Shin Ryu.5802

A compilation of observations that resonate with me so far: Concept: The idea of a guardian playing as a pre-foresworn Shiro Tagachi when he was still an honored elite imperial bodyguard is pretty awesome. Of course, a profession with the core name of "guardian" is reasonably expected to be able to protect things, and willbender is notably weak in that regard. This could actually have a valid explanation with little or no modification to the existing lore: it's the idea of the elite bodyguard who, failing at their sworn mission to protect Emperor Angsiyan from Shiro, took swift action to avenge the emperor (and their own honor). That being the case, it might make more sense to simply call this elite spec "avenger." Overall Execution: The willbender can't seem to get out of its own way. So many aspects of it not only lack synergy with other traits and features, but actively contradict and sabotage them. The way its virtues work greatly reduces the utility of many trait choices, it ostensibly has more mobility, but at the cost of being locked into animations, and includes slow or long channeling skills into a spec ostensibly built around rapid attacking. Someone earlier described willbender as having an "identity crisis," and that's pretty apt. Virtues: Guardians rely on their virtues, and like practically everything else about willbender, these feel unnecessarily nerfed and wonky in several ways. Having no passive effects does incentivize the use of their actives, but only one can be active at a time. And they still have long-ish cooldowns. And because they're geared to proc on every 5th hit, the effects aren't particularly profound in a situation where one is trying to focus down or sustain in a fight against a single challenging opponent (as per concept); they're just crazy powerful against weak trash mobs where it doesn't much matter. One of the better ideas I've seen proposed to fix this is to allow virtues to continue indefinitely until swapped, with the cooldown only applying to the movement and willbender flame-laying effects. They might not have realized it, but they were basically making a case for having willbender virtues function like the elementalist's attunements. Frankly, that's a brilliant idea. There are two potential issues I foresee with this proposed solution: One is that of tracking two cooldowns, the first being the movement and willbender flame activation cooldown, and the second being a virtue swapping cooldown. One solution might be to unite them into a single short cooldown of roughly eight to ten seconds. Another issue is the potential interaction with the Lethal Tempo trait; it might need some rebalancing. Anyway, I just liked the idea of offsetting the limitation of only being able to have one virtue up at a time by allowing it to be up continuously. Traits: The word that comes to mind here is "zugzwang." In chess, it's a situation where the obligation to make a move creates a disadvantage. With willbender traits, nearly all choices entail giving something up in exchange for something that will ostensibly be of commensurate value. However, the advantages are so negligible that the obligation to take a trait itself feels like choosing which net disadvantage to accept; it's almost better not to take them at all. Trait choices already entail giving up two other decent possibilities for the sake of focusing on only one. Having built-in mandatory sacrifices for every choice just feels like a double whammy. Speaking again to the lack of synergies even within the specialization, there are no traits that reward or enhance the decision to equip a sword off-hand; no specific weapon skill cooldown time reductions, no stat boosts for wielding one, no boon or effect duration increases, nothing. Something along these lines would make a good Major Adept trait. Weapon skills: These should be built to synergize with the willbender concept of high mobility and rapid attacking, but Executioner's Calling actively impedes that. The high channeling time, slow combo time, and low payoff make this one of the most anti-willbender skills available outside of Heaven's Palm. Skills: These look cool, but often confound the core concept of willbender as a high-mobility rapid attacker in some way. I'll be more specific here, as imho, this is an area where the most improvements can be made with the least effort. -Reversal of Fortune: Prevents skill activation for two seconds and gives a fixed heal if a hit is taken. An instant activation followed by one or two seconds of damage reversal similar to the herald's Infuse Light or the warrior's Defiant Stance would prevent this action lock. -Flash Combo: Looks cool, but yet another animation/action lockdown. Take away the condition, "if all attacks hit" for Repose, allowing it to function as a potential skill cancel if standing still for the full duration of the skill becomes untenable. Alternatively, have it mechanically function similarly to the revenant sword skill Unrelenting Assault, but with guardian (primarily cosmetic) flavoring. Combine the two and it could be worthy replacement for Heaven's Palm as the spec's elite. -Whirling Light: This was wildly popular and really fine as-is, but there is a little room for improvement. First, it's an animation lockdown, so allow for a skill cancel breakout similar to Repose. Second, allow for control over the skill's "flight" path. -Heel Crack: A 2 second stun isn't horrible; it sets up combos well and it's decent against break bars. It just feels like something that maybe could have been built into one of the off-hand sword skills to help justify equipping an off-hand sword. -Rolling Light: Going against the flow, I liked Rolling Light. It could be improved by allowing it to overide and cancel out of other ongoing skill animations, but it's currently one of the few utilities that actually compliments the willbender's high agility concept. -Heaven's Palm: The essence of what I meant by, "the willbender can't seem to get out of its own way." The spec is conceptually all about high mobility and rapid attacking, and yet, its elite skill locks down both its movement and ability to attack for over a second while it channels. Odds are, it'll probably miss, but even if it fully connects, the payoff is pretty low. It's like the distilled essence of everything currently wonky with willbender. It might be fixable, but it'd probably be easier just to develop a new skill that has more synergy with willbender's concept. There literally isn't a guardian elite skill (except MAYBE the support-oriented Signet of Courage) that doesn't already do a better job, so that's an admittedly low bar.

tl;dr: A few specific ideas for mitigating willbender's "clunkiness," and an invitation for others to propose their own. I've mentioned before that a movement-based elite specialization really should have greater freedom of movement. For a guardian that gave up most of its ability to stand still and take hits, this one spends a lot of time getting rooted in place when pressing an attack either channeling skills or waiting for a skill animation to run its course. That's a common thread in many of these comments (including my previous observations); movements feel "clunky" and the option of not standing in place and taking hits while attacking doesn't seem to be adequately available. One of the ideas I've previously offered is that of reworking skills to allow for faster channeling, easier cancelling into other skills, and fewer awkward pauses between them. Here are another few specific ways to keep willbender from feeling like it's being pinned in place or committed to an action railroad: Flash Combo: Have it mechanically function more or less like the revenant's sword skill Relentless Assault, OR allow Repose to become available as a skill cancel rather than something which only becomes available when the condition of "if all attacks hit" is met. Executioner's Calling: Instead of having the character stand in place and hope the second much slower dual attack hits, have the first hit trigger a shadowstep behind the target for immediate delivery of the second attack. Heaven's Palm: Heaven forbid the brief and minor inconvenience that Heaven's Palm inflicts not be ostentatiously telegraphed for over a full second, during which the willbender can neither move nor act! But seriously, at least allow this skill to chase the targeted foe. It should also have a much shorter channeling time given how incredibly underpowered this is for an elite skill. There are plenty more ideas out there for adding more freedom of movement and de-clunkifying willbender. For example, someone proposed being able to control the path of Whirling Light, which is beautifully simple and brilliant. I honestly believe ideas along these lines are what will go the farthest toward mitigating willbender's current issues and making it more enjoyable to play, so I invite others to suggest their own so the devs will have the largest possible pool of ideas to draw from.

That's intentional. As someone already mentioned, it's a way the developers came up with to allow something like multi-classing without introducing an even more complicated balancing nightmare. Also, during one of the discussions for "Path of Fire," it was explicitly stated that one of the primary ways of coming up with new elite specializations was to take a profession and view it through the lens of another. But yes, it's more obvious than ever with the "End of Dragons" batch thus far; each is clearly putting their own profession's spin on a playstyle normally only available to another profession rather than coming up with something 100% original. Not necessarily a bad thing, imho; it can yield a decent combination of innovation within a profession with something already tried-and-true as a popular playstyle.* Virtuoso: Mesmer as a classic aoe-bombing elementalist. Harbinger: Necromancer as an alchemist engineer. Willbender: Guardian as an assassin thief. *Although to be fair, this approach can also yield a mismatched mess like willbender, which definitely needs some refinement.

tl;dr: Improve the actual freedom of movement and action and allow skills to chain and flow more smoothly; it's the 20% of invested effort that will provide 80% of results in improving willbender and addressing players' concerns. The idea behind willbender is pretty solid: A sort of relentless holy avenger who would have fit right in with the elite imperial punitive squad that hunted down and brought justice the forsworn elite imperial bodyguard Shiro Tagachi. Which kinda begs the question, why not just call this elite spec, "avenger?" But I digress... Most of the complaints about this spec focus on how it feels underpowered and has low sustain except against weak trash mobs where outstanding performance actually matters the least. Frankly, this would be forgivable in my eyes if willbender was just plain stupid fun to play, so what things in particular just aren't fun? For the most part, it's the frustration of trying to play a high mobility spec based on rapid attacking that is frequently and inexplicably immobile and/or unable to attack. It's cool that it can shadow step and otherwise rapidly advance upon an enemy in a variety of ways, but it's not fun to either be unable to move or unable to change up one's actions until the skill animation finishes channeling or the enemy interrupts it. See the fire hydra about to drop a meteor on your head and you want to sidestep that? Well, if you've committed to Whirling Light or Flash Combo and you've already used up your dodges evading its breath attack and trample while finding an opening, you'll just have to stand there and eat it. And despite being an ostensibly high mobility spec, it really isn't any better than average at flanking or getting behind an enemy. So how can this basic shortcoming be improved? Generally, remove or reconsider any mechanic that locks up the willbender's freedom of movement or action, such as long channel times or being fixed in place for the duration of a skill animation. Since this is a variety of guardian that has given up its ability to simply stand still and take hits, the most sensible way to get around that would be to give it the option of not having to stand still and take hits. Specifically, first remove the awkward pause that occurs between shadowsteps and built-in attacks. Rushing Justice already provides a pretty good telegraph that an attack is incoming; the character doesn't have to stop right in front of the target and shout, "♫ta-daaa~!" for a hot second to make it fair and balanced. This also applies to unnecessarily awkward combos, like off hand sword skill Executioner's Calling (aka, "Stand Stand Still And Don't Do Anything So I Can Hit You Again Just a Little Bit Harder"). Second, allow skills to be more freely cancelled out of to allow more freedom of movement or for different skills to be activated. Alternatively, this increased freedom of action and movement could be built into the skills themselves: for example, Flash Combo could become Flash Retreat for the duration of its animation, allowing for a more fluid "hit and run" type of play. Connecting with the first hit of off hand sword skill Executioner's Calling could trigger a shadowstep behind the target before immediately chaining into the dual attack so they're not just standing in place asking to be smacked before the second attack goes off. Having skills automatically move the character behind or around a target would also open up a world of opportunities beyond "crash into target, stand still and unleash a fixed combo." Third, shorten up channeling times and time spent locked into a skill animation. Heaven's Palm is perhaps the worst offender. It's a highly situational cc skill with very low utility, but still requires placing a lock on both movement and action for over a full second. During that time, there is an animation that openly advertises the character is completely open to attacks and interrupts, or that the tiny area of effect should be evacuated to avoid the minor inconvenience Heaven's Palm is about to inflict. The Reversal of Fortune heal skill offends to a lesser degree; unlike the revenant's Consume Facet of Light or the warrior's Defiant Stance, willbender can't use any skills while this one channels--and it's not even as powerful as those other roughly analogous healing skills. Finally, don't force the willbender to be locked standing still in one place while an attack skill is channeling; allow the player to still move freely. Someone suggested allowing the course of Whirling Light to be controlled, and that's actually pretty brilliant. Being able to walk around an enemy while performing Flash Combo might provide a decent situational alternative to having to cancel out of it entirely. Even allowing the player to move while channeling Heaven's Palm would make that elite skill just a little bit more useful. Sure, there are plenty of other much finer details and tweaks that could be made, and many people have already made a pretty compelling case for them. However, I think the issue of being able to freely move and rapidly chain combos is a core component of this reimagining of guardian, it's the 20% of invested effort that will give them 80% of improvement results. It'll help mitigate such common complaints as "too fragile" (allow it to move and avoid taking as much damage), "too underpowered" (shorten or eliminate pauses and gaps between skill execution so it hits more often, effectively increasing dps), and "feels too clunky" (eliminate barriers to being able to freely move and act at will).

This is little more than echoes of what others have already said, but yeah; willbreaker needs work. I really want it to work, but what was probably supposed to be some Shiro Tagachi-style kitten "relentless pursuit and takedown" elite spec is currently running like the clunkier, weaker cousin of the daredevil thief elite spec with burning thrown in as a sort of consolation prize. Overall, something this movement-focused shouldn't have so many awkward pauses between movements and attacks, nor should it be pinned down and unable to move during skill animations. The heal skill prevents the use of any other skills while it is channeling, and the elite Heaven's Palm commits the player to a channel just over a full second long with an animation that gives everyone fair warning to dodge, interrupt, or kill them before it goes off. The willbender gives up a lot in exchange for its mobility (such as it is), and doesn't really get much else in exchange for what it had to give up. It's a bad trade. If it's going to be a mobility based attacker, it should be designed or adjusted keeping the idea of being able to constantly move and attack in mind. If there is any point where it can't move or can't attack and can't change what its doing, that needs to be fixed.

Frankly, I'm glad someone brought up this topic. It really seemed like the least relevant aspect of the new elite specs and I was afraid that it would just be something practically no one would care about, but I'm glad so many people piped up and proved me wrong. So allow me to add my own humble opinions to the pile: Virtuoso: Actually not a bad name; it's a master performer, and mesmers are, in terms of their "color," all about putting on a show. It's easily the most ostentatious of the elite specs so far, so it fits in that regard. If there is any minor weak point to be found, it's in the cultural dissonance of placing a decidedly Latin/Italian elite specialization name into an Asian-inspired expansion. Harbinger: Harbinger of what, exactly? What are they announcing? Sure, it SOUNDS cool, but so does "meconium"--it just doesn't MEAN anything particularly cool or even relevant. "Plague doctor" isn't bad, I'd be on board with it. It happens to be one of the current stat combination prefixes already in use, but that's not necessarily disqualifying. "Jade alchemist?" "Blight slinger?" I'm sure there are better ideas; they really only have to clear the low bar that is "harbinger." Again, "harbinger" SOUNDS cool, but it's about as relevant to what this elite spec does as "waffle maker." Willbreaker: No idea where this even comes from, other than maybe it was a new word their legal department told them hadn't been trademarked by anyone else yet. It's the most questioned (if not outright hated) elite spec name so far, and yet coming up with a substitute is still challenging--mostly because it's not entirely clear what the elite spec is really meant to be. I think willbreaker was meant to be a Shiro Tagachi-style kitten protector-enforcer, but it currently plays like some kind of nerfed daredevil burn thief that disappoints guardian and thief players alike. Perhaps more than with any other of these elites, the name itself could offer a more clear direction: "avenger," "enforcer," "vanquisher," "yojimbo," or anything that tells us what this elite specialization is all about. Unless of course the willbreaker is actually meant to break the collective wills of all guardian players by giving them yet another lackluster elite spec. In that case, they're on a solid path to victory, and I withdraw my criticism of the name.

I think your assessment is pretty fair. My quick takes: tl;dr: I generally agree with OP: Virtuoso and harbinger good, willbreaker really needs work. My "stress testing" was against fire hydras and mobs of Forged in Crystal Oasis, because I wanted to get to a Level 80 map in a hurry despite waypoints not being unlocked. Having an Invitation to the Lily of the Elon in a shared inventory space is super handy... Virtuoso, or mesmer as a bomber ele: My initial thought is that virtuoso would have a hard time competing favorably with the chrono and mirage elite specs just because they were already so much fun to play. However, I found virtuoso to be yet another "win" in the Mesmer Elite Spec category. The biggest damage dealing skills do have a pretty long telegraph and there aren't clones to draw away aggro, otherwise it would be pretty OP. As for it being "squishy," I found that to be less of a problem. The new F skills include a fairly long blur or block with a relatively low cooldown, so damage mitigation isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I had a blast mowing down Forged mobs with just the default gear and build settings, but got punished whenever I got sloppy. Willbreaker, or guardian as a thief: I think they were going for a representation of Shiro Tagachi during his bodyguard days, but they missed pretty hard. It really feels like playing a nerfed thief, even decked out in full 'zerk with scholar runes. I tried Nomad's with dolyak runes just for giggles, but willbreaker is still essentially a glass character. Its rapid attacks have good synergy with the Litany of Wrath healing skill, and Save Yourselves goes with practically any guardian build. Since Resolve is still the willbreaker's main healing effect, Renewed Focus helps improve survivability immensely by both renewing virtues and providing some invulnerability. I really WANT to like willbreaker and put more effort than I put into the other two beta elites combined to get it to work on par with other elite guardian specs, but it definitely needs some work to keep it from just feeling like a second-rate daredevil. Harbinger, or necro as an alchemist engi: I was most skeptical of this one, especially since necro already has very solid elite spec alternatives with reaper and scourge. However, the new take on life force management seems pretty balanced and intuitive, and Blight wasn't as delicate a tightrope walk as I thought it would be: Lower health pool = higher dps. Very simple. Pleasant surprise. Of course, individual experiences will vary: Virtuoso seems to be favorably regarded by most, opinions on harbinger are largely divided but positive leaning, and very few people like willbreaker, probably because it manages to appeal neither to guardian nor thief players. Maybe they should have taken a page from how revenant handles Shiro-esque weapon and utility skills?

Now that I've had a chance to briefly tinker and play with each new elite spec, stress testing them a bit against fire hydras and wandering bands of Forged on the Crystal Oasis map, here are my hot takes: It's already been stipulated by the design team that one of the more popular ways of creating new elite specializations is to view one profession through the lens of another, so naturally, I reference that for each one. Virtuoso: Apparently the mesmer as seen through the lens of a super-bomber elementalist. Very cool, very fun, very high chance this gets nerfed in its official iteration. It's the most crazy powerful mesmer build I've ever run, even just using the default skills and build. Never thought they'd come up with something on par with the high water marks of chronomancer and mirage in terms of being just plain stupid fun to play, but I think virtuoso pretty much nails it. Even post-nerfing, I'll probably still run a virtuoso build just as I still run mirage after it lost its ability to easily pile on 50+ stacks of confusion. Willbreaker: Apparently, someone was really jonesing for a thief with access to more aoe and burning, and was willing to give up the Steal core mechanic, access to stealth, and its top tier dps capabilities to get it. Nomad's armor with Dolyak runes still feels like medium armor, and neither Berserker's nor Viper's stats seem to give it a punch commensurate with everything it has to give up for a modest damage boost. Practically everything that makes a guardian iconic--its toughness, armor, top-tier ally buffing abilities--is scrapped or seriously nerfed in favor of making it a second-rate thief. At least when a thief shares boons or outgoing healing, it's never nerfed in terms of duration or effectiveness for others in exchange for some tiny added benefit for themselves. Definitely needs some love; feels like the victim of some overly harsh and unnecessary nerfs straight out of the box. It was a cool concept (the "Shiro Tagachi" guardian), but as it stands, the current iteration of willbreaker would be completely outclassed if there was ever such a thing as a "burn thief." Maybe they could draw a bit of inspiration from the revenant's Legendary Assassin Stance abilities or even its sword skills if "Shiro guardian" was really what they were going for. Harbinger: I was honestly skeptical about the idea of a necromancer seen through the lens of an alchemist engineer, and whether it would actually be any fun to balance that Blight-for-power mechanic. It also has the awesome alternative elite specs of reaper and scourge to contend with. Fortunately, it actually played pretty well even just using the default stats and trait lines. I'm impressed with how well the life force mechanic is balanced, how there always seems to be something for it to do so overcapping is never really an issue and it can be built up steadily enough that the character is rarely caught running on empty. Out of the three presented thus far, harbinger is easily the best straight out of the box new elite spec and the least likely to be in need of any substantial modification. Give Blight a chance; it grows on you after a while--it's apparently the GW2 version of GW1's Masochism enchantment. So a very solid two out of three so far: Virtuoso is fun but probably a bit OP, willbreaker is basically a nerfed thief that makes me sad, and harbinger is a pleasantly novel surprise.

The Charr opening new and unnecessary war fronts seems unlikely. They've become more strategic and goal oriented, and more aware that force of arms isn't the only way to achieve their goals. Evon Gnashblade is a good example of how Charr have learned to exploit mutual interests and (largely) non-martial means in order to gain more than they ever could through raids and conquest alone. Whether the Flame Legion would ever join forces against Kralk the way the Nightmare Court did against Mordy (Faolin's treachery notwithstanding) is a different story. The Flame Legion has a history of siding with and worshipping entities who grant them power, so they'd be more readily tempted to join Kralk than most. Kralk might even possess the means to convert them into his own version of Glint's Exalted... Taking the campaign against Kralk in a Charr-centric storytelling direction is a pretty brilliant idea though. Not only does it dovetail nicely with the existing lore, it provides an opportunity for the Charr to get some time in the spotlight previously dominated by humans and Sylvari.