Little Bummed w/Willbender

[foxtrot.6902]

Been having fun lately trying out willbender (minus pretty underwhelmed with offhand sword) until....I just learned a majority of boons from trigger/activation on f1-f3 don't get shared with teammates? 😕 

I thought i was this awesome support tossing out boons, but teammates pretty much get nada lol . Restorative Virtues doesn't even pass out the ~2 sec of alacrity on activation....

Hope it gets tweaked w/next 'balance'. Already a bit brutal it takes x2 grandmaster traits for team alac, and those two grandmaster traits basically work against each other w/Battle Presence heal, then removed w/Phoenix Protocol.

Also...offhand sword, cmooon t's an elite weap w/only two abilities, make them solid. At minimum, to make it more interesting/useful, I'd think at least treat "Executioner's Calling" like heartseeker w/more dmg% based on HP, I mean look at the name of it!

I guess dps + heals is a decent option to go if want to support?

[quaniesan.8497]

Alac sharing WB is a thing, and spam alac and regen as long you attack.   F2- F3 still apply boons for allies on activation.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

I've heard people not happy with Offhand Sword.

I've only played maybe 2 PVP fights with Willbender but the Offhand sword felt like the best offhand to me.

 

Executioners Calling seemed to do the cut down my targets health significantly. What Guardian offhand is better?

Torch 4 causes burning but very delayed damage. Torch 5 is useless.

Focus 4 is okay but very delayed and didn't seem to do as much damage as the Sword 4. Focus 5 is nice for blocks but the damage is low.

Shield is just defensive. I like it for my Firebrand but not wanting it for my Willbender.

 

None of the Guardian Offhands really seem worthwhile but the sword seemed better than the others when I used it.

[Buran.3796]

   Willbender goes in the opposite direction of Guardian builds. while core Guardian and Firebrand are excellent at support but have mobility limitations and usually fairly low HP, Willbender has very good mobility and is selfish and oriented to deal burst damage, disengage and come back again when the cooldowns are ready aghain. To some extent, is similar as the DH but with more mobility.

[Kuya.6495]

I would prefer wb stays as the selfish high damage guardian spec and they just move alac to DH that does actually have team support built into it.

[Saiyan.1704]

19 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

I've heard people not happy with Offhand Sword.

I've only played maybe 2 PVP fights with Willbender but the Offhand sword felt like the best offhand to me.

 

Executioners Calling seemed to do the cut down my targets health significantly. What Guardian offhand is better?

I'm just going to ignore the fact that you've only played two pvp games on Willbender, just to carry on this convo.

We have to go heavy into damage modifiers, including running something like zerk or valks amulet just to get "decent" numbers on Sword#4. That's why most Willbenders gripe about offhand Sword. We sacrifice so much for damage that doesn't result in high reward even IF it lands.

Let's be honest with ourselves. We use offhand Sword for the cc root. If they removed the cc I wouldn't use offhand Sword at all in pvp.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Saiyan.1704

[Roadkizzle.2157]

44 minutes ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

I'm just going to ignore the fact that you've only played two pvp games on Willbender, just to carry on this convo.

We have to go heavy into damage modifiers, including running something like zerk or valks amulet just to get "decent" numbers on Sword#4. That's why most Willbenders gripe about offhand Sword. We sacrifice so much for damage that doesn't result in high reward even IF it lands.

Let's be honest with ourselves. We use offhand Sword for the cc root. If they removed the cc I wouldn't use offhand Sword at all in pvp.

That's odd that you say having to use Berserkers to get good damage is a downside. 100% of Power DPS builds use Berserkers... So why is it a downside on this weapon?

I've played a bunch of PVP games with my Mesmer and Scrapper. Mostly I played with a Spellbreaker until I couldn't stand how boring it was anymore and deleted the Warrior to create a Guardian.

But regularly during my two games I used Sword 2 to teleport in range and followed it up with Sword 4 and the enemies would regularly be on about 25% life. Allowing me to work to finish them off.

I could never figure out how to do that much damage with the Spellbreaker or any of my other classes that quickly.

The other Offhands with their damage spread over 10 seconds but I saw this happen again and again in my limited play with the spec.

 

Edit: I've never considered how good the Willbender can be as a Support class. I have no idea why the OP thought the WB was primarily a support class. I figured I'd use the WB for a glass cannon burst DPS and I'll have the Firebrand for a support class in PVE or Zerging.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Roadkizzle.2157

[Saiyan.1704]

6 hours ago, Roadkizzle.2157 said:

But regularly during my two games I used Sword 2 to teleport in range and followed it up with Sword 4 and the enemies would regularly be on about 25% life. Allowing me to work to finish them off.

Any bruiser class in the game including your Warrior would have finished off a person with 25% health with just a couple of abilities. Secondly Willbender is meant to deal burst damage very quickly compared to say, Warrior or Cata. They are just two different classes and as such play differently. War in particular is mostly a side-node class that's able to 1vX or in most cases win 1v1s. However a War of equal skill will always counter Willbender 1v1 but that's neither here nor there.

Everyone is asking for a Sword#4/#5's damage buff because it needs it. Play enough Gold 3 games consistently amongst other Gold 3+ players and you'll realize this too. We either need more damage or more self sustains. That's why the class isn't meta.

[Roadkizzle.2157]

2 hours ago, Saiyan.1704 said:

Any bruiser class in the game including your Warrior would have finished off a person with 25% health with just a couple of abilities. Secondly Willbender is meant to deal burst damage very quickly compared to say, Warrior or Cata. They are just two different classes and as such play differently. War in particular is mostly a side-node class that's able to 1vX or in most cases win 1v1s. However a War of equal skill will always counter Willbender 1v1 but that's neither here nor there.

Everyone is asking for a Sword#4/#5's damage buff because it needs it. Play enough Gold 3 games consistently amongst other Gold 3+ players and you'll realize this too. We either need more damage or more self sustains. That's why the class isn't meta.

No. You misunderstood. My Willbender took people down TO 25-50% with just the engage ability and Sword 4.

Of course if I engaged people when they were already at 25% I wouldn't have been saying anything. But I was talking about engaging enemies when they were healthy.

[Balsa.3951]

i don't like the f2 and its to easy to double activate it when i only wany fire it once

also carried me away from target

Edited May 30, 2023 by Balsa.3951