willbender problem

[Codename T.2847]

12 hours ago, Mangoyami.2418 said:

To everyone spreading whataboutism while people take aim at your precious willbender remember that above all the "but this class is also OP" and "but cele" that Willbender has received ONE (1) nerf since it's release in 2022. And they only received it in march of 2024 because they were biting the hand that feeds too much.

Deathless courage prior to march of 2024, gave you a few seconds of INVULNERABILITY. and what WB's were doing with this was sigil of rage -> F3 into enemy blob -> whirling light + Gs2 -> elite invul -> F3 and dash out. In a full power build this was all but guaranteed to down the squishy blob dps, possibly killing them too. The powers that be prefer blob content, this is not okay. So they gave WB a hard smack and said "stay in your lane" (roaming and ganking) by making DC only a -50% strike and condi damage taken.

Feel free to cry about people picking on you when your class gets nerfed hard and you actually have to make a build that doesnt get all of it's damage from having a single boon active.

Inb4 this comment gets 5000 confused emotes

Facts holy kitten

[Mangoyami.2418]

The more I look at friends, allies, and enemies; the biggest 'willbender problem' is the kittenification of the players who play it. Willbender is easy, it's safe, and that's fine if the people playing it got better over time but the training wheels, safety rails and water wings for willbender never come off and part of the reason I think is willbender being too safe and touched upon in the last post, they don't have to 'work' to make a strong build. While there are arguments for playing willbender (people who may be limited in some capacity to play a piano class or otherwise), the main issue circling back is that it's simply too easy and too safe.

If you look at roaming for guardian on metabattle, 3/5 builds are willbender, 4/5 builds use radiance. Radiance gives you huge benefits when you have a single buff and a buff you get from running virtues and these 2 traits lines are basically every guardian build, they are part of the problem. What other classes can freely pull off one offensive traitline, one defensive traitline + third traitline (elite or other) on every single build. On other classes, these buffs are more spread out and you cant have ALL your damage from one thing without picking traitlines that may make you weaker.
Using metabattle like before, necromancer has 7 rated builds. 7/7 builds use curses, a hybrid(?) traitline that gives cleansing, boon corruption and fury and as far as I can see, no necromancer can really give up curses for say Soul reaping, a traitline that is more on the lines of pure damage. Revenant? Only one build uses their raw damage traitline - devastation - and for a build that's rated as challenging. Every willbender build is rated as green, EASY.

Circling back to the first para, I don't much see people offer advise when "i got beat what do" is asked other than the "skill issue" and "git gud" people throw around for the 'fun' of it and "just play willbender". This kind of thing is worsening the game mode, and it would be less of a problem if willbender required any skill unlike "just play thief" where the majority of thief players I run into lately are really, really good at spamming stealth and kitten awful at actually killing you.

The people playing willbender are actively degrading their skill by playing it, I see them try other classes and they either get bored because it's not 'willbender big numbers' or they get frustrated because they can't port halfway across the map after taking 1% of their hp in damage. In a game with as much freedom and choice as Anet professes, this really shouldn't be. Every class should be acceptable to use at entry level and yes I'm aware there are plenty that are exactly that, but it's not willbender, very few of those builds will give you the dopamine rush of teleporting in, doing huge nummies and then kittening off.
I have a power mirage build that is functionally similar to willbender burst but from 1200 range, it's great. But I had to make it, I had to test the stats, the combo and it's not freely available on metabattle guildjen, mists or wherever you get your wvw builds from. It relies a lot on my personal skill to not be caught up if it gets blocked or dodged. Skill, knowledge and tactics that you don't really need to 'just play willbender'.

Far as solutions go, honestly, you could go the easy way and just nerf willbender, the best way imo would just be moving their traits around and forcing them to make actual builds and not just radiance virtues spin to win but that would affect the pve guardians, or add cast times to some of their more dangerous skills so they can't wombo combo. Why does unnatural traversal (untamed) have a cast time? that means I can't combo it with heavy hitting weapon attacks or dropping an entangle on an unsuspecting group. Why does phase traversal (shiro) have a cast time (on top of the 70% energy bar cost and 5s CD)? That means I can't use it with say GS5 or something equally as devastating, yes it gives quickness but I can still be STOPPED as there is a break between the skills that can be interrupted or CCed. A willbender can instantly port into by precasting F1 or F3 and popping judges intervention. The flames are down the buffs are up and if you don't dodge, CC, or inul right now  then your kitten is grass. The only other class that has the powerful function of Judges intervention, is thief. A class that can't instantly delete a cluster of 5 people, they can get one maybe with a nice heartseeker/backstab crit. If you can adjust power modifiers and CDs per game mode, why can't you also adjust cast times?
The hard way would be making every other class suck less in comparison to willbender and that sounds like a lot of work. As much work as keeping my snide remarks all the way to the end of this post.

Consider right now that one of the classes people are complaining about being OP is warrior and largely because warrior SPEAR is OP. Willbender has been OP since 2022, spear just makes them more insufferable. Helios rush is also another source of resolution.. when illuminated, which isn't hard since they gave you a sigil with a big area that illuminates all your empowered skills for free and illuminating that lets you use all your skills empowered and unrestricted by the ample sigil space. Frankly, mind the gap (mesmer) should have received more outrage.

TL;DR, willbender is becoming a bigger problem by making the people who play it worse at the game and is something that needs to be addressed by either adjusting the tools guardian has or just bringing everyone else up.

And again, before I receive 5000 confused emotes by people who feel personally attacked because they play willbender. Take a step back and look at your elite, look at the history up to now. It's personally strange that people get defensive about this when you could just say "yes it's easy and I like it". and people have said this to me And that's fine but it doesn't invalidate my points. I'm not crusading to ban willbenders in the guilds I play in or refusing to play with or help willbenders on my team. You may not like it but you not liking it doesn't make me incorrect.

Edited September 5 by Mangoyami.2418
clarification and simplification

[Triptaminas.4789]

Willy problem is passive blocks just for hitting dps/gap closer buttons, then an immune, and more passive blocks for hitting dps/gapcloser buttons. No other class have the amount of dps buttons tied to blocks. Willy would flop extra fast if not that, as fast as other glass cannons.

I don't expect anything to change tho.

Edited September 5 by Triptaminas.4789

[Mangoyami.2418]

Just now, Triptaminas.4789 said:

Willy problem is passive blocks just for hitting dps/gap closer buttons, then an immune, and more passive blocks for hitting dps/gapcloser buttons. No other class have the amount of dps buttons tied to blocks. Willy would flop extra fast if not that.

all their CC is also part of their burst or for trolling. I have gotten truly frustrated with allies when and enemy escapes because willbender and by extension guardian has no CC to stop them, to trip them or or anything. Sword 5 is part of your burst, GS5 is kind of a meme being 2 parts giving 2 chances to ignore it. Hammer 4 I only see used to BM downed players and troll people trying to finish downs. for DH spear is part of your burst, so you can't be holding it until someone decides to run.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

46 minutes ago, Mangoyami.2418 said:

And again, before I receive 5000 confused emotes by people who feel personally attacked because they play willbender. Take a step back and look at your elite, look at the history up to now. It's personally strange that people get defensive about this when you could just say "yes it's easy and I like it". and people have said this to me And that's fine but it doesn't invalidate my points. I'm not crusading to ban willbenders in the guilds I play in or refusing to play with or help willbenders on my team. You may not like it but you not liking it doesn't make me incorrect.

Willybender and teef mains will be very upset by stating the obvious truth.

[Jski.6180]

Likely its letting classes benefit too much from there own support base effects and skill will push more selfish aimed version of that class over the top. So things like aoe heal and aoe boons also hitting the caster start to make the caster un-killable then by adding high dmg effects and high mobility from the selfish version tends to make the class overpowers vs classes that do not have such benefits.

Its would be like letting a war chose there F5 with out needing to be using an given wepon. Or like an ele being able to use any F1-5 set up they want with out needing an elite spec trait line. Or an necro choosing there F5 (or F1-F5) with out using an trait line effect.

By letting the guard class have both self support and group support at the same time makes the dmg version of though builds way stronger then what other classes can pull off (power dmg with willbender and burning dmg STILL with FB.) There is some truth to this for other classes but a lot of the support effects are behind elite spec trait line walls there by locked with F1-F5 effects. Gurad already had too much support / self support for the core class that they did not lose by choosing an elite spec. this is why everyone will and dose call gurd anet favored class of the "blue privileged" class.

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

1 hour ago, Mangoyami.2418 said:

all their CC is also part of their burst or for trolling. I have gotten truly frustrated with allies when and enemy escapes because willbender and by extension guardian has no CC to stop them, to trip them or or anything. Sword 5 is part of your burst, GS5 is kind of a meme being 2 parts giving 2 chances to ignore it. Hammer 4 I only see used to BM downed players and troll people trying to finish downs. for DH spear is part of your burst, so you can't be holding it until someone decides to run.

Lies, Guardian has plenty of CC, the ones that cant trip ppl are just worse at the game than their peers, becuz they play the Blu Privileged Class.
GS 5 is clearly an OP skill and trying to downplay how broken it is, means you are a Guardian shill.
/s

[Atrom.1564]

There won't be any changes anytime soon, so don't get your hopes up. If the devs actually cared about a balanced game, then something like this would not happen:

Untamed TP Unnaturaly Traversal got nerfed to have a 0,25 sec cast time in February 2023 to counter the tp into oneshot. Why does Judges Intervention not get the same treatment?

[Junkpile.7439]

Because my one shot core guardian using judges intervension.

[Atrom.1564]

Just now, Junkpile.7439 said:

Because my one shot core guardian using judges intervension.

Then nerf it for WB only, idc. Unless Anet isn't capable of doing that

[CutesySylveon.8290]

My two cents on Willy is the same as it's always been: Renewed Focus is the primary culprit. 

I've played Willy and fought countless of them and one thing remains true when I use it and enemies, and that's RF resetting all Virtue cooldowns means they are never in any realistic danger until you get through that, in most circumstances. 

Most of their burst is incredibly telegraphed outside of Judge's Intervention, and that's an issue, but that only gets them in for the burst. If it fails, then RF and at least 4 more virtue skills are at their disposal to escape, and that's not even counting any they have prior to using RF.

The build is incredibly annoying, but can be dealt with by pretty much any thief build, most ele builds that aren't made of paper, and Spellbreaker, to name a few, and rangers with LB are your best bet to down them as they try to escape if you aren't fast enough to catch them. 

Tldr: A change to how RF interacts with Willbender will better address how safe of a hit and run class it is, and without hurting other Guardian specs. 

[Ferus.3165]

On 9/3/2024 at 12:08 AM, Mangoyami.2418 said:

To everyone spreading whataboutism while people take aim at your precious willbender remember that above all the "but this class is also OP" and "but cele" that Willbender has received ONE (1) nerf since it's release in 2022. And they only received it in march of 2024 because they were biting the hand that feeds too much.

Deathless courage prior to march of 2024, gave you a few seconds of INVULNERABILITY. and what WB's were doing with this was sigil of rage -> F3 into enemy blob -> whirling light + Gs2 -> elite invul -> F3 and dash out. In a full power build this was all but guaranteed to down the squishy blob dps, possibly killing them too. The powers that be prefer blob content, this is not okay. So they gave WB a hard smack and said "stay in your lane" (roaming and ganking) by making DC only a -50% strike and condi damage taken.

Feel free to cry about people picking on you when your class gets nerfed hard and you actually have to make a build that doesnt get all of it's damage from having a single boon active.

Inb4 this comment gets 5000 confused emotes

lol noone played deathless courage. It was garbage and was changed because noone ever used that trait anywhere. I have not seen it once on any willbender i have ever fought. Also could you tell me where do you get this -50% strike and condi damage? You have no idea what you are talking about 😄-
and then the next guy writes "facts" to this nonsense.🤡 parade 😄

Edited September 5 by Ferus.3165

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

36 minutes ago, Ferus.3165 said:

lol noone played deathless courage. It was garbage and was changed because noone ever used that trait anywhere. I have not seen it once on any willbender i have ever fought. Also could you tell me where do you get this -50% strike and condi damage? You have no idea what you are talking about 😄-
and then the next guy writes "facts" to this nonsense.🤡 parade 😄

They even took the PvE ratios and ran with it LMAO.
Gave an entire essay but no effort in research.
And then immediately and turn around to introduce one of Guardian's weaknesses, while the essay before was saying how they were invincible and have none.

"WB was OP cuz it cud lawn mower a zerg"
This is such a dumb take on so many levels.
Zerglings don't die, at worst they get downed.
That trait "so OP, gives 4-8 seconds Invul", it doesn't even trigger until something is stomped.
Also...if WB was SO OP back then, why was the meta zerg dps still all the other builds?
Clearly these Commanders were so braindead, they weren't running "THE BEST ZERG DPS IN THE GAME OMG OMG THUMBNAIL CAPTION 9000 ANET NERF WB PLZ!?"

If ppl wanna say "WB is unhealthy for roaming peeps", ye it is.
"WB OP everywhere, even in Zergs" is a dishonest and very, VERY mentally handicapped idea.

Edited September 5 by MercurialKuroSludge.8974

[Codename T.2847]

14 hours ago, MercurialKuroSludge.8974 said:

They even took the PvE ratios and ran with it LMAO.
Gave an entire essay but no effort in research.
And then immediately and turn around to introduce one of Guardian's weaknesses, while the essay before was saying how they were invincible and have none.

"WB was OP cuz it cud lawn mower a zerg"
This is such a dumb take on so many levels.
Zerglings don't die, at worst they get downed.
That trait "so OP, gives 4-8 seconds Invul", it doesn't even trigger until something is stomped.
Also...if WB was SO OP back then, why was the meta zerg dps still all the other builds?
Clearly these Commanders were so braindead, they weren't running "THE BEST ZERG DPS IN THE GAME OMG OMG THUMBNAIL CAPTION 9000 ANET NERF WB PLZ!?"

If ppl wanna say "WB is unhealthy for roaming peeps", ye it is.
"WB OP everywhere, even in Zergs" is a dishonest and very, VERY mentally handicapped idea.

yep, I definitely dont remember running the old DC trait running in with F3, and downing atleast 3 people (who more often than not died to teammates after that), and then getting out with 1 hp and cleansing off the condis on me with double F2. I also definitely don't see better willbenders than me legit zergbust with the new Spear that facilitates this even further xD

[CafPow.1542]

I am the last who will not buildshame willys (and thieves) ;D

but let’s be serious for a second: anyone of you ever fought a bad willy (or thief)? They are super beatable.

[krill.4902]

First big problem on willbender, is the STAB, passive, you never be able to pull them 99% times you try to

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

3 hours ago, Codename T.2847 said:

yep, I definitely dont remember running the old DC trait running in with F3, and downing atleast 3 people (who more often than not died to teammates after that), and then getting out with 1 hp and cleansing off the condis on me with double F2. I also definitely don't see better willbenders than me legit zergbust with the new Spear that facilitates this even further xD

Fighting ViP, with a group assisting, doesn't count. 😛