MagicBot.1570

Hello, this instability has not been fixed as of now. I am just refreshing this topic in the hope that it gets some visibility. Thanks

The age old post that was already true in 2015, in 2017, in 2019, in 2020, in 2021... Oh? And it wasn't in 2022. Guess what happened? Reddit shitstorm!

Oh, I absolutely want to see a Soulbeast nerf. This spec has been going under the radar for too long, and it happens to get free buffs here and there every time there's a patch. It is dominating in fractals, with nothing coming close to its burst, and sustained damage, and CC, on top of an already absurd self-boon uptime. I actually think fractal balance is a pretty big problem right now, which is completely disregarded. Here are a few examples of the direct or indirect buffs Soulbeast got this year, off the top of my head: - introduction of hammer - sword rework - damage coefficient increases across the board - an insane amount of free power on the sword trait, too - awesome synergy with both Firework and Dragonhunter Relic - and now a full pet rework, which not only buffs Soulbeast indirectly from the double pet bug abuse, but they went out of their way and hard buffed Devourer as well (perfect for precasting!) You can call this however you want, but nothing comes even close to the absurdity that is power Soulbeast right now. And let's not mention condi Soulbeast, which will also be overperforming after this update as well (it already is insanely good)

Since EoD, Willbender received very few changes. The removal of stance overriding each other was a major one, but all it did was buff the damage builds really. It would be about time to look at this elite spec and actually give a small rework to the Alacrity build. The trait constraints are enormous on the Alacrity build, which is a build that has no niche anymore. Overall the spec suffers from essentially not having a dedicated weapon (off-hand Sword is catastrophically bad), no identity and I'll go as far as to say not even a single class mechanic either (unless CDR is considered to be a class mechanic - well, it wasn't deemed to be so on Untamed). You wouldn't even think to use the utilities considering how bad they all are. So, can Firebrand for once not be the main focus of the Guardian changelog ? Because it's been like this since a little over a year already.

The Thief Pistol changes are cool, but it's not gonna change anything if you don't buff the burst damage on Malicious Sneak Attack and Repeater

I don't think this bug is too high of a priority, but I hope to see a fix on the tuesday patch. It's the only thing blocking progression towards the meta-achievement, and sadly it is necessary to get it, which is a bit of a shame

That explains so much

I'll add that the demon event east (Something the Covetous) also happens to stall sometimes (untargetable turrets on splits) which also blocks progression. In conclusion there isn't a single event that works properly on this island 🤣

And that's not the only bug on this island. There are at least 3 events that can stall like this (the escort with the tengu NPC and the Covetous demon event)

Hello, Very pleased to see fractal instability bugfixes in this patch. However, Toxic Trail is still very bugged despite a couple fixes (PoV: https://youtu.be/qDZYp9wLZwI) - Blocking does remove the trail (100% of the time) - Terribly inconsistent applications of the pulse (only happens once every ten to a hundred attempts) - The pulse itself does not seem to be working (no Exposed debuff on the target) We're almost there! Please, let this be reported to the appropriate developers. Cheers

Good changes. Could you also fix Vengeance and Toxic Trail? Both instabilities don't work properly!

Well there isn't much to say is there? - Axe is bad on Dragonhunter, because Dragonhunter is not viable as condi - Axe is bad on Willbender, because it's a slow weapon and the latter is overly dependent on rapid hitting - Longbow ok on Willbender, but not better than Sword/Focus because Focus is incredibly busted on this spec. Longbow Willbender has potential both on condi and power. - Longbow is not good on Firebrand because Firebrand is bad - Off-hand Sword is absolute trash in itself

TL;DR at the end. Despite the latest Willbender change, which allowed Virtues to be active all at once, this single change, no matter how significant, cannot fix Alacrity Willbender entirely and it still needs further iterations to make it compelling. Here are suggestions to put it back in line with other more popular specializations, like Renegade. Please note that this entire thread only covers PvE Willbender. I have no idea how it performs in PvP. The off-hand Sword problem For a spec whose silhouette was believed to be an assassin Thief spec at first, by roughly 25% of the community, double Sword gameplay is a bit of a letdown. There is a lot of room for improvement in that department. Additionally, Focus got buffed and overshadows off-hand Sword even more, with no compensation to make this weapon more effective. I'm gonna go over the main issues, and give suggestions to fix them. I'll also give some suggestions on how to reaffirm the spec's identity. Alacrity share The Willbender can share Alacrity thanks to the Battle Presence trait in the Virtues traitline. They made it so Phoenix Protocol and Battle Presence would synergize: the first one allows the Willbender to get Regeneration and Alacrity when attacking under the effects of Flowing Resolve (F2), and the second one shares them with allies. While this is an interesting synergy, it forces the Willbender to equip the Virtues traitline to share Alacrity. This is fine, because Virtues is a traitline which synergizes extremely well with the Willbender, for multiple reasons: short baseline cooldowns on virtues, Boon and easy Aegis uptime, Permeating Wrath... I don't think this tradeoff should be fixed anymore. Here is a set of changes that would greatly improve the Willbender's support potential: - Phoenix Protocol no longer changes Flowing Resolve's base healing feature to Regeneration. Instead, said healing is reduced by 66%. Flowing Resolve also applies 3 seconds of Alacrity to allies upon activation. - Restorative Virtues no longer provides Alacrity. - Battle Presence shares Alacrity, and Flowing Resolve's baseline healing is still shared with allies. Both Grandmaster traits would still synergize well, as Flowing Resolve has a strong healing capacity, and this would help healing builds tremendously. The tradeoff aspect is kept in a milder form, with reduced healing, to prevent it from being too strong. This set of changes offloads Restorative Virtues a bit too, which is currently too strong. The issue of Might share The Willbender doesn't have an efficient way of providing consistent Might to the party. This is a dealbreaker for any Alacrity provider, or offensive support in general. The specialization that fills the same power Alacrity niche as the Willbender, currently, is the Renegade. Both have excellent CC, burst, and damage, but only the Renegade has optional party sustain through Soulcleave Summit and excellent Might share with Heroic Command. The Willbender as it stands is mostly inferior to the Renegade, because it lacks at least decent Might share and unconditionnal Alacrity share. The latter is covered by my previous suggestion. The first one could be fixed by a change to Holy Reckoning. This trait in the Willbender traitline is an excellent Might source, but it is sadly not one that can be shared with allies. Suggested change: - Holy Reckoning: In addition to its previous effects, off-hand Sword abilities now share 5 stacks of Might for 10 seconds. This is a good compromise, because it gives a niche to off-hand Sword and gives more flexibility to the support build; the player can choose whether or not he wants to share Might or deal more damage. This is a healthy place to put Might share on, because this trait is also competing with Restorative Virtues, which is a major damage trait. In my opinion, this is the bare minimum set of changes that Power Alacrity Willbender is missing. Fundamentally, it doesn't need anything more to compete with other Power Alacrity sources, but it also isn't really able to compete with them right now. Might share is the critical feature that needs to be added to this specialization to make it good. Lack of Identity & Wishful Thinking I'll be honest, when I saw the specialization preview two years ago, I was fully expecting the double-Sword brawler fantasy to be fulfilled for the Guardian. The first thing that sprinked to mind was that it was gonna take some features from Thief. I thought we would have a special interaction with the two Swords equipped. We've seen a lot of people on the forums expecting some kind of flip-over skill on Sword 3. Sadly, this didn't happen, and off-hand Sword isn't even good in PvE! Willbender is a neat specialization. However, I can't help but think that it is a bit dull compared to other specs. The main issues being: * All of the utilities were designed with PvP in mind. * Off-hand Sword is currently heavily outclassed by Focus. * there is no special feature, no new special mechanic which gives the Willbender identity. It is essentially just a new set of utilities, mostly unusable in PvE, and new virtues slapped onto core Guardian. Restorative Virtues gives it a bit of flavor, but that's pretty much it. In PvE, the Willbender heavily lacks identity. To fix this, the Sword/Sword fantasy needs to be fulfilled. This can be achieved through several degrees of changes: * simply giving a support niche to Sword abilities. * adding a new trait which strongly favors double Sword gameplay. * making a small rework, enabling a new feature when holding two Swords. This could be anything really: a unique buff/aura, a flip over skill (new Sword 3?), an F4, an additional effect on the virtues or on Sword abilities (kind of like being above 100 heat on Holosmith). I am very well aware that this part of the post is mostly wishful thinking, but I just feel it lacks a little something. Besides, it doesn't necessarily need a small rework to be more fun in PvE. Personally, I would start by adding more damage to Flash Combo and call it a day. Suggested changes to utilities in PvE: - Roiling Light (→Quick Retribution): 1 → 2 - Flash Combo: 2.25 → 4 TL;DR: Willbender lacks: * Might share * Minor unconditional Alacrity share * Damage in the right places Proposed changes, for PvE exclusively: * Phoenix Protocol no longer changes Flowing Resolve's base healing feature to Regeneration. Instead, said healing is reduced by 66%. Flowing Resolve applies 3 seconds of Alacrity to allies upon activation. * Restorative Virtues no longer provides Alacrity. * Battle Presence now shares Flowing Resolve's healing with allies. * Holy Reckoning: Might is shared with off-hand Sword abilities (5 stacks for 10 seconds). * Potentially interesting damage buffs: - Roiling Light (→Quick Retribution): 1 → 2 - Flash Combo: 2.25 → 4 -------- Other known issue (Misc.): * Rushing Justice (F1)'s pathing is sometimes very poor. It doesn't work well against stealthing targets, and it definitely doesn't work underwater. This could use a couple of fixes, and could be made slightly faster. * Sword and Greatsword are extremely clunky. * GS's second auto, Vengeful Strike, has a huge aftercast. * Whirling Wrath (GS2) has an aftercast. * Symbol of Resolution (GS4) has a huge aftercast and a root. * Binding Blade (GS5) has a huge aftercast. * Sword autos and Zealot's Defense (Sw3) also have aftercasts.

Agreed

While some suggestions make sense (mightshare on Holy Reckoning and shared heal on Phoenix Protocol - the fact that it turns to regen is a meme)... That's a tinsy winsy bit OP m8. There's absolutely no reason to put Superspeed on Tyrant's Momentum, and I also don't think the build should share more Fury - you have Fury on "Feel My Wrath!" already. I think a more logical thing to do would be for Rushing Justice to apply more Might to allies, and they could bind this feature to Holy Reckoning (10 stacks for 8 seconds), or have it enable Might share when hitting. The might could also be baked into the offhand Sword to make it more appealing, instead of adding Stun to it. Essential things to fix include adding decent Might share options and Flowing Resolve heal share - that is all.

Perfect Inscriptions went from an absolutely godlike trait (totally meta defining in fractals, prior to June ~23rd last year) to probably one of the worst traits in the game if not the worst one. Your signets are 20% more effective (utterly useless, you get like 36 points of your stat of choice depending on the signet) and you retain the passives when using them. Woohoooo! I Wonder who cares

I have the exact same issue 🙂 started happening since May 23rd patch

I have the same processor as you and I've been getting crashes since the update last week. It happens very frequently and I feel like I've tried everything, still occurs. I've removed addons, tried uninstalling MSI afterburner, repaired the game client, deleted Local.dat, reinstalled drivers properly with DDU... I never ever had issues before the latest patch, and I haven't changed anything that could've started this

Hello, Defeating Tae-Sung in Seitung Province currently does not consistently award progress towards the completion of the collection "Special Ops Basic Course 3". PS: The same can be said about killing Oni on EoD maps: achievement "Ambush Hunter" is unaffected.

See this thread here from 2019: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Talk:Legendary_Imbued_Shaman#Data Item: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Demon_Slaying The 7% damage against demons does not apply. It's probably an easy fix that could potentially come in handy soon (wink wink)

If we ever get a new guardian spec, I'd be happy to see a rifle spec. Don't really know how it could work out with a symbol on there, maybe you fire a bullet on the ground in front of your target. Could base the spec on blinding applications and give the Guardian a lot of shadow fields, then obviously it looks a lot like a deadeye. It isn't easy having no overlaps at this point. You could match this with venom utilities or make the Virtues work like venoms (just call them something else to fit guardian) It's becoming really difficult to make new specs. Some classes still have obvious themes to explore, some others not so much. A corruption-themed spec for guard with dagger or rifle would be fun. Symbols now strip boons/apply conditions instead of boons, virtues become vices...

I would much rather have them buff off-hand Sword damage in PvE, but as it stands right now I'm afraid nothing will make it acompetitive weapon against Focus considering the recent buff to Ray of Judgment. Focus is essentially two abilities that amount to 10 hits, a total coefficient of 6.55 and half a second cast time under quickness. They'd have to almost triple the damage on both Sword abilities to get even close to that, which is insane

The event also legit does not spawn on some maps

The problem with the Willbender change that's going live is it's a VERY short-sighted change with quite clearly not a lot of thought put into it. It's just a band-aid It has to do with the trait Restorative Virtues. It's unclear right now just how powerful its synergy with multiple active virtues will be. And we don't want it to be too OP, because it fixes none of the others issues that the Willbender is facing. If this change goes live, then we might deal with a really powerful buff there if they didn't take the trait into account, but offhand Sword will still be bad, and sonwill the utilities. It's also a change that benefits condi Willbender much more than power, so we might see some insane condi Wb DPS next patch, which is not something we want either