








Firebrand
Rotation
Ranged Spike (Tome of Justice)
Burst Heal (Tome of Resolve + Empower)
Epilogue: Eternal Oasis
Chapter 4: Shining River
Chapter 3: Azure Sun
Epilogue: Eternal Oasis
Chapter 4: Shining River
Chapter 3: Azure Sun
Chapter 4: Shining River
Epilogue: Eternal Oasis
Empower
Burst Stability (Tome of Courage)
Epilogue: Unbroken Lines
Chapter 4: Stalwart Stand
Chapter 1: Unflinching Charge
Chapter 2: Daring Challenge
Firebrands are the backbone of WvW, providing boons, healing, cleansing, and breaking allies out of stuns. This build is relatively forgiving to learn due to its survivability but is difficult to master.
Build Fundamentals
Your main responsibility is to keep your party moving. This means maintaining Stability
Resistance
Tome Overview
Firebrand’s Virtues are replaced by Tomes: activating the F1 – F3 skills replace your weapon skills with powerful offensive or defensive skills. Each skill has relatively short cooldowns, making your tome skill casts primarily constrained by the number of pages available to you. Thanks to Archivist of Whispers
Tome of Justice
Chapter 3: Heated Rebuke
Tome of Resolve
Tome of Courage
Stability
Resistance
Stability and Resistance
You are the main source of Stability
Resistance
Stability
Resistance
Immobilize
"Stand Your Ground!"
Defense Field
"Stand Your Ground!"
Tome of Courage
Indomitable Courage
Stability
increases your allies’ toughness, reducing incoming damage.Epilogue: Unbroken Lines
is a stationary field that pulsesChapter 4: Stalwart Stand
. This negates non-damaging debilitating conditions such asResistance
on your allies, allowing you to escape an enemy bomb and regroup. Note that this is not a condition cleanse – it simply allows you to temporarily ignore crowd-control conditions.Immobilize
appliesChapter 1: Unflinching Charge
andStability
.Swiftness
is a crowd control (applyingChapter 2: Daring Challenge
) and appliesTaunt
on your party.Resolution
Chapter 3: Valiant Bulwark
Tome of Courage
Hallowed Ground
Stability
Stability
Mantra of Liberation
Stability
Healing and Cleansing
Healing is the next highest priority after maintaining Stability
You provide reasonable passive sustain on each Dodge
Selfless Daring
Dodge
Superior Sigil of Energy
Dodge
Superior Sigil of Energy
Tome of Resolve
Absolute Resolve
When entering Tome of Resolve
Epilogue: Eternal Oasis
Chapter 4: Shining River
A typical follow up to this is Chapter 3: Azure Sun
Vigor
Regeneration
Swiftness
Chapter 2: Radiant Recovery
Aim to use Epilogue: Eternal Oasis
Empower
Might
Mantra of Solace
Aegis
Pure of Heart
Crowd Control
Line of Warding
Stability
Chapter 3: Heated Rebuke
Tome of Justice
Chapter 2: Daring Challenge
Tome of Courage
Signet of Mercy
Signet of Mercy
Illusion of Life
Signet of Mercy
If a member of your party has gone down, indicate to your zerg that you’ll be using your revive utility to avoid stacking revives. Apply Stability
Signet of Mercy
If your downed ally is knocked out of position or fully dies before the cast ends you can cancel your signet to avoid its long cooldown by hitting your escape key or by stowing your weapons. Note that if you are in a tome only escape will work.
Weapon Skills
Mace:
- Your third auto-attack,
, heals nearby allies.Faithful Strike
places a symbol that appliesSymbol of Faith
.Regeneration
appliesProtector's Strike
andAegis
. This should be used on ranged spikes.Protection
Shield:
appliesShield of Judgment
andProtection
to allies in front of you. This should be used on ranged spikes.Aegis
casts a dome that blocks projectiles and detonates to a strong heal. Typically this skill is double-tapped, as the heal is often a higher priority to the block.Shield of Absorption
Staff:
is a good ranged heal, as well as a blast finisher.Holy Strike
is a light field that also appliesSymbol of Swiftness
. When blasted bySwiftness
this will remove a condition from allies. While this can be spammed during fights avoid using it when stacked up in preparation for a push: Commanders will often call for stealthing smoke fields, and placing a light field will disrupt stealth application.Holy Strike
burst heals and appliesEmpower
.Might
creates a line that stops enemies from crossing.Line of Warding
Alternatives
Skills & Traits
If you are struggling with sustain you can make some utility and trait swaps:
can be swapped forSignet of Mercy
for improved condition cleanse. If your party is missing a mediscrapper this is a required swap.Mantra of Lore
can be swapped forHonorable Staff
to apply a small amount of healing for every attack blocked byPure of Heart
.Aegis
Weapons
- Mace can be swapped for Axe for more CC with
, at the cost of someBlazing Edge
andAegis
.Protection