Sagedurk.7358

So that's why Willbender has always had issues? Because new = OP? Or are you talking about non-PvE modes? Cause in PvE, Willbender has never been OP. It also has design issues; 2 GM traits solely to give alac in the first place, OH sword going against the design of WB multihitting, Physicals being garbage. No idea how Firebrand performed in non-PvE on its release, but I haven't heard good things about FB regarding non-PvE Now, for the actual topic at hand, we only have 2 condi weapons on Guardian in total. Until recently, Firebrand had one of them exclusively. 1 main hand, 1 off hand. Axe, and torch. Torch 4 is awkward on Firebrand, and Willbender doesn't even use Axe. We need more variety. The pistols better not be underperforming, I don't want another OH sword situation.

No it doesn't. Understandable that you got the amount of alacrity mixed up, I had to hop in game and double check, even though I've mained willbender since EoD launch. The alac trigger off Phoenix Protocol is indeed 1.5 seconds. The 2 seconds you're thinking of is on Restorative Virtues

Guess they just wanted to give us the illusion of Willbender having any support in the first place. Over a year has passed and we are still bound to Battle Presence + Phoenix Protocol to even give alac AT ALL. We need 2 GM traits and also need to hit something to provide alac! Not to mention the lack of other utility we have But I suppose they don't want Guardian to have a support outside of Firebrand.. Anet, fix support Willbender; or seriously remove Phoenix Protocol, Holy Reckoning, and Conceited Curate from PvE and give us more usable traits. I saw someone else suggest this, but you can increase the gap between DPS and Alac Willbender by decreasing the damage of Lethal Tempo, and compensating it on Tyrant's Momentum.

Keep in mind that I only have PvE perspective. OH Sword is not fine, Focus has always been better. But yes, the Physicals are in dire need of buffs.

Guess my pipedream of Heal Willbender getting better is gone if that's the amount of boon duration Willbender is going to need.. Not to mention the design flaws regarding traits hasn't changed at all since the release

Depending on how hard this will hit Alac Willbender's damage, it might go back to not being played at all. It should either hit like a truck, or have actual support! Give us more versatility than just applying alac. I keep on seeing fixes, particularly for Firebrand, but we're well after a year from EoD release and Willbender STILL has design flaws. Don't want Alac Willbender to be overtuned in damage? Then start by fixing the design flaws of the whole elite spec, and maybe it'll be able to actually be a support instead of a DPS that happens to provide Alac Off hand sword is still not used, and Power has become less reactive in terms of virtues due to Courage now being part of your DPS rotation. Last time I checked, Courage is a defensive virtue, but it's used offensively because of the recent changes to the Virtues traitline. But oh well, my last outcry to fix the design was completely ignored, and it's probably going to be ignored again. So I have one question, what's the actual plan for Willbender? I have mained this since EoD release and still don't understand what direction you want to go with the elite spec

Anet pays attention to the feedback? Then please explain why absolutely none of my feedback, actual feedback, regarding alac willbender was considered. Not even an acknowledgement. Alac willbender has design flaws, yet all they did was bandaid it into dealing damage... I seriously bench more on power alac willbender now than I did on power dps willbender back in July But hey, we are still forced into the Virtues traitline to share alac on hit. We barely have any boons outside of alac, and some traits still don't even interact properly with each other! All we got was some core guardian tweak and virtues not overriding each other. They could make the build deal 60k/s and I would still say that it's not fixed. Cause it has nothing to do with the damage numbers, it has to do with the design flaws. Yet, absolutely nothing back. Not even an explanation for why they won't

I'm not surprised if qfb now benches higher than both DH and power willbender They wanted to fix power guardian, yet this happens.. And alac willbender only got a bandaid solution with this patch..

How? Last time I checked, FBs don't use sword. And they aren't power based. So how would the change affect FB? Especially when it doesn't really affect power guard. They remove the CD reduction from the trait and decrease it on the weapon for baseline.

CraftyK touched on some of the things So far, you must use the resolve virtue to be able to pump alac at all, which means you axe part of your damage due to not being able to have justice active, that is being fixed on tuesday. And it's the only thing being fixed so far However, the big problems with alac willy are design flaws, not damage If you are unable to hit something and deal 0 or more damage, you won't proc alac We have access to almost no boons. Alac, fury, a low amount of might, regen that will likely be replaced by the healer, maybe some resolution, and that's pretty much it. When it comes to other supportive stuff, you can easily take SYG, and condi alac has condi cleansing built in through Purging Flames We are forced to take 2 different GM traits, just to be able to give alac in the first place. Phoenix Protocol, which directly competes against Tyrant's Momentum, AND Battle Presence, which at best competes against Permeating Wrath, at worst, competes against the whole Radiance traitline. On top of that, we need to further kitten damage by taking concentration. Not only is Power Alac not allowed to take Tyrant's Momentum, but it's not allowed to crit cap either. And now it needs aegis uptime for its damage potential instead of resolution Furthermore, due to tooltip descriptions, it can be easy to assume Holy Reckoning can be shared through BP, since Phoenix Protocol is, but no. All our master traits are self only. Being able to share Holy Reckoning would solve our might issue. Of course, if it's sharable, it needs a nerf, cause it's insane how much might it generates Speaking of traits, Absolute Resolve doesn't work properly with Phoenix Protocol. And yes, you would only take this trait if you're playing heal, but another problem with heal willy is that you have problems generating perma might, with staff and scepter. Thanks, Firebrand. In case there's something I've missed, you can check my post history for other posts I've made regarding the problems with alac willy

And exactly how would it be easier to balance? Power builds doesn't need to be "rebalanced". Power Guardian can run full berserker stats and scholar runes and still crit cap, yet we benchmark at the best 36k/s It's not about stats. Removing ferocity from gear won't achieve a single thing than to make power weaker. Anything you add on to solve the problem is something they could still have done instead of removing ferocity from gear. Put ferocity in traits? Why? Just to have the same number anyway?

You want the full expansion refunded because you don't like the current balance on willy? kitten, refund everything I have spent on the game then, cause unlike WvW and PvP, willy has always sucked in PvE. Almost a full year since EoD release and I barely see any other willys in raids. The ones I do see? Almost every single one of them has played condi dps. No love for power, alac, or the meme heal build. And the upcoming balance patch? It will buff willy more in PvP and WvW than PvE. The fact that you can have sustain, defense and offense virtues active all at once is going to be huge for comp gamemodes. For PvE? Best it will do is give alac willy more damage, and the problem with alac willy ain't even damage related

I have mained Guardian since I started playing in early 2015, DH since it came out, and since the EoD release, I have mained Willy. I have 3k hours logged on almost exclusively power Guardian If anyone can claim that power Guard (or at least willy) is playable in highend PvE, it's me. Remember the June patch? I kept raiding with power willy with a personal bench of 27k/s, when I benched around 30-31k/s the patch before, I could play it. Alac willy, have played it, despite the design flaws in it. Want to know my proposed fixes for alac willy? Check my post history. I have theorycrafted on heal willy, not a whole lot, but still more than what you can see on SC. I've even made my own handkite willy from scratch and successfully kited hands with it. The thing is not about if it's playable cause it most certainly is, I'd wager that nearly any build can be played. It's about being viable. No, I'm not benching the highest numbers, but I shouldn't be personally benching 27k/s. Take virt and I can EASILY get over 30k/s, I don't even have 300 hours logged on my mesmer, and it's one of my most played classes outside of guardian. When I first benched cVirt, I benched roughly 32k/s with 3 buttons. More than I ever have done on power guardian. Just to give you a taste about alac willy: we are forced into 2 GM traits just to share alac, and we require something to hit, on top of that, we barely give any boons. Heal willy is just a bad choice compared to other builds. Not only does it have to compete against other heal alac builds, but also against hfb. It has troubles upkeeping 25 might. And HK willy is something I made from scratch just because I wanted to, but for safe HK I still take SpB. If you think guardian has gotten attention, it's very likely to have been firebrand. The ratios of firebrands compared to willys and DHs is so high that people more or less have equated guardian to it. When did they start giving attention to us power guards? After the June patch when we got butchered. Attempt to play all flavors of willy in PvE, as well as the 1 DH build, and then come back and tell us that we have nothing to complain about. Cause it's obvious that you don't play these elite specs

Do note that I only speak about PvE. No idea how this change will impact the other gamemodes. The virtue override fix won't fix the pain points with alac willy. It's welcomed, but it won't fix our 2 GM trait requirements just to give party wide alac and it won't fix our lack of boons outside of alac The class identity is all over the place, it's like they don't know what they actually want to do with willy! Do they want willy to be an assassin? Then why is its damage so low? The current bench of alac untamed is on par with the power willy bench from before the June patch, and not much buffing has happened to power willy compared to the bench of 35k/s, if any. SC doesn't even have a bench visible on power willy currently Do they want it to be power or condi focused? Signature weapon is OH sword, which is strictly power, physicals are power focused, but they seem to want to buff condi over power. And traits? Phoenix Protocol indicates that they want willy to have SOME teamplay, yet our master traits are not sharable. They gave us an adept trait focused on healing, but nothing is done to even slightly make heal willy a reality. Even the interaction between Absolute Resolve and Phoenix Protocol has been broken for a long time! Restorative Virtues is used for EVERY willy build, including heal willy @Cal Cohen.2358 Willbender needs more changes to be where it should be in PvE. You can buff the numbers of alac willbender all you want, it won't fix the actual issues with support willbender. I'm not going to claim I know how to balance or that I am an expert player. But I do know a thing or two about willbender. I kept on playing power WB after the June patch, with sword/sword. I have played and want to play alac willbender but it's so janky that it's simply not worth it. I have even successfully handkited on Deimos with a Willbender build I made myself. I have 3k hours logged on guardian, vast majority on power, and since the EoD launch I have almost exclusively played Willbender. And this patch doesn't feel like it'll fix the actual problems with willbender in PvE. Cal, if you or any other dev with balance or class design knowledge do end up reading this, I want to know why we are forced into using Battle Presence for something as simple as sharing alacrity, and why we can't share our master traits through it, especially Holy Reckoning

The Willbender virtue change doesn't change the fact that we're still shoehorned into 2 GM traits just to provide alac on hit, not to mention other jank regarding willy traits. I play willy because I find it fun, if I wanted high damage, I would play virt or mech. I raided with power willy back in the june patch when my personal bench was 27k/s, roughly 4k/s under what I benched the patch before that. The change will do little for dps willy in PvE, and alac willy has glaring pain points from a build perspective that aren't tied to damage. 2 GM trait requirements to give alac, being locked into virtue traitline, holy reckoning not being sharable, Absolute Resolve not working properly with Phoenix Protocol. And on top of it all, we have to deal damage to provide alac I doubt the virtue override fix will be enough, but it is a welcome change, since it can improve the fun factor of willy. Alac willy has been halfbaked and unpolished since EoD release, and I want it fixed, not bandaided

You're forgetting about alac willy, barely gives any might at all. Hell, it barely gives any boons other than alac. Might, fury and/or resolution (regen as well, which will be overridden if your healer has regen), depending on what alac build you run. We are also locked into 2 GM traits just to give alac in the first place, and we have to hit something to apply it. Not even on heal willy can you hold 25 stacks of might

Have you looked at the rest of Willy's traits? Master traits literally can't be shared, so you ALWAYS take Restorative Virtues in group play, unless you're on power and don't have an external resolution source, in which case you take Vanguard Tactics. Yes, even the heal build runs Restorative Virtues, and Holy Reckoning is useless so long as it's self only. And if we look at GM traits, the last one is so niche that it might as well not exist (I have experimented with it on handkite willy and taking shelter for the block is better), and if you want to provide alac, you not only need to drop Tyrant's Momentum for Phoenix Protocol, but you are literally FORCED to take Battle Presence, a GM trait in the virtues traitline. If you don't take BP, you're not sharing alac. Those adept traits being as they are is no problem at all. Power willy is weak compared to other dps, and healers aren't ranked based on their raw healing output, if they were, people would not only play hfb but heal willy as well. Only the adept condi trait would be susceptible to any kind of nerfs What is ridiculous is not the adept traits, but how weak our other traits are. Phoenix Protocol is a kitten GM trait and doesn't provide 5 man alac by default. We are forced into taking 2 different GM traits, just to be able to share alac by attacking! The reason it hasn't been adressed or brought up is because we don't need nerfs, we need buffs, at least in PvE

Holy Reckoning, reduce the might duration and make it sharable. Every single willy build takes Restorative Virtues, unless you're power dps and don't have an external reso source like hfb, in which case you take Vanguard Tactics. Yes, even the heal build.

Regarding PvE Willbender The change to virtues not replacing each other was not something I was expecting, and it sounds like a fun change, however: It feels really bad to be forced to take 2 different GM traits JUST to have the possibility to give party wide alac when hitting something. We're already losing out on Tyrant's Momentum by traiting Phoenix Protocol Condi Alac loses access to Permeating Wrath, however, now they can have Justice active while pumping alac. The big problem is Power Alac being completely locked out of Radiance just because Battle Presence is a requirement to share alac. And while I'm on the topic of Phoenix Protocol, the healing increase from Absolute Resolve just evaporates if PP is traited. The regen that PP replaces the healing with, does NOT get buffed by Absolute Resolve. Which means if you have PP traited, AR is simply a 3 condi removal each 20 sec (alac not included) Holy Reckoning is a pretty useless trait, every Willy build uses Restorative Virtues, yes, even the heal build, the only exception is power Willy with no external resolution source, in which case, Vanguard Tactics; and compared to Firebrand, Willy has difficulties providing might. To keep Battle Presence from being completely dead, my proposal is to be able to share at least the might from Holy Reckoning through it, and of course, reduce the duration of said might in that case. TL;DR Ranked in order Remove the requirement for 2 Grandmaster traits just to share alac, we're already forced to hit something to generate it Fix the interaction between Phoenix Protocol & Absolute Resolve Make the might from Holy Reckoning sharable somehow (maybe through Battle Presence, to keep it from being a dead trait if the requirement for alac is removed)

It doesn't really help either that alac willbender requires 2 GM traits just to be able to give party wide alac in the first place One of them directly contending against Tyrant's Momentum, and the other is contending either another damage GM trait, or a whole TRAITLINE. Power Alac Willbender doesn't have access to the Radiance traitline, due to being forced into the Virtues traitline just to be able to take Battle Presence to share alac to the party

There's another thing I'd like to add. Remove the need for taking Battle Presence to give party-wide alac. We are already forced into taking Phoenix Protocol over Tyrant's Momentum anyway, and TM got buffed with the last balance patch, so the damage rift between alac and pure dps increased On power alac, you're forced into virtues traitline and thus forced into relying on aegis uptime, instead of getting the resolution pseudo-Fury trait. Needing 2 grandmaster traits, one of them being elite spec, solely to give 5-man alacrity isn't good. Not from a perspective of fun, not from a perspective of buildcrafting, and it's not like defaulting PP to be 5-man would make Alac Willbender OP, at least not in PvE. Power Alac Willbender would be able to take Radiance and get closer to the crit cap Condi Alac Willbender would be able to take Amplified Wrath, which isn't as good as on Condi WB, due to the need of using the Resolve virtue for alac uptime. If the relative damage between Alac and pure DPS gets too close, just buff Tyrant's Momentum, and if Willbender's damage overall gets too high, just nerf Lethal Tempo. Heal Alac Willbender would be able to take Indomitable Courage and spice things up with stab coverage, due to be able to replace the need for SYG by using the Courage virtue instead. HAW would most likely be overlooked in favor of HFB anyway, due to the lack of tomes As a PvE player, there is 1 reason I see not to default PP to party-wide alac, and that would be the fact that Battle Presence would do nothing on Willbender

It's also wrong to reward the engineer for an AI's actions that are outside of the player's control. If you think Mech will go lower than Willbender in terms of PvE viability due to today's patch, oh boy... As a Willbender main, I have been penalized by the banner changes for almost half a year, something that's outside my control. Willbender was good for 4 months, then June happened and I have now been griefing my raid squads for 5 months straight. But I can play a 3 button condi mech rotation on Twin Largos and be in the top of the dps bracket, if not in the lead. I do not pay attention to my mech at all. If mech shouldn't be penalized, then I should be able to outclass my own mech results with power guardian, by a long shot. I have almost 3k hours logged on my main character. And I picked up mech for a single fight. Not to mention that Guardian needs resolution to crit cap I doubt this patch will bring that to light, even with mech being hit

Good. Maybe now Guardian won't be equated with Firebrand anymore. Oh no, Firebrand is finally being put in its place after years and years of being so strong? Are you aware of Willbender existing at all? DH has been in a sad state for a long time. And what's happening in tomorrow's patch? They both get buffed. If they actually nuked Guardian, I would be more livid as a Willbender main than the Firebrands. Willbender had 4 good months. Then the June patch happened. Willbender used to have more build variety than Firebrand, and suddenly, only the condi dps build had meta relevancy. 5 months later and Willbender is brought back from a sad, forgotten state in some capacity at all. It has sucked during a longer period than it has been good. If you don't want Firebrand to be nerfed, start by helping get the rest of Guardian to the same level. Cause Firebrand has been the exception, not the rule. It's even the only Guardian with virtues that don't act like virtues. Firebrand replaced virtues with weapon conjuration. While DH made the virtues physical and WB made them movement based. And on the topic of Firebrand. Heal Alac Willbender has a higher raw healing output, but that means jack kitten due to how versatile Firebrand has ALWAYS been, even though they're both guardians. To give you some perspective of the gap between them: Snowcrows hasn't updated their Healbender build since July. It's not even a complete build. The description still has Lorem Ipsum text. I alone has theorycrafted Healbender further than what you can see on SC. That's how big of a gap there is between healbender and healbrand. Remember when they nerfed a core condi trait for the single purpose to curb quickbrand's dps? That affected condi Willbender, a nerf it definitely didn't need. You want to complain about Firebrand? Willbender can't even give Alacrity without traiting Battle Presence, which is absolute pain for power alac, cause now you have to rely on aegis for your damage potential instead of resolution. Not to mention having to drop Tyrant's Momentum for Phoenix Protocol. Oh, and also, Absolute Resolve get's downgraded to a measly 3 condi removal on F2 activation when traited with Phoenix Protocol, because PP replaces the healing with regen, which doesn't get affected at all by AR. Imagine if Firebrand needed to rely on BP for quickness, or have broken trait interactions. Or having trouble providing full might stacks. You know, the ONLY guardian utility skill that gives might, is the quickness mantra on Firebrand. Willbender has a trait, Holy Reckoning, that can't be shared to allies. Nerf Firebrand to the level of current Willbender, and maybe then people will realize the actual state of the class and not just the state of Firebrand. There's a single reason I have for not wanting Firebrand to be in a state like the rest of Guardian, which is the lack of resolution on other healers, which would affect power Guardian. Imagine saying that Guardian is well designed as a whole when we have a big gap between Willbender and Firebrand. The "variety" of builds have always been firebrand, firebrand, and more firebrand, unless you count the one Power DH build we've had, as well as the 4 Willbender builds that existed for 4 months, and a footnote for the obscure Healbender. Willbender alone has more variety than Firebrand, but absolutely no one cares about it. Power DPS, Condi DPS, Power Alac, Condi Alac, Heal Alac. And as I mentioned, the whole elite spec hasn't had a good run of even half a year. Willbender would need absolute insane utilities in order to compete with Healbrand. Want to bring Willbender up to Firebrand's level? Crank Physicals up to 11 and make them have some sort of utility, make the virtues have multiple charges so they can be used multiple times like Firebrand, make the master WB traits sharable by default as well as proper trait interaction and PP being party-wide by default, and tweak the numbers. Cause unless you make Willbender into Firebrand 2, it won't compete as a healer, due to the versatility that Firebrand has. The alac builds barely give any sort of boons outside of alac. That ain't the case for quickbrand. Complain about Firebrand all you want, at least you're not a Willbender! Learn to accept that Guardian ain't the golden child

Guardians don't have tomes, Firebrand has. Stop equating Firebrand with Guardian, it's not even half the class You know that Willbender doesn't have any passive virtues, right? Battle Presence still mentions sharing the passive virtue of resolve when you're on Willbender The healing bonus on Absolute Resolve? Straight up vanishes if you trait Phoenix Protocol, yet, it still says the same This might be such a case, where the tooltip of the trait doesn't reflect what it actually does for an elite spec

Nice to see Willbender get buffed in terms of damage, even if it's not enough to bring power WB to the state it should be at Glad to see it's not forgotten among the DH mentions And since you are buffing Tyrant's Momentum, there will be more of a dps difference between alac and pure dps, because of Phoenix Protocol competing with Tyrant's Momentum. So please, remove the need for taking Battle Presence in order to provide party-wide alacrity Since you aren't providing a lot of boons outside of alac, especially when it comes to permanent uptime, shouldn't the damage be on the higher end for alac dps? It's stupid that we are forced into a core traitline for its Grandmaster trait, as well as a WB Grandmaster trait just to give 5-man alac Only WB can give alac on Guardian, so why do we need to take a core trait to provide it? Removing the need for BP would allow Power Alac to take Radiance and not be reliant on Aegis for damage potential Condi Alac would be able to take Permeating Wrath, which won't be as powerful as normally, due to the need to use the Resolve Virtue a lot And Heal Alac would be able to take Indomitable Courage as a substitute for "Stand Your Ground!", or take a different traitline Also, fix Absolute Resolve, it doesn't work in combination with Phoenix Protocol, the regen isn't buffed by 25% Lastly, it's a pain not having access to external Resolution on power guardian. Resolution is a secondary Fury for us, but it's difficult to upkeep if there's no healer with fairly easy Resolution access