Tired Of Willbender - Get It Under Control Please - Mobility Creep Is A Problem

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

7 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

If I'm understanding your point, it's not that Willbender is necessarily unbeatable/OP, but that its existance dumbs down the game mode by restricting options down to a binary choice: Fight or Die. 

The way the matchups for Willbender generally play out is that once it engages on you, there's no point trying to run because it will catch you. Trying to run is detrimental because the time you spent running was time you could have spent counter pressuring, and unless you're a build that CAN effectively counterpressure or tank through a Willbender (like the bunker vindiator from Ragnar's example), you're boned. 

Which means that the meta would shift to include more builds like bunker vindicator that can survive a Willbender sticking to it like glue. 

This... would be an issue of a class dumbing down the game and warping the meta around it in a way that would ultimately hurt the game mode.

Exactly.

7 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I still have a few questions. Would this still be the case if there were a wider range of builds capable of beating willbender?

Even if half the builds in the game were considered counters to Willbender, the WB would still create that effect where when it engages something, that person cannot afford to run or do anything else other than drop what they are doing and engage the WB close range there on the spot. Even if they are going to win and they know they are going to win, it eliminates options as I said before to where the game play just becomes predictable and very narrow in the choices of how to play if they want to be successful. Also keep in mind though that even if that Willbender is losing to half the builds in the game that counter him, he can just gap close ground target teleport disengage if he is losing into a reset.

The disengage factor it has is another side of why this level of mobility is bad and how it can be abused. Imagine the side nodes on the Djinn map, where there are long ally ways that run alongside of each of the spawn points all the way down to touch the side nodes. Say an Ele of some type is defending a node against a Willbender. The Ele almost has the Willbender into downstate, but then the Willbender gap close/teleport disengages as far as he can up into one of the ally ways very far away from the Ele and there is no way for that Ele to chase him. The Willbender goes up there and sits until he gets a free OOC full heal and then quickly gap close/teleports right back down to re-engage the Ele again. The Ele can't do this even if he wanted to because at best he has 1x short range teleport and some of the slowest mobility in the game. So rather than chase something he knows he can never catch, the Ele choses to stand on the node and try to finish his cap. The Ele doesn't get an OOC because he's in too close of proximity to some other enemy target between the side node and mid, who tagged him earlier in a fight. Now the Willbender comes right back down with full health to re-engage the Ele again. The Willbender was only gone somewhere between 10 and 15 seconds to trigger the OOC. <- This kind of OOC reset potential has been widely accepted for Thief play for years, ONLY because Thieves can mess up once and immediately explode and die. A Guardian based class that is virtually immune to condition pressure that has everything it needs to counter-play power and be a duelist class and team fighter? I dunno man, that OOC reset potential is just too much in my opinion. The only things that could reliably chase Willbender are DP Daredevil, Power Herald, and other Willbenders. Other classes have a chance to finish the Willbender with like the one single teleport they have or gap closer, like an Untamed let's say, but if that doesn't connect, the Willbender is gone.

Now the difference between something like the Willbender and the Power Herald, is that the Power Herald has chase but he doesn't have the same disengage factor. Phase Traversal paired with Unrelenting Assault paired with Shiro, is where chase potential began to get questionable in GW2. This is where it started. But at least if he burns the Phase and burns the Assault, it can be kited and disengaged if he fails the burst. And since he can't super disengage at will, it provides room for counter-play for any class that needs to fight the Power Herald who now is on CDs for his burst and chase potential. The player can chose to stay and fight or run and regroup somewhere else. <- I feel this is a balanced version of having high chase potential to secure kills. Willbender on the other hand, can repeatedly botch gap close/teleport after gap close/teleport and still have more gap closes/teleports to burn. It doesn't really have "a burst" that can fail. It simply has a never ending cycle of massively high damage single skill use attacks. As I explained before, with this kind of consistent animation driven DPS pressure on top of someone's head with no breaks that forces them to consistently be burning all resources they have to not die, it eliminates counter-play. In some cases it is actually eliminating counter-play completely. A good example for contrast would be a Power Herald Phase Traversing into a Core Necro. The Herald surprises the Necro with a burst which hits. The Necro begins counter-playing and when he sees the Unrelenting Assault go off after the PT, he knows it's safe to drop his shroud for a moment to cycle. Now the Herald has no teleport burst potential to threaten his moment to counter-play and regroup. When he lands a fear or two on the Herald, it pushes the Herald very far away from him, which the Herald will now have to walk back to the Necro if it wants to stay in the combat. At this moment it provides options for the Herald: "Should I stay or leave vs this condi?" It also provides this moment to counter-play and out-skill the Herald because the Herald has his tele-bursting on CDs. If the Herald stays he needs to be good at walk approaching back at that Necro or he's gonna get condi bombed. This is counter-play and this is options that equate to a greater skill mastery required to play the game. However with Willbender in this scenaro vs the Core Necro, the Core Necro literally has no moment to counter-play this situation. The Willbender can stay on top of its head nearly 90% of the time while being a tank vs. condis. Even if the Necro lands a fear or two, it does not create situation for the Necro to be safe to drop his shroud to counter play, because the Willbender has a never ending cycle of gap closers/teleports. It's just always on top of the Necro's head, forcing it into a situation of trading blows at close range. Then of course this scenario results in whichever class is just attribute-designed to win that conflict. The Necro doesn't get options here, but the Willbender can be aggressive and win or immediately flee and OOC full heal and comeback if he needs to. The only player in this scenario who gets options, is the Willbender because his mobility is that much greater than the Necro. Even Flesh Wurm in this situation is not enough to get away from the Willbender.

If a build archetype does not have equal to or greater disengage to this kind of chase potential, there are no options once it engages you in combat, other than to drop what you're doing and 1v1 it on the spot, or die while trying to run. Even Thief builds are easier to disengage than Willbender. Thief builds have high mobility yes, but the way it is situated provides much more relief to be able to run and regroup somewhere or kite it if need be. Much of the Thief mobility is within the Shortbow even, which if it goes to use to keep up with you, it's dealing low damage. It also has to land those backstabs or condi bursts to really be dangerous while chasing you, which if whiffed, the Thief ends up having bad damage output. Even if the Thief is wielding SD, does that Sword#2 really do much else other than scathe you if you're running and he can't land a combo? See what I mean? This is balanced chase power. Willbender on the other hand, 90% uptime of teleporting on top of your head with nuclear AoE cleave strikes. Everything it does, even its short single swing animations, hit like a Ranger Maul in a massive AoE and chops off 50% of the health of something like a Daredevil with a single blow, and that's just the low damage stuff it's throwing around. This is all a problem because there are no margins of CD gaps for players to find a moment to have options. There are no moments like with the Power Herald, where a player who doesn't have mass stealthing & disengage, can stop and say: "Ok, am I good enough to stay and counter-play this? Or can I run to regroup?" No, the Willbender forces you to stay and engage him. Strategical options removed for anything that is not a mass stealthing machine with S+ tier mobility. Even on smaller maps, you'll usually be dead before you regroup with your team if you try to run from a Willbender.

Going back to your original question, no it wouldn't matter. It doesn't matter if the Willbender is winning or losing really, it's that Godly chase potential = forced engagement, which results in the lose of counter-play options concerning rotations.

7 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Can it still stick to its target if there is an ally/support to provide peel?

Of course it can still stick to the target if it wants to chase when the target's team is focusing the Willbender, but now he treads into dangerous choices. That just works that way with any class. Generally referred to as "when an opponent is overextending" and that opponent usually gets the called target put on his head. Willbender though, can get right out that situation just as quickly as he put himself into it though, due to all of that mobility.

But when your team lays aggression on anything that is chasing and about to kill a team mate, yes that definitely helps someone peel. Again, this just works that way with any class in any situation.

7 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

What if it was made more vulnerable to conditions or had more of a mobility trade-off for attempting to cleanse them? Something similar to my earlier suggestion. 

Your earlier suggestion wasn't bad, but I don't think it would be enough to resolve the ultimate effect I was really wanting to highlight. Your suggestion I believe would be good for the mechanical combat balance of the Willbender vs. other classes. However I do not feel it is enough of a cull to the mobility creep in general, which is distorting the purpose & dynamic of the Conquest game mode, no matter how overpowered or underpowered things may be. I really think the Willbender needs some big increases to the CDs of some of these mobility skills or possibly a cut to the RANGE of these gap closers & teleports. I would prefer elongated CDs for the reason of that example I gave about why I thought Power Herald was a balanced form of chase potential. If the Willbender had enough CD enhancements to where it would allow moments like with the Power Herald to where an opponent can say "Ok he's on gap close/tele CDs. Should I stay and fight or should I cut & run to my team now that I know I can?" <- THAT is what needs to happen. The option to be able to do that is mentally stimulating strategical play that isn't boring and predictable. It also provides that moment of counter-play where the opponent can turn a bad situation around and come back and beat the Willbender, just as described with the Necro and the Herald. As it is now, if that Willbender jumps you at the right time when you're at like 75% health, there is no moment to turn around and counter-play it. It will kill you because it never has a break in its CD cycle like the Herald or even the Thief does.

7 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Ultimately, it comes down to whether a high mobility build like Willbender can exist in a healthy manner provided that the counterplay to it is there? Or is the mobility creep too much for the game mode to handle as you've said?

It can exist in a healthy way, but I am seeing a limitation on how much mobility can be granted to ANY CLASS without breaking the Conquest game mode, and I'll explain what I mean here, and then end this enormous rant. Sorry I just wanted to be thorough so I don't need to write anything else in this thread after this post.

OK so first let me compare how the game was in year 1-3 compared to how it is now in year 10.

In the beginning, the mobility intra-class wide was roughly half of what it is now. CDs on mobility skills were longer before power creep, Swiftness durations were so so much lower and infrequent to proc, we didn't even have Super Speed yet, no ammo charges on things like Rocket Boots, and no traits granting miscellaneous 33% permanent speed buffs that can't be boon removed, and nothing like +50% movement while stealthed. The mobility was very seriously half of what it is now. The disengage potential back was also equal to or in some cases greater than chase potential. Now imagine the size of the Conquest maps, with the size that they are, your choices of where to rotate and where you dedicated your rotational time to, was really really detrimental back then. Because if you chose to try and push far in Legacy, only to find out that there was a guy there that you weren't sure if you could get off the node, it was like "man, I wasted a lot of time here, and I'm not sure if I should try to rotate to mid because that's going to take a lot more time, and I'm not even sure if my team is going to dying or winning that fight by the time I get there". Now see this is a decision making process that depends entirely upon the player's experience level in knowing the meta, his own skill level, the community players and their skill levels, paying attention to what classes are against what classes, and being able to use judgement vs time required to decide what he is going to do to make his time count. There are many options he could take in this situation and not every situation like this necessarily has a single best option to take. No matter what he does, even if it fails, disengage factor vs. chase factor being equal in these days would allow a good player who survives a 4 man team wipe to actually be able to monkey kite 4 players long enough so he can survive while waiting for his team to regroup. Not only does this "feel" better to play a game like this because it allows a good player to still be good, but it also allows that good player to do his team a great justice to draw the entire enemy team to one side of the map who is trying to kill him, so his team can actually get something done when they respawn. Back in these days it was realistic for a good player to hard carry bad games like this. In fact, due to disengage being equal to or greater than chase in those days, it allowed a losing team a better "feel" to the game while losing because even if they were losing nodes, they could at least kite around and be hard to kill. They could at least attempt to formulate ways to attempt to out-rotate a winning team who is camping nodes to attempt a weird split to get back on their feet. It "feels" better when chase is lower than disengage because the aggressive team who is winning nodes must be savvy to keep defending those nodes instead of chasing because if they begin to launch forwarding chasing aggression, it is easier to get back-capped than it is to actually chase and secure kills. The game of Conquest was in its most healthy state at this point because their were so many strategical tactics to be used to attempt to out-rotate and psychologically trick another team even if every person on that team was superior in combat to all of the people on your team. Due to the disengage being equal to or greater than chase and kills being more difficult to secure, a lopsided game back then would look like 500 to 300 and the guys who were losing could AT LEAST kite around and had options to try and pull weird rotations to launch a comeback. When players were losing games like this, even if they knew they wouldn't win, at least the game "felt" fun to play because they could at least survive through kiting away from aggression and have time and opportunity to do something, instead of being spawn camped and bursted in 2s after they come off respawn. <- This is what happens when chase potential is stronger than disengage potential. It's no wonder that the game's pvp had such a larger population back in these days. The "feel" of the dynamic was just better for newer players and even players who were losing games.

Now in year 10, everything has literally twice the mobility that it did in year 1-3. Most classes definitely have much more chase potential than they have disengage potential, due to targeted skills like Steal or JI or Phase Traversal, with reduced cool-downs. First consider the size of the Conquest maps. Players in year 10 are traversing these maps twice as fast as they did in year 1-3. Going from home to far in Legacy in year 1-3 was like a serious commitment of rotational time, which is what enabled builds like Side Node Bunkers or Side Node Duelists/Decaps to be important and a viable role to play, or even to stress the ultimate importance of having that one squishy guy that just moves really fast to + and decap, even if his class isn't strong in duels. Everything had its place in the beginning for actual purposes in the intended design. The size of those maps and the game in general was designed for a certain level of mobility so that the mode made sense. But in year 10 everything moves twice as fast as it did in year 1-3 and chase potential is just higher than disengage potential across the entire intra-class wide meta dynamic. So now let's take that exact same situation from the first example in year 1-3. Let's consider it is the same exact players playing on those two teams who still have the same difference in skill disparity between them all, with the only difference that now they are all playing with the mechanics in year 10. The guy tries to push far and realizes there is someone there that he probably won't be able to kill very quickly if he even can kill that person. He thinks to himself "No problem. Only took me 6s to get here. I'll just take 2s more to go join the mid fight" and he has absolutely no concern for what mid will look by the time he gets there because he moves so fast that his immediate assessment of mid is what it will look like when he gets there. With seriously elevated mobility making maps very easy to traverse, it is much easier to get to a team fight or to show up for a + at pretty much any time a person needs to get there. This has greatly diminished the value of the Side Node role as well as made rotational decision too lenient on when a person makes a mistake, and leaves the game mode more about just attacking people and winning fights than worrying about configuring clutch rotational plays. It's real simple, stay with your team and win fights and snowballing the map is easy AFTER the team fight is won because mobility is so high that you can triple cap or at least triple decap a map in about 15s after the big team fight is won. Very seriously, winning big team fights even if they are off node in a weird place, is by far the priority in year 10 because getting to nodes is now too easy. This did not work that way in year 1-3. Zerging around like that would get you out-rotated in year 1-3 and that felt healthy in the game mode to work that way. When things moved at half the speed in year 1-3, you couldn't just 5 man zerg a team fight and full cap a map in 15s after it ended. Typically trying to do that would just result in your team only ever having 1 node cap and the other team out-rotating you and always have 2 node caps. In year 1-3, players were forced to play the entire map and make wise decisions of how to allocate and position themselves. This was the game of Conquest and it required a more masterful sense of how all the pieces worked to be dominant in games. But in year 10 none of that matters. The only thing that matters is balling up to win team fights, and then the mobility is so high that you can easy get to the sides or whatever nodes, after that team fight, to snowball any survivors off the other 2 nodes and get full caps or at least decap, before the players even respawn man. The mobility is actually that high right now. This is why people say "We are in a team fight meta right now" and it is ALL because of what I am explaining here, mobility creep. Why in the hell would you want to side node when you can't get there longer than 10s before you get +1d or +2d right off the bat when you get there. Why wouuld you want to run a dedicated Roamer when a duel class can chase you around the map, move as quickly as you are, and prevent all your decap progress? It's just resulted in "stay together, win team fights, snowball nodes after". If you watch higher tiered players, this is primarily how the game is being played right now, and it is due to mobility creep. In year 10 there are extremely limited options in how to use rotations to counter-play a team that is stronger than you or even just equal to you because chase power transcends disengage factor. When those players in year 1-3 were losing 300 to 500, that same match would look like 30 to 500 in year 10. This is because in year 10 those aggressive players winning all of the combats can now chase harder than the losing team can kite & disengage. This is not a good "feel" for new players or losing teams in general. In contrast to the "feel" of year 1-3 where at least a losing team can kite around and stay on their feet and "feel" like they have a chance to pull something off while surviving, in year 10 they just get straight hunted and ganked in 2s when they come off respawn because there is no where to go because chase power is stronger than disengage power. It's no wonder our player base in year 10 greatly struggles. There are many reasons for a low player base but what I am explaining here has got to be one of the bigger reasons. Even veteran players "feel" this change and decide the game doesn't "feel" good anymore and they start looking for other avenues. Losing a game 300 to 500 in year 1-3 at least is something to do for 10+ minutes where you have a chance to push buttons and try to pull something for a janky clutch win even during a bad match, this is at least entertaining, and that is because disengage was equal to or greater than chase. But it just "feels" bad and boring to play a game where there isn't even a reason to leave the respawn because it is actually impossible to get past chase factor of the people spawn camping. This stuff is just not healthy for the game mode and the maps were never designed for this kind of speed in mobility.

Then of course we go back to the original point I was making about when chase is stronger than disengage, when the Willbender gets on your back, there isn't even a reason to waste motions trying to get away from it. Just use every action you take to counter-play and combat the Willbender or it will kill you before you make it to any other node or anywhere at all for that matter. Using that 1st example again from year 1-3 where the guy had lots of options when showing up to far node, in year 10 if he shows up to far node and it's a Willbender sitting on it that he knows he can't beat, welp GG, back to the spawn. He gets no options at all. The Willbender will fly off the node, glue itself to his back, and he will die before making it back to join his team for protection at mid. Not only does he not get options, but he just straight gets punished for even allowing his name bar to show on the Willbender's screen. This is not helping new players "feel" like they are having a fun time, or even old veteran players for that matter. The game mode is just dumbed down like this. It is less psychologically stimulating when the game mode just amounts down to forced engagement like this, where rotational decision making takes a backseat to just sheer mechanical combat prowess. This happens when chase factor transcends disengage factor. This is not a healthy state for the game mode to be in.

Hey, I'm a good player and I don't struggle with combat mechanics unless it is against the absolute best players in the game, so keep that in mind. What I am pointing out here is from actually having conversations with people in Discords and going out of my way to really pay attention to what is going on here in GW2. I am generally a person who tends to notice things on a more in-depth level than others with most things that I do. This thread is not an eye gouge to Willbender, it is simply to point out what mobility creep has done to the Conquest game mode. When I first wrote the post up, it came in the form of Willbender because Willbender is honestly the "too much" point. This class has set a benchmark for chase & disengage potential that just never needs to happen ever again on any class if they want to keep the integrity of the Conquest dynamic healthy.

Again, It's not just Willbender. Willbender needs some of that mobility culled, but they really should also revert some of the other mobility creep in the game in my opinion. That or at least give the classes equal disengage factors to all of this chase factor, so there are psychologically stimulating choices again, and so that losing games look more like 300 to 500 instead of 30 to 500.

 

I am sorry for the ridiculous text wall. This was a big one even for me.

But at least it was quite thorough. I don't have anything else to say here after writing this up.

I may stream a demo of DP Daredevil mobility vs. Willbender mobility for a good compare & contrast a bit later and post it in this thread. And that would be the last thing that this thread really needs for any level of detail & attention.

Two things to ultimately take home from this rant:

1. Chase potential should not transcend disengage potential. The more chase potential gets ahead of disengage potential, the more lopsided and snowbally games begin to get.
2. Sometimes less is more.

 

~ Thanks for the actual constructive discussion though. Very rare to see and greatly appreciated.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Ragnar.4257]

 

1 hour ago, myun.6395 said:

Dude, catalyst really? One mistake and you die as cata against willbender, lighting rod is useless against willy, dagger/dagger can stale on point, but you wont have the damage to kill willy unless he kittens up really hard, you run avatar usually on this build, watch grim.

Bladesworn and vindi gets farmed by willbender 1vs1 as well. Bladesworn will be more durable and prolly it's a waste of time, that's why willbender won't go for it, because will take too much.

Specter maybe won't die because will teleport away, but doesn't have a kill condition on willbender as well, both power or condi doesn't matter, and with one shadowstep as stunbreak you are dead meat easily.

Mechanist, unless plays full bunker with no damage, can be killed by willbender as well, I saw that happen in plat2 games, and not in some random pug game with silver players.

 

And omg, naru failed to 3vs1 what? A bunker full healing rev xD which is another broken spec in terms of defense and bunkering worse than mechanist. That vindi won't kill you, he just kite and survive using skill off cooldown. 

 

Also I know willbender it's not the 1vs1 role, but now you get why it's utterly broken?

If your team is not that good and your duelists sidenoders won't go do their job and instead teamfight only, you can cover the 1vs1 role and carry your team, while a power herald or other +1 specs don't have that luxury, because unless the skill cap is insanely high, you get tapped by duelists, willbender does not. And of course you can go back being a roamer +1 and help team fights as well.

That's the problem with willbender, it does too much, cover too many roles, and it's too easy to play and get rewarded.

You can keep the damage that high if you gut the sustain and the sharing of f skills.

 

 

7 hours ago, Poledra Val.1490 said:

After reading some things here about what can counter Willbender in PvP I assure you a good Bladesworn can easily outsustain and eventually kill off even the best of Willbenders. Just watch Drazeh's 1v1s on Willbender against Rom's Bladesworn in his VODs.

 

There's a legitimate position to be held as Trevor does that this mobility creep is unhealthy and WB needs a tune-down. Then there's the crazy-town position that its a 1v1 god which beats literally everything. Try and learn the difference. You're not just arguing against me, you're arguing against the consensus opinion of all top players.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Arklite.4013]

1 hour ago, myun.6395 said:

Dude, catalyst really? One mistake and you die as cata against willbender, lighting rod is useless against willy, dagger/dagger can stale on point, but you wont have the damage to kill willy unless he kittens up really hard, you run avatar usually on this build, watch grim.

Bladesworn and vindi gets farmed by willbender 1vs1 as well. Bladesworn will be more durable and prolly it's a waste of time, that's why willbender won't go for it, because will take too much.

Specter maybe won't die because will teleport away, but doesn't have a kill condition on willbender as well, both power or condi doesn't matter, and with one shadowstep as stunbreak you are dead meat easily.

Mechanist, unless plays full bunker with no damage, can be killed by willbender as well, I saw that happen in plat2 games, and not in some random pug game with silver players.

 

And omg, naru failed to 3vs1 what? A bunker full healing rev xD which is another broken spec in terms of defense and bunkering worse than mechanist. That vindi won't kill you, he just kite and survive using skill off cooldown. 

 

Also I know willbender it's not the 1vs1 role, but now you get why it's utterly broken?

If your team is not that good and your duelists sidenoders won't go do their job and instead teamfight only, you can cover the 1vs1 role and carry your team, while a power herald or other +1 specs don't have that luxury, because unless the skill cap is insanely high, you get tapped by duelists, willbender does not. And of course you can go back being a roamer +1 and help team fights as well.

That's the problem with willbender, it does too much, cover too many roles, and it's too easy to play and get rewarded.

You can keep the damage that high if you gut the sustain and the sharing of f skills.

 

"Bladesworn and vindi gets farmed by willbender 1vs1 as well" Willy SUCKS into tanks. Bladesworn farms Willy the way Willy farms Harbs. Vindi is a bit more even but it definitely isn't WB favored.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@Kuma.1503 @Ragnar.4257

Check it out boys, Willbender is actually faster in a sprint at least, than DP Daredevil.

I think DP Daredevil would beat it in a marathon long-race, but I didn't have time to do that tonight.

Looks at this -> GW2 - Willbender mobility demo - forum discussion - Twitch

 

Again, the mobility creep here, is this good for the game?

Hell man, maybe people like it, maybe people want it.

I'm just pointing it out, bringing it up.

[Reikou.7068]

48 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Kuma.1503 @Ragnar.4257

Check it out boys, Willbender is actually faster in a sprint at least, than DP Daredevil.

I think DP Daredevil would beat it in a marathon long-race, but I didn't have time to do that tonight.

Looks at this -> GW2 - Willbender mobility demo - forum discussion - Twitch

 

Again, the mobility creep here, is this good for the game?

Hell man, maybe people like it, maybe people want it.

I'm just pointing it out, bringing it up.

For you D/P Daredevil demo, you could have burned some dodges, and also spammed heartseeker for slightly faster.

However, to achieve this speed, D/P Daredevil needs to burn;

1) All dodges

2) All initiative

Basically leaving it a sitting duck.

Slightly offtopic, but the problem with thief, and the reason I think the latest iteration of D/P thief wasn't as oppressive as Willbender is not only mobility, but basic combat ability.  Not only in pure AoE Presense, but also due to the initiative system.

The core issue with how initiative is currently designed is the following;

1) Make a skill "balanced," in terms of animation cast time / effectiveness ratio, with a "balanced" initiative cost, the skill becomes overpowered because it basically has no cooldown for a short period of time.

2) Make a skill "balanced," in terms of animation cast time / effectiveness ratio, with a "underpowered" initiative cost, the skill becomes underpowered because its too expensive to cast.  (Current situation with Scepter/Dagger 3, and Shortbow 5)

3) Make a skill with sub-par animation cast time / effectiveness ratio, with a "balanced" initiative cost, its basically a useless skill to use, because, well, its basically its a sub-par skill in combat.  

tl;dr with the initiative system, thief can only really ever be overpowered or underpowered.  Never balanced.  And a lot of the recent changes made to D/P thief has pushed it further into the underpowered category.  

This perspective is from a thief main, so probably biased.  

Edited May 9, 2022 by Reikou.7068

[myun.6395]

3 hours ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

There's a legitimate position to be held as Trevor does that this mobility creep is unhealthy and WB needs a tune-down. Then there's the crazy-town position that its a 1v1 god which beats literally everything. Try and learn the difference. You're not just arguing against me, you're arguing against the consensus opinion of all top players.

From what I've written and saying that willbender is a 1vs1 god there quite a bit of difference.

It can push pretty much anything 1vs1, if won't work, can disengage and rotate somewhere else so easily because of how low the cds are.

It doesn't have the: "oh no, I can't take this 1vs1", like herald used to do against a sidenoder condi mirage, it couldn't push even if the mirage was average, it could counter it easily, or thief vs mesmer matchup as well.

 

I repeat it again, willbender is the best dps roamer, +1 class (and this is a fact), plus it's far from being trash and instead it's super decent at teamfights and at taking 1vs1s as well.

It covers too many roles, too easy to play, too low risk, too high reward.

 

And that's all.

I never said it's a 1vs1 god or anything.

 

But if you continue stating it's balanced and takes skill to be players, you are either a bias main, or delusional, or you don't have pvp knowledge passed silver. Choose one.

 

[Lysico.4906]

Bottom line.  Willbenders have to get nerfed

[Sahne.6950]

This question is for everyone defending willbender. What is Willbenders weakness? I Really cant see one...

it has good mobility

it has good survivability

it has good stability

it has good cleanse

it has good damage

 

What is Willbender bad at?

Imo Willbender just took over Heralds spot, but with more Cleansing and ALOT more stability. NO drawbacks... just a straight upgrade...

Wait... they nerfed Herald.... only to release a powercrept version of it... and then they demand 30 bucks from you so that you can play it? WELL PLAYED! Majorleague monetization right there! POG

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Ragnar.4257]

2 hours ago, myun.6395 said:

But if you continue stating it's balanced and takes skill to be players, you are either a bias main, or delusional, or you don't have pvp knowledge passed silver. Choose one.

I have repeatedly stated in this thread that it needs tuning down and suggested many different ways to do so. I've said over, and over, and over, that I'm not saying it's totally fine, I'm just challenging where people are making false claims. Stuff like "it has absolutely zero downsides" or "there is nothing that can beat it 1v1". And you're still here claming that I'm saying it's totally balanced. How many more times do I need to say it? Just....... you clearly aren't reading most of what is being written. Put down the pitch-fork for a second and think.

On 5/8/2022 at 2:21 AM, Ragnar.4257 said:

To re-iterate, my purpose in this thread is not to suggest that WB is actually fine or even underpowered. Repeat, I am NOT suggesting that. It is simply to make sure any discussion of how to adjust it is done on the basis of objective reality and not hyperbolic emotion.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Ragnar.4257]

4 hours ago, myun.6395 said:

It can push pretty much anything 1vs1, if won't work, can disengage and rotate somewhere else so easily because of how low the cds are.

By this logic, thief also "doesn't struggle into any 1v1" because it always has the option to disengage. Can it win the 1v1? Can it force the point? No, but according to myun logic that doesn't mean anything, provided you can disengage that means that nothing can beat you 1v1. You heard it here folks, myun says thief unbeatable 1v1.

To reiterate, there is no way a WB will win a duel or force a node from a competent Bladesworn, Vindicator, Catalyst, Mech, or Spectre. It can dance around, it can disengage, but that's not winning. The only EoD specs it can take on 1v1 with reasonable confidence of actually gaining a kill or securing the node are Untamed, Harb, Virt, and even those you gotta be careful as they're absolutely capable of turning around and 1-shotting you if you're not alert.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

7 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Check it out boys, Willbender is actually faster in a sprint at least, than DP Daredevil.

This is really funny and I am here for it. Let something be faster than DD.

2 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

What is Willbender bad at?

This part:

Quote

survivability

Willbender has aegis, blocks and blinds, but it suffers the same problem as herald - namely, burst damage being shoved onto it when it commits to a port. 

unfortunately a lot of that burst damage is currently missing from the meta for some reason

Edited May 9, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Ragnar.4257]

9 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

This is really funny and I am here for it. Let something be faster than DD.

This part:

Willbender has aegis, blocks and blinds, but it suffers the same problem as herald - namely, burst damage being shoved onto it when it commits to a port. 

What blocks does it have? SInce you make the distinction between block and aegis.

See, this is what I keep getting at. Its not just a difference of opinion, there are objectively false things being thrown around here.

"Yeah, you see the reason Bladeswon is so OP, is because of all its minions, braindead AI spec"...... ??????????? That statement isn't just an opinion we can debate on, it's total nonsense with no basis in reality.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

11 minutes ago, Ragnar.4257 said:

What blocks does it have? SInce you make the distinction between block and aegis.

I had Reversal of Fortune  or Shelter in mind when I typed "blocks". 
I was not specifically thinking of literal blocks, but skills that function as damage negation on willbender that aren't aegis, like the above and Deathless Courage/Renewed Focus.

Just in case I wasn't clear, I do not think any of these justify nerfing willbender -at all.- I'm very serious about that. Even with the current iteration, well placed burst damage can cripple a Willbender's momentum. 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Ragnar.4257]

4 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I had Reversal of Fortune  or Shelter in mind when I typed "blocks". 
I was not specifically thinking of literal blocks, but skills that function as damage negation on willbender that aren't aegis, like the above and Deathless Courage/Renewed Focus.

Just in case I wasn't clear, I do not think any of these justify nerfing willbender -at all.- Even with the current iteration, well placed burst damage can cripple a Willbender's momentum.

OK, but, to be clear, Reversal of Fortune isn't a block. If it were, by the same logic so is Endure Pain.

Its important to use the correct words. Because people who don't really understand this stuff will absolutely read it and absorb the opinion that WB is loaded with blocks. This is how mis-information spreads. This is why the world is a mess.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Ragnar.4257

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Just now, Ragnar.4257 said:

OK, but, to be clear, Reversal of Fortune isn't a block. If it were, by the same logic so is Endure Pain.

I knowwww I'm not a guardian main ugghh I misspoke [/theatrics]

[Fivedawgs.4267]

The mobility creep is indeed a problem in spvp. I have had games (Tourney) where the entire team was zerging and somehow, they still won. Pvp has been reduced to brute force, decapping point is no longer as OP as it used to be.

[viquing.8254]

It's fine it can't damage while evading like this op mirage with top mobility and insane damage who were everywhere 😁😘

[shion.2084]

Out of interest.... anyone finding that its not only the WB's chase potential... but its disengage which is pretty fricken phenomenal?   It is seriously hard to chase one down even with a pack of folks.   And if it resets... it can do just absurd damage again.   

My only saving grace is that the 2 or 3 on the opposing team I'm seeing, don't tend to be very good yet.  But its coming.

[Arklite.4013]

8 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

This question is for everyone defending willbender. What is Willbenders weakness? I Really cant see one...

it has good mobility

it has good survivability

it has good stability

it has good cleanse

it has good damage

 

What is Willbender bad at?

Imo Willbender just took over Heralds spot, but with more Cleansing and ALOT more stability. NO drawbacks... just a straight upgrade...

Wait... they nerfed Herald.... only to release a powercrept version of it... and then they demand 30 bucks from you so that you can play it? WELL PLAYED! Majorleague monetization right there! POG

 

WB's survivability is middling. Reversal only blocks a single attack, can be denied, and is still bugged half the time. F2's healing is negligible. They have access to 3 blinds, one on F1 and one on each weapon. Their stability and only aegis are tied together on F3, and if you can't connect damage after, you only get the initial boons. The only defense it has against burst damage/focus fire is RF (unless you're mashing F2 evades). It has no other evades or blocks. It is good against condis but it only has 3 total cleanses, 5 including RF. It gets worn down by consistent pressure once it runs out of resources. It is awful at fighting most tanks because it will simply run out of healing and other defensive tools before it can chew through a Bladesworn or Necro's effective 60k HP. Its survivability is arguably worse than Herald's since Herald has Glint heal, 2 evades, and staff block. WB's only CC is the unreliable GS 5 so you can never reliably interrupt anything. Most of their damage is still telegraphed and avoidable. WB is a legitimately overbuffed DPS/+1 but it's not this be-all-end-all "god of everything" class some of you are painting it as.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Arklite.4013

[Kuma.1503]

12 hours ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Exactly.

Even if half the builds in the game were considered counters to Willbender, the WB would still create that effect where when it engages something, that person cannot afford to run or do anything else other than drop what they are doing and engage the WB close range there on the spot. Even if they are going to win and they know they are going to win, it eliminates options as I said before to where the game play just becomes predictable and very narrow in the choices of how to play if they want to be successful. Also keep in mind though that even if that Willbender is losing to half the builds in the game that counter him, he can just gap close ground target teleport disengage if he is losing into a reset.

The disengage factor it has is another side of why this level of mobility is bad and how it can be abused. Imagine the side nodes on the Djinn map, where there are long ally ways that run alongside of each of the spawn points all the way down to touch the side nodes. Say an Ele of some type is defending a node against a Willbender. The Ele almost has the Willbender into downstate, but then the Willbender gap close/teleport disengages as far as he can up into one of the ally ways very far away from the Ele and there is no way for that Ele to chase him. The Willbender goes up there and sits until he gets a free OOC full heal and then quickly gap close/teleports right back down to re-engage the Ele again. The Ele can't do this even if he wanted to because at best he has 1x short range teleport and some of the slowest mobility in the game. So rather than chase something he knows he can never catch, the Ele choses to stand on the node and try to finish his cap. The Ele doesn't get an OOC because he's in too close of proximity to some other enemy target between the side node and mid, who tagged him earlier in a fight. Now the Willbender comes right back down with full health to re-engage the Ele again. The Willbender was only gone somewhere between 10 and 15 seconds to trigger the OOC. <- This kind of OOC reset potential has been widely accepted for Thief play for years, ONLY because Thieves can mess up once and immediately explode and die. A Guardian based class that is virtually immune to condition pressure that has everything it needs to counter-play power and be a duelist class and team fighter? I dunno man, that OOC reset potential is just too much in my opinion. The only things that could reliably chase Willbender are DP Daredevil, Power Herald, and other Willbenders. Other classes have a chance to finish the Willbender with like the one single teleport they have or gap closer, like an Untamed let's say, but if that doesn't connect, the Willbender is gone.

Now the difference between something like the Willbender and the Power Herald, is that the Power Herald has chase but he doesn't have the same disengage factor. Phase Traversal paired with Unrelenting Assault paired with Shiro, is where chase potential began to get questionable in GW2. This is where it started. But at least if he burns the Phase and burns the Assault, it can be kited and disengaged if he fails the burst. And since he can't super disengage at will, it provides room for counter-play for any class that needs to fight the Power Herald who now is on CDs for his burst and chase potential. The player can chose to stay and fight or run and regroup somewhere else. <- I feel this is a balanced version of having high chase potential to secure kills. Willbender on the other hand, can repeatedly botch gap close/teleport after gap close/teleport and still have more gap closes/teleports to burn. It doesn't really have "a burst" that can fail. It simply has a never ending cycle of massively high damage single skill use attacks. As I explained before, with this kind of consistent animation driven DPS pressure on top of someone's head with no breaks that forces them to consistently be burning all resources they have to not die, it eliminates counter-play. In some cases it is actually eliminating counter-play completely. A good example for contrast would be a Power Herald Phase Traversing into a Core Necro. The Herald surprises the Necro with a burst which hits. The Necro begins counter-playing and when he sees the Unrelenting Assault go off after the PT, he knows it's safe to drop his shroud for a moment to cycle. Now the Herald has no teleport burst potential to threaten his moment to counter-play and regroup. When he lands a fear or two on the Herald, it pushes the Herald very far away from him, which the Herald will now have to walk back to the Necro if it wants to stay in the combat. At this moment it provides options for the Herald: "Should I stay or leave vs this condi?" It also provides this moment to counter-play and out-skill the Herald because the Herald has his tele-bursting on CDs. If the Herald stays he needs to be good at walk approaching back at that Necro or he's gonna get condi bombed. This is counter-play and this is options that equate to a greater skill mastery required to play the game. However with Willbender in this scenaro vs the Core Necro, the Core Necro literally has no moment to counter-play this situation. The Willbender can stay on top of its head nearly 90% of the time while being a tank vs. condis. Even if the Necro lands a fear or two, it does not create situation for the Necro to be safe to drop his shroud to counter play, because the Willbender has a never ending cycle of gap closers/teleports. It's just always on top of the Necro's head, forcing it into a situation of trading blows at close range. Then of course this scenario results in whichever class is just attribute-designed to win that conflict. The Necro doesn't get options here, but the Willbender can be aggressive and win or immediately flee and OOC full heal and comeback if he needs to. The only player in this scenario who gets options, is the Willbender because his mobility is that much greater than the Necro. Even Flesh Wurm in this situation is not enough to get away from the Willbender.

If a build archetype does not have equal to or greater disengage to this kind of chase potential, there are no options once it engages you in combat, other than to drop what you're doing and 1v1 it on the spot, or die while trying to run. Even Thief builds are easier to disengage than Willbender. Thief builds have high mobility yes, but the way it is situated provides much more relief to be able to run and regroup somewhere or kite it if need be. Much of the Thief mobility is within the Shortbow even, which if it goes to use to keep up with you, it's dealing low damage. It also has to land those backstabs or condi bursts to really be dangerous while chasing you, which if whiffed, the Thief ends up having bad damage output. Even if the Thief is wielding SD, does that Sword#2 really do much else other than scathe you if you're running and he can't land a combo? See what I mean? This is balanced chase power. Willbender on the other hand, 90% uptime of teleporting on top of your head with nuclear AoE cleave strikes. Everything it does, even its short single swing animations, hit like a Ranger Maul in a massive AoE and chops off 50% of the health of something like a Daredevil with a single blow, and that's just the low damage stuff it's throwing around. This is all a problem because there are no margins of CD gaps for players to find a moment to have options. There are no moments like with the Power Herald, where a player who doesn't have mass stealthing & disengage, can stop and say: "Ok, am I good enough to stay and counter-play this? Or can I run to regroup?" No, the Willbender forces you to stay and engage him. Strategical options removed for anything that is not a mass stealthing machine with S+ tier mobility. Even on smaller maps, you'll usually be dead before you regroup with your team if you try to run from a Willbender.

Going back to your original question, no it wouldn't matter. It doesn't matter if the Willbender is winning or losing really, it's that Godly chase potential = forced engagement, which results in the lose of counter-play options concerning rotations.

Of course it can still stick to the target if it wants to chase when the target's team is focusing the Willbender, but now he treads into dangerous choices. That just works that way with any class. Generally referred to as "when an opponent is overextending" and that opponent usually gets the called target put on his head. Willbender though, can get right out that situation just as quickly as he put himself into it though, due to all of that mobility.

But when your team lays aggression on anything that is chasing and about to kill a team mate, yes that definitely helps someone peel. Again, this just works that way with any class in any situation.

Your earlier suggestion wasn't bad, but I don't think it would be enough to resolve the ultimate effect I was really wanting to highlight. Your suggestion I believe would be good for the mechanical combat balance of the Willbender vs. other classes. However I do not feel it is enough of a cull to the mobility creep in general, which is distorting the purpose & dynamic of the Conquest game mode, no matter how overpowered or underpowered things may be. I really think the Willbender needs some big increases to the CDs of some of these mobility skills or possibly a cut to the RANGE of these gap closers & teleports. I would prefer elongated CDs for the reason of that example I gave about why I thought Power Herald was a balanced form of chase potential. If the Willbender had enough CD enhancements to where it would allow moments like with the Power Herald to where an opponent can say "Ok he's on gap close/tele CDs. Should I stay and fight or should I cut & run to my team now that I know I can?" <- THAT is what needs to happen. The option to be able to do that is mentally stimulating strategical play that isn't boring and predictable. It also provides that moment of counter-play where the opponent can turn a bad situation around and come back and beat the Willbender, just as described with the Necro and the Herald. As it is now, if that Willbender jumps you at the right time when you're at like 75% health, there is no moment to turn around and counter-play it. It will kill you because it never has a break in its CD cycle like the Herald or even the Thief does.

It can exist in a healthy way, but I am seeing a limitation on how much mobility can be granted to ANY CLASS without breaking the Conquest game mode, and I'll explain what I mean here, and then end this enormous rant. Sorry I just wanted to be thorough so I don't need to write anything else in this thread after this post.

OK so first let me compare how the game was in year 1-3 compared to how it is now in year 10.

In the beginning, the mobility intra-class wide was roughly half of what it is now. CDs on mobility skills were longer before power creep, Swiftness durations were so so much lower and infrequent to proc, we didn't even have Super Speed yet, no ammo charges on things like Rocket Boots, and no traits granting miscellaneous 33% permanent speed buffs that can't be boon removed, and nothing like +50% movement while stealthed. The mobility was very seriously half of what it is now. The disengage potential back was also equal to or in some cases greater than chase potential. Now imagine the size of the Conquest maps, with the size that they are, your choices of where to rotate and where you dedicated your rotational time to, was really really detrimental back then. Because if you chose to try and push far in Legacy, only to find out that there was a guy there that you weren't sure if you could get off the node, it was like "man, I wasted a lot of time here, and I'm not sure if I should try to rotate to mid because that's going to take a lot more time, and I'm not even sure if my team is going to dying or winning that fight by the time I get there". Now see this is a decision making process that depends entirely upon the player's experience level in knowing the meta, his own skill level, the community players and their skill levels, paying attention to what classes are against what classes, and being able to use judgement vs time required to decide what he is going to do to make his time count. There are many options he could take in this situation and not every situation like this necessarily has a single best option to take. No matter what he does, even if it fails, disengage factor vs. chase factor being equal in these days would allow a good player who survives a 4 man team wipe to actually be able to monkey kite 4 players long enough so he can survive while waiting for his team to regroup. Not only does this "feel" better to play a game like this because it allows a good player to still be good, but it also allows that good player to do his team a great justice to draw the entire enemy team to one side of the map who is trying to kill him, so his team can actually get something done when they respawn. Back in these days it was realistic for a good player to hard carry bad games like this. In fact, due to disengage being equal to or greater than chase in those days, it allowed a losing team a better "feel" to the game while losing because even if they were losing nodes, they could at least kite around and be hard to kill. They could at least attempt to formulate ways to attempt to out-rotate a winning team who is camping nodes to attempt a weird split to get back on their feet. It "feels" better when chase is lower than disengage because the aggressive team who is winning nodes must be savvy to keep defending those nodes instead of chasing because if they begin to launch forwarding chasing aggression, it is easier to get back-capped than it is to actually chase and secure kills. The game of Conquest was in its most healthy state at this point because their were so many strategical tactics to be used to attempt to out-rotate and psychologically trick another team even if every person on that team was superior in combat to all of the people on your team. Due to the disengage being equal to or greater than chase and kills being more difficult to secure, a lopsided game back then would look like 500 to 300 and the guys who were losing could AT LEAST kite around and had options to try and pull weird rotations to launch a comeback. When players were losing games like this, even if they knew they wouldn't win, at least the game "felt" fun to play because they could at least survive through kiting away from aggression and have time and opportunity to do something, instead of being spawn camped and bursted in 2s after they come off respawn. <- This is what happens when chase potential is stronger than disengage potential. It's no wonder that the game's pvp had such a larger population back in these days. The "feel" of the dynamic was just better for newer players and even players who were losing games.

Now in year 10, everything has literally twice the mobility that it did in year 1-3. Most classes definitely have much more chase potential than they have disengage potential, due to targeted skills like Steal or JI or Phase Traversal, with reduced cool-downs. First consider the size of the Conquest maps. Players in year 10 are traversing these maps twice as fast as they did in year 1-3. Going from home to far in Legacy in year 1-3 was like a serious commitment of rotational time, which is what enabled builds like Side Node Bunkers or Side Node Duelists/Decaps to be important and a viable role to play, or even to stress the ultimate importance of having that one squishy guy that just moves really fast to + and decap, even if his class isn't strong in duels. Everything had its place in the beginning for actual purposes in the intended design. The size of those maps and the game in general was designed for a certain level of mobility so that the mode made sense. But in year 10 everything moves twice as fast as it did in year 1-3 and chase potential is just higher than disengage potential across the entire intra-class wide meta dynamic. So now let's take that exact same situation from the first example in year 1-3. Let's consider it is the same exact players playing on those two teams who still have the same difference in skill disparity between them all, with the only difference that now they are all playing with the mechanics in year 10. The guy tries to push far and realizes there is someone there that he probably won't be able to kill very quickly if he even can kill that person. He thinks to himself "No problem. Only took me 6s to get here. I'll just take 2s more to go join the mid fight" and he has absolutely no concern for what mid will look by the time he gets there because he moves so fast that his immediate assessment of mid is what it will look like when he gets there. With seriously elevated mobility making maps very easy to traverse, it is much easier to get to a team fight or to show up for a + at pretty much any time a person needs to get there. This has greatly diminished the value of the Side Node role as well as made rotational decision too lenient on when a person makes a mistake, and leaves the game mode more about just attacking people and winning fights than worrying about configuring clutch rotational plays. It's real simple, stay with your team and win fights and snowballing the map is easy AFTER the team fight is won because mobility is so high that you can triple cap or at least triple decap a map in about 15s after the big team fight is won. Very seriously, winning big team fights even if they are off node in a weird place, is by far the priority in year 10 because getting to nodes is now too easy. This did not work that way in year 1-3. Zerging around like that would get you out-rotated in year 1-3 and that felt healthy in the game mode to work that way. When things moved at half the speed in year 1-3, you couldn't just 5 man zerg a team fight and full cap a map in 15s after it ended. Typically trying to do that would just result in your team only ever having 1 node cap and the other team out-rotating you and always have 2 node caps. In year 1-3, players were forced to play the entire map and make wise decisions of how to allocate and position themselves. This was the game of Conquest and it required a more masterful sense of how all the pieces worked to be dominant in games. But in year 10 none of that matters. The only thing that matters is balling up to win team fights, and then the mobility is so high that you can easy get to the sides or whatever nodes, after that team fight, to snowball any survivors off the other 2 nodes and get full caps or at least decap, before the players even respawn man. The mobility is actually that high right now. This is why people say "We are in a team fight meta right now" and it is ALL because of what I am explaining here, mobility creep. Why in the hell would you want to side node when you can't get there longer than 10s before you get +1d or +2d right off the bat when you get there. Why wouuld you want to run a dedicated Roamer when a duel class can chase you around the map, move as quickly as you are, and prevent all your decap progress? It's just resulted in "stay together, win team fights, snowball nodes after". If you watch higher tiered players, this is primarily how the game is being played right now, and it is due to mobility creep. In year 10 there are extremely limited options in how to use rotations to counter-play a team that is stronger than you or even just equal to you because chase power transcends disengage factor. When those players in year 1-3 were losing 300 to 500, that same match would look like 30 to 500 in year 10. This is because in year 10 those aggressive players winning all of the combats can now chase harder than the losing team can kite & disengage. This is not a good "feel" for new players or losing teams in general. In contrast to the "feel" of year 1-3 where at least a losing team can kite around and stay on their feet and "feel" like they have a chance to pull something off while surviving, in year 10 they just get straight hunted and ganked in 2s when they come off respawn because there is no where to go because chase power is stronger than disengage power. It's no wonder our player base in year 10 greatly struggles. There are many reasons for a low player base but what I am explaining here has got to be one of the bigger reasons. Even veteran players "feel" this change and decide the game doesn't "feel" good anymore and they start looking for other avenues. Losing a game 300 to 500 in year 1-3 at least is something to do for 10+ minutes where you have a chance to push buttons and try to pull something for a janky clutch win even during a bad match, this is at least entertaining, and that is because disengage was equal to or greater than chase. But it just "feels" bad and boring to play a game where there isn't even a reason to leave the respawn because it is actually impossible to get past chase factor of the people spawn camping. This stuff is just not healthy for the game mode and the maps were never designed for this kind of speed in mobility.

Then of course we go back to the original point I was making about when chase is stronger than disengage, when the Willbender gets on your back, there isn't even a reason to waste motions trying to get away from it. Just use every action you take to counter-play and combat the Willbender or it will kill you before you make it to any other node or anywhere at all for that matter. Using that 1st example again from year 1-3 where the guy had lots of options when showing up to far node, in year 10 if he shows up to far node and it's a Willbender sitting on it that he knows he can't beat, welp GG, back to the spawn. He gets no options at all. The Willbender will fly off the node, glue itself to his back, and he will die before making it back to join his team for protection at mid. Not only does he not get options, but he just straight gets punished for even allowing his name bar to show on the Willbender's screen. This is not helping new players "feel" like they are having a fun time, or even old veteran players for that matter. The game mode is just dumbed down like this. It is less psychologically stimulating when the game mode just amounts down to forced engagement like this, where rotational decision making takes a backseat to just sheer mechanical combat prowess. This happens when chase factor transcends disengage factor. This is not a healthy state for the game mode to be in.

Hey, I'm a good player and I don't struggle with combat mechanics unless it is against the absolute best players in the game, so keep that in mind. What I am pointing out here is from actually having conversations with people in Discords and going out of my way to really pay attention to what is going on here in GW2. I am generally a person who tends to notice things on a more in-depth level than others with most things that I do. This thread is not an eye gouge to Willbender, it is simply to point out what mobility creep has done to the Conquest game mode. When I first wrote the post up, it came in the form of Willbender because Willbender is honestly the "too much" point. This class has set a benchmark for chase & disengage potential that just never needs to happen ever again on any class if they want to keep the integrity of the Conquest dynamic healthy.

Again, It's not just Willbender. Willbender needs some of that mobility culled, but they really should also revert some of the other mobility creep in the game in my opinion. That or at least give the classes equal disengage factors to all of this chase factor, so there are psychologically stimulating choices again, and so that losing games look more like 300 to 500 instead of 30 to 500.

 

I am sorry for the ridiculous text wall. This was a big one even for me.

But at least it was quite thorough. I don't have anything else to say here after writing this up.

I may stream a demo of DP Daredevil mobility vs. Willbender mobility for a good compare & contrast a bit later and post it in this thread. And that would be the last thing that this thread really needs for any level of detail & attention.

Two things to ultimately take home from this rant:

1. Chase potential should not transcend disengage potential. The more chase potential gets ahead of disengage potential, the more lopsided and snowbally games begin to get.
2. Sometimes less is more.

I'll be honest my questions were mostly me thinking out...loud? (onto a web page?)

 I didn't expect you to actually answer them in such detail. 

This post was refreshing to read, having read through your points I agree with what you're saying. What it ultimately comes down to, from what I can gather, is that Willbender offers no cooldown windows to the opponent. There's an ebb and flow to combat that is missing with willbender. There is no ebb in its pressure, there is only flow. There are no windows of opportunity to exploit because it has too many short CD options to burst while simultanously closing the gap. It removes an entire dimension from the equation, and limits the choices a player can make. 

 

The Necro vs Herald example highlighted it well. There's a window for the Necro where he can make a choice to fight or kite. Replace the Herald with a WB, and the Necro's only option is to continue trying to pressure the WB and hope it can kill it. Even if they land the fear, and the WB doesn't have JI up, it's virtues are all on cooldown, and it can't reset with elite, it still has Sword 2, sword 5, and GS 4. That's a tad excessive.

You could reduce the willbender's damage, sustain, or condi cleanse, but that wouldnt' change the dynamic between the two classes. It would change the outcome, when the Necro inevitably chooses to fight (because kiting is ineffective), the Willbender will die, but the dynamic itself wasn't mentally stimulating for either player, it essentially comes down to what LoL players would call a "stat check".

Quote

~ Thanks for the actual constructive discussion though. Very rare to see and greatly appreciated.

The feeling is mutual. I feel like I've learned something new. Your comments about rotations and tactics in conquest were interesting to read. 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Modliszka.5027]

On 5/6/2022 at 10:58 AM, Terrorhuz.4695 said:

HOT TAKE: IT'S NOT WILLBENDER, IT'S GUARDIAN
As far as PvP is concerned, for different reasons, almost everything in guard (dragonhunter, willbender, core) is meta in some way. Maybe not MAT levels, but it can reach high plat without any real problem. I'd argue how even the problems we had with the necro meta were caused by guardians, because (I'll let you in a secret) necromancers, without a guardian around, DID die. With a guardian around, it was just impossible; just the guardian existing made the difference. Granted, there were many reasons why people were running necromancers, but one of them definitely was that you either had a necromancer to corrupt SOME boons from an opponent guardian or you wouldn't be able to deal any damage, ever, period.

And the thing that really highlights there's a problem comes when the trend is so solidified that it's not just a PvP thing anymore; EVERYTHING in the game is decided by guardians. In this sense, PvP is the odd one, because in every other gamemode even firebrand is meta.

When guardians of all shapes and form are a must-pick in PvE, but also a must-pick in WvW both zerging and roaming, but also a must-pick in low level PvP (g3 and below), but also a must-pick high level PvP (p1 and above), but also a must-pick in the highest competitive settings (AT and MAT), you're probably reaching a point where something about the class itself needs a really fat nerf.

GW used to mean Guild Wars, right now it stands for Guardians Winning, and it's getting slightly annoying.

I totaly agree with this opinion. Guardian is a problem, especially in pvp. And in my opinion the problem is their survivability. Willbenders can mitigate damage for way too long as for glass canon spec. Core guards provide way too much support, they can resustain whole team on way too short cd, and you can't really focus them, coz of survivalibity.  Just nerf their survival and it will be ok.

[ShionKreth.1542]

Guardian always has to have one spec that's just absolutely broken, it's in the rules.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

2 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

This post was refreshing to read, having read through your points I agree with what you're saying. What it ultimately comes down to, from what I can gather, is that Willbender offers no cooldown windows to the opponent. There's an ebb and flow to combat that is missing with willbender. There is no ebb in its pressure, there is only flow. There are no windows of opportunity to exploit because it has too many short CD options to burst while simultanously closing the gap. It removes an entire dimension from the equation, and limits the choices a player can make. 

 

The Necro vs Herald example highlighted it well. There's a window for the Necro where he can make a choice to fight or kite. Replace the Herald with a WB, and the Necro's only option is to continue trying to pressure the WB and hope it can kill it. Even if they land the fear, and the WB doesn't have JI up, it's virtues are all on cooldown, and it can't reset with elite, it still has Sword 2, sword 5, and GS 4. That's a tad excessive.

You could reduce the willbender's damage, sustain, or condi cleanse, but that wouldnt' change the dynamic between the two classes. It would change the outcome, when the Necro inevitably chooses to fight (because kiting is ineffective), the Willbender will die, but the dynamic itself wasn't mentally stimulating for either player, it essentially comes down to what LoL players would call a "stat check".

Exactly.

[Ovark.2514]

It feels good when you call out a problem ------ then everyone poo-poos you and doesn't take you seriously ------ then a week or so goes by and the whole community realizes you were right.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

46 minutes ago, Ovark.2514 said:

It feels good when you call out a problem ------ then everyone poo-poos you and doesn't take you seriously ------ then a week or so goes by and the whole community realizes you were right.

Funny you mention it.

I almost Necro'd your thread with this discussion, but I figured it needed a fresh OP title to get the attention vs. mobility creep in general.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524