The sigil choice is up to you. I'd like to give my point of view though. In my opinion an important factor in making this decision is MI(Merciful Intervention); as is mentioned in the H2P, MI is affected by healing mods. When someone goes down he starts at 75% of his downed health and their health goes down by 2.5% every second, which means that the 20% of MI is not enough. However, since you get an 22% outgoing healing modifier from Force of Will and get 12-14% mod from your Bountiful Maintenance Oil you are likely to insta-ress when you MI on someone with 75% downed health. For example, 0.20*1.22*1.14= 0.28 and 0.28>0.25, however, 0.20*1.22= 0.24 and 0.24<0.25 -> always use Bountiful Maintenance Oil! Additionally, when playing Mace/Shield, Invigorated Bulwark will give anywhere between 0 - 25% healing mods; 25% equals to 5% revive percentage from MI, thus 2 ticks of losing downed state health. 25 Stacks of Benevolence would give 12.5%->2.5%->1 tick and Sigil of Transference would give -> 10%->2%->0.8 tick. If you were to stack all possible mods, without changing runes and including Eternal Oasis, you would get a ~40% revive percentage for Merciful Intervention. That is double of what it originally does. I should mention that, in regards to healing capabilities, Life>Benevolence; Life gives 4% better Regeneration ticks, 2.6% better Battle Presence ticks and 10% better heals from Selfless Daring (dodge heal), however, Sigil of Benevolence would heal 1 tick more revive percentage. I'd argue that if you have enough Scrappers in your squad your Regeneration (your biggest heal won't be prioritized, your second biggest heal, Battle Presence, doesn't differ that much [2%] from Benevolence and Shining River heals about 2% more as well. Finally you can also consider slotting Sigil of Concentration, you would miss out on any extra revive ticks and your heals will be less. However, it would help a lot with your boon up-time. Anyways, like I said, the choice is up to you!

The following is a perspective on how to play Firebrand. (7 to 11 minutes) A good way to begin understanding what it entails to be a decent Firebrand is to play in a party, as DPS or another role, where you rely on this Firebrand so that you can do your job well. I will list a few things that I have noticed limited me when in said method. - General lack of vital boons, such as Swiftness, Protection, Regeneration and Stability. Especially at the start of a fight or during prolonged pirateship. The lack of any of these boons affected how aggressive I could be, I couldn't deal as much pressure and I was more likely to die. - Late or no Stability at crucial moments, getting cc'ed at the start of a push, getting stuck on a line, etc... - No heals, having to pull off from the fight because you are 10% health for a prolonged time, your ability to do your role well gets limited if you don't get sustained by your Firebrand. - No outgoing pulls and lines, a variable of the effectiveness of my bubble/bomb depends on the follow-up of my squad, lack thereof resulted in less effective bubbles/bombs. - Dead Firebrand, my Firebrand died doing his own stuff and couldn't support me whatsoever during the remainder of the fight. I think that covers the general things I noticed myself. Let's look at each individual issues and make sure we adequately provide a solution. Keep in mind though that there are no end-all solutions. PROVIDING VITAL BOONS The following boon is important, because ... (won't elaborate too much) - Swiftness, arguably the most important boon. It allows you to be where you want/need to be (and not be), faster. Greatly affects the ability to position well, which, consequently, affects the ability to perform any role well. - Stability, this boon allows you to be where you want to be (and not be). It functions as a counterplay to any kind of hard-CC. - Protection, improves sustain, allows more aggressive positioning, etc... - Regeneration, as Firebrand you provide higher ticks of Regeneration on top of the Battle Presence passive you share AoE. A rough estimate would be 450+300 health/s/person *5, improves sustain and thus allows someone to perform his role better. Additionally ... - Aegis, it blocks the next attack and due to Pure of Heart heals around ~1500-2500 depending on your healing modifiers. - Resistance, immunity to all conditions, corrupts into immobilize though. As a Firebrand you have plenty of resources to provide these boons for your party. - First and foremost, Durability helps combat a lot of issues of boon uptime through the 4th bonus that gives Regeneration and Protection and the 6th bonus that helps making each application more valuable - Sigil of Concentration helps in a similar way as that 6th Dura bonus, but it has the obvious issue of not always being up. - Other than the proc of Durability runes there are several other ways to keep up Regeneration and Protection without going into your tomes. Mantra of Lore helps with Regeneration pre-fight as well as during the fight, Mace #3 and Shield #4 help with Protection pre-fight as well as during the fight (+2 Aegis applications). - With the Virtues traitline, you apply Regeneration when you enter Tome of Resolve (in addition, you also cleanse 3 conditions in a 600 radius when you enter this tome) and you apply Protection when you go into Tome of Courage. - Through Legendary Lore, in Tome of Resolve Regeneration is granted on every skill and increases the duration of the Regeneration from the Chapter #3 skill that grants Regeneration by default. - Through Legendary Lore, in Tome of Courage Protection is granted on every skill and increases the duration of the Protection from the Chapter #5 skill that grants Protection by default. - Stability can be provided through Stand Your Ground, Mantra of Liberation, Unflinching Charge(F3n1) and Unbroken Lines(F3n5). More on this later on. Additionally ... - You have quite a few ways to apply Aegis to your party; entering Tome of Courage + every skill on Tome of Courage except Unflinching Charge, Mantra of Solace, Mace #3 and Shield #4. More on this later. - Besides your Durability proc you also apply Resistance with Stalwart Stand (F3n4), which is a pulsing field that pulses three times. Try to think about the placement a bit, personally I try to make it so it doesn't cover the enemy shade bomb(resist->immob), I usually put it out-left or out-right, depending on which direction we move. On a last note, there is a also a way of boon application that I have completely ignored and that is condition conversion through Eternal Oasis (F2n5) and the last charge of Mantra of Lore - Contemplation of Purity if you opt for it. STABILITY First things first, if you pop stab when it's called on TS/Discord then you are late. The obvious issue with this is the delay on voice and on top of that the delay in reaction. Applications of Stability: - Stand Your Ground, 5 stacks, 600 radius, stunbreaks self, also applies Retaliation, long cooldown (30s) - Mantra of Liberation, 1 stack, 450 range in a cone(180 angle) infront of you, stunbreaks in 180 radius for you and allies, 3 charges. - Unflinching Charge(F3n1), 1 stack, 600 range in a cone (90 angle, guess) infront of you, also applies Swiftness and Protection. - Unbroken Lines(F3n5), 1 stack, 600 radius, 5s 200 Toughness buff, also applies Aegis, Protection and Retaliation, short cooldown (8s) On the get-go I'd argue Unflinching Charge has too many issues (small angle on cone, other skills in tome outprioritize it) to rely on it, however I do mention it, because it's good to know and in plenty of situations you can make use of it. The mantra suffers from not having an AoE radius effect, but the large angle on the cone and the 450 range make it somewhat reliable. For example, other than using it to stunbreak an early static/line for you and/or your allies it can also be used to give one early stack of stab via about-face casting it behind you if you're right on tag. On that note, about-face is useful to bind and actively use in general. It can be used in a lot of ways, you can get just in range to cast a deep line of warding and right after you start casting it you about-face, 1 stack of stab before you start casting is useful though. My main objective is for my party to be able to do their roles, there are some pivotal moments during a fight where they absolutely need stab and I'll try outline the moments I value. -1200 range, this is the max range of most ranged skills and serves as the the standoff distance. Generally when your group enter this range you commit to a push/engage, sometimes you small poke or do some early CC and go back to safe range, but other than that when you enter this range you commit. It's vital that when your group commits your party has stability, so ideally just before you enter 1200 range (1200-1300). -The commit, either use Stand Your Ground or Unbroken Lines (radius) to ensure your whole party has stability. Personally I use Stand Your Ground, because it has multiple stacks and I don't have to commit to staying in the Tome of Courage yet. This way your party can deal with getting cc'ed by more than one skill and I have some time to cast Line of Warding on our first bubble, F1n3 pull on our first bubble, switch to Mace/Shield to cast #3 before I go into Tome of Courage to start casting Unbroken Lines. -The clash, make sure to keep up Stability as much as you can through Unbroken Lines. On top of the Stability, this skill gives a Toughness (+200) buff, Protection and Aegis, which are all important to have during these moments. When the last Tome of Courage charge runs out, you can generally use Stand Your Ground after the Unbroken Lines' Stability runs out. -Bubble, you can't apply boons to someone with the bubble debuff, but keep in mind you can provide boons before the bubble. After the bubble nerf it doesn't strip boons as fast anymore, having Stability in a bubble helps you negate some CC depending on your stacks and get out. However, if someone in your party does get bubbled and gets out you need to try to give them boons again, Mantra of Liberation for a stack of stab, Mantra of Solace to give Aegis, Mantra of Lore for Regeneration and condition cleanse and, if possible, Mace #3+Shield #4. Additionally you can commit to Tome of Resolve and heal your ally directly and give swiftness with #3. -Corrupts/strips, in general try to help out you party if they get corrupted and stripped by giving them Stability through your Mantra of Liberation if it was corrupted or stripped and before you can reapply it again with your radius-Stability skills. However, don't stumble on this one, sometimes you can and sometimes you can't, but make an effort to do when it is possible. Not every fight is open-field, sometimes opponents drop down on you, sometimes they veil on you out of the portal. In these situations make sure to a) pop Stand Your Ground the moment you notice what's happening b) attempt to stunbreak your party with Mantra of Liberation at the same time c) use Mantra of Lore to cleanse your party d) Mantra of Solace to give Aegis to prevent damage and heal e) after your dodge out of the initial location you could use Mace #3 and Shield #4 to avoid some more damage and heal your allies d-e) before you switch to Mace/Shield try to quickly detonate your Orb of Light for the considerable heal and Light Aura. HEALS The following sources make up your passive healing and are the biggest contributers to your healing -Regeneration, it depends on the duration of the fight, longer is better, but usually Regeneration heals the most for you. Therefor it's important to keep it up as much as you can. -Virtue of Resolve, heals a bit less per tick than Regeneration, but it is an effect that is always on your party and thus does almost equal or even more passive healing than Regeneration depending on the situation. -Selfless Daring, arguably an active heal, but mostly you heal allies indirectly though dodging. It tends to heal ~2000 so keep in mind you can use it to heal someone actively. The following resources can provide active heals -Aegis, semi-active heal, but can be used actively. It procs for a similar amount as Selfless Daring and does make up a meaningful amount of healing. You have a lot of skills that apply Aegis and the heal will sometimes be a bonus, but you can definitely use it pro-actively as has been described before, though Mace/Shield, Mantra of Solace and Tome of Courage skills. -Receive The Light, as opposed to Mantra of Solace this heal skill heals more actively and can be used to burst heal allies, it usually heals >10k. However, keep in mind that it can be interrupted, that's the main reason people often opt for Mantra of Solace. This skill can also be used to burst heal your allies when you are all recovering. -Tome of Resolve, Chapter #4 is definitely your biggest active heal, but it's a pulsing field that mostly helps with recovering the entire group, Chapter #2 heals through removing conditions in a 240 radius and Chapter #1 heals for >3000 in a cone in front of you, this can be especially useful to single-target burst-heal an ally that is low. -Empower, heals per pulse in a 600 radius around you and has a bigger final heal, is useful as an additional heal to stack up on other heals, however keep in mind that it is also called by your commander and kind of serves to help your group recover like Chapter #4 of Tome of Resolve does. -Holy Strike, spammable short-cd AoE heal, heals anywhere between 3423&3968. Try to maximize the amount of targets you hit. -Eternal Oasis, not a heal but gives a temporary 20% healing effectiveness buff and converts 5 conditions into boons, which can be vital, especially when you see your party all have 5-6 conditions on them including immobilize. This skill has a 600 radius and is one of the most powerful cleanses in the game, use it well. Keep in mind that your healing as a Firebrand is excellent due to the sheer amount of healing modifiers you can stack, this 20% has a big impact on all your healing while it's up. You have a lot of resources both passively and actively to heal your allies, make use of them. If your ally is low and in trouble you can aegis spam with several skills, cleanse/apply Regeneration with Mantra of Lore and/or heal them with your Tome of Resolve. Alternatively you can use Receive The Light to burst heal them. Shield #5, apart from it's Absorbing shield, also heals when you manually end the cast. CROWD CONTROLL In addition to your other responsibilities you are also responsible for CC. -Line of Warding, 'ward' cannot be crossed without Stability. Really effective in bubbles and (shade) bombs. Try to see where your warrior is bubbling and pre-cast your line on him, especially on the first bubble. Therefor it's important you keep track of your initial bubblers. -Heated Rebuke(F1n3), pretty strong pull, this is the main reason you'll go into your Tome of Justice, try to pull people into your (shade) bombs and use in the bubble. -Blazing Edge (Axe #3), useful for pulling people into your (melee) damage and/or bubbles. -Binding Blade (GS #5), similar to the above description. You can leap in front a bit and pull enemies into your (melee) damage and/or bubbles. -Zealot's Embrace (Hammer #3), can be used to root people into your (melee) damage, (shade) bomb and/or bubble. Keep in mind that it can be reflected. -Ring of Warding (Hammer #5), has some issues because of it's range, but can be used to lock enemies down into a location. -Daring Challenge(F3n2), can be used to Taunt people into your (melee) damage. Other -STAY ALIVE, to complete all of your roles you have to be alive. Work around your Sigils of Energy to maximize your dodges to avoid damage (and heal allies). Don't dodge into (shade) bombs, don't waste your dodge too much. Actively learn to position yourself better and better whilst making sure you do everything that you can do for your party. -Merciful Intervention, this is one of the strongest skills in your kit. Due to it's revive percentage, 20%, you can port to a downed ally and quickly ress them. The faster you port to someone the more likely you are to insta ress him, the revive percentage/amount is affected by your outgoing healing modifiers, which you have plenty off. That's why it's useful for other people to call out when they go down, it gives you the opportunity to find them, possibly heal them and otherwise port directly onto their downstate and insta ress them. Additionally, one could consider using this skill to avoid certain death, e.g. getting stuck in bomb+bubble. -Healthbars, I really recommend playing with the simple party UI so you can effectively see your parties health bars and their boons/conditions. Additionally, I recommend to enable healthbars for the entire squad and set your party healthbars to thick, this way you have all the information you could wish for as support. -Mitigation, be on tag as much as you can, mitigate damage, but don't tank it. -Valiant Bulwark(F3n3), strong reflect. Figure out good places to put this reflect, either in front of your group directly or in front of the origin of the projectiles. -Stalward Stand (F3n4), I have mentioned this before, personally I try to not put this field directly into the enemy shades, I try to put it out left/right depending on where we go to. This way people in a shade bomb going towards our location do get Resistance applied, but people are less likely to be corrupted initially into Chill and you help people avoid damage from the conditions they got from the shade bomb. Having said that, form your own opinion and figure out what's best. -Swiftness, help to stack Swiftness outside of combat. Symbol of Swiftness, F3n1, F2n3&4 can all be used to do so. -Allies' mistakes, don't beat yourself up on your failures to save people that got into a situation via their own mistakes, in hindsight there is always stuff you could've done better -learn from that- but it was their mistake and they got punished for it - they should accept that and try to learn from it. People are quick to blame others and look past themselves; it's an unhealthy attitude, but respect it, we have all been there and it's up to them to grow past it. -About face, I really recommend binding this keybind in general, like I said before it can be used in combination with Line of Warding, it can be used in combination with casting mantras quickly and then about-facing back - do it as fast as possible though and only when it's safe for you to do so, understand that there is a risk to it. -Stowing/drawing, it might not be that useful for this build, but in general it is extremely useful to bind this key, stowing can be used to cancel casts of skills. For example, one could interrupt his cast of Line of Warding by stowing - like I said, not that useful in this build. Revision 1, 25/08/18 Some additional tips that should help you keep your party alive. - Switch to Mace/Shield when your side commits to a push or when u get pushed on, however, make sure you use one dodge first on staff to deplete your endurance to 50% and to cast your Line of Warding if possible. Switching will give you an extra dodge and the Block/Aegis skills of Mace/Shield are really useful during a clash. On top of that, if you are running a Energy+Benevolence + Energy+Transference Staff+Mace/Shield setup then you will have the most modifiers for your MI on Mace/Shield. - I have mentioned several times to drop Stalward Stand (F3n4) to the left/right of the enemy shade bomb depending on the direction your group is going, with a quarter to a half of the field covering the shade. In reality this will look like this: you get in 900 range of the enemy and they put their shades towards your melee, dodge that shade spike to either left/right depending on the direction of the commander, then cast the Stalward Stand. Additionally, aim your mantras and Mace #3 + Shield #4 towards that shade bomb to support your allies crossing it. If your Tome of Courage is on cooldown, casting Eternal Oasis also really helps in this situation. - Since boons can't be applied to people inside an enemy bubble, instead of casting Stalward Stand (F3n4) cast Eternal Oasis (600 radius) after you crossed the bubble(s). Additionally, follow up by casting your mantra's to cleanse and stunbreak and try to reapply boons. Keep in mind that due to Absolute Resolution, casting Tome of Resolve also cleanses 3 conditions in a 600 radius. - Spam Shining River (F2n4), arguably one of your biggest heals. Can be casted in any situation, not just on regroups. For example, after a bubble, after dodging a shade spike, etc... - Healing Scrappers will take over all of your Regeneration ticks, don't worry too much about keeping that up in this situation. Healing Scrapper will also cleanse a lot of conditions, however it's weakness is not being able to cleanse/convert multiple conditions of a person at the same time; Firebrand can convert 5 conditions per ally with Eternal oasis and 2-5 with Mantra of Lore 3, with Absolute Resolution (casting Tome of Resolve) it removes 3 conditions and with Radiant Recovery it also removes 3 conditions per ally. In short: Do your best to figure out how and when to support your party to the best of your abilities, but do not neglect your other roles such as CC and supporting the commander. The above was a perspective on how to play Firebrand.

Firebrand Guide by Regi