless of builds. Even support and dps firebrand would compete for the same spot.

 

How is it good for every raid squad to be cPS, Chrono, druid, and 2 FB?

 

My proposed change would still leave FB as a very competitive DPS position in any content, better than now in wvw actually, while incentivizing bringing another class for DPS as well. Not seeing a valid argument here going based off your own logic. Granted I don't raid, but going purely off of your arguments and the mechanics in place, I don't see a more simple or elegant solution that doesn't require a full rework of the trait, the tome, or the buff.

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @Garimeth.8725 said:

> That's not true, it would only be for the dps firebrand as they have the condition stats to get the most out of it - the other firebrand, if there is one, could still be support,. e AotJ works just as well, if not better, using quickfire if your goal is use it every 10 seconds. I can get that just using mantras, heals, or shouts without ever pulling out my tome.

 

Quickness firebrand, if it becomes a thing, will still be condi based, either viper or seraph. Ashes would be weaker, but still very strong.

 

 

> As far as why stacking FBs is bad...

> How is it good for every raid squad to be cPS, Chrono, druid, and 2 FB?

> My proposed change would still leave FB as a very competitive DPS position in any content, better than now in wvw actually, while incentivizing bringing another class for DPS as well.

 

You know how you incentivise bringing another dps class? By having firebrand not do 48k, when other classes do 35k. Raids have been in the game for 2 years, balancing dps builds is the easiest thing, you only trip some numbers.

 

Instead, your suggestion puts an artificial limit that makes guardian players not be able to play their class because another firebrand got in the group first, while still leaving the problem intact.

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @Aomine.5012 said:

> Also F1 need a global cooldown of 10 sec to prevent people from recharging f1 instantly upon killing one single foe.

 

That's the point of the trait, to recharge F1. Blame the design of the tome, the trait is fine. If tomes were more similar to kits, we wouldn't have this problem.

[Aomine.5012]

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> > @Aomine.5012 said:

> > Also F1 need a global cooldown of 10 sec to prevent people from recharging f1 instantly upon killing one single foe.

>

> That's the point of the trait, to recharge F1. Blame the design of the tome, the trait is fine. If tomes were more similar to kits, we wouldn't have this problem.

 

I mean the global cd of f1 tome for firebrand ONLY.

 

The balance of that trait is base on it proc a single burn once for its active effect.

For tome, it's instant 30 stacks of burning on a big radius for F1.

So getting a free recharge of the whole package per kill is just overpowered in both PVE and WvW.

 

Also if Firebrand F1~F3 would become a kit (which I'm in favor of too), all of the skills on it will need a massive CD increase and decrease in effectiveness.

It's like arguing why Celestial Avator on Ranger has a CD, and is not a Kit to be toggle with

[Azure.8670]

> @"Sorin Noroku.5342" said:

> > @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> > The person that made the benchmark said in the comments that scepter might actually outdps axe. It will be nice if we actually have another viable weapon.

>

>

> Tested myself, got about 3k more dps using a scepter, purely because the symbol was easier to keep up the full time.

>

 

have you tried using sword?

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @Aomine.5012 said:

> > @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> > > @Aomine.5012 said:

> > > Also F1 need a global cooldown of 10 sec to prevent people from recharging f1 instantly upon killing one single foe.

> >

> > That's the point of the trait, to recharge F1. Blame the design of the tome, the trait is fine. If tomes were more similar to kits, we wouldn't have this problem.

>

> I mean the global cd of f1 tome for firebrand ONLY.

>

> The balance of that trait is base on it proc a single burn once for its active effect.

> For tome, it's instant 30 stacks of burning on a big radius for F1.

> So getting a free recharge of the whole package per kill is just overpowered in both PVE and WvW.

>

> Also if Firebrand F1~F3 would become a kit (which I'm in favor of too), all of the skills on it will need a massive CD increase and decrease in effectiveness.

 

And that's their fault. They knew they were hooking up this thing to an existing library of traits. Also, it's not instant 30 burns, it's neither instant, nor always available, even if you recharge the tome, the skills themselves still have cooldowns. I would rather see those cooldowns further increased, instead of arbitrarily breaking the trait.

 

As for the kit suggestion, I don't really mean 0s cd kits, but more similar to elementalist attunements anyway. Not these high cooldowns.

 

> It's like arguing why Celestial Avator on Ranger has a CD, and is not a Kit to be toggle with

Well, CA has 10s cd, while Tome of Resolve has less healing strength and 40s cd, so it's not like they found a balance with these things.

[Knox.8962]

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> Well, CA has 10s cd, while Tome of Resolve has less healing strength and 40s cd, so it's not like they found a balance with these things.

This is no longer true for healing gear toting firebrands. The scaling changes to the F2 skills are very significant.

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @Knox.8962 said:

> > @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> > Well, CA has 10s cd, while Tome of Resolve has less healing strength and 40s cd, so it's not like they found a balance with these things.

> This is no longer true for healing gear toting firebrands. The scaling changes to the F2 skills are very significant.

 

Before, it used to be that one cast of Rejuvenating Tides was more healing than the entire tome with 1600 healing on both classes.

 

With the increased healing scaling, Tome of Resolve does the same healing as Rejuvenating Tides + Lunar Impact. Of course, you can use the 8 pages trait to get more healingm, but you can also cast more Avatar skills for more healing, without any traits.

[Garimeth.8725]

 

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> > @Garimeth.8725 said:

> > That's not true, it would only be for the dps firebrand as they have the condition stats to get the most out of it - the other firebrand, if there is one, could still be support,. e AotJ works just as well, if not better, using quickfire if your goal is use it every 10 seconds. I can get that just using mantras, heals, or shouts without ever pulling out my tome.

>

> Quickness firebrand, if it becomes a thing, will still be condi based, either viper or seraph. Ashes would be weaker, but still very strong.

>

>

> > As far as why stacking FBs is bad...

> > How is it good for every raid squad to be cPS, Chrono, druid, and 2 FB?

> > My proposed change would still leave FB as a very competitive DPS position in any content, better than now in wvw actually, while incentivizing bringing another class for DPS as well.

>

> You know how you incentivise bringing another dps class? By having firebrand not do 48k, when other classes do 35k. Raids have been in the game for 2 years, balancing dps builds is the easiest thing, you only trip some numbers.

>

> Instead, your suggestion puts an artificial limit that makes guardian players not be able to play their class because another firebrand got in the group first, while still leaving the problem intact.

 

By most accounts I'm seeing here, the problem is the quick turnaround on quickfire - not the fb's base dps. My suggestion leaves the skill mostly unchanged, it just affects the frequency with which an individual player can benefit. This neither leaves the problem unchanged, or limits guardians to not playing their class.

 

As far as not making it into a sub-squad because there is already a FB there... you mean like practically every other class? Who is bringing another druid, or chrono, or cPS? It would put FB in the exact same position every other meta build has: having a seat at the table. People will bring the best option, and they prefer unique bonuses - like for example celestial avatar. My proposed change let's FB keep quickfire, keep good personal dps, but not make it the obvious choice to just bring FB for all your dps spots.

[Zenith.7301]

> @Ragnarox.9601 said:

> > @Zenith.7301 said:

> > > @Kidel.2057 said:

> > > > @Zenith.7301 said:

> > > > The funny thing is this firebrand rotation is infinitely easier than the weaver one, and weaver provides zero utility to the group whatsoever.

> > >

> > > they both need a serious 50% damage reduction across all the top skills. Like they did with Ice Bow 4.

> > > There was a 75k burn tic, did you see it? Most classes take 3 seconds to do that damage, and that was only from the burning.

> >

> > Everyone knows burning is an OP condition.

> >

> > The top condi classes are engi, ele, rev. Bottom condi professions are necro and mesmer. Guess which professions don't have access to burning? Yup, the bottom ones.

>

> Thats why condi scourge is best class in wvw now and succeded last OP class in wvw which was condi reaper. Seems legit.

 

Best? Please. The entire frontline of a zerg is guards. Who fart out boons like no tomorrow and bring all the CC to blow up people in bombs. Guess the only class that can counter guardian boon spam? Oh, necro wells. Now you know why people use necro.

 

Change the boon spam meta, and necro gets swapped for ele since ele has better damage when they aren't hitting people with perma prot and constant aegis.

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @Garimeth.8725 said:

> By most accounts I'm seeing here, the problem is the quick turnaround on quickfire - not the fb's base dps. My suggestion leaves the skill mostly unchanged, it just affects the frequency with which an individual player can benefit. This neither leaves the problem unchanged, or limits guardians to not playing their class.

 

Quickfire is part of firebrand's personal dps, so you can't seperate the two. You do leave the problem unchanged, because you suggest that firebrand continues to do this amount of damage, but cannot stack.

 

> As far as not making it into a sub-squad because there is already a FB there... you mean like practically every other class? Who is bringing another druid, or chrono, or cPS?

 

Those are suppost classes, we are talking about firebrand, a pure dps class. All other dps classes can be picked freely.

 

> It would put FB in the exact same position every other meta build has: having a seat at the table. People will bring the best option, and they prefer unique bonuses - like for example celestial avatar. My proposed change let's FB keep quickfire, keep good personal dps, but not make it the obvious choice to just bring FB for all your dps spot.

 

You said it yourself, you don't play raids. You are suggesting taking a dps slot, the slot that allows most classes to be playable in raids and reducing it to a single spec. The meta supports are problematic and create a stale meta, but at least, the only ones they competed with back in HoT is healer tempest and Ventari. It's only now that scourge, firebrand and renegade were introduced, that people started being more vocally against the support trinity.

 

[RabbitUp.8294]

> @Zenith.7301 said:

> > @Ragnarox.9601 said:

> > > @Zenith.7301 said:

> > > > @Kidel.2057 said:

> > > > > @Zenith.7301 said:

> > > > > The funny thing is this firebrand rotation is infinitely easier than the weaver one, and weaver provides zero utility to the group whatsoever.

> > > >

> > > > they both need a serious 50% damage reduction across all the top skills. Like they did with Ice Bow 4.

> > > > There was a 75k burn tic, did you see it? Most classes take 3 seconds to do that damage, and that was only from the burning.

> > >

> > > Everyone knows burning is an OP condition.

> > >

> > > The top condi classes are engi, ele, rev. Bottom condi professions are necro and mesmer. Guess which professions don't have access to burning? Yup, the bottom ones.

> >

> > Thats why condi scourge is best class in wvw now and succeded last OP class in wvw which was condi reaper. Seems legit.

>

> Best? Please. The entire frontline of a zerg is guards. Who fart out boons like no tomorrow and bring all the CC to blow up people in bombs. Guess the only class that can counter guardian boon spam? Oh, necro wells. Now you know why people use necro.

>

> Change the boon spam meta, and necro gets swapped for ele since ele has better damage when they aren't hitting people with perma prot and constant aegis.

 

Yes, let's ignore epidemic, necro are only brought to counter boons, sure.

[Garimeth.8725]

> @RabbitUp.8294 said:

> > @Garimeth.8725 said:

> > By most accounts I'm seeing here, the problem is the quick turnaround on quickfire - not the fb's base dps. My suggestion leaves the skill mostly unchanged, it just affects the frequency with which an individual player can benefit. This neither leaves the problem unchanged, or limits guardians to not playing their class.

>

> Quickfire is part of firebrand's personal dps, so you can't seperate the two. You do leave the problem unchanged, because you suggest that firebrand continues to do this amount of damage, but cannot stack.

>

> > As far as not making it into a sub-squad because there is already a FB there... you mean like practically every other class? Who is bringing another druid, or chrono, or cPS?

>

> Those are suppost classes, we are talking about firebrand, a pure dps class. All other dps classes can be picked freely.

>

> > It would put FB in the exact same position every other meta build has: having a seat at the table. People will bring the best option, and they prefer unique bonuses - like for example celestial avatar. My proposed change let's FB keep quickfire, keep good personal dps, but not make it the obvious choice to just bring FB for all your dps spot.

>

> You said it yourself, you don't play raids. You are suggesting taking a dps slot, the slot that allows most classes to be playable in raids and reducing it to a single spec. The meta supports are problematic and create a stale meta, but at least, the only ones they competed with back in HoT is healer tempest and Ventari. It's only now that scourge, firebrand and renegade were introduced, that people started being more vocally against the support trinity.

>

 

Quickfire is part of FBs personal dps because that's whose screen it shows up on, that's it. It's a DPS support ability that requires others to reach it's potential.

 

I don't raid, but I'm suggesting party comp thing because i see alot of forum posts that make it sound like there are/were professions that weren't welcome period. My point is it seems like most of the professions suffer from a "play this way or gtfo" mentality in most areas other than open world. I'd rather see quickfire get changed in a way that makes it still useful than get removed or completely changed - quickfire and axe are my two favorite things about the spec.

[Sorin Noroku.5342]

> @Garimeth.8725 said:

> > @"Sorin Noroku.5342" said:

> > If a nerf was to come to firebrand, I see it in the form of nerf to AotJ. Changing the active stacks from 3 to 2, and the trait stacks from 2 to 1, would nerf the damage enough to bring it into line with other dps classes, without outright killing it.

>

> See I would just make it so the cooldown was to the target, not the firebrand's application. So any given player can only benefit from AotJ once during the cooldown period. This accomplishes two things. First, it eliminates any problem from stacking firebrands in a PVE setting. Second, it let's the firebrand in open world pve or wvw give out alot more quickfire if they want to blow their CDs, because different people would be benefitting from it each time.

 

Hitting different people doesn't effect their dps more. Its an application. If you couldn't hit the same target again later you would run out of people in smaller groups and kill their dps. If you leave the "cooldown" off, you have what we have now. If you remove the single use of the ashes venom per person with the buff, you cut FB's burning by 2 stacks per person (5 people, 10 stacks). 10 stacks of burning removed will drop their dps to be closer to soulbeast and weaver (thinking about 42-43k dps if they nerf ashes like this), yet still keep it as a competitive dps build. The build has little to no CC for raids, and its truly raids where it hits these insanely high numbers. In open world "meta event" sized parties last night, I ran my dps meter, yes I was high on it, but I wasn't so far ahead no one could compete. I sat at 10k where others were at 7-9k dps. (Doing the legendary bounty in Crystal Oasis). If I had 10 less personal burning stacks, I think I could've been right along with them.

 

Also as was said before, if you put a cooldown on the person who gets the ashes venom, you'd have to do the same for thief venoms too, and doing this would mean you cannot run more than 1 firebrand in a group PERIOD without having one completely JANKED on dps. Already in raids I have to watch to see if I have the venom buff on from another firebrand before applying mine.. and even my own traited and active ashes overwrite each other... so If I apply quickness after I used the justice 5 ashes, I just wasted a stack of venom period.. No burn application... And if the people who got my ashes wasn't attacking, I wasted it there too.

 

TLDR: Ashes is the issue for firebrand dps, if it's to get a nerf, I hope its here and not say "burning reduced by 1 second" as raiders would actually see a 2 second loss per burning stack, which could drop their dps down to 36k (which sure, its in line with others, but others also bring breakbar damage, where firebrand doesn't have it. So why take a firebrand and have issues with break when you could have break AND 2-3k more dps?)

[Garimeth.8725]

> @"Sorin Noroku.5342" said:

> > @Garimeth.8725 said:

> > > @"Sorin Noroku.5342" said:

> > > If a nerf was to come to firebrand, I see it in the form of nerf to AotJ. Changing the active stacks from 3 to 2, and the trait stacks from 2 to 1, would nerf the damage enough to bring it into line with other dps classes, without outright killing it.

> >

> > See I would just make it so the cooldown was to the target, not the firebrand's application. So any given player can only benefit from AotJ once during the cooldown period. This accomplishes two things. First, it eliminates any problem from stacking firebrands in a PVE setting. Second, it let's the firebrand in open world pve or wvw give out alot more quickfire if they want to blow their CDs, because different people would be benefitting from it each time.

>

> Hitting different people doesn't effect their dps more. Its an application. If you couldn't hit the same target again later you would run out of people in smaller groups and kill their dps. If you leave the "cooldown" off, you have what we have now. If you remove the single use of the ashes venom per person with the buff, you cut FB's burning by 2 stacks per person (5 people, 10 stacks). 10 stacks of burning removed will drop their dps to be closer to soulbeast and weaver (thinking about 42-43k dps if they nerf ashes like this), yet still keep it as a competitive dps build. The build has little to no CC for raids, and its truly raids where it hits these insanely high numbers. In open world "meta event" sized parties last night, I ran my dps meter, yes I was high on it, but I wasn't so far ahead no one could compete. I sat at 10k where others were at 7-9k dps. (Doing the legendary bounty in Crystal Oasis). If I had 10 less personal burning stacks, I think I could've been right along with them.

>

> Also as was said before, if you put a cooldown on the person who gets the ashes venom, you'd have to do the same for thief venoms too, and doing this would mean you cannot run more than 1 firebrand in a group PERIOD without having one completely JANKED on dps. Already in raids I have to watch to see if I have the venom buff on from another firebrand before applying mine.. and even my own traited and active ashes overwrite each other... so If I apply quickness after I used the justice 5 ashes, I just wasted a stack of venom period.. No burn application... And if the people who got my ashes wasn't attacking, I wasted it there too.

>

> TLDR: Ashes is the issue for firebrand dps, if it's to get a nerf, I hope its here and not say "burning reduced by 1 second" as raiders would actually see a 2 second loss per burning stack, which could drop their dps down to 36k (which sure, its in line with others, but others also bring breakbar damage, where firebrand doesn't have it. So why take a firebrand and have issues with break when you could have break AND 2-3k more dps?)

 

I agree reducing the stacks would be much better than reducing the duration.

 

[Hanth.2978]

Dev team, Ashes of the Just Ashes of the Just Ashes of the Just. Guardians do not need large overhauls or retooling of tomes, burn stacks, durations etc. Just rework that one skill to bring FB's in line with other classes.