Renewed Focus on willbender is broken and unintended

[vardeleanu.8972]

Can we nerf Renewed Focus on willbender in competitive modes already ? The skill is conceptually broken and it was alright on guardian only because the core virtues have pretty weak actives, Dragonhunter has very clear telegraphs and decent virtue cast times with only 1 virtue being offensive (but even he pushed the line with 9 seconds of invulnerability a bit) , and the firebrand tomes share pages / have had historically high page costs in competitive anyway.  

For comparison with other elites :

• Dagger storm = similar theif elite that also gives 3 seconds of invulnerability while moving. There are 3 differences between the skills 

1. you also reflect projectiles, which does almost nothing unless you're playing against a very smart ranger that decides to shoot you while you're doing the very well telegraphed spinning, at most you get 1 projectile reflect if you use it very reactively right as someone winds up to shoot you, and we all know that projectile attacks have such great wind up times in gw2 (except Pile Driver but who even plays staff weaver).
2. you can do some damage if you wish to do so by spinning on top of people that let you do that for some reason. Only really effective in a teamfight or for cleaving, but doing so instead of running away will put a giant mark on you where everyone will try to jump you as soon as the storm finishes, and now you lost your biggest defensive tool, so good luck with that.
3. the skill DOESN'T REFRESH 3 DASHES. It doesn't even refresh 1 in fact, which would be your steal. Can you imagine if dagger storm refreshed all of the theifs utility skills ? so they would dash all around, stealth, then dagger storm and do it all over again. And that would still have less impact than a willbender doing so with it's 6 mobility spells that grant both damage and boon pulsing zones.

• Elemental Celerity, = elementalist elite that recharges 4 weapon skills of your selected attunement. Also grants an emotional support boon if you're in the matching sphere. These skills are totally the same, except

1. this skill has no invulnerability or evade, so no defensive value whatsoever in itself. If you use it in an earth sphere to get protection, then you would already have protection because of the earth sphere in the first place.
2. despite not being a free get out of jail card skill, it was still nerfed to only recharge some of your weapon skills partially : the skill only grants 25 seconds of skill recharge, meaning that some of your best utility skills that are on 4 and 5 are unable to be refreshed on demand by this skill.
3. It (potentially) recharges 4 skills instead of willbenders 3, but I challenge anyone to make a elementalist build where using skis skill to refresh skills 2-4 would provide as much value as willbender f1-f3. Anything at all : staff for aoe, dagger for mobility, etc. The reality is that no matter what skills you chose a willbender will get 2 times more value out of f1-f3 than an elementalist will get from 2-5,  and it turns into 5 times more value per skill use when you remember that ele doesn't get 3 seconds of invulnerability to go wherever it pleases. And again, some of the best skills ele have don't even get fully recharged by this.

• Continuum Split, = skill it is not an elite skill to chose from but rather it is part of the class mechanic and identity of chronomancer. However, it still :

1. It requires setup to use, and mesmer f1-4 get diminishing returns if you spam them with no clones like this skill requires
2. again, mesmer f1-4 are not EVADING MOBILITY ABILITIES THAT GRANT AOE BOON SPAMMING DAMAGE ZONES. They are just regular aoe skills damage, with a little bit of invulnerability if you use it right. Also they are not pulsing, so if you use a block/aegies/god kitten dodge when the mesmer does its combo you will be fine.

In my opinion the differences between these skills are like night and day, and the 15 second of cooldown difference between some of them don't even come close to balancing it. And it's been like this since Willbender released.

Please consider making a special case for this interaction, like the one scourge has with Dhuumfure where either Renewed focus only recharges the most recent virtue, either it only partially recharges the virtues by a fixed amount like elemental celerity in order to only make f1 available immediately, either do some other specific specialization nerf. And while doing that please also reduce the cooldown of Renewed Focus back to 90, since that would be more in line with the way other similar skills are nowdays (for core guardian, dh and firebrand). I believe this would be the bare minimum to even start trying to balance willybender in competitive modes.

Edited July 17 by vardeleanu.8972

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

I just spent the entire afternoon farming WBs in sPvP and WvW, maybe you just need to get good?

[Kuya.6495]

Imagine being a thief main having problems with a willbender 

[Lazarus.4105]

They already nerfed the virtues several times. Also you can dodge them. Extremely telegraphed skills

[Codename T.2847]

Willbender is fine just dodge 😴

[vardeleanu.8972]

1 hour ago, Codename T.2847 said:

Willbender is fine just dodge 😴

Whenever something is broken, it's always that excuse : o )

Even on a daredevil you don't have enough dashes to dodge all the ways a willybender can one shot you, but I guess just dodging works bellow certain levels.

Edited July 18 by vardeleanu.8972

[Kuya.6495]

I always giggle a little bit when I walk out of range of a whirling wrath

[draxynnic.3719]

I'm far more afraid of chain CCs from a catalyst than willbender surviving a little longer.

[Saiyan.1704]

11 hours ago, vardeleanu.8972 said:

Whenever something is broken, it's always that excuse : o )

Even on a daredevil you don't have enough dashes to dodge all the ways a willybender can one shot you, but I guess just dodging works bellow certain levels.

Daredevil axe and DE basically farms WB's... what are you talking about?

You really need to post a video in your own thief forums to have some one help you with your rotations/build/spec/etc.

[Ezrael.6859]

Good Thieves time their damage to land and one shot a Guardian just as Renewed Focus finishes.

 

Edited July 19 by Ezrael.6859