EZ Willbender fix- Quickness on Ports, Evades on all Virtues and make Courage instant

[Coleura.1948]

This fix will basically make the current Willbender similar to the old core dps medi guard with the now deleted quickness sigil but with evades over having aegis.

Adding quickness will prevent the clunkiness that we all experience currently and it will definetely make Willbender viable in PVP.

 

 

Allthough I wouldnt deny alot of the new utility skills need some revision.

[aelska.4609]

Unfortunately, little tweaks will not solve design problems unless badly overcreeped.

I don't know how they will do that but, If i were them, I would recruit someone that understands guardians to start over from a blank sheet.

[Coleura.1948]

I can understand the level of dissappointment people are experiencing when you compare the Willbender with what they released with Firebrand and the amount of usefulness the tomes have over  the current willbender virtues and its lack of general synergy with core guardian trait lines.

 

PoF elite specs were basically game-breaking, meta-altering designs that took Anet years to properly balance and even still today after all the major changes, nerfs etc;  Anet had to make difficult decisions and destroy  overall build diversity with many classes in order to create some form of coheritant balance. And even after all that the PoF specs are still dominant. I assume Anet doesn't want to make the same mistake and ruin balance in spvp currently and go into further years of changes that will drastically influence the viability of current specs.

 

Working with whats currently being implimented with the Willbender, high-mobility; high dps roamer etc. Refering to what as previously stated in the post title, It would only take minor changes to make Willbender viable in spvp. Well, maybe one build. Which is the DPS Medi-Willbender.

 

Adding the additional quickness on shadowports  on the willbender trait [Vanguards Tactics] will ensure that burst weapon skills  when porting will land and also it will give more value to the new physical utilities such as [Flash Combo] and the after skill [Repose].

 

Now some may think this is overpowered. But in retrospect just how many shadowports does the willbender actually have?

1.   Sword #2 [Symbol of Blades] 10 sec CD
2.  F3 [Crashing Courage] 42.5 sec CD (With Virtues traitline)
3. Utility [Judge's Intervention] 32 sec CD (with Valor traitline)
4. Utility [Merciful Intervention] 32 sec CD (with Valor traitline)
5. Utility [Flash Combo] 25sec CD

Now adding the extra Shadowsteps from Respose would make it 7 but given that a guard can only take 3 utilities, it has 6 overall Shadowports with 4 that can be used offensively. Seeing how core dps guard right now is better than the dps WB. Players need to gain some form of pay-off when selecting a high-risk elite spec. Adding quickness to shadowport does just that.

 

Evades on all Virtues

 

By having evades on virtues, players will now have to adapt to a reactive form of playstyle to survive. Being able to use the virtues defensively by evading incoming attacks and offensively closing the gap it will give more value to the seemingly uselesss virtues currently as the passives granted are not that useful in pvp.

 

The Overall Use in sPVP

 

If these changes are made the WB will be viable in pvp because it can do the job of a power herald much better in a team fight. Resistance on ports will make it so that it does not get cced by fears or have damage mitigated by chill, weakness or blinds.  Quickness  on ports will ensure that its abilities will land and give the WB more opportunity to deal dps before the quickness boon is either boon stripped or corrupted.

 

This change will make Willbender the "go to" dps roamer against the current meta of Scourges and the Willbender will be the direct counter. 

[Sir Vincent III.1286]

2 hours ago, Coleura.1948 said:

high dps roamer

 

What? Willbender has a damage problem -- they move too fast that they turn their weapons to noodles. It deals a minuscule of what Harbinger or Virtuosso can dish out. Then if you compare it to Dragonhunter and Firebrand, it's just sad.

[Coleura.1948]

I guess a bit of context would help. FYI build editor is down at time of posting and I dont think it has Willbender spec updated yet.

 

                                         WillBender Medibuild:

 

                                   Zerker Ammy, Rune of Speed

1st Set: Sword MH                  Focus OH   - Sigils: Cleansing, Exploitation

Sword 1: {375,408, 846x3hits}; Sword 2: 1,900x5hits over 4 secs; Sword 3: 1,488x8hits  Focus 4: 1,440x9hits Focus 5: 1,267 

 

2nd Set: Greatsword                                    -Sigils: Cleansing, Exploitation

GS 1: {496,496,744};  GS 2: 2604x7hits over 3/4 sec; GS 3:1,162, 1/2 sec;  GS 4:1,860x5hits,over 4 secs;  GS 5: 3980 over 10secs

Traits:

Valor: Bottom, Mid, Mid

Virtues: Top, Top, Bottom

WB: Mid, Bottom, Bottom

 

Heal: Litany of Wrath

Utilities: Judge's Intervention, Contemplation of Purity, Merciful Intervention

Elite: Renewed Focus

 

You see in the weapon skills the damage is there. Big Aoe Symbol damage from Sword 2 and GreatSword 4, around 2k damage on both sword 3 and Greatsword 2; the problem is really just landing most of the hits in time before the enemy dodges or moves away.

My Greatsword 2 was hitting for around 9 - 10k.

 

I can agree that Sword OH is underpowered atm, and boost to its base damage will also make it more useful in terms of offense than taking focus for a more defensive approach, but again.

regardless of increase base damage, Sword OH4 works better with quickness to land soundly.

 

Right now its: 

Sword OH 4: {333, 1352x2hits};  Sword OH 5: 846x2hits

 

 

[Bunny.9834]

3 hours ago, Sir Vincent III.1286 said:

 

What? Willbender has a damage problem -- they move too fast that they turn their weapons to noodles. It deals a minuscule of what Harbinger or Virtuosso can dish out. Then if you compare it to Dragonhunter and Firebrand, it's just sad.

 

It was so frustrating to use in PvP that I ended up going back to core guardian or DH because those hit harder.  I feel like they were so nervous about making it OP that they gave us a spec that feels like it went through the nerf bat several times.  This is BETA, give us an OP version first so we can be hyped then nerf it months after EOD is released. 💀

 

I would trade more sustain for more damage mods: 

 

Traits:

Willbender Training: You have -300 toughness but have +300 power. (This makes it similar to scrapper for tradeoff) 

Change Power for Power to Thrill of the Kill - This trait increase your damage for 4s by 10% after using a movement skill or shadow-step. 

 

Virtues:

Rushing Justice - increase range to 900. decrease casting time to 1/4s. remove the after cast and make it behave like Burning Speed. Increase Justice's time to 12s. 

Flowing Resolve - increase range to 900. decrease casting time to 1/4s. Decrease hit to trigger to 3. 

Crashing Courage - increase range to 900. decrease casting time to 1/2s. 

 

The current F skills doesn't have the same impact like DH or FB. WB's virtues need to be more impactful when you use them. 

 

OH Sword: 

Executioner Calling - Range 300. 3/4c. 12s CD. - Dash to your foe unleash a flurry of attacks on your target making them vulnerable with each hit. (This behaves like smoke assault but only attacks ur target.) Increase the power coefficient. 

Advancing Strike - Range 1200. 1/2c. 20s CD. Quickly dash to your foe and then shadow-step to deliver an powerful attack that immobilizes, slow and cripple your enemy. 

 

Heaven's Palm - Reduce casting time to 1s. Add blind in the beginning of the attack and a combo light field. Add: If your target is down, finish that target. This count as a combo finisher (explosion). 

  

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by DragonSlayer.1087

[Bast.7253]

Hmm, maybe make sword skill 3 an aoe spin attack that reflects projectile instead of a root that blocks in front of you? 

Quickness is definitely needed for this build and I'm not sure why Harbinger gets an instant cast dash on shroud 3, but virtuoso's elite and willbender's virtue 2 require you to select a direction first.

It feels like they had one theme going for this spec, and then read forum posts about Almorra's fight mechanics and the flame trail and dashing and were like.. oh.. well let's add that. 

I've found like ONE nuke condi build for Virtuoso that's pretty much the same exact playstyle I play on mirage anyway. And it seems like the only way to be successful with this is to just play it like core guard. 

So I mean, did you really hit the mark by breaking out of the mold of the core mechanics? Why are so many weapon skills on these two practically useless?

And why do you have so many power traits in Harbinger when the shroud skills are clearly designed to just do a little bit of power damage and stack a ton of torment? 

Also, are mace and staff even used for anything outside of wvw? And give guardian a clunky off-hand despite the only two viable one-handed weapons being sword and scepter? And sword-offhand for guardian being almost entirely a copy paste version of sword off-hand for rev? With pistol on Harbinger feeling nearly identical to engi.

Is ele hammer just going to be identical to hammer scrapper? 

And let me guess, thief scepter will perform just like guardian scepter with an immobalize, aoe on skill 2, and a fast auto attack?

I don't know. Pof feels like it had a lot of weapon skills that didn't feel extremely similar to other weapon skills and playstyles.