Firebrand in PvE : please allow us to play other healers

[drewn.8692]

Hi ! First, I don't blame people for accepting only FB healer in fractals/raid because it is obviously better than other professions, but I just wanted to say that atm I don't like the Firebrand in the meta **because it outclasses all others options** (scrapper, druid, tempest). I think it needs a nerf, or at least an adjustment to make others option viable again. Isn't it a shame to have only one option of healer ? It kills the variety of the game, that makes it more boring than it was.

Maybe its better to buff other supports, but the actual situation isn't great.

[Diak Atoli.2085]

There are multiple options for healers, not just one. Meta builds are not the only effective or even viable builds you can use.

 

Case in point: My usual fractal group runs a Tempest healer and not a Firebrand.

[drewn.8692]

I also play tempest healer in fractals (when I am support, most of the time I play weaver dps). It works, but the fact is that it is by far less efficient than the FB. And that is the negative point. The FB should be a fair choice of support. If you just have a look to the stats and the time to do the fractal, the FB is way better and polyvalent than the tempest (Even if the tempest is great at keeping a group alive, the FB has better dps/buffs/utilities). And it is the same for other supports.

 

The impact in the game isn't that bad (I said before I play tempest healer, and groups accept myself), but this point can be improved. FB are everywhere, other supports are quite rare, stats never lies. This is unbalanced somewhere.

[Diak Atoli.2085]

Before this goes any further, two things needs to be made clear.

 

1. What specific game mode are you referencing?

2. Where are these 'stats' proving your point from?

[drewn.8692]

> @"Diak Atoli.2085" said:

> Before this goes any further, two things needs to be made clear.

>

> 1. What specific game mode are you referencing?

> 2. Where are these 'stats' proving your point from?

 

1. I am referencing Fractals T4. Don't know for raids but it might be the same.

2. Unfortunately, I have not "hard" stats here. I can only prove my point of view from my experience in game, and the top meta builds (metabattle and discretize.eu, that contains good advices on the meta). And also, FB can be played DPS/support at the same time. That indirectly means that the overall dps is higher (so more efficient), and other support are not able to play this style.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

T4 meta used to be Boon Chrono (Quickness + Alacrity + 1 shot CC) + Harrier Druid (25 Might, Fury, Prot, Cleanse). Chrono was gutted, and while Druid was shaved a bit, it didn't lose it's viability - it just stopped being the preferred healer. In a 5 person group where you only have room for 2 supports and 3 DPS, you need those two supports to cover all the boons you used to get from Chrono Druid.

 

The only duo that can currently provide Quickness + Alacrity reliably is Firebrand + Renegade. Chrono can still provide Alacrity, but why work twice is as hard when you can just play Renegade.

 

The problem isn't specific to Healbrand, since some groups run Power Quickbrand or Condi Firebrand + Heal Renegade, or just run plain Renegade and do without heals. (You'll note that Discretize shows Power Quickbrand as 'meta', not a Healbrand - for them Meta means no dedicated healer.)

 

Last night I hard carried a group through T4s on my Heal Scourge, (me, DH, zerk BS, d/d DE, Reaper) which I haven't really played since the shade mechanic change many moons ago. Is Heal Scourge 'good' in T4s? It isn't bad. Barrier spam, condi removal, 12-14k DPS (Shaman/Marshal variant), CC via Golem, fast revives, life leach via Vampiric etc etc.

 

But without Firebrand we had no Quickness, Aegis or Resistance. With no Renegade we had marginal Might stacks (I think I was able to keep 10 stacks up?), no Alacrity, and nobody else in the group seemed to know what CC or boon strip was (seriously, I think between my Golem and Torch I handled most of the breakbars), which all in all, made the run much more difficult than it needed to be.

 

T4s are what they are, and the instabilities are what they are - they don't change. What makes the difference between a smooth run and a struggle is ultimately boon availability and uptime. Just watch a boss melt before you when you have 25 stacks of might and their breakbar is insta broken so they start taking 50% more damage.

 

So if I join a group with a Tempest or Scrapper healer, I'm not worried about heals or condi cleanse, I'm wondering where the Quickness is coming from (unless Im on my Reaper, in which case I don't care either way). If someone chooses to swap to a Power Quickbrand or Condi Firebrand, great we have quickness now, but they would do 10K more DPS as a DH if we had a Healbrand there who could provide quickness instead.

 

Quickness and Alacrity are just too powerful. Chrono was gutted because they had everything in one package, and that pushed out other specs. The aftermath of that, and the introduction of Diviner gear, lead to Heal Firebrand and Alacrity Renegade doing the same thing.

 

Either Quickness/Alacrity is removed from the game, ANET gives more professions individual sources for those boons, or give more professions the capability give that boon to 5/10 other players. Outside of that, any group that doesn't use Firebrand and Renegade for their two support slots is just making it harder on themselves.

 

 

[CptAurellian.9537]

> @"Turkeyspit.3965" said:

> Quickness and Alacrity are just too powerful. Chrono was gutted because they had everything in one package, and that pushed out other specs. The aftermath of that, and the introduction of Diviner gear, lead to Heal Firebrand and Alacrity Renegade doing the same thing.

>

> Either Quickness/Alacrity is removed from the game, ANET gives more professions individual sources for those boons, or give more professions the capability give that boon to 5/10 other players. Outside of that, any group that doesn't use Firebrand and Renegade for their two support slots is just making it harder on themselves.

 

Do not forget that chrono had much more in its package than quickness and alacrity. Almost all boons in the game, massive CC, group distortion on demand, respectable (not great) healing, best pull in the game and all the other utility with regard to reflect etc., that was an abomination. The devs were right to gut that, but in the end they went too far when they started making chrono gameplay as cancerous as it is now. The shatter changes were plain dumb and pointless and some other stuff also was unnecessary, since the immobile wells already were a substantial drawback.

 

Imo, the problem is bigger than any individual class. Giving quickness and alacrity to other classes (or removing them altogether) may alleviate it, but won't get to the root of the problem. They'd have to redesign combat mechanics, the entire boon system and all classes from scratch to do that.

 

[Turkeyspit.3965]

> @"CptAurellian.9537" said:

> but won't get to the root of the problem. They'd have to redesign combat mechanics, the entire boon system and all classes from scratch to do that.

 

Not sure about that. Remove Alacrity and Quickness from the game (for arguments sake), what other boons are we talking about that are limited to a select few builds? Aegis, Retaliation and to a small extent Stability. Aegis is a nice perk, but hardly 'required' for optimal performance, and Retaliation in a PvE setting is meaningless to any build that doesn't get a stat boost from having it, and to my knowledge, only a Guardian and Rev get a damage boost from Ret, while Warriors can get a toughness boost.

 

That leaves Stabilty, which a Firebrand can vomit out in spades, but so can Core and DH guards, as well as all forms of Revenant, Warrior, Engineer, and Soulbeast.

 

So if we removed Quickness + Alacrity, the only other sought after boon would be Stability, and I can think of 9 different builds across 5 professions that could bring that. Revs wouldn't have to resort to Renegade, they could play Power Herald and still pump out might. Scrappers could take on healing roles without the party losing DPS boons.

 

At that point the only "required" professions for a min/max group that I could think of would be Revenant for Assassin's Presence and a Banner Slave; whether or not someone feels those types of buffs should remain unique and exclusive is debatable, as yes it does add flavour to those respective classes, but it also makes it seem that you must include them or be at a disadvantage.

 

Nevertheless, Quickness and Alacrity are what pigeon holes T4 fractal comps. There is some small latitude with the DPS, as if you don't have a Power Weaver or DH, you can do just fine running with a Reaper, melee Soulbeast, Condi FB, and the BS could run as Core or SB without a significant drop in DPS. But omit a Firebrand and Renegade, and you're taking a significant hit.

 

But can you put the Djinn back in the bottle? Doubtful. Reworking the game to remove Quickness + Alacrity seems implausible. So the only other option that remains then is that ANET has to introduce other means of providing group Quickness + Alacrity to support builds such as Tempest, Scrapper, and Druid...

 

EDIT: apologies, I missed one--yeah, they can unkitten Chrono as well. I get it, Chrono is still playable (one was in my group last night), but I think it's generally agree d upon by the Chrono community (not one of them - never played Chrono) that the 'nerfed' spec is unfun to play, not rewarding, and the same results can be achieved far easier running a Renegade.

 

[CptAurellian.9537]

Might is an issue, though not as bad as quickness and alacrity. Warriors are another one, since their banners and their massive CC at rather little opportunity cost make them an important cornerstone of any 5-man PvE as well. When I look at the buff/debuff system Wildstar had, or WoW 10 years ago (no idea what it looks like now), those were systems where most classes could offer something useful, but not overpowered, and where you hardly needed more than one of each class to cover relevant stuff. As long as boons constantly need to be reapplied (great for interactivity, bad for balance), there's unique stuff like banners and dps is the main function, I don't see a proper solution on the horizon.