Firebrand - Shout Support Firebrand

This is a test build. You may comment and rate it.

Focused on: Support and Sustain

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on November 27, 2023.

Overview

A PvP support Firebrand build focusing on healing, cleansing and boon sharing.

Skill Bar

Staff

Sword/Shield

Utility

Skill Variants

Weapons

• Mace over Sword - more forgiving and beginner-friendly option with increased sustain/support but lower mobility. Take Invigorated Bulwark on Honor. Mace is also the preferred weapon of most Guardians in 2v2 and 3v3 seasons.

Template Code

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Equipment

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Sword

Shield

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Each Virtue skill is now a tome with 5 unique skills inside.

• These tomes have no cooldowns, you can swap in and out of them anytime you want, but certain traits related to activating virtues like Absolute Resolve still have CDs and can only proc once at certain intervals. You know when the traits are on CD because the tome icon will turn red, but you can still access the tome itself.

• Tome skills cost pages, and you generate 1 page every 6 seconds. Pages are a shared resource, if you blow all of them on 1 tome then you won't have any pages left for other tomes. Because of this you should always try to use the tome skills that benefit the situation the most, and shouldn't waste pages if you feel like you'll need them later.

Settings

• Under General Options / User Interface enable "Thick party health bars" and "Always show health bars". These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support. For more tips check out our settings guide.

Condition Cleansing

• Tome of Resolve and shout skills are your best tools for this.

• Every shout skill cleanses 2 conditions for allies via relic and trait synergy. Most of your shouts are also instant, which makes them quite strong under pressure but they tend to have long CDs.

• Opening Tome of Resolve cleanses multiple conditions for you and your allies immediately via trait synergy when the tome icon isn't red.

• Epilogue Eternal Oasis is the best mass cleanse in the build, converting several conditions on allies into boons.
  • Opening with this skill in general is a good idea because it also increases healing done to allies for a few seconds.

• Chapter 2 Radiant Recovery is also quite good, it cleanses as many conditions as a shout does but on a much lower cooldown. If your team is under heavy condition pressure it's worth swapping back to this tome every 6 seconds just to use this.

• The 4th skill of Tome of Courage called Chapter 4 Stalwart Stand could also help here because of the Resistance, but that doesn't work against damaging conditions. However it's a Light field, which means allies could use this to combo AoE cleansing with blast finishers.

• Symbol of Blades and Symbol of Swiftness are both Light fields, try to combo them with Staff's Holy Strike whenever you can for AoE cleansing.

Healing, Damage Mitigation

• When you dodge, try dodging towards allies. The end of your dodge roll heals you and nearby allies for a decent amount.

• Aegis heals when it blocks an attack, "Advance!" is the best Aegis provider in the build because it's an instant AoE skill.

• Empower and "Receive the Light!" are both powerful group healing skills with long cast times, you may want to protect them with Stability or Aegis to negate interrupts.

• Tome of Resolve is great at recovering health for allies while Tome of Courage focuses on preventing and mitigating damage.

• Epilogue Eternal Oasis followed by Chapter 4 Shining River and the Chapter 1 Desert Bloom spam is great at keeping your allies at a stable health but this is more about sustained healing rathern than burst healing. These skills all have relatively long cast times for a medium amount of healing. If you quickly need to heal up a low HP ally who's being focused then Eternal Oases followed by "Receive the Light!" is the better option.

• Tome of Courage (ToC) skills are strong but quite expensive, they tend to cost more pages than skills from other tomes. Skills #2 and #4 are great reactive defensive skills:
  • Chapter 2 Daring Challenge is an instant AoE Taunt. It doesn't last long but sometimes this is all you need to disrupt enemy burst attempts and allow your allies to run away. Being a CC skill however this doesn't do anything against targets with Stability.
  • Chapter 4 Stalwart Stand is the only stunbreak found on tomes and also grants Protection and Resistance to nearby allies. This could let them ignore conditions like Fear and Immobilize while mitigating incoming damage.

• ToC's 5th skill Epilogue Unbroken Lines is one of the strongest skills in the build, offering multiple layers of damage mitigation while even defending against CC with the AoE Stability.

• ToC's Chapter 3 Valiant Bulwark is very situational, only worth using against projectile focused specs like Deadeyes. Otherwise you shouldn't waste pages on this. Chapter 1 Unflinching Charge isn't really worth using most of the time - you shouldn't waste pages on a few boons that half a dozen skills can also provide as a bonus.

General

• Your role is to rotate wherever the teamfight is and keep your team alive. Avoid getting locked into 1v1s.

• Line of Warding is a powerful tool when used at the right moment. Against Thieves and Revenants for example you can put the ward beneath you and they get CC'd the moment they teleport to you. The ward may also interrupt evade frames such as regular dodging or Dagger Storm if they bump into it.

• Altruistic Healing turns Empower into a very potent self-sustain skill that scales with the number of nearby allies. Not only does this skill already pulse healing to nearby allies, but applying all those Might stacks to them will heal you for a considerable amount.
  • While this skill is capable of doing a lot of healing, the fact that it makes you stationary while casting makes it rather bad under pressure. Use it either when you're not the main target or try to CC the enemies first with skills like Shield of Absorption.

• Symbol of Blades helps with rotating around the map, assuming you have a target you can lock on to. In combat the Blind can be used to mitigate incoming damage and the teleport is still valuable especially for vertical mobility. SoB is great at navigating hard terrain, reaching allies at upper levels and leaving pursuing enemies behind (assuming you can target an enemy elsewhere).

• Get creative with Symbol of Blades, for example:
  • Teleport to an enemy at the highground and knock them off with Shield of Absorption, setting up a kill for your allies below.
  • Let's say you're at the Clocktower on Battle of Kyhlo, getting focused by multiple enemies. Target the one that's farthest away from you, jump off the building, wait for them to jump after you. Right before the farthest enemy jumps use them to teleport back up, leaving the rest of them below. Chances are even they will jump if you can time it just right.
  • Use destructible objects to your advantage, like the Trebuchet on Kyhlo or doors on Legacy of the Foefire. Even if they are out of range, teleporting in their direction while being focused by the enemy team could put distance between you and those who are chasing you.

• Zealot's Defense is one of the lowest CD anti-projectile skills in the game and even does decent damage in melee range.

• Renewed Focus is your best defensive cooldown. Complete immunity to both direct and condition based damage (except fall damage) and even CC, this is your "time out" button that also refreshes your tome traits and page count.
  • If you don't have access to stun breaks or Stability and you feel like you're in danger, consider using Renewed Focus before you drop too low. With stun breaks and stability available you may comfortably sit on this skill until the last moment, but without them you don't want to get caught in a CC chain when you're say, below 25% HP.
  • You may also choose to sacrifice the defensive aspect of this skill and use it as a resource management tool when you're out of pages, allowing you to stay in the fight longer.

• Shield of Absorption is a very versatile skill:
  • The first part of the skill knocks back enemies which could be used to peel for allies or interrupt important skills/action like a Battle Standard.
  • While channeled, the skill also acts as a Light Field. You could precast Holy Strike on Staff before swapping weapons and combo it with Shield of Absorption for AoE cleansing.
  • The channeled portion also absorbs projectiles and could even shut down a Lich Form.
  • Finally you may choose to detonate the dome for AoE healing. This could be done right away by double tapping SoA if you don't want to channel the skill at all.

Reviving Allies

• Couple of things worth mentioning about Signet of Mercy:
  • This is easily the most gamechanging skill on your bar, so do not waste it. Just because you have an option to revive people from range doesn't mean you have to do it whenever this skill is available. Keep it for emergency situations where manual rez would be impossible or too risky!
  • Try to use it with Stability to increase your odds of success. If possible, break line of sight while channeling the skill (for example run behind a pillar) to make it harder for enemies to interrupt you.
  • If you're absolutely certain that your ally is going to hit the ground, you can start channeling Signet of Mercy in advance on your ally's location. With proper timing the skill should finish its animation a split second after your teammate went down, bringing them back up immediately.
  • The signet basically restores a large chunk of downed health all at once. This counts as healing, and is therefore affected by healing reduction effects such as Poison. If your downed ally barely has any HP left and has Poison it's possible that the signet alone won't be enough to get the rez.

Pre-game Buffing

• Stack Swiftness for your team before leaving the base! Use Symbol of Swiftness on the spawn point's exit gate ~4 seconds before the match starts. Each pulse of the symbol stacks Swiftness.

• Use a charge of "Advance!" too as you're about to leave spawn (or ~10 seconds before you expect to reach the first capture point). The Aegis duration on this skill is quite long which means your team gets to start the first fight with a "free" Aegis while you still have 1 charge of Advance left and chances are the second charge will be back up by the time you'd need it.