[Willbender Feedback Thread]

Cool in theory, a letdown in execution so far.

 

I've got to join the general concensus that while it sounds fun on paper, Willbender needs massive rework before it's remotely ready for launch (and possibly playtesters that actually "main" guardian).

 

The chief problems with Willbender in its current state:

- The offhand sword feels almost completely pointless and is only worthwhile or fun with cool double-sword attacks on all the weapon skills. I expected a fighting experience akin to Ahsoka Tano or another two-blade fighter of fiction; instead our guards awkwardly slash about with 3/5 perfectly standard moves. and seemingly forget they are holding a pair of swords. The only two weapon skills to actually dual wield the swords are 4 and 5, and rather than a satisfying, complex multihit attack, both are extremely janky and require range so point-blank as to be practically touching foes; i.e., useless against any bunker build in PvP/WvW; and outright suicide against Scourge and Elementalist player's massive AoE. And despite the 4 key skill stating in the tooltip that it does 4x hits, it's bugged and strikes exactly twice. 

 

Why give players a weapon proficiency if we can't do anything awesome with it? The same way that Dragonhunter's longbow proficiency feels almost insulting when literally everyone has faster firing, faster weapon skill cooldown, and faster moving arrows, to the point only True Shot is particularly helpful; it seems pointless to give us a second sword if we don't actually get any cool dual attacks. This is doubly dissapointing in light of the fact Spellbreakers and Soulbeasts did get dual attacks in Path of Fire, and for whatever reason Firebrand didn't  get to use double-axes.

 

Symbol of Blades is still great for shadowsteppping to a foe to chase them in a fight, and Zealot's Defense has its use; but both of those single-hand sword skills, alongside the auto-attack combo, need to be changed into a truly gnarly dual-wielding equivalent. Why not a teleport that slams both blades into the ground to form the damaging symbol on the Symbol-of-Blades-equivalent skill? Why not alter the stationary forward projectile destruction of Zealot's defense into a sword-twirling steerable state, a la Dagger Storm and Whirling Axe? That would be fun, and we'd actually be using both equipped swords. It's zero fun to watch the right hand of our characters flail about as our left hand does nothing.

 

- The red trails on skills and the searingly saturated yellow to indicate Lethal Tempo are an eye strain, not to mention potentially dangerous to photosensitive players; and they have got to be changed to something non-contrasting like teal or light blue. This is basic color theory. Blue is and has been the core color of guard skills, with indigo, blue-white, and cyan as the analagous, similar colors that don't horribly clash with it.

 

Red, yellow, and blue are the primary colors in color theory, and as equal primaries the visual centers of brain have trouble not getting overwhelmed when registering two, or all three. Red next to yellow intensifies both. Blue next to red intensifies both. Blue next to yellow intensifies both. Combine red and yellow on already bright blue skills? You're asking for a migraine at best.

 

The particle/light effects in of themselves aren't bad, but they can't stay red and yellow. Make them a light turquoise if you want them to look "distinct" as elite specialization VFX; that would at least fit the Jade theme of a huge chunk of Cantha and not melt my retinas.

 

- Physical skills are interesting on paper and fun visually, but need massive tweaking to not just be Daredevil revisited (and as useless as most of Daredevil Thieves stomping my face in with their core-profession utility skills find their own Physical skills). Guardians' whole thing in terms of condition damage is that we can really only inflict Vulnerability and Burning; and I would expect martial-arts moves that at least weaponized those conditions, that had any degree of suvivability.

 

Not only does our punch flurry reuse the Daredevil animation barring the added particles, it functionally works no differently than Daredevil's Fist Flurry other than having a shadowstep to actually close the gap. Why not FURIOUS FIRES? It would be delightful to inflict a Burning-applying and physically damaging barrage of blows on someone like a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure character. Heel Crack ought to actually crack open our foes and apply Vulnerability alongside knocking them prone. And more than anything, as a rework even Daredevil itself arguably needs if you want the Thief players to even use that elite spec's skills, Physical skills that are melee-only should all involve a shadowstep or leap toward a foe, though for obvious balance reasons only one should break stun. 

 

Almost every other profession can maintain a constant upkeep of Swiftness or Superspeed, or simply teleport out of the range of even Dragonhunter arrows and Spear of Justice. If we're to actually WIN any fights, let alone be able to keep up in PvP, we need to be able to chase people down with our Physical skills and ensure that a martial arts throwdown even actually occurs to start with.

 

As a final note, the heal on the healing Physical skill is pathetically small and does not make the ability to ignore a lethal blow worth it. What's the point if a Deadeye can just Three-round Burst us out of the ability to ignore that lethal damage, then immediately kills us anyway with their next barrage of shots? Have you forgotten about Be Quick or Be Killed and how deadly that trait makes them?

 

- Righteous Sprint and its inherent movement bonus, even with Swiftness granted on virtue use, isn't enough to keep up with the glut of self-launches, knockbacks, teleports, and self-buffing with Superspeed/Quickness virtually every other profession is capable of using for a quick getaway. (Engineers can use four of these at once if they have a rifle.) 

 

We don't have a "swift advantage" in combat, now we just have a slight chance of actually chasing someone down on sub-equal footing; whereas core, Firebrand, and Dragonhunter Guardian has no chance in hell. If the idea is to make us actually feel faster and more relentless, than the movement speed bonus should be higher than a meager 33% like we already had from Swiftness, especially since it isn't even clear from the tooltip if the effects of Swiftness and the trait stack.

 

At the very least, we ought to gain Superspeed on a player kill, or even more bare minimum, we should simply have an inherent reduction to all movement-impairing effects, just as Relentless Pursuit, Don't Stop, and similar traits for other professions work. Players are pragmatic and I know from experience people will spam Cripple, Chill, and Immobilize on anyone already lagging behind trying to chase them. I don't blame them, it's the strategic thing to do. It's not going to feel very "fast" if the auto-caltrops on a Trickery-traits Thief dodge leave me limping along at snail pace behind them. 

 

- Willbender Flames should inflict Burning, period. They are literally Flames. There's no point to letting us leave a trail/ring/spray of them with our modified virtues if we have to slot a trait to even have those flames light people on fire. This is beyond asinine, and a flat-out boring in light of how awesome the fire traps of Harrower Veltan and 

Spoiler

Almorra during her last stand versus Ryland Steelcatcher

 

were. Flame should Burn, and a grand total of two seconds of fire left behind is dumb. The fact using another virtue destroys the prior Willbender Flames effect, instead of stacking them to let us create the same arena of searing pain that both those NPC Willbenders did, is an even bigger disappointment. We've been shut down and melted in six seconds time and time again by other player's enormous AoE fields, it's time to let Guardian players have some payback that isn't as janky and low-radius as spirit weapons with Eternal Armory trait slotted. 

 

- As stated by everyone else, there's pretty much next to no synergy with core Guardian traits, let alone with the traits in the same elite specialization. The linked effects we do have are minuscule, and reliant on constantly facerolling over our keys. The bonuses we get are tiny, the reduced duration of Lethal Tempo on the only trait that makes it stronger feels absolutely awful, and there's nothing particularly cool that doesn't come with a massive drawback on the Grandmaster traits. 

 

- The modified virtues should still have a passive effect. I don't know why they ever didn't in the first place, even Firebrands' Tomes still give them a bonus unless on cooldown from using the active effect. The only "crashing" in Crashing Courage right now is the crashing and burning we do in any attempted fights. When the designated Paladin class has a third elite specialization fundamentally crippled compared to something else both its core self and the other elite specializations for the same profession can do, it's bad gameplay design.

[A unisex exclusive hairstyle for Sylvari clips into the player's head model.]

I picked the hairstyle shown below when I gave my Guardian a makeover; mainly since I liked the dignified, Celtic-warrior-queen sort of look that it gave her. The hairstyle looks delightful as long as the player is at rest. And, while I'm all for having hair and cloth physics; it's a bit disconcerting when the physics occur without any collision detection, making those leaves clip into her head and eat her tree-brain.

Having a practical yet ladylike braid on her? Cool.Having this happen with literally every step or jump she takes? Not so cool.

I'd be very pleased and unfathomably grateful if somebody could fix this clipping. But for now, the full-head helmet is staying on with my main armor suit, it seems. As for why my Minstrel-stat armor looks like that, what she does recreationally is none of your business.

To paraphrase The Tick , in all his innocently dimwitted heroism: "Arthur... ...I think my bangs are touching my brain..."

[Art Issues: Characters, Weapons, Armor - [Merged]]

Item: Funerary TassetsSex: BothRace: AllClass: Warrior, Guardian, or Revenant

Description: There are numerous issues of dye color overlap between the cloth, metallic, and gem details/regions that make them lump together when they should be separately customizable.