Why ANET doesn't nerf willbenders?

[Valamano.4963]

Willbenders (Power/cele) are overperforming extremely. If you blink for a second you are dead (F1, sword 4/5 did so much dmg). If you even survive they can easily run away, wait for cooldown, and try again They should either reduce the dmg or mobility. They nerf overheat for holo because it's not fun to play against, why willbenders survive?

Edited February 11 by Valamano.4963

[Atrom.1564]

Because people need their autopilot specs. It's the same with harbinger

[Valamano.4963]

13 minutes ago, Atrom.1564 said:

Because people need their autopilot specs. It's the same with harbinger

Harbinger can't kill you in 1 sec. It's a tanky class, not bad dps but with low mobility. Blender has dps, mobility and boons from F skills

[Dawdler.8521]

Guardian has always been Anets baby.

[Kuya.6495]

So when a willbender ports in, do you guys just like sit there and eat the whole combo or what?

[Nefras.7314]

Have you tried binding dodge key ?

[XenesisII.1540]

Because after facing one they expect you to head on over here if you haven't already... https://buy.guildwars2.com/en-us/end-of-dragons?tab=0

 

[Deniara Devious.3948]

On 2/11/2024 at 3:54 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Guardian has always been Anets baby.

This! I don't have the official statistics, but I would not surprised if guardian is the most played profession. Engineer and revenant are probably the least played professions. The latter is because it requires paid expansion.

Guardian has always been in the meta. Since the game was launched guardian commanders and guardians in the zerg has been most numerous (besides necromancers). Many guardians specs like Willbender or Dragonhunter also perform very well for roaming. Currently Willbender and Deadeye are probably the two most broken specs in roaming. Harbinger, Soul Beast and certain ele and rev builds come next.

The problem with willbender is that it has no inherent big weakness. It has great damage, superb mobility (very few can outrun it) and good sustain - all in one package. One out of those three should go. Since mobility is built-into the spec, then it should be either serious nerf to damage or sustain. 

Arenanet should also ask a serious question: Are they doing anything that the fights should be entertaining for both sides? Obviously some fights are not fun at all. E.g deadeye sniping you from far and the moment you damage him, vanish with stealth, soon come again. Revealed should be 4 seconds in WvWvW and stealth should have a maximum duration, like 10 seconds.

Ayna

 

Edited February 18 by Deniara Devious.3948

[Kuya.6495]

2 hours ago, Nefras.7314 said:

Have you tried binding dodge key ?

It's mystifying to me really. But maybe it's cause I use power willbender and I HAVE to dodge attacks to survive that biases me. I don't have the luxury of face tanking hits like a dragonhunter, a cele willbender, a cele vindicator, a warrior or a cele harbinger. 

Maybe roaming and fighting thieves, mesmers, other willbenders, eles and warriors has just taught me to actually, recognize the burst window, dodge the bursts and not face tank things you shouldn't be face tanking. 🤷

Edited February 11 by Kuya.6495

[CafPow.1542]

1 hour ago, Deniara Devious.3948 said:

This! I don't have the official statistics, but I would not surprised if guardian is the most played profession. Engineer and revenant are probably the least played professions. The latter is because it requires paid expansion.

It is.

gw2efficiency -> statistics -> player statistics.

number 2 is necro but that’s mostly because of reaper and open world where there is no cooler stuff to play i think.

[Kuya.6495]

12 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

It is.

gw2efficiency -> statistics -> player statistics.

number 2 is necro but that’s mostly because of reaper and open world where there is no cooler stuff to play i think.

Do people play guardian more because it's broken or because more people like the profession fantasy/style more? As a guard main I think it's the latter (it's why I chose guardian 11 years ago) but I suppose to the people keyboard turning while a willbender is on top of them it's the former.

Edited February 11 by Kuya.6495

[CafPow.1542]

8 hours ago, Kuya.6495 said:

Do people play guardian more because it's broken or because more people like the profession fantasy/style more? As a guard main I think it's the latter (it's why I chose guardian 11 years ago) but I suppose to the people keyboard turning while a willbender is on top of them it's the former.

Personally i think because the class was / is so strong and can be found in the meta everywhere but I don’t know.

[KrHome.1920]

Willbender is just: "Dodge the inital burst, then counterbust and watch them run".

Harbinger is just "Kite the elite elixier uptime (7 seconds on cele) then faceroll".

WvW is full of willys because it is a capable hit and run spec which is always good to farm some noobs.

The true broken stuff in WvW smallscale is catalyst and renegade and maybe interrupt mesmer (oh and deadeye ofc, but that's how it is since the spec exists - give the most mobile and evasive class a 1200 range weapon and stealth on dodge, what a great idea!).

Edited February 12 by KrHome.1920

[Math.5123]

Because they don't nerf or buff wvw around roaming. Willbender is weak at best in blob play, much like harb, cata and deadeyes and whatever else people roam on these days. 

[KrHome.1920]

1 hour ago, Math.5123 said:

Because they don't nerf or buff wvw around roaming. Willbender is weak at best in blob play, much like harb, cata and deadeyes and whatever else people roam on these days. 

According to your logic willbender (and all the other specs you mentioned) would need buffs. 

In case you don't know what I am talking about: ANet fails to understand that designing WvW around boon blobs will never make this game mode good. But that's not surprising. ANet is too incompetent to even balance simple things like player numbers (completely random matchups like in GW1 would be more fun than what ANet does in PvP and WvW). How should they be able to balance classes.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

13 hours ago, Kuya.6495 said:

Do people play guardian more because it's broken or because more people like the profession fantasy/style more? As a guard main I think it's the latter (it's why I chose guardian 11 years ago) but I suppose to the people keyboard turning while a willbender is on top of them it's the former.

The question is, what do people recommend new players to play as their first class. 

One criteria is how good a class is across the board. 

For most of GW2s lifespan, Guard was god king in Wvw and pve via Firebrand. Had very easy and viable builds in general across all Game modes. 

Something that most other classes simple didn't have. 

The second class that has a history of being amazing everywhere is necro. (Despite what necros will tell you.)

 

Seriously, who out there would recommend classes like Engi, Warrior, Thief or Mesmer? 

 

Currently, it's Necro, Ranger and Guard that I would recommend for a new player. In that order. 

 

 

[XenesisII.1540]

"They don't balance around roaming."

They why do they have specs made for roaming? To kitten off players?

Another flimsy excuse used to cover broken specs.  Where was this excuse when they hard nerfed mirage for 3 years for being too good in roaming?

They don't balance around roaming! It's a meme spec no one uses! I get harder if I don't use a dodge! Celestial! This other class is better! no wait this other class is better! deflect deflect deflect! That's why a dozen mobility options is needed on the class with the best defensive package! we need a buff too, we need some boon strips and stealth too! 🙄

[TheGrimm.5624]

20 hours ago, Kuya.6495 said:

Do people play guardian more because it's broken or because more people like the profession fantasy/style more? As a guard main I think it's the latter (it's why I chose guardian 11 years ago) but I suppose to the people keyboard turning while a willbender is on top of them it's the former.

I like gw2efficency.com (+1 from me for the site managers and developers) and recommend it to anyone that has 3 or more characters and I recommend it more for those that are 10+ when you need to find things, need info on crafting, buying, selling and 50+ other things. But its is an opt-in site so its a subset of the players. Now granted at 420,666 accounts at this post is a decent sampling size. What is unknown is how it handles the stats and especially stats for players that play multiple toons. Right now the spread of class breakouts are within 3% of all classes in this sampling.

[ChrisWhitey.9076]

I think WvW devs had stated the WvW is a team game mode and they don't care about 1v1 balance. You might have better luck posting in the profession channels so the balance team can view it.

[TheGrimm.5624]

7 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

The question is, what do people recommend new players to play as their first class. 

I start by asking them the counter questions, what role do you want to meet and what goals? From there is what size scale of play, solo, group or zerg. From there I get into more details before I would recommend any. But mileage varies.

7 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

One criteria is how good a class is across the board. 

I tell them none since I have no idea what they are trying to do.

[TheGrimm.5624]

3 minutes ago, ChrisWhitey.9076 said:

I think WvW devs had stated the WvW is a team game mode and they don't care about 1v1 balance. You might have better luck posting in the profession channels so the balance team can view it.

This ^^^^^. Putting individual class balance threads in a subforum where we will never have balance since the fight could be 50 v 15 v 1 just doesn't make sense. 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

2 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

I start by asking them the counter questions, what role do you want to meet and what goals? From there is what size scale of play, solo, group or zerg. From there I get into more details before I would recommend any. But mileage varies.

I tell them none since I have no idea what they are trying to do.

New Players dont know where they end up having the most fun.

Thats why its a good idea to let them play a Class thats good everywhere. They still can branch out later.

[Sonork.2916]

How to beat WBs?  Dodge offhand sword 5.  That's it, you've done it!   As for cele WBs, WB isn't even the stupidest cele spec.  If you want to kitten on WB's just play cele harb, vind/rene, cata or mirage. There's even secret cele zerker build that will do it.  Or... alternatively, just play any pistol/blind spam thief build. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

Just now, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

New Players dont know where they end up having the most fun.

Thats why its a good idea to let them play a Class thats good everywhere. They still can branch out later.

I guess let me spin this, fun, good, balanced, flexible, challenging are very subjective. One player may see fun that they jumped into a group and got a kill before they were killed. Another might see it as they were jumped by a group and made it out alive. A third might see it that they keep their teammates alive. Different players will also vary on their like of rotations or skill sequences, some want more and some less. So, to me at least it depends on who/what/why/where they are looking for.

[ArchonWing.9480]

1 hour ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

They why do they have specs made for roaming? To kitten off players?

Well., they're not. They're balanced around pve. They just happen to be unsuitable for zergs because wvw is an afterthought.  PvE itself has devolved into a stack blob of damage vomit power creep where things do 50% more damage than before and specs are  held to those standards. And if that kind of garbage design is garbage where it was designed for, it's going to be even worse

So basically the garbage flows in 2 directions. It's either sent to the dumpster fire (PvP), or WvW (waste treatment plant) and the refuse that flows out to sea is small scale.

Anyone would have seen most of these elite specs and noted so many of them were DOA in fights of any significant scale  because of the obsession with projectiles and you can see this with the new weapons. Why would Anet think of all these new weapons for new players to use just so they can shoot themselves to death? Because they don't think. Soto and beyond has been completely reactive player design, where they just throw out stuff and then spend most of the time trying to correct their mistakes like with the relic fiasco.

So you have a case where mobile specs tend to get broken in WvW, because mobility doesn't really matter in pve. Only damage and damage mitigation because normally you cannot OOC against a raid boss. And thus it gets piled on and on. Willbender in particular was weak in pve because it wasn't a firebrand, so they removed the clunky systm where virtues overwrote one another. Which is good, but to say it wasn't a straight buff would be lying.

You also have a situation in small scale where the ability to disengage is simply a massive advantage. Most actual roamers don't OOC 20 times every fight, because nobody wants to fight that so unfortunately the real truth is that small scale has really only worked with some degree of etiquette which has broken down over the years due to various reasons.   And like I've said a lot of the ties, WvW only  works because of these unspoken rules in both small and large scale, since nearly everyone has seen what happens when the game mode is played as intended. People just log off.

But no doubt this has been magnified by all this nonsense design where any amateur can be taught in 5 minutes to f3 f2 f1 f2 elite f3 f2 f1 f2. In bigger fights, opening with f2 is probably safer though. Wait, don't read this part and just bash the post instead.

I mean the whole thing was already partially solved in pvp by f2 being 1 charge, but I suppose some will argue pvp isn't wvw, though that doesn't mean everything from PvP is an aberration. (some definitely is though)

Oh btw, you have to excuse most guardian mains, because this is the first spec that forces them to dodge occasionally due to Willbender having only active defenses so it would seem like a great ordeal. In fact, there are some guardian "mains" that cannot do willbender.  But then again, people shouldn't be mad at us just because our class happens to work.

Overall I remember that poll about what specs you don't/don't like fighting, but I really have to admit that there must not be a single meta spec that isn't a horrific waste of time to deal with. It's probably because I'm bad, or I'm too old to have the patience to deal with this kitten. Possibly both.

Edited February 12 by ArchonWing.9480