Ezrael.6859

There is a thread made by the devs specifically to give bug reports about Willbender. Looks like you need to use some condition removal before using the forums.

Flowing Resolve - Heal value doesn't match tooltip. Standard tooltip indicates 716 heal with 0 healing power, but it actually heals for 652 (Around 10% lower). This deficit continues as you add healing power and the healing scales up, the actual heal is always around 10% lower than the tooltip.

Holy Reckoning is essentially a useless trait due to Willbender Flames not landing on any enemy that moves (PvP / WvW / some PvE). Willbender Flames don't work well as a mechanic, either the area affected needs to be increased by a lot for all of them or the effect should become a flaming PBAoE aura emanating from the Willbender himself. This would also make more thematic sense as the Willbender is meant to be a highly mobile combatant, but Willbender Flames are short duration, small area static effect fields tied to Virtues which are on very long cooldowns in PvP / WvW.

Willbender needs more Weakness access to survive better in melee. Nerfing Whirling Light from 3s to 1.5s in PvP & WvW was unnecessary, this should be 3 seconds per hit in all game modes. It needs to hit a larger area though to actually be effective and should be at least 180 radius.

Please actually watch the dev stream for Willbender to better understand the class and avoid making daft posts about mechanics not working that are not intended to work with this Elite. Also, your post about Power of the Virtuous is erroneous, it does grant Condition Damage as 13% of Vitality.

Heaven's Palm - Too slow and always gets interrupted in WvW / PvP - obvious animation (but looks great). It should float 5 enemies within 240 range for 1s then slam them down for a 2s knockdown. After all, Vital Draw on Harbinger (Shroud 5) is this on a 17s cooldown. Damage (4x): 424 (1.6) Float: 3 seconds Number of Targets: 5 Radius: 240 1s cast time...

Rushing Justice often fails to punch and is clunky, run to the target, wait a second and then punch. Video of Justice failing the attack on golems twice. https://youtu.be/mcO0H37T9NM Reversal of Fortune can be interrupted - then no heal happens, surely this is a bug. The skill should block the interrupt and heal? Roiling Light often fails to make the second attack - Quick Retribution (you leap but no attack is made - damage and Daze don't hit) even when used within range. Indomitable Courage - Breaks Stun but doesn't apply the Stability until you complete the shadowstep, so you can be CC'd and fail the cast or the shadowstep - same kind of issue as Shield of Courage used to have, it needs to instantly apply Stability. + the improved passive is wasted. Justice is Blind doesn't give a Light Aura. Absolute Resolution changes all the tooltips for F2 back to default and it's unclear if all the movement condi cleanse is removed or not.

Had a better idea to address Virtues and Willbender Flames.

Pure of Sight 5% - 15% damage increase Big Game Hunter 15% damage increase for 10s Lethal Tempo by comparison isn't good, its duration is too short and you normally don't have it, this only works well with 5 static golems in demonstration videos. It should change to 15% baseline passive damage increase +1% per stack for the Lethal Tempo short duration buff (6s) +3% per stack for the Tyrant's Momentum buff (4s)

After some more testing in WvW, it's clear that Willbender has huge survivability issues and not enough damage to balance it out. The lack of passives from Resolve and Courage, plus the clunkiness of Justice, the after casts on Sword skills and utilities reveals a very flimsy elite spec. Building damage into this spec doesn't make you an assassin also, it puts you close to other specs but with far less survivability. Core Guardian has more damage, more healing, more cleanses, more sustain and less mobility. That's not a good trade-off. Zeal, Radiance, Virtues is much better spec with Greatsword, Sword/Focus rather than Willbender/Radiance/Virtues GS, Sw/Sw. There are also so many traits across Guardian that now don't work at all or don't work properly with Willbender: Fiery Wrath - Foes are almost never burning now Zealous Scepter - Only when Justice active procs - so far worse compared to Core / DH / FB Justice is Blind - No light aura Inner Fire - Foes are almost never burning now Radiant Power - Foes are almost never burning now Purity of Body - There's no passive Resolve now Unscathed Contender - No passive Aegis anymore Absolute Resolve - No passive increase (might increase the active heal) if you choose it, it totally replaces the tooltip mention of movement inhibiting condition removal. Permeating Wrath - Only does AoE burns for 6-8s while Justice is active. It's awful compared to Core / DH / FB passive. Battle Presence - Now shares a none existent passive, whatever? Indomitable Courage - Breaks Stun but doesn't apply the Stability until you complete the shadowstep, so you can be CC'd and fail the cast - same kind of issue as Shield of Courage used to have, it needs to instantly apply Stability. I think the Virtue passives need to come back at minimum, the actives can still remain as they are, extra potency for being in active combat for a short duration. But the lack of passives combined with Guardian's lowest level base hp and lack of Protection access compared to Elementalist reveals how flimsy Guardian is. Guardian is meant to have the Resolve passive healing because of the fact its base hp is 11k. Elementalist gets 5s of Protection every time it goes into Earth for around 50% - 100% uptime, easily 100% with Weaver. Edit, I've never even taken Power for Power, my Armor has been 2337 the whole time.

Unless they increase the damage numbers in WvW and remove the after casts, I’ll be using Focus and Shield instead. Sword is slow and lacking damage, no fluidity to combo into or from other attacks or utilities.

Give us a Major Adept trait that changes all our weapon skill fields to either Dark fields or Water fields. Replace Conceited Curate.

Roiling Light is 30 seconds in PvP/WvW and the rollover skill to leap and Daze usually doesn’t hit, just leaps you close and then you stand still. D-tier stun break.

Needs Quickness - maybe on F1 or Sword 5 or on Shadowstep trait. Remove the after casts on Virtues, Sword and utilities. Improve all Virtue ranges to 600. Reduce active virtue attacks needed to proc to 3 and add an internal 1s CD per target to keep it balanced against 5 targets. Elite is horrible. The Grandmaster traits are all bad, for grandmaster level traits the benefit vs drawback is too harsh, I might actually take none of them. Lethal tempo doesn’t last long enough in WvW and PvP with the Virtues having such long cool downs, 18, 30 and 50. And without this passive up the damage is seriously lacking. Best thing about Willbender is that endgame Guardian fashion wars players can easily remove Aegis now.

Too many skills have aftercasts which end up ruining the mobility or the intended fluidity in combat with this elite spec. Focus / Shield are still superior off-hands by far. The Sword is pure damage but doesn't offer enough in exchange for the loss of sustain and the increased risk by being in melee range. F1 Rushing Justice often fails to punch and is clunky, run to the target, wait a second and then punch. -Justice also often fails to make the final attack even when used originally within range and even on fixed targets like golems! Due to the aftercast it fails even more frequently if the target is moving (Guild Wars 2 is all about moving, has been since 2012, please build the skills to accommodate this). Advancing Strike has an after cast which makes it slow and bad at pairing with other skills that you want to use immediately after (Sword 5 > 4) making the immobilise all but useless. For example, if you use Sword 5 and then 4 immediately, the 1s immobilise will have finished before you even complete the first strike of Executioner's Calling... Executioner's Calling damage is lackluster 5 hits to proc Virtues is too many - it works well in huge encounters but is essentially useless when 1v1 or in smaller mobile fights. -This is extremely evident with Resolve as we have no passive any more, F2 active is the only way to gain some level of sustain back, but you don't, because 5 hits are too many to land for the healing you get, most PvP fights are trades, if you land 5 hits on them, they land several hits on you too. F1-F2-F3 cooldowns are all too high in WvW and PvP. This was supposed to be a selfish class with quick rotations and fluid gameplay, 18-30-50 are all too high. It has lost all its passive sustain from Resolve and Courage, doesn't buff and heal allies by default any more. Roiling Light often fails to make the second attack - Quick Retribution (damage and Daze don't hit) even when used within range, perhaps make it a shadowstep instead. PvP/WvW cooldown is 30 seconds! and you gain no extra benefits that most stun breaks have like boons or cleanse. Reversal of Fortune can be interrupted - Then no heal happens, surely this is a bug. The skill should block the interrupt and heal? F1 and F2 Should be 600 range. Virtues traits are lost with this spec. Justice is Blind doesn't give a Light Aura. Absolute Resolution changes all the tooltips for F2 back to default and it's unclear if all the movement condi cleanse is removed or not. The improved passive is wasted. Indomitable Courage - the improved passive is wasted. Permeating Wrath - The increased proc frequency for Justice passive is wasted. Overall I feel the risk vs reward isn't correct. I'm taking far more risk being all about melee, I've lost a lot of sustain, extremely susceptible to conditions, the skills still have the high cooldown and long aftercast Guardian plague that we've had since 2012 and I don't have the damage to make up for it. This is a chance to make a fluid, fast Guardian, but it's just not there yet. Video of Justice failing the attack on golems twice. https://youtu.be/mcO0H37T9NM

Yes

Now

Zealot's Defense and Ring of Warding should have been changed to use while moving a long time ago, back in October 2013 when Warrior got that change for Staggering Blow. Zealot's Defense may have a range of 600 but only around half the hits land at that range, and it's only a single target skill. Make it mobile or make it hit up to 3 targets in a narrow cone.

Excited for the 13th.

Exactly and I hope we get a duelist style build with this new elite spec. I hope the Guardian is the one referenced as 'relentless' in the recent beta announcement.

Why would you want a Warhorn so much and restrict this class to even more support? Core Guardian has had good support options since 2012. Firebrand offers amazing support across all PvE modes and WvW. What Guardian lacks is a melee bruiser or a condi spec or a control fighter. Elite specs are meant to offer a different playstyle for each profession, why would you ask for MORE support Kanto, you're utterly bland.

Umm why? Soulbeast only got 1 dagger in their mainhand from their elite specialisation. They've had off-hand dagger since 2012.

The Guardian is currently a soldier with a balance of physical and magical abilities, based primarily on supportive and defensive magic. Primarily I see this spec being more offensive and selfish, with utilities that are more about control and personal defense. I could see it going one of two ways: More of a martial fighter using Stances / Physical utilities. More of a religious zealot using Cantrips or Manipulations.

5 is the mask, not the flame.

I think it's number 5.