Today's patch, and the problem with Alacrity Willbender

[Pixel.8012]

Hey all, back again to talk about willbender. Gonna keep it (relatively, at least compared to my previous threads) short this time because there's not a lot to wall of text about, but it is something from today's patch I wanted to draw attention to

 

Before today, Power Alac Willbender was over performing on DPS for a boon build, so ANet saw fit to knock it down a peg. 36k was too high for a boon build, so it got a performance nerf this patch. ANet also (correctly, IMO), addressed how much they nerfed the build and bumped it from a 4sec duration on F2 to 5sec. However, none of this addresses the actual problem with power alac willbender: It's too hard for the average player to provide their boon. This is probably obvious to most people, Alac WB's alacrity uptime is a function of playing the rest of the spec near perfectly. Now normally I'd be for a build requiring you to perform well to provide its boon, but there's a bigger, more invisible issue that prevents players interested in playing Power Alac willbender from performing to expectation.

Greatsword.

 

Specifically, greatsword stow cancels. While power guard has always had to contend with stow cancels to maximize its damage -- much more than any other class in the game, now that willbender has tied alacrity generation to number of hits over a window of time. Making sure you're getting as MANY hits as possible within the allotted 5 seconds is paramount to providing your boon, and now players that might look at Snowcrows for their gear and refer to the rotation and do EVERYTHING correctly still won't be able to apply their boon with 100% uptime.

 

Let me reiterate, even someone that has geared properly, read and COMPLETELY memorized the rotation, and executed every skill in the perfect order may not be able to provide 100% alacrity.

 

This is unacceptable. I agree that power alac willbender needed a nerf, but the spec was already unapproachable for many players and now that the margins are even tighter, it's a spec that only the most confident players with knowledge of an obtuse system will be able to play well. And I think it's fine for a spec to be difficult to play and provide good boons with! I think that Staxe Mirage's careful management of clones (prior to today's patch, that build is probably dead?) and Condi Alac Ren needing to properly manage Charged Mists is fine for instance, not every boon dps build needs to give its boon easily. But the fact that willbender needs to do its rotation perfectly while ALSO being gated by an arcane system that is explained NOWHERE is unacceptable.

 

Alac Willbender's method of delivering alacrity is unique, and that's cool. Alac willbender should be hard to play, its identity as a high damage Alac DPS with no other boons is unique among its peers, and that fact alone is great for the health of the game. But it is absolutely unacceptable that greatsword's scuffed nature hampers the build for a majority of players so much, and if ANet wants Power Willbender to exist -- especially Alac Willbender, it is paramount that they address the stows on greatsword 4/5 to make the build ACTUALLY playable to a majority of players that might not even know stow cancelling exists, or how important it is. Nerfs/buffs to its performance cannot be reflective of how the majority of players actually engage with the class until greatsword is fixed, and until then you're nerfing what is to most players a bad build because few people actually stow cancel, and fewer still are using that to take advantage of a build performing at Power Alac WB's ceiling.

 

(also if anyone from ANet actually reads this post, Focus 4 and Sword 3 have similar aftercast issues, they're just nowhere NEAR as egregious as greatsword's which is particularly egregious and should be the primary concern)

[TheArtOfMouts.7468]

Boons Duration ?

[Kapilaj.6108]

Noone ever asked about nerfing alac willbender - was super unnecessy. 

 

It has to be the best dps alac build in golem-like scenario otherwise its useless.

 

It wasnt be played in fractals or strikes cm because:

1. You can't stand in one place. - you have to move while activating virtues(lot of possibility to die here)

2. You can't give alac when boss is phasing - bigges issue

3. You dont have acces to boonstrip or corruption biggestb issue for fractals

 

Only good side if alac willebnder was better dpsnin golem like scenerio still it was the least played alac build in whole game.

 

After f2 nerf Anet totally killed this class it has no goal to exists in this game if you can't play full dps with 2 traits change

[Gaiawolf.8261]

45 minutes ago, Kapilaj.6108 said:

It has to be the best dps alac build in golem-like scenario otherwise its useless.

It was also super high DPS for highly optimized speedrunners. You know, like what 1% of the elite players could ever accomplish on a good day. Apparently those players had to be stopped. For some reason. 

[shib.1369]

Just remove long aftercast nonsense. They did it for engi pistol. Do the same for guardian GS (sword too iirc?) and reaper GS.

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

So basically, everyone agrees WB isnt top tier meta breaking, feels bad for 99% of the playerbase, and is in fact downright dogwater in some areas.

But, per the standards of forum/reddit people who drop random numbers of dps benchmark 35k-46k, they say its perfectly reasonable to nerf the support side of Willbender becuz DPS is "completely overperforming".
They share the same brain cell as whoever came up with "We feel Thief is in a good spot right now".

Edited May 3, 2023 by MercurialKuroSludge.8974

[CptAurellian.9537]

6 hours ago, shib.1369 said:

Just remove long aftercast nonsense. They did it for engi pistol. Do the same for guardian GS (sword too iirc?) and reaper GS.

This is the long overdue solution, since it is not just alac WB that suffers from those stupid aftercasts.

[zealex.9410]

Narrator: He didnt keep it short.

I will say that i agree with the concerns over aftercasts, if they can shave them from engi pistol then they also can from guardian's weapons (primarily gs) without any dmg buff concerns because benchmarks are stowing and queueing these aftercasts properly (smth that most ppl dont or cant do).

As for that being a willbender issue, idk im not sure i agree, you can get more boon duration like with any boon support and compensate. Chrono pre quickness rework iirc could upkeep quickness without boon durr but only the best chronos would manage, for the rest it was extra boon duration. Willbender fits there just fine, can you not upkeep at the sc recommended? Take more boon duration.

Edited May 4, 2023 by zealex.9410

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

If you think Power Alacbender is bad you should see the state of Alac Healbender.

 

I played around with every rotation I could get on support weapons and couldn't manage more than 40% uptime on my group with 100% boon duration. I eventually just gave up on it, which is a shame because otherwise its a real contender for a support and can even exceed Healbrand in some ways due to not needing those silly mantras and being able to take real utilities.

 

The hit-things-to-generate-Alacrity needs to go away, especially with the double-cast F2 bug.

Edited May 8, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

23 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

If you think Power Alacbender is bad you should see the state of Alac Healbender.

I played around with every rotation I could get on support weapons and couldn't manage more than 40% uptime on my group with 100% boon duration. I eventually just gave up on it

The hit-things-to-generate-Alacrity needs to go away, especially with the double-cast F2 bug.

Nobody on the Guardian forums plays Alac HealBender alright?
Edit:
Post Below me is prime example, they default to Healbrand cuz thats the only text they recognize, when the discussion was about HealBender.
All they know is "BENCHMARK 48K WILLBENDER WHOOO", all of these Willbender threads there are people dropping benchmarks and not giving thought to anything else.
These ivory tower dwellers make fun of the balance team, but they aren't much better themselves.

Once we finally turbonerf Healbrand in the next patch, Guardian can finally become a proper DPS class with 0 playable support builds, which is what the community wants...right?

Edited May 9, 2023 by MercurialKuroSludge.8974

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

If you think Power Alacbender is bad you should see the state of Alac Healbender.

 

I played around with every rotation I could get on support weapons and couldn't manage more than 40% uptime on my group with 100% boon duration. I eventually just gave up on it, which is a shame because otherwise its a real contender for a support and can even exceed Healbrand in some ways due to not needing those silly mantras and being able to take real utilities.

 

The hit-things-to-generate-Alacrity needs to go away, especially with the double-cast F2 bug.

Healbrand really only needs to take two mantras, unless you have a chaos mirage begging for 100% regen uptime.

[zealex.9410]

On 5/8/2023 at 6:07 PM, MercurialKuroSludge.8974 said:

Nobody on the Guardian forums plays Alac HealBender alright?
Edit:
Post Below me is prime example, they default to Healbrand cuz thats the only text they recognize, when the discussion was about HealBender.
All they know is "BENCHMARK 48K WILLBENDER WHOOO", all of these Willbender threads there are people dropping benchmarks and not giving thought to anything else.
These ivory tower dwellers make fun of the balance team, but they aren't much better themselves.

Once we finally turbonerf Healbrand in the next patch, Guardian can finally become a proper DPS class with 0 playable support builds, which is what the community wants...right?

You must have missed the part where the person you quoted said healbender can be better because it doesnt have to take mantras. The person bellow just pointed out that you only have to take 1 utility mantra and the heal mantra (which the heal mantra is really kittening good so why wouldnt you take it?).

[zealex.9410]

On 5/8/2023 at 6:21 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Healbrand really only needs to take two mantras, unless you have a chaos mirage begging for 100% regen uptime.

Doesnt healbrand give 100% regen just from spamming tome 2 2s off cd?

[Gaiawolf.8261]

1 hour ago, zealex.9410 said:

Doesnt healbrand give 100% regen just from spamming tome 2 2s off cd?

Healbrands that run Legendary Lore pump out regular Regen from Tome 2. Some regularly run Weighty Terms instead, or switch to Stawart Speed on occasions when extra stab or aegis are needed. 

[Ultima.5280]

Alac willbender is one of the healthiest alac provider in the game

You need to invest in concentration, you need to play differently than powerdps, it's rewarding when played well.

Imo full trinkets and/or armor should be needed for everyone that want 100% boon uptime. If you looked the log and see you're the only dps that not receive alac, you should ask yourself if your positioning was good.

The range is really low, could be better but duration should not be increased. (And every boon provider full viper/zerk/600 range should be nerfed)

You give something like 14-30sec alac uptime during a burst phase. It's enough for spliting mecanics most of the time.

Yes F1 and F3 should share buff as F2 does for making alacwillbender a serious pick. Currently you prefer take every other alac because they're better and often totaly braindead

[doc.9162]

i last time i seen an alac willbender in my fractal dailys, was when i tried oh so very hard to make it work. (many many moons ago) absolutely no-one uses it.. as a boon build for group content it might as well not exist, pretty rare to see dps will benders as well.

i really wanted it to work, especially the heal willbender side. guard has some very nice utility skills for it. but again flowing resolve relies on the mob not moving.

its kitten.

[cat.8975]

5 hours ago, doc.9162 said:

i last time i seen an alac willbender in my fractal dailys, was when i tried oh so very hard to make it work. (many many moons ago) absolutely no-one uses it.. as a boon build for group content it might as well not exist, pretty rare to see dps will benders as well.

i really wanted it to work, especially the heal willbender side. guard has some very nice utility skills for it. but again flowing resolve relies on the mob not moving.

its kitten.

It's actually decent in fractals, though the lack of might gen limits what you can run it with. The change to give alac on f2 cast helped quite a bit, and I think people have been sleeping on it.