Wanderer Firebrand

The damage here is conditional, and it is worth knowing on what. Fiery Wrath only pays out against Burning foes — Permeating Wrath is what supplies them, making Justice's passive fire every third attack and burn in an area. Unscathed Contender adds strike damage while you hold Aegis and again while you are above 90% health, so it is at its best before you take a hit, not after. Inspiring Virtue adds damage for six seconds after you activate a virtue, which you are doing anyway.

The rest of it is one loop. Stalwart Speed turns the Aegis and Stability you hand out into Quickness for allies; Quickfire turns that quickness into Ashes of the Just on them, which burns; and burning is what Fiery Wrath pays you for. Shattered Aegis closes it — an Aegis you applied fires a Mystic Rebuke when it blocks something. Your support output *is* your damage setup. Note that Zealous Blade's greatsword half does nothing here; you get the flat +120 power and nothing else.

Wanderer's is power, toughness, vitality and boon duration — no precision, no ferocity. Your damage comes from Zeal's multipliers and your survivability from the defensive half of the prefix, not from crits. Fireworks matches it exactly: power and boon duration. Herald feeds concentration back to you every time you grant a boon, which you do constantly.

The consumables lean on the same stats. Magnanimous Maintenance Oil converts 3% of your vitality and 3% of your toughness into concentration — two attributes Wanderer's hands you in bulk and nothing else here was spending. Mists-Infused Spherified Peppercorn-Spiced Oyster Soup adds +45 to every attribute and, in WvW, -10% incoming damage.

Bloodlust builds +10 power a kill up to 25 stacks and loses the lot when you go down. Vision makes you critically strike for three seconds after you swap to that weapon and Fire sets off a flame blast on a critical hit — that pairing is most of the crit damage a build with no precision on its gear will ever see, so swap on purpose rather than by habit. Energy returns half your endurance on the swap.

It is worse at both jobs than the specialists. There is no healing power on the gear and no Honor line, so what it heals is the base number on Mantra of Solace and nothing behind it — and it hits softer than a build with precision and ferocity on it. Run it when the squad is a body short and someone has to cover two roles. When you are fully staffed, take the Minstrel's support from the Firebrand hub, or a Dragonhunter for the damage.