Any hope for Willbender?

[Joxer.6024]

I like Guardian\DH\FB and would very much like to see Willbender played as well. Based on past experiences from ANET do people see any hope for the spec to be a bit better? Im talking just PVE here but yea, isnt Guardian like the poster child for GW2 so it only makes sense they would want it to shine?

[otto.5684]

Short answer, no.

 

Long answer, as it is currently designed it is highly redundant. It uses GS/sword.  Off hand sword has the same skills as rev, but less effective. This is the same exact power build as both DH and core. In all likelihood, it will end up using the same utilities as DH, but instead of PB, it will use the cyclone skill (forgot name). It might end up dealing slightly more damage, but that is about it. It has no distinct gameplay or design beside mobility, which per the beta worked poorly. 
 

PvP it could eventually become good. Per beta it had many very short range gap closer. Very limited capabilities to disengage. Limited access to swiftness. No superspeed. It does not seem capable to play as a decaper. It lacks survivability and damage to 1v1. DH and core are better middle. And power guardian in pvp does not work, except the troll trapper build. And that does not work against skilled opponents. 
 

Unless it manages to pivot away from GS, it is doomed to be awfully redundant, and less effective than DH in most situations.

 

I would be seriously impressed if Anet manages to make it interesting. However, my confidence in Anet current devs low.

Edited November 21, 2021 by otto.5684

[oscuro.9720]

Short answer: yes.

 

Long answer: I played >10 hours of will bender in the first beta (competitive only), so I feel I have a fairly good grasp of what the spec’s position in competitive modes is, and where the problems are. The first iteration of willbender was, admittedly, horrible in the actual game. However, a lot of the mechanics and the overall concept are sound and can be built into a strong roamed spec. There are certainly changes that need to be made, and refinement that’s needed, but I don’t think it’s all that difficult to turn what was presented into a strong spec that fills a clear niche that guardian was lacking. This would give it its own place away from core/DH/FB. 
This includes things like reworking utility to be focused on hard lockdown so that guardian bursts can land, adding more effect to the traits so they arent so bland and 1 dimensional, cleaning up cast times and removing after casts on virtues, having virtue passives trigger every hit in stances, and more. However, it isn’t like the actual mechanics or concept is inherently flawed or unnecessary, which is very promising imo. 

[Buran.3796]

   In PvE seems worse than Firebrand, DH or core. In PvP Firebrand is garbage, so maybe could be... third? Most probably bottom tier along FB.

[draxynnic.3719]

I think there is. The main problems are mostly numbers tuning, including reducing some of the skill activation times and aftercasts. Contrary to a claim posted earlier in this thread, willbender DOES have a passive 25% speed boost (it's the master minor trait), and can probably maintain permanent Swiftness with the right trait selection.

 

The main competition is obviously DH. In PvP, I think it has a distinct potential to become the replacement of the pre-HoT meditations build as a more mobile bruiser than DH - DH is regarded as a noob-killer because it's often fairly simple to predict the traps and mitigate them, which won't be so simple with WB stuff. I don't expect people to stand in willbender flames in competitive,  but good balancing can account for that. In PvE, a lot of bosses are fairly sessile and that rewards traps - however, I think willbender could thrive in encounters that do reward a little more mobility, and as long as the DPS values are comparable, it should be a viable alternative for people who grow bored of DH and want to do something else without switching  character or equipment.

 

Ultimately, it's a question of balancing. Beta Willbender was clearly underpowered.

[otto.5684]

4 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think there is. The main problems are mostly numbers tuning, including reducing some of the skill activation times and aftercasts. Contrary to a claim posted earlier in this thread, willbender DOES have a passive 25% speed boost (it's the master minor trait), and can probably maintain permanent Swiftness with the right trait selection.

 

The main competition is obviously DH. In PvP, I think it has a distinct potential to become the replacement of the pre-HoT meditations build as a more mobile bruiser than DH - DH is regarded as a noob-killer because it's often fairly simple to predict the traps and mitigate them, which won't be so simple with WB stuff. I don't expect people to stand in willbender flames in competitive,  but good balancing can account for that. In PvE, a lot of bosses are fairly sessile and that rewards traps - however, I think willbender could thrive in encounters that do reward a little more mobility, and as long as the DPS values are comparable, it should be a viable alternative for people who grow bored of DH and want to do something else without switching  character or equipment.

 

Ultimately, it's a question of balancing. Beta Willbender was clearly underpowered.

If there is passive movement trait, I missed it. The main issue is that it has no different gameplay. It is a very slightly different power build. Between it core and DH, there is one utility that is different in pve. Main weapons still DH and sword. And off sword is still a maybe, and it is a copy+paste from off hand rev sword. Even if WB can ends up leading in damage, it still is the same 6 years old build. I have no interest in rehashed content.

[draxynnic.3719]

9 minutes ago, otto.5684 said:

If there is passive movement trait, I missed it. The main issue is that it has no different gameplay. It is a very slightly different power build. Between it core and DH, there is one utility that is different in pve. Main weapons still DH and sword. And off sword is still a maybe, and it is a copy+paste from off hand rev sword. Even if WB can ends up leading in damage, it still is the same 6 years old build. I have no interest in rehashed content.

You did miss it. Go and check the Wiki. It's the master minor. I'd give you the link but I'm on my phone.

 

I'd say that the differences in virtues are significant enough even if the weapons and utilities for the optimum PvE DPS build remains the same. Willbender also has more potential to use all of their Virtues offensively, and on shorter ranges. If you don't want to be an obligatory melee build, it might also make sw/sw and sc/f a viable alternative setup, especially if the damage on offhand sword gets tuned up.

 

It might not be different enough for your liking, but I think there is definite potential for some people to enjoy it more than DH even if they have similar roles in PvE.

[otto.5684]

4 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

You did miss it. Go and check the Wiki. It's the master minor. I'd give you the link but I'm on my phone.

 

I'd say that the differences in virtues are significant enough even if the weapons and utilities for the optimum PvE DPS build remains the same. Willbender also has more potential to use all of their Virtues offensively, and on shorter ranges. If you don't want to be an obligatory melee build, it might also make sw/sw and sc/f a viable alternative setup, especially if the damage on offhand sword gets tuned up.

 

It might not be different enough for your liking, but I think there is definite potential for some people to enjoy it more than DH even if they have similar roles in PvE.

I am sure it will have some appeal. However, compare it with FB from a design standpoint. FB added significant amount of gameplay and options, between damage and support. WB offers maybe 10% of that value? Guardian is getting  shafted hard here. This feels more like a fan project design, not a new elite spec from Anet. 

[draxynnic.3719]

17 minutes ago, otto.5684 said:

I am sure it will have some appeal. However, compare it with FB from a design standpoint. FB added significant amount of gameplay and options, between damage and support. WB offers maybe 10% of that value? Guardian is getting  shafted hard here. This feels more like a fan project design, not a new elite spec from Anet. 

Firebrand brought so much to the table - enhanced condition damage, enhanced healing and protective support, team permanent quickness - that I don't think it's realistic to regard it as a baseline expectation. About the only things that guardian didn't have after firebrand are stealth, mobility, and team alacrity. Stealth on guardian probably isn't happening. Willbender brings mobility. While I doubt it will happen, with a tweak to how Battle Presence and Phoenix Protocol interact it could provide Alacrity as well.

 

In short, though, Firebrand was one of the most profession-changing elite specialisations in the game. I don't think 'not getting a second Firebrand' is an indication that guardian is being shafted. Several professions are still waiting for their FIRST Firebrand.

[Buran.3796]

  I still don't understand how most of the movement skills have so random range numbers (F skills are 450, 450 and 600, sword #5 is 500, physical abilities are 300, 600 and 900...   ). They are a mesh, even without counting that most of them have long pauses either before or after the movement which entirely breaks the flow....

   Then in the root is the problem that WB tries to be a sort of "single target assassin" but as dueling build deals less damage than core Guardian and in order to scale your damage and skill synergies you need to hit multiple ofoes which is the opposite of what the specialization is mean to do and which will end with you curbstomped in PvP/WvW.

[cat.8975]

As someone that did t4+cms ~14-15 times during the beta, I think WB will be fine if they tune some numbers and maybe tweak an animation or two.

It's not as fundamentally flawed as the people on this forum or reddit want you to believe. People need to stop pretending to be experts with these new elite specs when they've played them for less than 10 hours.

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by cat.8975

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, cat.8975 said:

As someone that did t4+cms ~14-15 times during the beta, I think WB will be fine if they tune some numbers and maybe tweak an animation or two.

It's not as fundamentally flawed as the people on this forum or reddit want you to believe. People need to stop pretending to be experts with these new elite specs when they've played them for less than 10 hours.

 

I think it also suffers from being the worst of the first. Virtuoso has some issues but was reasonably functional in my messing around (perhaps not as optimised for sPvP as traditional mesmer since it's weaker on conditions and has less spike potential on power, but nevertheless functional enough) and harbinger was if anything a little overtuned. Willbender, however, was notably undertuned both compared to Harbinger and Virtuoso and compared to existing builds.

 

I think it's actually in better shape than any of the second set of elites (Bladesworn's ridiculous damage in PvE that will never be allowed in competitive notwithstanding). Willbender performed about as well, if not somewhat better, than Vindicator - let alone the other two - in my lobby tests, and it doesn't have the serious design flaws that the Beta 2 specs had, it was just undertuned.

 

Problem is that we didn't test it side by side with the Beta 2 specs, but instead had a month of the community gestalt being 'Willbender is the worst of the elite specs which is all glass and no cannon' before Beta 2 even hit. Personally, though, I'm seeing a lot of potential synergies and buildcraft with core guardian to potentially play around with once the numbers and animations get a bit more tuning.

[Ezrael.6859]

10 hours ago, cat.8975 said:

As someone that did t4+cms ~14-15 times during the beta, I think WB will be fine if they tune some numbers and maybe tweak an animation or two.

It's not as fundamentally flawed as the people on this forum or reddit want you to believe. People need to stop pretending to be experts with these new elite specs when they've played them for less than 10 hours.

 

Ok PvEasy.

[Buran.3796]

On 11/8/2021 at 10:23 PM, cat.8975 said:

As someone that did t4+cms ~14-15 times during the beta, I think WB will be fine if they tune some numbers and maybe tweak an animation or two.

It's not as fundamentally flawed as the people on this forum or reddit want you to believe.

 

   Of course will be fine in a game mode that doesn't demand mobility and you can run a build with very little connection with the skills and weapon skills of the spec. At the end, in fractals you are just running a core Guard replacing the virtues and with a different traitline. But the problem is that the spec won't outpace other Guardian specs in PvE, and in PvP/WvW, where the enhancements in mobility would made the spec juicy, just falls behind anything Guardians already have.

   Also don't agree with Draxynnic in PvP: in those game modes both Bladesworn and Vindicator (no matter the damage) had huge sustain compared to the Willbender. Of course not using the pistol (in the case of BS) or The Alliance (in the case of the Vindicator) which are mostly useless.

   Being said that, I don't think that Willbender is the worst spec in the expansion;  I find hard to discern between WB, Catalyst and Untamed in that race to the bottom...

[otto.5684]

On 11/8/2021 at 4:23 PM, cat.8975 said:

As someone that did t4+cms ~14-15 times during the beta, I think WB will be fine if they tune some numbers and maybe tweak an animation or two.

It's not as fundamentally flawed as the people on this forum or reddit want you to believe. People need to stop pretending to be experts with these new elite specs when they've played them for less than 10 hours.

 

You are missing the point here. The issue is not that it is not viable or it does not have the damage. These things will be ironed out before release. The issue that it is awfully redundant. Nearly identical game play to DH and core power builds. And the only real variation, off sword, is copy pasted from rev.

 

15 hours ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

Ok PvEasy.

PvP has been dead for a long time now. And power guardian is exceptionally bad, outside of troll trapper DH. And even that does not work against skilled players. The issue is not WB, and no modifications to WB would make it competitive.

[draxynnic.3719]

5 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

   Of course will be fine in a game mode that doesn't demand mobility and you can run a build with very little connection with the skills and weapon skills of the spec. At the end, in fractals you are just running a core Guard replacing the virtues and with a different traitline. But the problem is that the spec won't outpace other Guardian specs in PvE, and in PvP/WvW, where the enhancements in mobility would made the spec juicy, just falls behind anything Guardians already have.

   Also don't agree with Draxynnic in PvP: in those game modes both Bladesworn and Vindicator (no matter the damage) had huge sustain compared to the Willbender. Of course not using the pistol (in the case of BS) or The Alliance (in the case of the Vindicator) which are mostly useless.

   Being said that, I don't think that Willbender is the worst spec in the expansion;  I find hard to discern between WB, Catalyst and Untamed in that race to the bottom...

There's a bit of an inconsistency in saying that Willbender isn't different enough to core guardian, while excusing Vindicator on the basis that you should stick to the core legends. Bladesworn in PvP is even worse - using Dragon Trigger as intended is never going to give you a payoff that justifies being still for 2.5-5 seconds, even with a couple of aegis procs and short-range blinks. Anybody making Bladesworn work in PvP balance conditions is doing so in spite of the core mechanic being inherently unbalanceable in competitive modes if used as designed. 

 

My experience was that the three felt like they were about even, with Bladesworn being a little behind (but I didn't think to try the one-or-two-pip-only Dragon Slash technique until it was too late - I did try a no-Dragon-Trigger-at-all technique which performed better than using Dragon Trigger as intended). For Willbender, however, I think it was clearly undertuned and some of the skills were too slow to complete for the role it was intended to perform, but it doesn't have the structural problems that Bladesworn and Vindicator have.

 

Also, for the record, Catalyst is clearly the worst. Both undertuned AND terrible mechanics.

[Sonork.2916]

At least most other classes got some new mechanics to play with.  Willbender is just the exact same guardian, but with no virtue passives, weaker virtue actives and paired with a terrible trait-line.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Sonork.2916

[oscuro.9720]

2 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

There's a bit of an inconsistency in saying that Willbender isn't different enough to core guardian, while excusing Vindicator on the basis that you should stick to the core legends. Bladesworn in PvP is even worse - using Dragon Trigger as intended is never going to give you a payoff that justifies being still for 2.5-5 seconds, even with a couple of aegis procs and short-range blinks. Anybody making Bladesworn work in PvP balance conditions is doing so in spite of the core mechanic being inherently unbalanceable in competitive modes if used as designed. 

 

My experience was that the three felt like they were about even, with Bladesworn being a little behind (but I didn't think to try the one-or-two-pip-only Dragon Slash technique until it was too late - I did try a no-Dragon-Trigger-at-all technique which performed better than using Dragon Trigger as intended). For Willbender, however, I think it was clearly undertuned and some of the skills were too slow to complete for the role it was intended to perform, but it doesn't have the structural problems that Bladesworn and Vindicator have.

 

Also, for the record, Catalyst is clearly the worst. Both undertuned AND terrible mechanics.

I can speak a bit to this maybe; bladesworn functioned best as a 1 charge function in the beta, abusing the dash for its stun and gap-creation. If you played a decent bit of bladesworn, you would most likely agree that gunblade functioned best in mid range using 3/4 skills and break step to kite. If the fight lasted long enough, the opponent would then be dodging based on the timing for 1 charge, allowing you to wait and charge 3-5 and land a longer stun. That’s when I really felt the gameplay was quite enjoyable. 
I played about 18 hours of bladesworn and a bit over 12 hours of will bender in competitive modes, and I, personally, found a lot more success on Blade than any espec except harbinger and mechanist (admittedly didn’t try specter). It definitely felt markedly better than quite a few I’ve tried, namely willbender and catalyst. 

[Buran.3796]

18 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

There's a bit of an inconsistency in saying that Willbender isn't different enough to core guardian, while excusing Vindicator on the basis that you should stick to the core legends. Bladesworn in PvP is even worse - using Dragon Trigger as intended is never going to give you a payoff that justifies being still for 2.5-5 seconds, even with a couple of aegis procs and short-range blinks. Anybody making Bladesworn work in PvP balance conditions is doing so in spite of the core mechanic being inherently unbalanceable in competitive modes if used as designed. 

 

   In PvP/WvW Bladesworn works ignoring the full charge of the new burst/mechanic, and just spamming Dragon Trigger at minimum charge. Enough to outclass other Warrior builds? Time will tell, but Warrior isn't in the best shape currently, so anything new is wellcomed. The main drawback is that is very difficult to make iterations of the Bladesworn: the class itself limits enormusly the weapon integration, a feat of the Warrior, and leaves very few weapons to combo with the gunsaber to get something viable. This also happens with some traitlines, which benefits weapon swaping and now became utterly useless.

   The Vindicator will be very close to the core Rev in legends and traitlines, but the new weapon seems useful and not expendable as Willbender's off hand sword, and the new evade mechanic will make jump evades way more spammy than regular evades (because between Unwavering Avoidance and Song of the Arboreum they will have perma vigor, and is a 25% enhanced vigor).  I think that a scenario with lots of "kanf¡garoos" with broken sustain is possible if the Vindicator is not managed carefully.

    Is also imposrtant to note the Revenant was never "a core class": was released with the Herald spec, which ouperformed core for years, and then Renegade was released (which is even stronger at PvE). Only recently the core buffs made it interesting for non mainstream players. So even if the Vindicator shares a lot with core Rev, the truth is that most of players didn't play core Rev in any game mode: is not met at anything, whereas power Herald is meta in PvP and WvW and condi Renegade absolutely curbstomps PvE. A power Vindicator with heavy AoE strike damage is something unheard in the Rev comunity of players.

   I'm not sure about the ability of the current Willbender to being a thing: obviously won't be a meta support (which current core Guard is), and I don't think that would outpace condi/power core Guardian or power DH in PvE or competitive game modes. Felt to me like the glasscannon downstate memed from the Ele (but at least with Weaper you can achieve damage and sustain).

   Anyway, I'm heading to try the new specs again in the 4th beta, this time with a more clear vision of their abilities and weakness.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Buran.3796 said:

   In PvP/WvW Bladesworn works ignoring the full charge of the new burst/mechanic, and just spamming Dragon Trigger at minimum charge. Enough to outclass other Warrior builds? Time will tell, but Warrior isn't in the best shape currently, so anything new is wellcomed. The main drawback is that is very difficult to make iterations of the Bladesworn: the class itself limits enormusly the weapon integration, a feat of the Warrior, and leaves very few weapons to combo with the gunsaber to get something viable. This also happens with some traitlines, which benefits weapon swaping and now became utterly useless.

   The Vindicator will be very close to the core Rev in legends and traitlines, but the new weapon seems useful and not expendable as Willbender's off hand sword, and the new evade mechanic will make jump evades way more spammy than regular evades (because between Unwavering Avoidance and Song of the Arboreum they will have perma vigor, and is a 25% enhanced vigor).  I think that a scenario with lots of "kanf¡garoos" with broken sustain is possible if the Vindicator is not managed carefully.

    Is also imposrtant to note the Revenant was never "a core class": was released with the Herald spec, which ouperformed core for years, and then Renegade was released (which is even stronger at PvE). Only recently the core buffs made it interesting for non mainstream players. So even if the Vindicator shares a lot with core Rev, the truth is that most of players didn't play core Rev in any game mode: is not met at anything, whereas power Herald is meta in PvP and WvW and condi Renegade absolutely curbstomps PvE. A power Vindicator with heavy AoE strike damage is something unheard in the Rev comunity of players.

   I'm not sure about the ability of the current Willbender to being a thing: obviously won't be a meta support (which current core Guard is), and I don't think that would outpace condi/power core Guardian or power DH in PvE or competitive game modes. Felt to me like the glasscannon downstate memed from the Ele (but at least with Weaper you can achieve damage and sustain).

   Anyway, I'm heading to try the new specs again in the 4th beta, this time with a more clear vision of their abilities and weakness.

 

Let's assume a properly balanced Willbender, since obviously if the numbers are bad it's not going to achieve much of anything.

 

In a PvE environment, I'd expect it to be used over Dragonhunter in situations where you're willing to give up a bit of potential damage for mobility. Dragonhunter is fairly reliant on the enemy sitting in fields for its damage skills to get maximum effect - Willbender less so, especially if you run Restorative Virtues and thus can freely overlay one virtue use with another if the fight moves. It also has the potential to bring a lot of CC in utility skills, which DH doesn't really - DH has the pull on F1 and the elite trap, but both are on pretty long cooldowns. Offhand sword is also a purely offensive melee offhand, so a properly balanced offhand sword should offer more power damage than any of the existing guardian offhands.

 

In a competitive environment, it should be possible for a properly balanced Willbender to be more survivable and have more chase potential than a DH or core guardian. DHs and core burn guardians are already a bit glassy once you get through their blocks and invulnerabilities: they usually win fights by killing the enemy faster than they get killed themselves (something that willbender had trouble with during the beta due to undertuned numbers). DH, in particular, is known as a noob killer because a lot of its damage potential is reliant on the enemy triggering and staying in its traps, and it can't really do much against an enemy who refuses to play that game.

 

So what does the Willbender have? It has more ability to stick to a target when it wants to (most targets probably won't stay in the Willbender Flames, but they don't do much damage anyway - proper balancing of the Willbender in competitive modes shouldn't assume that the flames are doing much at all). It also has disengages, something with people who only play guardian in PvP probably aren't used to thinking of as an element of survivability, but which is actually very important if used well. This mobility also potentially allows Willbender to potentially act as a roamer (the recharges on virtues are low enough that using them to move between points isn't handicapping you too much), which puts it more in the role of a +1er like thief, mesmer, or ranger, rather than playing the same way as a traditional guardian.

 

Properly built, I think it also has potential to build for durability. Go selfish with Boon Pact or Conceited Curate - you're not focusing on supporting allies anyway. Apart from F3, and the increased healing DH gets on F2 (a bit of a double-edged sword, since dragonhunter F2 can be interrupted), Willbender has the potential to bring pretty much all the same self-sustain options as the other guardian builds. Willbender F3 even has the potential to be improved sustainability, especially if supported by the right traits (not Deathless Courage, that's a deathtrap) - it's got a shorter base recharge than core Courage, and potentially offers multiple Aegisis when activated instead of just one, and can be combined with Virtues and Vanguard Tactics for high uptime of defensive boons, Pure of Heart to add heals to the mix, Valor for more benefits on Aegis (could be interesting to see if it actually makes Tenacious Defence worthwhile) or Zeal for even more boons and Shattered Aegis proccing more Aegis (assuming they don't destroy that synergy). Obviously, you won't be able to get all of those going at once due to only having two core traitlines, but it does say something about how many potential synergies Willbender has with core guardian traits when just one feature of Willbender can synergise well with four of the five core traitlines. There's a lot of potential buildcraft in there before we really know what a properly balanced Willbender is capable of.

 

Obviously, none of this matters when animations are too long so that mobility isn't actually there in practice, and numbers are low enough that you don't get the payoff you'd expect (people pretty much immediately picking that you'd probably still want focus over OH sword for power damage indicates a problem). But the problems do seem to be primarily a matter of tweaking the numbers and speeding up the animations. It doesn't have Vindicator's problem of its damaging elite being locked behind what could easily be a suicide button, or Bladesworn's problem of being built around a mechanic that just doesn't work as designed in competitive modes and which is better used as a clunky burst skill. 

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

If Anet is going to fix this thing, they're going to have to give it some really high coefficients.  All number tweaking aside, the biggest issue with Willbender conceptually is that it has nothing to do with all of that mobility.  Willbenders charge forth with great enthusiasm only to immediately die to enemies that are more durable and have more damage.  It's easy to forget because of all the blocks and reflects and stuff, but statistically the Guardian is the third most frail profession in the game, only being slightly more durable than the thief and elementalist.  That isn't the only issue.  Sit back and think about how all the other "mobile" professions work in this game.  Or rather... read about it because I'm the one writing this:

• Elementalist:  These usually just kite with the scepter or dive-bomb with the sword or the dagger.  In WvW the weaver's able to throw out haymakers left and right, and the self-sustain + barrier the profession gets is pretty strong.
• Thief:  Most builds abuse stealth to always fight at advantageous distances, either kiting with pistol/rifle, or dive bombing with dagger or staff.  Stealth usually means a free hit, which is why it gets used so often.  Evasion spamming sword builds are rarely used.
• Mesmer: Spends almost all of its time running away, opting to use Greatsword, Scepter or Staff for damage.  Sword is used mostly for utility... as an escape tool.  Axe is rarely seen due to nerfs.

The same thing shows up each time: either the profession kites and engages with ranged weapons, or they use hit and run tactics with high damaging skills.  On rare occasion (celestial weaver, sword thief, axe mirage) will they use a lot of active defenses to try and brute-force through enemy attacks.  This is where the fundamental problem with the Willbender lies: currently it does neither of these things. 

The only ranged weapon options are scepter and staff, which are both notoriously bad in PVP/WvW.  They don't do good damage, their projectiles are extremely slow, and their only real use is in immobilizing people during fights.  In contrast, the Dragonhunter has the longbow, which is quite competent for a weapon.  The Firebrand used to cheat through this limitation by using Eternal Armory, but once that trait was nerfed the FB became limited to support roles or zerg-bombing.  Because of all this, "kiting" isn't much of an option for Willbender.  It lets the opponent shoot the Willbender in the back while getting all of skills off CD.

The Willbender isn't much good at dive-bomb tactics, either.  Most of the damage that Guardian has is on the symbols, or whirling wrath.  All of the symbol skills and Whirling Wrath are easily countered by... stepping out of the clearly defined damage zone.  Aside from those, the strong core utilities are Mighty Blow, Zealots Defense, and Ray of Judgement in the scale 1.8 range.  That's one per weapon, which isn't that good at downing people.  Interestingly enough, the current skill coefficients for the Willbender's utilities are the highest out of all of the non-symbol skills, and this still wasn't enough to make them do well.  That is because of the third reason.

The Willbender sacrifices a lot of defense for its mobility.  The passive Aegis is gone, the instantaneous Aegis is gone, the Virtue healing is gone, and the sword off-hand has no defense.  The biggest issue with putting all of the damage in the physical utilities is that the utilities are used mainly for defensive reasons on the Guardian.  It's the same reason why you see one, maybe two traps on Dragonhunter: that space is reserved for shouts and cleanses.  This creates a catch-22 where the Willbender either doesn't have the offense to down somebody, or they don't have the defense to survive.

Put all of this together, and you get a mobile profession that can't make use of kiting, is very frail, and can't rapidly burst people down.  Because if all this, I don't see much use for Willbender in WvW or PvP.  On the PVE side, I don't see Willbender offering much that Dragonhunter doesn't.  Over there, enemies will stand in symbols, traps, and whirling wrath, so the Willbender doesn't provide much by way of superior offensive options.  

Edited November 11, 2021 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493

[draxynnic.3719]

I'm going to pull you up on the 'sacrifices defence for mobility'.

 

Courage on core guardian with Virtues is, at most, two Aegis per 30 seconds or so, and that's if you use the active use right after the passive procs and you've taken the grandmaster that boosts Courage (which is common in competitive but not always the case for burn guardians). Willbender, on the other hand, can potentially get multiple Aegis from a single Courage, especially if combined with multihit skills.

 

Similarly, Flowing Resolve only needs a couple of procs to offer comparable healing to active use of regular Resolve, and it offers an evade and a disengage as well.

 

The problem is that these skills came preloaded with aggressive skill splits. Flowing Resolve has a 50% increase in cooldown. Crashing Courage is close to double. Reducing those cooldowns will substantially improve durability and the benefits gained from related traits... and that's part of the undertuning I've been talking about. Otherwise, it probably is going to need to continue to use some core slot skills for self-sustain... but that's competitive modes in general, and guardian does have fairly good self-sustain utilities. It might end up being more like a blurring inscriptions mesmer than a quick gank thief, in that it's more of a mobile duellist than a +1er, but that's still a useful role. 

 

Scepter isn't as bad as you claim (although it isn't the primary damage choice either) - used properly, it can offer some pressure at around a 400-500 distance. 

 

As for PvE: Some bosses stand still and can be Dragonhuntered. Some move around a lot, though, or have mechanics that require a lot of movement, and I think Willbender has the potential to pull ahead there.

 

[Joxer.6024]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

 As for PvE: Some bosses stand still and can be Dragonhuntered. Some move around a lot, though, or have mechanics that require a lot of movement, and I think Willbender has the potential to pull ahead there.

 

That's what I like to hear!  All this PVP talk is great info but as I don't do that, its the PVE use that intrigues me and one can but hope...  😉 

[Aeolus.3615]

On 10/31/2021 at 11:58 PM, Buran.3796 said:

   In PvE seems worse than Firebrand, DH or core. In PvP Firebrand is garbage, so maybe could be... third? Most probably bottom tier along FB.

 

for pve i liked the mace/shield + hammer full  diviner, hammer felt pretty good to rotate with the KB and  rush to target to another KD or a ward CC ring from hammer 5 to a leap that KD.

Edited November 11, 2021 by Aeolus.3615

[oscuro.9720]

12 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

If Anet is going to fix this thing, they're going to have to give it some really high coefficients.  All number tweaking aside, the biggest issue with Willbender conceptually is that it has nothing to do with all of that mobility.  Willbenders charge forth with great enthusiasm only to immediately die to enemies that are more durable and have more damage.  It's easy to forget because of all the blocks and reflects and stuff, but statistically the Guardian is the third most frail profession in the game, only being slightly more durable than the thief and elementalist.  That isn't the only issue.  Sit back and think about how all the other "mobile" professions work in this game.  Or rather... read about it because I'm the one writing this:

• Elementalist:  These usually just kite with the scepter or dive-bomb with the sword or the dagger.  In WvW the weaver's able to throw out haymakers left and right, and the self-sustain + barrier the profession gets is pretty strong.
• Thief:  Most builds abuse stealth to always fight at advantageous distances, either kiting with pistol/rifle, or dive bombing with dagger or staff.  Stealth usually means a free hit, which is why it gets used so often.  Evasion spamming sword builds are rarely used.
• Mesmer: Spends almost all of its time running away, opting to use Greatsword, Scepter or Staff for damage.  Sword is used mostly for utility... as an escape tool.  Axe is rarely seen due to nerfs.

The same thing shows up each time: either the profession kites and engages with ranged weapons, or they use hit and run tactics with high damaging skills.  On rare occasion (celestial weaver, sword thief, axe mirage) will they use a lot of active defenses to try and brute-force through enemy attacks.  This is where the fundamental problem with the Willbender lies: currently it does neither of these things. 

The only ranged weapon options are scepter and staff, which are both notoriously bad in PVP/WvW.  They don't do good damage, their projectiles are extremely slow, and their only real use is in immobilizing people during fights.  In contrast, the Dragonhunter has the longbow, which is quite competent for a weapon.  The Firebrand used to cheat through this limitation by using Eternal Armory, but once that trait was nerfed the FB became limited to support roles or zerg-bombing.  Because of all this, "kiting" isn't much of an option for Willbender.  It lets the opponent shoot the Willbender in the back while getting all of skills off CD.

The Willbender isn't much good at dive-bomb tactics, either.  Most of the damage that Guardian has is on the symbols, or whirling wrath.  All of the symbol skills and Whirling Wrath are easily countered by... stepping out of the clearly defined damage zone.  Aside from those, the strong core utilities are Mighty Blow, Zealots Defense, and Ray of Judgement in the scale 1.8 range.  That's one per weapon, which isn't that good at downing people.  Interestingly enough, the current skill coefficients for the Willbender's utilities are the highest out of all of the non-symbol skills, and this still wasn't enough to make them do well.  That is because of the third reason.

The Willbender sacrifices a lot of defense for its mobility.  The passive Aegis is gone, the instantaneous Aegis is gone, the Virtue healing is gone, and the sword off-hand has no defense.  The biggest issue with putting all of the damage in the physical utilities is that the utilities are used mainly for defensive reasons on the Guardian.  It's the same reason why you see one, maybe two traps on Dragonhunter: that space is reserved for shouts and cleanses.  This creates a catch-22 where the Willbender either doesn't have the offense to down somebody, or they don't have the defense to survive.

Put all of this together, and you get a mobile profession that can't make use of kiting, is very frail, and can't rapidly burst people down.  Because if all this, I don't see much use for Willbender in WvW or PvP.  On the PVE side, I don't see Willbender offering much that Dragonhunter doesn't.  Over there, enemies will stand in symbols, traps, and whirling wrath, so the Willbender doesn't provide much by way of superior offensive options.  

Comically, in wvw, I had no issues with sustain. The high mobility let me kite easily when I was low, recover and re-engage. The mobility is, in and of itself, a form of sustain. The big problem, which you pointed out, is that it was next to impossible to deal damage. If you try to fight as traditional core does, the loss of instant cast blind+resolution (for the damage boost), aegis, and clears makes it feel like a nerfed version of core. If you choose to fight as a high-mobility class leveraging the numerous dashes and ports, you won’t do damage.