Skillbenders

[nosleepdemon.1368]

You're riding up to a camp, ready to do your SB/GS thing and maintain contribution, because there's only so much boon blob you can take... And shock! Horror! Another roamer approaches you. Clearly they're a Willbender, since you wouldn't see a Thief coming and absolutely nobody else roams on their own these days. You have about two blinks of an eye before they drop their cat on the keyboard and begin rolling out blinks, teleports, auras, whirls, twirls and whatever other bollocks it is they do that makes your health disappear.

What do you do?

[arazoth.7290]

2 hours ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

You're riding up to a camp, ready to do your SB/GS thing and maintain contribution, because there's only so much boon blob you can take... And shock! Horror! Another roamer approaches you. Clearly they're a Willbender, since you wouldn't see a Thief coming and absolutely nobody else roams on their own these days. You have about two blinks of an eye before they drop their cat on the keyboard and begin rolling out blinks, teleports, auras, whirls, twirls and whatever other bollocks it is they do that makes your health disappear.

What do you do?

You use this build with these stats and relic of the blightbringer. They either leave or die and with any good luck they pm you something nice which you can laugh with

Edited October 10 by arazoth.7290

[nosleepdemon.1368]

3 hours ago, arazoth.7290 said:

You use this build with these stats and relic of the blightbringer. They either leave or die and with any good luck they pm you something nice which you can laugh with

Honestly looking at how much g it would take to make a set of that.

[Jobber.6348]

You try to evade or block a majority of their damage.

3 things to be mindful about engaging Willbenders:

1. Their boons, do they have Resolution up, can they be CC'd, how much Might do they have.

2. What damage can they do at the moment? What's better, an evade or a block channel to let them blow their load on?

3. Do they have their Elite?

If you're playing Mallyx or Herald, you can boon rip, and you should absolutely prioritise this first over other things. Willbender relies alot on 10+ Might and Resolution for damage, so by engaging during a window when these are down, you can crush their damage potential.

Always start a fight against a Willbender with a block in your pocket. If they do their dumb Sword 5 burst on you, just block the whole thing. If they are opening with their TP F1, you should evade that. Blocking Sword 5 is crucial because you don't want to be immob, and things like Vindicator is very sensitive to server ticks applying Immob during the same frame of time that you dodge. 

If you bait out the entire burst from a Willbender and are able to counter in return, be mindful when they channel their Elite and start running. This is not an opening. This is a bait. Usually people overextend when this happens and then get counter bursted by F1 F2 F3. What you should aim to do is either to catch them with a CC just as they exit invul and then finish them with a burst or to ready a block and wait for that F1 F2 F3. 

For these reasons, I recommend practicing and getting good at Sword Shield GS Herald.

Much Condi Cleanse, 2 channeled Blocks, 1 Aegis, self boons, Infuse Light, Evade attack with sword 3, Boon rip from Shiro TN. 

 

 

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Superb advice, thanks! What sort of stats would sword/shield and greatsword Herald be looking at?

[Jobber.6348]

53 minutes ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

Superb advice, thanks! What sort of stats would sword/shield and greatsword Herald be looking at?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAw6FlxQKMPyi1RXMOCjRSiMCqgpsVe7F-DWRYBBLGdsSptQIzCozIo3EQtrCBIg9wDA-w

Herald is no less difficult than it has always been to play so you will need to really practice and fight many battles before you get used to timings and how to gauge attacks. 

 

[idolin.2831]

TLDR: dodge sword 5, dodge their opening burst, kite during their F3, go in and out and don't stay too close too much(because their 2nd weapon set is usually PbAOE), count their dodges (2 dodges + 2 evades from F2), either time your CC really well after their elite or prepare to kite/dodge. I find Hammer to be decent against them too, hammer 3/5 in place to peel for yourself. 

[Jobber.6348]

8 hours ago, idolin.2831 said:

TLDR: dodge sword 5, dodge their opening burst, kite during their F3, go in and out and don't stay too close too much(because their 2nd weapon set is usually PbAOE), count their dodges (2 dodges + 2 evades from F2), either time your CC really well after their elite or prepare to kite/dodge. I find Hammer to be decent against them too, hammer 3/5 in place to peel for yourself. 

Hammer is indeed good against Willbenders, I use it myself when I'm not playing Herald. The tricky thing is actually being able to deal damage in such a situation because Hammer's damage capabilities are rather limited, especially against enemies who are hounding you in melee range. 

When using Hammer out of Herald, you should supplement damage with something like Retribution Vindicator so that your self Resolution not only reduces strike damage further, but also grants you more strike damage in return, allowing you to kite with Shiro and counter attack when they jump on you with Archemorus. 

I myself play Core as well, in which I will use Jalis and Shiro in alternation to reduce damage and kite. When an opening arises, you will simply use Swords or GS to counter burst. 

[nosleepdemon.1368]

On 10/10/2024 at 10:45 PM, Jobber.6348 said:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAw6FlxQKMPyi1RXMOCjRSiMCqgpsVe7F-DWRYBBLGdsSptQIzCozIo3EQtrCBIg9wDA-w

Herald is no less difficult than it has always been to play so you will need to really practice and fight many battles before you get used to timings and how to gauge attacks. 

 

I gave this a go, and it hits like a bus. A question about the various speed boost interactions - how do they stack? It seems like the relic and speed boost from maintaining upkeep are redundant. I'm thinking Centaur relic would be good since Glint's heal is immediate cast, and Shiro's is nice to use offensively.

Edited October 12 by nosleepdemon.1368

[Jobber.6348]

1 hour ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

I gave this a go, and it hits like a bus. A question about the various speed boost interactions - how do they stack? It seems like the relic and speed boost from maintaining upkeep are redundant. I'm thinking Centaur relic would be good since Glint's heal is immediate cast, and Shiro's is nice to use offensively.

Here's a wiki article for you to reference: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Movement_Speed

To make it simpler for you if you're on mobile:

Shiro's Impossible Odds + 8 pip Rising Momentum will give you maximum in-combat movement speed. This means it's Superspeed levels of mobility simply by having it turned on, perfect for running away from groups of enemies. 

Swiftness + Speed Relic + 5 Pips Rising Momentum is what you need to achieve the same maximum in-combat movement speed. 

You can drop Speed Relic if you feel like having Shiro + Rising Momentum is enough to facilitate your escape, which opens up some Relic options:

1. Zakiros for life steal (not Life Siphon), granting you more sustain.

2. Atrocity for Life Siphon buff, which I only recommend if you are running Swords + Staff

3. Leadership for condition removal in case you are meeting alot of condition pressure from multiple foes 

4. Evasion if you wish to have an additional Vigor boon which you can maintain, allowing you more dodges to evade enemy aggression 

Edited October 12 by Jobber.6348

[alain.1659]

I play condi renegade, summon the kittens around me and corrupt wb boons. Most wb are not really guardian players and they panic cleanse the kittens first. Then mallyx and condi burst. Profit.

 

With vindicator you can jump, look cool and die while looking cool. 

[Buran.3796]

6 hours ago, alain.1659 said:

With vindicator you can jump, look cool and die while looking cool. 

   I don't known in WvW since stats are different there and I'm not playing lately, but in PvP as a Vindi player with GS + Hammer Alliance & Jalis duels and node constest vs Guardians are quite favorable, specially vs Willbenders, and specially vs WB with spears. Vindi has better cooldown rotations and between the evades, blocks, aegis, hard cc and damage mitigation they run out of skills faster and Vindi HP allows more room for errors.

 

   Edit: or just swap to Willbender yourself. Rev was never a top roamer and now that Ventari is gone (no support builds)  and celestial is gone (no alacrity builds) there's 0 reasons to run Rev in a zerg, so just ditch it to a roamer class (Thief, Ranger) or a proved zerg class (support Guardian, support Engineer).

Edited October 12 by Buran.3796

[nosleepdemon.1368]

7 hours ago, Jobber.6348 said:

Here's a wiki article for you to reference: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Movement_Speed

To make it simpler for you if you're on mobile:

Shiro's Impossible Odds + 8 pip Rising Momentum will give you maximum in-combat movement speed. This means it's Superspeed levels of mobility simply by having it turned on, perfect for running away from groups of enemies. 

Swiftness + Speed Relic + 5 Pips Rising Momentum is what you need to achieve the same maximum in-combat movement speed. 

You can drop Speed Relic if you feel like having Shiro + Rising Momentum is enough to facilitate your escape, which opens up some Relic options:

1. Zakiros for life steal (not Life Siphon), granting you more sustain.

2. Atrocity for Life Siphon buff, which I only recommend if you are running Swords + Staff

3. Leadership for condition removal in case you are meeting alot of condition pressure from multiple foes 

4. Evasion if you wish to have an additional Vigor boon which you can maintain, allowing you more dodges to evade enemy aggression 

Thanks for the explanation, what I was doing wrong was comparing speed out of combat. I'll play some more tonight, the spec was tons of fun. It has a spectacular engage range and yeah, I did notice with the exact build you posted with the various speed boosts, nothing could get away from me. That in itself was extremely satisfying.

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

9 hours ago, Jobber.6348 said:

Swiftness + Speed Relic + 5 Pips Rising Momentum is what you need to achieve the same maximum in-combat movement speed

Does speed work like that, thought it wasmultiplicative and not replacing swiftness’s 33% to 66%. It’d be .33*.66+.33=54.78 or basically 55% movement speed. It’s minor, but it does adjust how much drain you’d need in order to keep up with others running super-speed. 

Edit: I read the whole movement speed wiki page. Guess it does work like that, I just didn't realize that we needed 190% movement speed to hit cap on flat terrain and always thought we needed 200%

Edited October 12 by UncreativeGreen.2019

[Aegon.9152]

On 10/10/2024 at 1:08 PM, arazoth.7290 said:

You use this build with these stats and relic of the blightbringer. They either leave or die and with any good luck they pm you something nice which you can laugh with

Would you not have enough sustain with Mallyx for the boonstrip instead of Ventari?

[arazoth.7290]

2 hours ago, Aegon.9152 said:

Would you not have enough sustain with Mallyx for the boonstrip instead of Ventari?

Probably, but you can survive another joining on you then 😅

[nosleepdemon.1368]

I've spent a couple evenings running Jobber's build, and it feels like the only proper way to play Rev in WvW tbh. I've assigned a second set of equipment with a Hammer equipped for zerg or encounters where I really need to keep out of melee. I also use bloodlust instead of hydromancy because I'll rarely be fighting other players without also engaging guards at some point. It's rare not to have some stacks of bloodlust, and 25 builds quickly. At which point it's a sight to behold melting groups of players with Hammer and then switching to Shiro/GS to evapourate anyone on the sidelines.

[Vasdamas Anklast.1607]

Switch to power vindicator and send them back to their camp.

Then watch another salty thing in your whispers. Sometimes they even switch to Harbringer to make a point smh

[arazoth.7290]

2 hours ago, Vasdamas Anklast.1607 said:

. Sometimes they even switch to Harbringer to make a point smh

how bad they are?

[Jobber.6348]

4 hours ago, Vasdamas Anklast.1607 said:

Sometimes they even switch to Harbringer to make a point smh

Realistically a Willbender facerolls any Harbinger anyday. They just have to open in with Stability and burst before they let them stack Carapace and they're dead because they have no Shroud protection and Prot isn't nearly enough for Harb to survive Willbenders unga bunga faceroll burst. 

[Vasdamas Anklast.1607]

5 hours ago, arazoth.7290 said:

how bad they are?

I mean, if I see some obviously angry Harbringer running towards me, I just switch one legend to Ventari, and then it's either endless torture for them or they realize they can't do much and just try to run away. I actually have a good laugh doing that sometimes.

 

3 hours ago, Jobber.6348 said:

Realistically a Willbender facerolls any Harbinger anyday. They just have to open in with Stability and burst before they let them stack Carapace and they're dead because they have no Shroud protection and Prot isn't nearly enough for Harb to survive Willbenders unga bunga faceroll burst. 

I've seen some good duels between experienced necromancers and guardians playing both, it was more like 50/50, but it surely looks possible and I bet that guardian would roflstomp 90% of the harbringers we have on WvW nowadays.
Thing is though, Harbringers are very effective against revenants. Vindicator has tools to "survive" it though, it's just it's not a very good idea to let Harbringer to be on offensive all the time. Been working non-stop so didn't have a chance to log in and see how much cele nerf has affected harbs and the likes.

[Jobber.6348]

8 hours ago, Vasdamas Anklast.1607 said:

Vindicator has tools to "survive" it though, it's just it's not a very good idea to let Harbringer to be on offensive all the time

Not so, Vindicator, especially WvW balanced Vindicator has tools to KILL Harbingers. 

Harbingers are characterized by few things to note:

- Carapace, granted via their condi application

- Mobility, granted via their mh sword or shroud

- instant boon application for short duration

- CC and lack of Stability compared to Reaper

Key is to watch them pop boons then immediately run to the nearest terrain to LoS. Bad Harbs will chase you with everything they have and they will not be able to kill a Salv-Retri Vindicator due to the constant condition removal. Once their boons start falling off, you will go hyper aggressive on them with Reaver's Rage. This is important because it not only dazes them, it does good damage and also gives you 2 stacks of Stability, which is more than enough for you to continue pressuring them in melee where they are easily about-faced by running through their hitbox as you attack them. Harbs by this stage of the fight has lost steam entirely and need to play full defense, something Vindicator absolutely capitalizes on when using their Dodge offensively. 

Harbs once you learn how to fight them are super easy to fight, it's just that they are just massively stacked by their Death Magic and boons, and until recently Cele's Conc and Expertise that they have to be VERY SLOPPY to lose any 1v1 fight. 

Edited October 21 by Jobber.6348