Improving Willbender Virtues and fixing Mystic Rebuke power vs large groups

[Ezrael.6859]

Willbender Virtues have been mainly lackluster, especially in 1v1 or small scale fights like 2v2 & 3v3, and in combat against very mobile targets.

 

There are however a few videos around showing Willbender + Crashing Courage + Shattered Aegis + multi-hit AoE skills ripping up stacked groups of bad players in WvW.

 

The issue we have is that active Virtues don't last long, they require 5 hits to work and perform very poorly against 1-3 people; but the combination of multi-hits proccing Aegis which procs Mystic Rebuke works very well against 5+ people clumped together that don't dodge roll or play effectively.

 

So Virtues need to be improved, but the possibility of an overpowered Mystic Rebuke needs to be solved.

I think the solution is pretty simple.

 

1. All 3 Virtues should be changed to activate on 3 hits instead of 5, add a combo field to each Virtue: Justice - Fire / Resolve - Water / Courage - Dark.
2. Crashing Courage should be changed to grant Protection every 3 hits instead of Aegis every 5 hits.
3. Vanguard Tactics changes to grant 4s Aegis instead of Protection on initial activation of Courage.

 

And Resolve probably needs its passive heal to come back too, we have it because we have 11k base hp, in fact all three passives should probably come back.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Ezrael.6859
8 core Guardian traits work with the Virtue passive effects

[cat.8975]

I'm not convinced that the SA+CC combo is going to be nearly as gamebreaking as you suggest. It has a very hard counter: blocks and invulns. If you block/invuln some of the hits on the SA strike, they wont have that infinite feedback loop and will be very susceptible to melee cleave.

We don't need the traditional virtue passives back; the way WB does them as "actives" is perfectly fine. If anything, I'd just reduce the CDs on them in pvp/wvw and lean more into the hyper-mobility aspect of the spec. 

Edit: Boon strips will destroy this build, and WoD will shut it down instantly.

Edited August 22, 2021 by cat.8975

[Ezrael.6859]

298,500 damage in 14 seconds.

By one person.

Edit - it's actually 298,500 in 8 seconds as the timer is already at 6s when he lands Courage.

 

 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by Ezrael.6859

[cat.8975]

And what happens when people learn how to shut it down? The damage potential is incredible, yes, but there's a very delicate balance where you can go from alive to dead in under a second.

[Ezrael.6859]

298,500 AoE damage in 8 seconds is not healthy for the game, and he did that alone, with no support and only 0-3 Might stacks throughout.

What happens when 5 people do that together? Or 10?

It will be nerfed in WvW because the potential for it is obviously overpowered.
 

While it's early on I would much rather this nerf is already baked into the elite spec and the rest of the spec and its kit can get some serious buffs to ensure it's a good solo / smallscale roamer. Rather than Shattered Aegis and Crashing Courage remaining but the entire rest of the spec being kept tame because of this potential interaction happening every 42 seconds.

 

Guardian already has DH for ranged power / Core for power, condi or hybrid / Firebrand for condi or mega support.

 

Willbender is supposed to be a highly mobile duellist, filling a niche Guardian doesn't have right now, and that's where the future buffs should take place.

[quaniesan.8497]

I have been playing willbender with mystic rebuke build the past few days.  It sounds super impressive on paper, but the ideal situation is very hard to land.  .Remember your attack has to land to generate aegis, AND you have to get hit to trigger rebuke.  The ticks are not that frequent and oppressive than you see on paper.  In pve,  foes don't attack that often to make use.  In pvp 1v1, at best it ticks like 3 -4 times , for example vs. a warrior, that's still nothing compared to his gs bust.    In group fight is when it may shine the most, and in super ideal situation, you may turn the battle tide with it. But this ideal setup requires luck,  set up,  the opponents are mindlessly spamming attack and in range, for example fighting on capture point, but this is awfully specific. If that the case, they deserve the wipe, and you reap the reward. nothing OP about it.   Zerg fight,  lol, i wonder how long a willbender last in the cesspool of redmarks   trying to land some mystic rebukes.  So I don't recommend any changes to this mechanics and this works fine as it is.

While I have no problem tuning down stuff that might be overperforming, I would also recommend , before suggest these sort of nerfing changes,  to wait till what other specializations have in order to grasp the new level of power balance before voluntarily shoot your own class in the foot like this. 6 more to go. Who knows what crazy things coming up.

Edited August 22, 2021 by quaniesan.8497

[cat.8975]

If anything, they could just do some more split balancing and further reduce the damage on shattered if it proves to be a problem. Having a build that could dive into enemy zergs and potentially survive was a ton of fun, and I'd hate to see that cool trait interaction removed entirely.

[oscuro.9720]

12 hours ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

Willbender Virtues have been mainly lackluster, especially in 1v1 or small scale fights like 2v2 & 3v3, and in combat against very mobile targets.

 

There are however a few videos around showing Willbender + Crashing Courage + Shattered Aegis + multi-hit AoE skills ripping up stacked groups of bad players in WvW.

 

The issue we have is that active Virtues don't last long, they require 5 hits to work and perform very poorly against 1-3 people; but the combination of multi-hits proccing Aegis which procs Mystic Rebuke works very well against 5+ people clumped together that don't dodge roll or play effectively.

 

So Virtues need to be improved, but the possibility of an overpowered Mystic Rebuke needs to be solved.

I think the solution is pretty simple.

 

1. All 3 Virtues should be changed to activate on 3 hits instead of 5, add a combo field to each Virtue: Justice - Fire / Resolve - Water / Courage - Dark.
2. Crashing Courage should be changed to grant Protection every 3 hits instead of Aegis every 5 hits.
3. Vanguard Tactics changes to grant 4s Aegis instead of Protection on initial activation of Courage.

 

And Resolve probably needs its passive heal to come back too, we have it because we have 11k base hp, in fact all three passives should probably come back.

I actually think that changing it to be every hit wouldn’t be too bad if the numbers are adjusted accordingly. Something like;

Justice: apply .5s burn on every hit

Reslove: heal for X amount every hit (instead of granting regen and the like)

courage: grant 1s protection every hit (needs to be changed from aegis for balance purposes on will imo.)
 

I really like the combo field ideas, maybe make the wollbender flames attached to the skills the field? Or even better, make willbender flames not cancel each other, and active virtues grant a combo field to existing willbender flames? 

 

That’s just my opinion though, I’m by no means correct 🙂

 

[Heinel.6548]

Sounds very strong in PvE mass events with tonnes of things to hit too. Maybe that's how the class is meant to be played afterall. I mean, the dev showcasing it cleaving 5 golems got to cue you in to something. 😆

 

[draxynnic.3719]

Pretty sure that the guy who made the 'F3 into a zerg and blow everything up with a Shattered Aegis feedback loop' said it took multiple tries to get it to work, and when it didn't he was pretty much dying immediately. So it seems to be a high-risk high-reward move, we just saw the payoff when it worked.

 

If it is a problem, the best approach might simply be to make Shattered Aegis procs not count as strikes for the virtue effects. Removing aegis from F3 would be almost removing aegis from Willbender altogether, which doesn't seem like a good idea.

[Ragnar.4257]

Don't nerf this even harder for 1v1. If anything it needs buffs for smallscale, not more nerfs.

 

Just add an internal cooldown of 0.5s.

 

Don't over-think it any more beyond that.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Ragnar.4257

[RisenHowl.2419]

12 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

Don't nerf this even harder for 1v1. If anything it needs buffs for smallscale, not more nerfs.

 

Just add an internal cooldown of 0.5s.

 

Don't over-think it any more beyond that.

This is the best solution

 

It's very easy to get off with zeal 122, honor 322, wb 232. you get resistance on using f3/sw2 so weakness/blind don't stop the chain, the chain heals you, you get fury+resolution to cover the aegis/stab every activation, and you get fat symbols so sword/scepter 2 lets you sit in melee proccing fresh aegis every second. pop advance, whirling light, a symbol, or sword of justice if the chain ever slows down

 

So long as you're constantly using your offensive aoes and you're in melee range of a blob it's endless good times. You can even run it as wanderer for boon output, the only relevant stats are power and +%outgoing damage modifiers.

Edited August 22, 2021 by RisenHowl.2419

[Ertrak.9506]

OP forgets Spellbreaker exists.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Ertrak.9506

[cat.8975]

Just now, Ertrak.9506 said:

OP forgets Spellbreaker exists.

Yeah WoD instantly shuts this down, and boon strips kill it pretty quickly too. Not to mention, as soon as you down 1-2 people, they're going to invuln eat your SA procs and prevent you from getting aegis back until you do 2 more hits yourself. While you can do that pretty quickly, you'll still take a hit or two each time it happens (which can happen multiple times before the downed invuln wears off), opening up a window where you can just suddenly die.

For the people claiming this is overpowered: Did you try running it yourself? Sure, you'll get that ideal situation every so often, but I found myself eating dirt most of the time. WoD is an instant kill lol.

[Ezrael.6859]

Renewed Focus and do it again 3 seconds later while all your Winds of Disenchantment are on cooldown for the next 85 seconds.

 

Regular boon strips do nothing, it generates 5 to 10 Aegis and Stab per second.

1 hour ago, Ertrak.9506 said:

OP forgets Spellbreaker exists.

 

We'll see in December and finally next February.

[Dirame.8521]

3 minutes ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

Renewed Focus and do it again 3 seconds later while all your Winds of Disenchantment are on cooldown for the next 85 seconds.

 

Regular boon strips do nothing, it generates 5 to 10 Aegis and Stab per second.

 

We'll see in December and finally next February.

You also have to consider Well of Corruption. It was how I counter Lich and Ramapage. Removing Aegis would be easy since it will be at the top of the boon list since it is being refreshed often.

[cat.8975]

11 minutes ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

Regular boon strips do nothing, it generates 5 to 10 Aegis and Stab per second.

It only does this when SA is proccing. If you remove the aegis, the guard can't start up the aegis chain again until they get to that 5th hit themselves, and they're likely to take a couple hits every time this happens if they're diving into a blob. I've got a folder full of videos where I ate dirt with only a handful of clips where I pulled it off and got away, lol.

Again, I'd much rather see the damage on Mystic Rebuke reduced before any awful ICD solutions have to be used, as those would kill this unique interaction entirely.

[Ertrak.9506]

29 minutes ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

Renewed Focus and do it again 3 seconds later while all your Winds of Disenchantment are on cooldown for the next 85 seconds.

 

Regular boon strips do nothing, it generates 5 to 10 Aegis and Stab per second.

 

We'll see in December and finally next February.

 I mean...you say that but then you blow your second mystic rebuke burst..do like..lets say 300k in an absolutely best case scenario. Well..congratz you're now doing nothing for the next 60s while you wait for your cooldowns, remainining glassy as a weaver, while said bomb weavers are doing over 5-600k dmg before you can burst again. You could take Valor Traitline to regenerate the cooldown quicker, but then you have no sustain from aegis heal, making you even glassier.

 

That 300k too is being really, really generous too. most rebuke bursts are going to be around 100k on average if you can land it without getting interrupted, from people clouding out/dodging out of the way which drastically lowers the potential of this build on its own before considering WoD, Ghastly Breach, Corrupt wells, and any other number of boonstrips/blocks/invulns that people have access to...

 

12 minutes ago, cat.8975 said:

Again, I'd much rather see the damage on Mystic Rebuke reduced before any awful ICD solutions have to be used, as those would kill this unique interaction entirely.

This is honestly what i'd prefer if it must be nerfed.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Ertrak.9506

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[cat.8975]

Did you try it out yourself, or did you just see some videos of people pulling it off successfully and writing it off as overpowered?

[draxynnic.3719]

4 minutes ago, cat.8975 said:

Did you try it out yourself, or did you just see some videos of people pulling it off successfully and writing it off as overpowered?

I think there is a valid point that the trait shouldn't be nerfed for all guardians just because of an interaction with one elite specialisation. That way lies what happened to mesmer.

[Darknicrofia.2604]

I wrote this in the first page of the feedback thread (though not the specific mystic rebuke interaction) but this just highlights how badly designed the concept of WB flames are.

 

The profession mechanic is complete garbo in the area that this spec is designed for (small scale, 1v1) etc but completely busted in 1 vs many large scale zerg fights.

[cat.8975]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think there is a valid point that the trait shouldn't be nerfed for all guardians just because of an interaction with one elite specialisation. That way lies what happened to mesmer.

I'd agree with this if SA was actually used in other builds, but as it stands it's kinda garbage-tier from all the previous nerfs to it. If you're running Zeal for damage in WvW, odds are high that you're running Symbolic Avenger (power) or Eternal Armory (condi). There just aren't enough ways to get aegis by default for this trait to be useful otherwise.

[Zikory.6871]

5 hours ago, Acyk.9671 said:

Sure let's nerf an inoffensive trait to keep the culprit, which gives at least 10 aegis and 10 stab, intact. Sigh

Ye, I think people are missing the actual issue. I'd be surprised of a dh couldn't do similar damage in the same time frame if it had the same survivability. 

I played it, its a meme. Mystic Rebuke is just inflated numbers on arc, it looks stronger then it is. It's no different then a burn Guard or Berserker bursting down a semi afk group. Dodge, move, any support will counter it. 

That said, the trait interactions with Aegis and F3 are pretty hilarious. I don't envy the guy that has to figure out how to nerf it without trash canning how F3 works. 

[RisenHowl.2419]

1 hour ago, Zikory.6871 said:

Ye, I think people are missing the actual issue. I'd be surprised of a dh couldn't do similar damage in the same time frame if it had the same survivability. 

I played it, its a meme. Mystic Rebuke is just inflated numbers on arc, it looks stronger then it is. It's no different then a burn Guard or Berserker bursting down a semi afk group. Dodge, move, any support will counter it. 

That said, the trait interactions with Aegis and F3 are pretty hilarious. I don't envy the guy that has to figure out how to nerf it without trash canning how F3 works. 

DH can do about the same damage in the same time frame, it's just much easier/more reliable to do it as willbender. A lot of people aren't taking into account that the specs were only out for five days, i play a lot of 15k health DH builds while zerging and it still took me a few days to get the timing down on the burst never mind optimizing the damage output. Given that they leave it as is, this will be a very strong burst dps pick once people have time to really play with it.

 

Best case scenario they add a .5s icd to f3 since that impacts other traits the least. If they leave the positive feedback loop intact it'll really lag the servers when you get 10 people doing it at the same time in map queue fights