Willbender. Thoughts, PvP Edition

[Math.5123]

After having played almost exclusively Willbender since release (Aside from 1 AT finals and testing abilities on other specs) I was thinking of sharing my thoughts, my pros and cons and sharing my idea for potential class growth.

Willbender is insanely fun to play. While it's not anywhere near meta-worthy right now, I have been enjoying the game more so than I have in the past 4 years. (Last time being 2018 hammer Guard).
A few issues I have with it is that it was sold as a "hypermobile dps variant of Guard". And while it most definitely have a lot of mobility for being a Guardian, it's honestly not really up there with many of the already existing specs. I can barely catch Holo with Superspeed, I can't disengage anything Shiro. Spectre runs (ports) circles around me. I would say it matches Harbinger. 

What I would do to fix this is increasing the distance traveled on your F2 from 450 up to 900. It's still a defensive cooldown you'd use for mobility and it's not a Z-Axis port. Also making the Sword 5 a 450 range charge into a 450 range port. Instead of it being a 600 range charge and a 200ish range port. It fails to connect a lot currently.
I would also up the range of Sword 4 to 220. (Same as Maul, Ranger GS2)

Another glaring issue Willbender has is an almost complete lack of soft CC. You have a 1 second Immobilize on your Sword 5. You have no access to chill, no access to cripple. Not on a single weapon. (Apart from traited hammer)
This means Willbender can't keep up and chase targets down. (See Herald) 
Immobilize being your only soft CC sounds good, if Immobilize actually did anything anymore. You still can't catch half of the classes due to an EXTREME amount of soft CC cleanse on a handful of classes. Holo, Daredevil, Mirage, Vindicator can all remove it on a sub 10 second cooldown or just completely dodge while having it on anyway reducing your effective lockdown potential to Zero. 

Another issue is sustain. 
You give up almost all sustain a Core Guardian has built in. You lose the Condition cleanse on your F2, you lose your 2k+ heal on your F2. You lose access to instant cast blinds on your F1. You lose access to passive and instant cast Aegis on your F3. 
What do you get in return? Active virtues that can trigger multiple times.
To get the 2k heal from your F2, you would need to hit enemies 15 times within 5 seconds. This is pretty unrealistic vs actual people, especially considering my previous points of you having no way to lock down your adversaries. Same goes for Aegis, you need to hit your enemy 5 times in order to block a singular attack in return. 
The reward for landing your hits just aren't there as of right now. Maybe adding Protection to proc on your F3 in addition to Aegis would work. Maybe adding the 2 self condition cleanse to every 5 hits of F2 would help you not fall over vs condition heavy specs would do wonders. I honestly don't know. But you need something in return for giving up what could be a defensive trait-line and all your innate defense, and being an 11k health spec with VERY little boon access.

Willbender Flames and Virtue stances. As a Willbender, your virtues turns into stances and lets you put down flames on usage. F1 makes a claw shape, F2 makes a thin like and F3 being shaped like a symbol. These tick for about 550-600 damage on a Medium golem using every damage modifier (including a 100% damage buff on the flames themselves) and berserker amulet. They are stationary and borderline impossible to hit someone with. (See statement about lack of lockdown)

Upon using a virtue you enter the stance of said virtue. F1 triggering burning every 5 hits, F2 healing and F3 granting 1 stack of Stability and 1 Aegis for 4 seconds. Upon usage of a secondary Virtue, you lose the stance of the first one meaning you get punished for using F2 to evade something after having ported in with your F3 for example. This should NOT be a thing. If you decide to use both defensive stances at the same time, you should be able to do so. You're burning your resources faster, in turn to granting you more sustain. This is like having a class cleansing their own protection whenever they use a healing skill.


My fix to Willbender Flames would be to have them follow you around (make them tick almost no damage) just to help you trigger as many hits as possible, to alleviate the issue of triggering your Virtues more than once. 
This would mean you need to rework the trait Searing Pact, as pulsing burning around you is extremely unhealthy. 

Closing words
I think the class has potential to be something great one day, but it needs too much to be able to compete right now. I will get around to posting an in-depth post of specific changes I think Willbender needs to be able to compete. It also needs other classes to be straight up nerfed. Like Daredevil. It's currently the single hardest counter any Guardian build has ever had. You literally can't touch it.
Please feel free to leave your feedback and thoughts.
 

Edited March 16, 2022 by Math.5123

[Terrorhuz.4695]

I like what I read.

Another thing I'd add is... what's the deal with the AoE on willbender virtues? I can literally walk through them without getting hit because the boxes are so small and disconnected, what's the reason for this.

[Saiyan.1704]

13 hours ago, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

I like what I read.

Another thing I'd add is... what's the deal with the AoE on willbender virtues? I can literally walk through them without getting hit because the boxes are so small and disconnected, what's the reason for this.

The ability to never land Willbender Flames has been an issue since beta. It's so bad that here's almost no reason to prioritize your utility skills to solely activate F1/F2/F3 abilities, other than maybe F3... which actually got nerfed (shattered aegis).  Anet forgot how to separate wvw/pvp balance. They haven't learned from the terrible decisions they did to Firebrand.

[Vancho.8750]

Another issue is that if you queue as Windblower there is a big chance the other team gets the best current support Core guardian, great chance that your team does not have support this way and the other team wins by comp since for the core guardian Windblower is just another ganker. Basically you are forcing people to carry you and maybe switch their build so your team has a support, the problem is that the game tries to match it by profession and not by position.  

If you want to play Windblower is way better to queue as something else and switch after so you don't self counter yourself with core support guardian.

[Gundam Style.8495]

Nerf daredevil because it counters willbender? Wasn't or isn't there like a guardian spec that is the absolute counter to daredevil? What is that spec? Play that one. We don't need more nerfs to old classes, just look at balancing the news ones so they can be fair or have a place. And someone was saying that its the golds and silvers asking for nerfs. Are you not plat 2-3 just on willbender  exclusively?  It seems like it can operate to pretty high up the board, and perhaps you are asking for the wrong things. Change your specilizations for sustain. But, I am guessing you are running zerk with vitality gm traitline and another is dps. How about posting your build?

 

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by Gundam Style.8495

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

21 hours ago, Math.5123 said:

I think the class has potential to be something great one day

Dont worry, they will turn willbender into a dps/boon support hybrid 2 years from now.

[Arken.3725]

I agree with pretty much everything stated.  It takes A LOT more than what's suggested to help but it would help.

[Gwaihir.1745]

Another thing to mention is the hot garbage that flash combo is. Only 900 range, 3/4s cast time, ONLY gain repose to teleport back if all 5 attacks hit, and with 3.2k power it routinely hit for 400-800 a hit like a limp noodle. All 5 attacks will rarely hit in pve, much less pvp/wvw. You cant combo it since its its own attack. It has a massive aftercast where you cant do anything after casting. Useless.

[Sovarica.4368]

3 Utils that suck and traits that suck be prepared to be blamed if you play Willbender

[greedywholesome.9081]

I congratulate the OP for putting effort in a spec most ppl believe to be brokenly underpowered. People like these are rare. I'm kind of the same way for playing Catalyst 20+ matches in a row, lol - but he's on a different level. 

 

Good job Math. Discrete Mathematics FTW

[Stalima.5490]

 

 

That is all

[Math.5123]

On 3/18/2022 at 2:08 AM, Sovari.7246 said:

3 Utils that suck and traits that suck be prepared to be blamed if you play Willbender

Yeah, I've actually for the first time try to avoid getting into the "good games" whenever I queue prime time. Because I'm actually a liability to my team in p3.

 

[Bazsi.2734]

On 3/16/2022 at 5:29 PM, Math.5123 said:

A few issues I have with it is that it was sold as a "hypermobile dps variant of Guard". 

And thief was sold as a scary 1v1 opponent... what a class being sold as has almost nothing to do with what it ends up being.

 

On 3/16/2022 at 5:29 PM, Math.5123 said:

Another glaring issue Willbender has is an almost complete lack of soft CC. 

I think Willbender could(and should) be viable as spec that only employs hard CC. The kit is designed that way, it's just too weak. If willbender would have better survivability in general, it could allow itself to use the hard-CC utilities some more.

 

On 3/16/2022 at 5:29 PM, Math.5123 said:

Another issue is sustain. 

Yes, it is. You'd think that an e-spec that turns a support oriented class into something selfish would have better sustain... but for some reason willbender is the easiest to kill spec out there. I seriously do not understand how Willbender was released in this state... you actually trade your support capabilites for less sustain and damage. The tradeoff is very very clear(which is good, I like when an e-spec has one), but you get NOTHING in return.

Currently Willbender is like a harbringer but with half the health and damage. The kit looks fun, but after playing 10-15 matches on it I gave up since it's just so weak it ruins the fun for me. If it was only slightly weaker than most other builds, it would be a fun challenge to see if I can bridge the gap with personal skill, but past a certain difference it's just not fun. 

So I agree with OP that willbender looks fun, but it's so weak that for me it's unenjoyable. I'm glad we nerfed vindicator and mechanist, now buff willbendy pls.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

I have lots of fun on Willbender too. 

 

I am by no means a mster guardian, but Willbender suffers the same issue warrior has been for a long time and that's skills.

 

The heal is terrible. It needs to give much greater healing if no attack is blocked and it should provide a more proper immunity phase while blocking, whilst giving something like a greater heal and regen on low health (not lethal blow, but low health, below 50%). Lethal blow mechanics are very dumb to play with, as in competetive you don't know when the lethal blow will come unlike pve mobs. Reversal looks like such a fun heal to use and if Willbender is boosted with built-in sustain in the virtues as described in the OP, then we may see less need for Litany of Wrath and full meditation bars.

 

Really enjoying the willbender stunbreak, but it's just too much flash with little impact. Evade is too small, the blind is meh, the second attack should be a 600 range shadowstep 2 sec daze. That's personal flavour but while using this skill I realized how little it offers compared to the Meditation stunbreaks and their utility, or me needing to land the latter daze part of the skill with JI port to make sure it may land. 

 

Elite is not good enough to enable me use it instead of an Invuln that synergizes with the build and recharges the virtues (probably the spec that needs the recharge on the virtues the most). I'd actually would not mind to see an implementation of the elite in crushing courage, first hit does the dmg and then a palm falls above you which does a knockdown for 2 or 1 sec and allows you to use some followup dmg to get your defenses up.

[Gwaihir.1745]

11 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

The heal is terrible.

 

I've been doing some testing on this while watching the combat log. There are scenarios where you take the incoming hit, triggering the heal, but the attack still damages you. Not able to trigger this on a target golem so it must be a combination of events to cause this. The strike doesn't get negated; you take the damage and receive the boosted healing. Just another issue on top of the countless other ways to nullify this skill entirely.

- "negating the next incoming strike and healing you instead"