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Almost all raid builds depend on the group having the Quickness boon. Not every class can get this boon in sufficient duration, but this is where the Easy-Quick Firebrand (Guardian) comes in handy. You consistently give your party the Quickness they need and deal powerful fire damage to enemies. Since this Guardian build does damage via conditions, the equipment unfortunately costs more gold than that for other raid builds, but due to quickness and your good damage, you are welcome in almost every group.
The Easy Quick Firebrand is a support & DPS build for raids. Meaning the goal of this build is to always maintain the Quickness boon on your sub-group (5 out of 10 people in your raid group) and deal large amounts of damage to your opponent as long as this is met. The Quickness support role (often searched for as "quick" or "qFB" in group searches) is well suited for beginners, as it is needed in every raid group, is still helpful even if the damage numbers are not quite as good, and has a comparatively easy rotation.
The build has a realistic benchmark of 33,184 damage per second (DPS), which is not the highest maximum value. But it is easy to learn and very helpful for all groups.
This build is mainly intended for raid beginners and is therefore a cheaper and more fault-tolerant version of the Condi-Quick-Firebrand.
Armor
In the first step you organize an (at least) exotic heavy armor with Viper's values (power, precision, condition damage, expertise). This can be bought for about 62 gold at the trading post.
After that you should buy armor runes. You need 6 Superior Rune of the Firebrand. You can buy them for about 7 gold in the trading post. You need 6 runes of one kind (mixing runes generally makes for worse bonus effects). You then place one of the runes in each of your new armor pieces.
Weapons
The Easy Quick Firebrand plays with two sets of weapons:
Here you can save the money for a second torch, because you can use one torch for both weapon sets. Just equip the torch in one weapon set and the other one will use it automatically if you don't have anything equipped in the second weapon slot.
After that you need weapons sigils.
Place the sigils in the upgrade slots of your new weapons.
Jewelry
Jewelry has the greatest potential for savings. Buying the jewelry regularly costs about 30 gold. If you collect a few materials from Living World Seasons 3, 4 and Icebrood Saga you can not only save the entire gold, but even get ascended (and thus better) jewelry.
For a complete equipment you need: 2x accessory, 2x ring, 1x amulet and 1x back piece. In contrast to the runes you can mix freely here (e.g. 2 ascended and 4 exotic pieces).
IMPORTANT: Ascended trinkets are "Unique". This means you can only equip one piece of jewelry with the same name at a time. So make sure you buy two different ascended rings and two different ascended accessories.
There are many different ways to get other ascended pieces.For example, if you don't have enough Fresh Winterberry or Unbound Magic for Black Ice Earring, you can get another accessory for 375x Eternal Ice Shard + 56,000x Karma. It's best to find out which trinkets are best for you to obtain.
Buff Food
You can play this skill completely without buffing food. However, your damage will increase by using food.
If you have trouble maintaining quickness, you can use food that gives +100 concentration:
If you generate enough quickness, it's best to take food with +15 burn duration:
In addition to food, there are supply effects (also called wrenches because of the symbol). You can always have one food effect and one supply effect at the same time.
The most suitable supply effects are the following:
Traits
Radiance
When you use Tome of Justice (F1), you get Light Aura, which gives you retaliation when you get hit and makes you take less condition damage.
You get +80 precision and +80 power.
Tome of Justice (F1) is directly recharged when you kill an opponent.
You get the effect "Zealot's Flame" when you critically hit an enemy. During the effect, any burn you inflict lasts 20% longer and your Torch skills recharge 20% faster.
Your attacks against burning enemies have a 10% higher chance of critical hits. Since you do a lot of burning, this will almost always be the case.
You also get +150 ferocity.
Burning that you cause deals 15% more damage. This is a significant increase, as about two-thirds of your damage is dealt by Burning.
Burning generated by the passive effect of Tome of Justice (F1) every 5 seconds lasts 20% longer.
Zeal
Every 30 seconds, when you are hit by an attack with less than 75% health, creates a Lesser Symbol of Wrath that deals damage to enemies and gives retaliation to allies.
You deal 7% more damage to burning enemies.
Your symbol skills inflict 2 stacks of vulnerability to enemies. You deal 5% more damage to vulnerable enemies.
You get a condition damage bonus equal to 10% of your power. This corresponds to about +209 condition damage with fully exotic equipment.
Your symbol skills deal 30% more damage. Symbol hits count double for the passive effect of Tome of Justice (F1).
You can use your Sword of Justice (Utility 9) once more, the reload time is 20% shorter and it inflicts Burn.
Firebrand
You can use tomes (F1-F3) and mantra skills.
You give your sub-group 2 seconds of quickness when you use your healing skill.
Activating or exiting a tome (F1-F3) gives you 3 seconds of quickness.
When you distribute Aegis or Stability, you also distribute 2 seconds of Quickness to the same targets simultaneously.
You get +250 condition damage, +250 healing power, +250 vitality as long as you have quickness.
The skills contained in your tomes (F1-F3) recharge 33% faster. The passive effects of your tomes now also apply during the recharge time.
You therefore passively inflict Burn every 5 attacks, give Aegis to allies and yourself for 20 seconds every 40 seconds, and heal yourself slightly.
Skills
Your Axe Autoattack is a chain of Core Cleave > Bleeding Edge > Searing Slash.
The first two attacks each inflict two stacks of Bleeding, and the third attack inflicts two stacks of Burning. Since Burning does much more damage than Bleeding, you want to use Searing Slash as often as possible. So it makes sense to always cast the entire chain if possible.
This attack inflicts 5 stacks of bleeding on your opponents.
This attack only inflicts one stack of burn and is therefore only used to fill gaps.
This attack inflicts 4 stacks of burn over a period of 3 seconds. And transforms into Zealot's Fire (Torch 4). Zealot's Fire immediately adds 3 stacks of burn when used and ends the effect of Zealot's Flame. You'll want to activate Zealot's Fire just before the effect ends.
This attack deals ten hits. The last hit also inflicts 2 stacks of Burn. Also, the Passive Effect from your Tome of Justice (F1) triggers twice, causing 2 additional stacks of Burn. This attack takes a long time, so it is weaker than your Axe skills. However, it is much better than the Scepter Auto Attack (Scepter 1).
Your Scepter Auto-Attack (Scepter 1) is a weak attack that does not create any conditions. Ideally, the Scepter Auto-Attack (Scepter 1) is not used at all and the time to switch to the Axe can be filled with other skills.
This attack deals some damage over 4 seconds and triggers Burning three times through Symbolic Power. You always want to activate Symbol of Punishment (Scepter 2) just before you use Tome of Justice (F1). It's best to place the symbol so that both you and your opponent are within the symbol.
This skill deals 250 breakbar damage, making it good for CC.
Unlocks the 5 tome skills of the Tome of Justice. And grants 5 charges. Each use of a tome skill consumes one charge. When all charges are used up, you automatically exit tome mode again.
Passively, every fifth of your hits inflicts burn.
This attack inflicts burning.
This attack inflicts two stacks of burning with very long duration.
This attack does not inflict any conditions and is therefore not used in the rotation. Instead, Chapter 2: Igniting Burst (ToJ 2) is used twice.
This attack inflicts one stack of bleeding and one stack of burning.
Within the next 10 seconds, your next three attacks and those of your allies each inflict a stack of burning.
Before the fight, charge your mantra. You get 3 charges. Never use the last charge.
When charged, you have Restoring Reprieve (Heal 6). This heals you and allies and gives you Aegis.
You thus distribute 2 seconds of quickness through Stalwart Speed and another 2 seconds of quickness through Liberator's Vow.
This gives you a total of 4 seconds of quickness.
You passively receive +180 condition damage.
Before the fight, charge your mantra. You get 3 charges. Never use the last charge.
When charged you have Potent Haste (Utility 8). It gives you and allies 2.5 seconds of quickness.
This attack places a sword that hits opponents 4 times, causing 12 stacks of vulnerability and 4 stacks of burn thanks to Eternal Armory.
You and your allies get 10 seconds of fury and 3 seconds of quickness.
The most important thing about any Guild Wars 2 build is the rotation. You can have the perfect gear and carry the right skills, if you don't master the rotation, a player with worse gear and better rotation will always do more damage/DPS than you.
Most build guides for Guild Wars 2 on the internet are created by speedrun guilds and are designed for players who want to achieve maximum damage through lots of practice. However, the raids can also be defeated with significantly less damage. Also, not every player has time or desire to practice the rotation for several hours a week. To play a rotation to perfection, hours of practice are unfortunately necessary. However, if you understand the rotation well, just a few hours of practice are enough to play the class well enough for relaxed raids and beginner raids.
Basic concepts
The most important part of the rotation is making sure that all group members always have quickness. To do this, you use the following skills:
The duration of quickness is extended if you get new quickness while you already have quickness. So you can immediately distribute all quickness to your party and don't have to wait for existing quickness to expire. If you want to play safely, always cast these skills as soon as they become available.
Be careful to never use the last charge of your two mantras, because otherwise you will have to recharge them, which is a very big time loss during the battle.
As long as you and your party have quickness, your goal is to cause as much burning and bleeding as quickly as possible.
The Axe Autoattack Chain is good for this and especially the third attack of the chain is very important for your damage. So wait until the third attack of the chain is completed before using other skills.
On the Axe weapon set, you always want to use Symbol of Vengeance (Axe 2) and Sword of Justice (Utility 9) as soon as possible.
When Symbol of Vengeance (Axe 2), Zealot's Flame (Torch 4), and Sword of Justice (Utility 9) are on cooldown and Tome of Justice (F1) is available, switch to the Scepter weapon set and perform the following combination:
After that, you can use Sword of Justice (Utility 9) or Cleansing Flame (Torch 5).
Finally, use Symbol of Punishment (Scepter 2) and switch back to the Axe weapon set.
Ideal rotation
The ideal rotation consists of an opener, which ensures the necessary quickness and a lot of burning at the beginning. After that, you should use the skills as available. (The exact explanation for this can be found above under "Basic concepts").
Opener