Saiyan.1704

Devs: "Wow, sword#3 does 1500 damage with a 5k+ damage boost on high Ferocity. And it can even block projectiles during cast? This will be really good!!" (real world scenario) ...needing to use our only Shadowstep utility to land all the hits --- or every other skill is on CD so Sword#3 is just for flashy memes...

I've used this skill a lot in sPvP in replacement of Judge's Intervention and.... as much as I really want to like it, it's just not very good. Judge Intervention: Can re-center Whirling Wrath, can give a near guarantee hit of F1, or can be used with any other damaging skill. It has a 40s cd. Flash Combo: Is a 450 to 750 damage per hit skill, on a 25s cooldown that can't be used in combination of any other skill. IF you land every single hit....which isn't a guarantee, you can "repose" which means you shadowstep BACK to the spot you casted the skill. Repose is only useful on certain maps because 9 out of 10 times you want to shadowstep forward instead of shadowstepping backwards. Repose is a contradicting skill of what Willbender is. Flash Combo would be good if one of the following was added: if it can AoE radius hit multiple people instead of a single target if it had a cd of around 15s if it had a 35% damage increase.... if it had 1200 range instead of 900 Contemplation of Purity / Judges intervention / Stand Your Ground / Whirling Light... Flash Combo make a rough 3rd pick utility choice. It doesn't excel in anything and it certainly isn't Flashy.

I'd like to add that Naru is known to de-rank on stream (not purposely) and climb off stream with his Duo... considering he climbs from bottom top25 to top5 really just speaks for itself in terms of how a player can be good AND play the system well. This isn't to belittle Naru, he is one of the most mechanical multiclass players in the game. In terms of advocating newbies to the game on proficiency, he has grown as a person on Twitch GW2; he's not the ever-so egotistical Tournament player I saw 4 years ago. I would recommend anyone new to sPvP to watch his stream even if they don't play Guard. The matchmaking system however, is still grossly susceptible to manipulation that I just wont get into here. And no, Top 10% of players "can't just carry any build" to top 25... 99% of the time it's from a meta build that even a strong AT team would consider choosing as a 5th for a role.

How is the build not optimal or rather, what would you change? For starters this isn't the best 1v1 "side noder" WB duelist build... Zerkers (with minor trait and rune changes) is still better when it comes to that. In sPvP, I'm not even sure what else you could improve when it comes to node-to-node efficiency. EDIT: I wanted to elaborate a bit about Marauders vs any other amulet/rune. A lot of guards are going to argue Valks or Zerks - Valks doesn't give a constant 100% crit uptime... it's perhaps the #1 reason why it's not better than Marauders because you're going to miss a lot of crit important skills that needs to land. Especially when attacking 2+ targets. The #2 reason and probably the most important is, it takes time to build Lethal Tempo's 25% increase damage on virtue proc. This is the meat and butter of Marauder meta's cleave damage... and maintaining that cleave damage. The fact that Lethal Tempo refreshes all stacks means we can continue on the pressure damages. However strong Zerk's initial damage with minimum Lethal Tempo stacks, it can't absorb residual damages to reach all 5 stacks of Lethal Tempo

Idk if I agree that DH can control fights... or anything for that matter, other than glass ranged classes. You may need to elaborate. Also i'm not really talking about AT's... buuut WB > DH for AT and that alone says a whole lot.

Mesmers would like to have a word with you.

Just wanted to throw that out there, considering there are a few pre-patch threads about how lackluster Willbender was. (it really was hurting for buffs). I don't want to give newer players the wrong idea that Willbender is still bad when browsing the current forums Herald/DH will have their very specific uses but WB Feels like a better class overall. Perhaps not on initial 1v1 bursts (a good Herald can straight up hard-carry games) but WB's team utilities via cleanses and cleave throughout a teamfight is quite intense. I haven't felt this reliable on a team since the old days of Valks Hammer back when Anet was hosting PvP Tournaments overseas lol... Some may still use Herald in ATs but WB is for sure better than Dragonhunter. In some cases, by a large margin. Btw im referring to the Metabattle build . I personally use Flash Combo instead of Judges.

Yeah they literally nerf'd Core necro just because it did better in Solo Ranked as opposed to AT. So Anet does look at the bottom and top.

First off they dont make any build "just work". Naru (and others) played with beta WB then stopped due to beta WB being too trashy. If they're maintaining top 25 on a current build that's supposedly "trash and worse than Core and DH" then clearly the spec has potential. Listing top players, including what AT teams are running, is very valid. WB has a higher skill cap than DH and Core so it's natural for a lot of Guardian players to have difficulty with the spec.

My guy did the math on this one. Congrats.

the link isn't working for me for some reason

On a sidepoint 1v1/2v2 perspective, Willbender currently out damages and out heals (self heal) a Core guard now that we have a 90%+ crit (pretty much at all times) and our buffs to F2. Also, Reversal of Fortune heals better than Shelter or Litany in 1v1/2v2. WB has more burst potentials with F1 (approx 5k to 7.5k with all damage mods up), F3 (crit for 2k -4k) Offhand sword#4 is basically a melee Trueshot when it lands Same for Whirling Light (if you're able to land the first hit, you'll get the AoE effect on the same target) The truth of the matter is currently, Willbender will > Core Guard 99% of the time when it comes to sheer numbers. It's going to be very match specific as to whether a team would want WB over Herald for that melee burst potential.... Me personally, if our F1, Off-Hand Sword#4, and Physical utilities weren't so darn sluggish we'd be a solid 5th pick but we just aren't there yet. But if anyone is able pull a Plat1 rank on Core guard in sPvP then they will do the same on Willbender. Willbender is NOT a 1vX kind of class compared to Trap trolling DH and a lot of Guards will struggle with that concept.

The ability to never land Willbender Flames has been an issue since beta. It's so bad that here's almost no reason to prioritize your utility skills to solely activate F1/F2/F3 abilities, other than maybe F3... which actually got nerfed (shattered aegis). Anet forgot how to separate wvw/pvp balance. They haven't learned from the terrible decisions they did to Firebrand.

Or a shadowstep mechanic.... it's so dang painful looking for a spot to cast F3 because you get a "No Line of Sight" error...

Is no one going to talk about how Firebrand hasn't been meta in sPvP since 6 months after PoF released? But hey, us Guardians have Dragonhunter so nerfing FB even more is perfectly acceptable... This change is straight up garbage.

And yet we can barely keep outselves healed up amongst a group scenario... or worse case, we can't hit a single person due to lack of range abilities. On paper you can say such things, but the sPvP/WvW reality is we have difficulty doing anything productive by ourselves. The way F2 healing effect is set up, it is absolutely not intended to be used solely for healing, like, at all. I think what we are ultimately asking for is a better survival mechanic for Willbender because right now we just don't have it for F2. F1 has a decent 5k crit possibility. F3 has a decent stability + aegis AoE proc possibility F2.... is only used for evading... we currently don't use it for healing. If you do, you're going to die.

No it was designed for stationary PvE creatures, not PvP players who could easily move out of the way or CC you while channeling. Bane Signet is another skill that has a shorter cast time with huge range that literally does the same thing but isn't used for a lot of the same reasons; there's better utility alternatives.

Agreed. The elite would be decent if it had something like a cast range of like, 1500... it's utter garbage and goes against the theme of WB as a whole.

Firebrand used to be awesome when the spec was released but Anet gutted the Tombs entry/exit, along with overall quickness making it a bit more clunky to play... Fb used to be so much fun with its higher skillcap playstyle compared to Core guardian. It's unfortunate that FB got nerfed so darn badly.

The only way for Willbender to have consistent burn damages is if willbender flames hits consistently... as it stands, it can barely cause a single hit per virtues activations and that's pretty pathetic. All you are left with are Torch#4/5 and what ever is on your skillbar. F1 doesn't even offer additional burn applications for a serious burst unless some one AFK's on your flames... As it stands Willbender simply wasn't made for PvP, unless the spec gets some huge buffs. I would love for the trait Searing Impact to apply burning for each Virtue activation instead of just your F1. I would love for the trait Tyrant's Momentum to give 10s worth of Lethal Tempo's 4% damage increase per virtue activation/proc instead of a measly 4s. I would love to see a trait reduce hit activations for F2 and F3, to 3 hits instead of 5, considering it is already difficult to have these activate as it is unless you're in a blob fight... So many more items to mention but these are probably my 3 bigger gripes about the spec....

There can be only a couple builds that can use hammer.... but in my opinion it isn't the most viable 1v1 build because it is a very specific close quarters weapon that relies on other damaging items to utilize Ring of Warding (hammer#5). Hammer is basically the melee version of Longbow but us Guardians are not good at being up close and personal. We can be competitive in AoE damage but Berserker builds lacked self-sustains (and/or mobility) compared to other classes. I would consider DH Zerk build the more better 1v1 build for a number of reasons. For starters it has mobility and CC with the use of LB ranged attacks, Pull from F1 and the knockback from Shield#5 for Test of Faith procs. That said... Guardians in general are not the greatest 1v1 classes in the game.

Why are you so concerned about the .01% of the player base talking about nerfing or buffing DH? If you don't have issues with DH then it doesn't matter. If you do, we can help you out with your playstyle. If you think DH is OP and want nerfs, I'm curious what you want to do with Necro and Prot Engi because those classes are much more problematic than DH.

This wont really effect the average player but anyone who ATs consistently or is constantly fighting for top 100 will benefit from this banwave. It may just save them only a game throw, but it's still a win. Me personally, a couple jerks that I've blocked got banned so this news put a smile on my face.

HOW is this still a thing? Lol....

Anything that's not Core Guardian is hype :3 Except we could probably already rank this particular elite spec among the current meta and say it's no where near being a 5th pick for AT's. I wouldn't mind a "Permeating Wrath" trait for F3 (better than the other trait options...). Activation hits are now 3 instead of 5 with the caveat that F3 boons no longer apply to teamates. I feel the entire elite spec is based off of the new virtue mechanics.... yet we have very little build options for them.