Willbender Feedback Thread

[Ezrael.6859]

Give us a Major Adept trait that changes all our weapon skill fields to either Dark fields or Water fields. Replace Conceited Curate.

[Clockless.2503]

I didn't like the spec at all.  I thought it would feel more like Daredevil, but the movement and animations  didn't have anywhere near the same kind of fluidity or control.  Off-hand sword seems like a bad idea altogether.  I wanted to use it, but the normal Guardian off-hand weapons feel like a better fit.  Main-hand sword was much more useful as an engage than the virtues, but obviously I already had that weapon on a higher damage/higher sustain build in core.  I'd actually like to junk the weapon entirely and think about main hand dagger instead, it seems like it would be a better fit for the class, and I'd probably end up using focus or torch anyway.  Then you could use 4 & 5 as 2 & 3, and MH sword might see some competition for use beyond GS.

 

I'm not sure how the virtues work beyond the initial burst, are they more like stances once activated?  I thought that's how it was supposed to be, but I didn't see or feel any kind of continual benefit after the initial hit.  I never relied much on the passives, but I feel like too much was taken away and too little left behind.  I don't see a reason not to just spam them, when it seems like the design should be to encourage you to swap less frequently.

 

I love the idea of tradeoffs in the trait lines, but like other noted I couldn't find traits I actually wanted to take. Everything seemed to have a much higher cost than a benefit.  They were all underwhelming, and not much in the way of synergies (maybe it would be better if the extra healing were extra concentration instead?  Maybe a GM could do something about the lack of CC?) .  I tried to make a condi build to see if it would work, and came to the conclusion that it's pretty much power-only, which I guess is fine, it just doesn't leave you much to work with.

 

This doesn't have to be as strong as FB to get me to use it (I'm actually tired of how strong main Guardians lines are since it makes them too popular), but it has to at least be fun to compensate for the loss, and this didn't have that either.  About the only thing that felt good was the speed boost, but that is largely wasted at this point with all of the mount options.  Maybe this is a good wvw option, if you are facing a zerg and they keep bunching up for you.  I actually really liked the other two professions a lot, I might actually make a Mesmer now.

[Mimterest.4639]

1 minute ago, Clockless.2503 said:

 

 

I'm not sure how the virtues work beyond the initial burst, are they more like stances once activated?  I thought that's how it was supposed to be, but I didn't see or feel any kind of continual benefit after the initial hit.  I never relied much on the passives, but I feel like too much was taken away and too little left behind.  I don't see a reason not to just spam them, when it seems like the design should be to encourage you to swap less frequently.

The way the new virtues work is that when you activate them, they do nothing or very little, but you get a small buff icon for x seconds, and hitting enemies a certain amount of times will trigger the effect. Willblender flames, utility skills, weapon skills all work. Like a lot of people have said, it's great in big AOE situations, nearly useless against a solo enemy or a couple of enemies. They would be great if you activated them and kept them forever as a stance! Sadly the reality is a lot more disappointing 😞

[Benkorah.6048]

I tested Willbender in open world with the default marauder's gear, and in Ascalonian Catacombs with a diviner's/commander's mix.

 

The Good:

1. The spec seems to open up possibilities for selfish dps builds for Guardian, which is OK, I guess.

2. The spec grew on me the more I played it.

3. Constant aegis while virtue of courage is active?  yes, please.

 

The Bad:

1. I don't see myself ever using offhand sword.  It doesn't offer much utility besides a bit of damage, and the damage felt "meh".  (I probably won't use the physical skills either, but honestly it's hard to compete with core guardian skills anyway.)

2.  Virtue of resolve was somewhat annoying to use since its value is tied to constantly attacking while it is active, but it frequently puts you out of range and facing the wrong direction when you use it.

3. The Phoenix Protocol trait, when combined with the Battle Presence trait, does not seem to grant alacrity to allies, which is a dirty shame.

 

Conclusion/Suggestions:

I'll probably run this with shouts or meditations instead of physical skills, but that's ok, because shouts and meditations are awesome.

Virtue of justice is appropriate, virtue of courage is amazing, virtue of resolve could use work.

Please allow Phoenix Protocol + Battle presence to apply alacrity to allies;  that would be awesome.

 

[Dantert.1803]

The Willbender seem to have a nice in and out of combat set of skills.
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be too useful in pve imo.
I like the skills mechanics but some animations feel slow and sluggish.
The sqord and kick/punch animations need more hit feedback. More punch

Also pleeease don't make all the elite specs about martial arts, it's not all the cantha is!

[Getefix.9150]

just putting my thoughts down about the willbender specialisation - and i know its cool to bash on new things but i have some genuine feedback for the dev team

 

its far too fragile for the role its been put into - the guardian has one of the lowest health pools in the game which normally, makes them pretty squishy but they do have their healing and buffing abilities to make up for it - most notably the virtue passives - in the willbender these passives are removed

 

if going for a damage dealing focus - which the specialisation seems to push you towards, you sacrifice 400 toughness  which according to the dev team itself (see 1:10:35 on the showcase stream video) puts the guardians damage resistanc eon par with light armour - so the willbender becomes as squishy as an elementalist [on another note - in the showcase meant to bring up hype for the subclass - the perk power for power was discribed as being for people who "like being in the downed state" so it seems like the dev team KNOW this is a bad trade off/perk

 

as for the damage output - i believe the attack speed of the willbender is quite slow for what theme the dev team are trying to push. I'm assuming the theme was to draw similarities between the specialisation and shiro tagachi - in which case, the attack speed definitely needs to increase

 

at 1:11:09 of the stream, you hear the next perk which is extra healing power at the cost to healing others - this was also described as needing to be more powerful 

the master trait 'Holy Reckoning' was also described as "not adding a whole lot of value" [1:13:15 on the stream] - so surely this effect needs to be increased?

 

at 1:18:10 of the showcase, Tyrant's momentum was described with a quote saying "it allows other players to disengage or CC to force the guardian out of lethal tempo and lose all their stacks" - While i agree allowing players to counter effects of a subclass is good balance, the balancing shouldnt come as a result of choosing a particular perk

 

after playing it for a while, i have noticed the damage output doesnt make up for the dip in defences, I find myself taking way too much damage and i dont see the point in playing this specialisation over any others

[vilkanor.3072]

15 hours ago, Darknicrofia.2604 said:

And for a supposed "Quick Execution" class, you really have no means of actually chasing down and finishing off a target that is running away from you that has any sort of active defense and a stunbreak.

 

Resistance on Shadowstep is great for preventing cripples/blinds etc but if they just keep running away and can throw up a block or two you really have no means of getting more than 1 or 2 hits in before they keep running.

 

^this, allow this class to deliver on its premises 

 

also:

- lower utilities cooldown

- add AoE reveal

[adammantium.8031]

I used the default load out to do roam around the open world for 30 minutes. Haven't done a deep dive or theorycrafted at all, so observations are very high-level. Not going to talk too much about performance either, as number values can be balanced relatively easily.

 

On the positive side, the Willbender does feel like a monk-style class, which you're obviously going for. In that sense, one of the goals has been met.

 

Of far more concern to me, and I think others have echoed it, is the feel of the class in combat. Practically everything except the elite skill feels weak, lacking in oomph or satisfaction. Rather than being able to dive around the battlefield dealing awesome damage as in the profession video, I felt like I was diving around and... waving aimlessly in front of an enemy. 

 

Ultimately, it didn't feel fun enough to play over other professions.

[aelska.4609]

The major design flaws:

• 1. Virtues active effect triggering "on X hits" is terrible. The time window is so limited that it is unusable on practice.  This is paired with the "lethal tempo" mechanic, that has the same flaw.

2. Mobility on virtues is a fake promise. Distance covered with virtues does not outweigh the cast time. I really do not get why all virtues are not instant shadowstep like Judge's Intervention.

3. There is no interactivity between skills and virtues. Getting closer is cool but guardians weapons have overall a slow gameplay with quite high CD.

3. Traitline is worthless, there are no options that significantly improve the guardian. These traits feel uninspired, and the idea of making "tradeoffs" on them is stupid.

 

 

-> Core guard is actually stronger and feels more dynamic ... Oops 😃

Edited August 18, 2021 by aelska.4609

[Ezrael.6859]

After some more testing in WvW, it's clear that Willbender has huge survivability issues and not enough damage to balance it out.

 

The lack of passives from Resolve and Courage, plus the clunkiness of Justice, the after casts on Sword skills and utilities reveals a very flimsy elite spec.

Building damage into this spec doesn't make you an assassin also, it puts you close to other specs but with far less survivability.

 

Core Guardian has more damage, more healing, more cleanses, more sustain and less mobility.

That's not a good trade-off.

 

Zeal, Radiance, Virtues is much better spec with Greatsword, Sword/Focus rather than Willbender/Radiance/Virtues GS, Sw/Sw.

 

 

There are also so many traits across Guardian that now don't work at all or don't work properly with Willbender:

Fiery Wrath - Foes are almost never burning now

Zealous Scepter - Only when Justice active procs - so far worse compared to Core / DH / FB

Justice is Blind - No light aura

Inner Fire - Foes are almost never burning now

Radiant Power - Foes are almost never burning now

Purity of Body - There's no passive Resolve now

Unscathed Contender - No passive Aegis anymore

Absolute Resolve - No passive increase (might increase the active heal) if you choose it, it totally replaces the tooltip mention of movement inhibiting condition removal.

Permeating Wrath - Only does AoE burns for 6-8s while Justice is active. It's awful compared to Core / DH / FB passive.

Battle Presence - Now shares a none existent passive, whatever?

Indomitable Courage - Breaks Stun but doesn't apply the Stability until you complete the shadowstep, so you can be CC'd and fail the cast - same kind of issue as Shield of Courage used to have, it needs to instantly apply Stability.

 

I think the Virtue passives need to come back at minimum, the actives can still remain as they are, extra potency for being in active combat for a short duration.

But the lack of passives combined with Guardian's lowest level base hp and lack of Protection access compared to Elementalist reveals how flimsy Guardian is.

Guardian is meant to have the Resolve passive healing because of the fact its base hp is 11k.

Elementalist gets 5s of Protection every time it goes into Earth for around 50% - 100% uptime, easily 100% with Weaver.

 

Edit, I've never even taken Power for Power, my Armor has been 2337 the whole time.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Ezrael.6859
Updated Permeating Wrath

[Trejgon.9367]

17 minutes ago, Ezrael.6859 said:

Permeating Wrath - Does nothing now? Or AoE burns from Virtue procs? It's awful compared to Core / DH / FB

 

works exactly same except only within 6-8 seconds depending on choice of traits after clicking f1 - assuming you don't click f2 nor f3 during that time.

[NotTooFoolish.7412]

After playing a bit of WB in PvE, I feel like it was not intended for us. Note: I haven't tried any PvP or WvW (the first one might be the place for this one). I was using a mix of legendary/ascended Berserker gear with sword/sword and scepter/sword as the weapons.

1. Mobility skills are fun, but that's slightly too much for me, especially at this range. When zooming around, you have to sacrifice dmg output.

2. Flowing Resolve (F2): Yeets you out of the range in not a particularly useful direction. With its duration, you cannot really see the benefit.
3. Animations are flashy. The locks decrease fluidity of movement which seems to be WB's thing.

4. It doesn't play well with core trait lines. (Harbinger is said to do that much better)

5. Reversal of Fortune (Heal): Underwhelming when facing slower attacking enemies.

 

I'm often playing FB in PvE. Great support for the team (in group content Raids, Fractals, World Bosses) and the FB themself. You can really feel the lack of that on WB. It's nice to see Alac on guard, but the lack of sharing and it's duration are a bit disappointing (with the condition for the trigger). This seems like a very confused blue thief. For PvE, it seems like I'd stick to DH (power) and FB (condi/boon).

[Ezrael.6859]

Pure of Sight 5% - 15% damage increase

Big Game Hunter 15% damage increase for 10s

 

Lethal Tempo by comparison isn't good, its duration is too short and you normally don't have it, this only works well with 5 static golems in demonstration videos.

 

It should change to 15% baseline passive damage increase

+1% per stack for the Lethal Tempo short duration buff (6s)

+3% per stack for the Tyrant's Momentum buff (4s)

[Trejgon.9367]

ok so as promised I did a second round of testing in roaming, and I must say that lack of bazilion of people around has exposed issues that failed to meet the eye first time around.

 

So first and foremost, despite building for survivability and condi cleanse (and heals) willbender fails to sustain against the class that on paper should have not been a contest in 1v1 - firebrand (firebrand shines in groups, but is not all that good for roaming, and here we go roamer firebrand wins a duel against roaming willbender, twice).

 

And mobility wilbender promises, is well, an illusion. I was unable to break off the combat from the LEAST mobile of guardian classes in game (was a bit of lenghty chase, and while firebrand was unable to keep hitting me due to some distance I have managed to put, we were still within combat range (any ranged equivalent would be able to finish me off during that chase, as it was shown when harbinger came about, noticed whole scene out of benny hill, decided to pop in, toss couple condis and that has put a stop to whole thing, in about 10 seconds.

 

And on bonus points: during whole testing session I have had virtues interrupted and put on full cooldown 3 times, within a scope of two fights.

 

So despite original good impression,  testing in more "realistic" environment have shown to yield similar results to what other posters above have spoken about above - the espec does not deliver on any promise it makes. It's mobility it's fancy ilussion of nice animations, it is no assasin, and definitelly not a brawler.

[Eddie.8657]

Willbender honestly feels a bit like playing Monk on WoW.
And that's a very bad thing imo.

Yes you gave it a 2nd  sword. (like monk in WoW can do)
Then all the slot skills make use of Fists and Kicks.. Which imo does not fit the Guardian at all.. I'm really sad that this Spec made its way to Guardian. Wouldve been better on Revenant maybe? Where u can teleport into mists and punch/kick people but whatever.

I think the class feels clunky too. Doesn't fit in Guild Wars 2 at all imo. However if they want it in the game i won't complain theres plenty of other specs & classes to play.

Other than this i don't have much to say about this Spec. It lacks gw2 elements that i can't even explain. It seriously feels like playing WoW monk and i hate it 😛 Going to be a pain in PVP when they buff it. Which they probably will as i see alot of complaints

I really hope they don't buff it hard tho. We have plenty of Guardians in the game as is. And i'd hate to see Guardian and Necro getting the best specs again.

[Zeph.5927]

12 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

After playing the 3 new specs for a while I have to say that Willbender is totally broken, its DPS is insane and a disrespect to other specs, in PvP this will be oppresive, the new scourge.

What in the actual kitten have you been smoking? This has to be a troll post. If it’s not then you are straight up blind/ignorant.

[Caid.4932]

Anyone mess around with tenacious defence? (reduces recharge time of courage virtue when aegis blocks).

Feels like with mace and a couple of other talents you could potentially get decent uptime on crashing courage which can be great when its up

 

Edit: played around with it seemed very, very tanky and quite fun. Mace, shield is surprisingly good. Probably wouldn't hold up that well in pvp or wvw where the procs wouldn't keep up the number of attacks but i felt pretty immortal with minimal vitality and toughness in pve. You just block everything.

Damage wasn't great at all. Could probably do some decentish spike damage but its pretty weak

Edited August 18, 2021 by Caid.4932

[frareanselm.1925]

5 minutes ago, Zeph.5927 said:

What in the actual kitten have you been smoking? This has to be a troll post. If it’s not then you are straight up blind/ignorant.

I played Willbender in PvP and it is totally overpowered. In PvP interrupts, knockbacks or stuns are key, and this spec is full of them, this advantage added with the high burst is just crazy.

[Neva Eilhart.5347]

1 hour ago, aelska.4609 said:

The major design flaws:

• 1. Virtues active effect triggering "on X hits" is terrible. The time window is so limited that it is unusable on practice.  This is paired with the "lethal tempo" mechanic, that has the same flaw.

2. Mobility on virtues is a fake promise. Distance covered with virtues does not outweigh the cast time. I really do not get why all virtues are not instant shadowstep like Judge's Intervention.

3. There is no interactivity between skills and virtues. Getting closer is cool but guardians weapons have overall a slow gameplay with quite high CD.

3. Traitline is worthless, there are no options that significantly improve the guardian. These traits feel uninspired, and the idea of making "tradeoffs" on them is stupid.

 

 

-> Core guard is actually stronger and feels more dynamic ... Oops 😃

I'd like to add two more major design flaws to your very on-point list :

 

5. Some traits work in complete opposite directions, even when they're supposed to work together. Like Restorative Virtues and Phoenix Protocol. Both are supposed to help you enter virtues more often, but one (Restorative Virtues) is relying on you spamming the virtues and enjoy their first tick of boons as an upside effect, the other one (Phoenix Protocol) forces you to stay as long as possible in F2 to maintain decent enough Alacrity, while also getting max heal from HoT Regeneration procs.

 

6. For an e-spec which was advertised as an "Assassin" spec (dev quote here), it baffles me how strong it is when you throw it into a zerg (where your virtues proc so often you get 20 useless stacks of stability... given you're in a zerg, no ones needs so much), and how weak it is when actually doing assassins' work (meaning taking one specific target). It's a terrible side effect of the virtue trigger mechanic you already listed as #1 on your list.

 

I can see where Anet wants this spec to get, and quite frankly despite all the clunkiness I really love what they have in mind. But the execution is terrible so far. It needs tweaking, from taking out animation locks to dealing with the virtue trigger mechanic, to reworking traits and giving them better synergy.

[Neva Eilhart.5347]

6 minutes ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

I played Willbender in PvP and it is totally overpowered. In PvP interrupts, knockbacks or stuns are key, and this spec is full of them, this advantage added with the high burst is just crazy.

 

Just let average PVP Joe understand how WB works. They'll backpedal out of your flames, and your virtues will fall useless. You won't get any significant boon out of them. Plus, the interupts and knockbacks you have as WB are so telegraphed a remotely decent PVP player will know when to dogde or proc stability in a couple of days. And finally, your mobility locks you in animations which... pretty much act like you're the one being interrupted/dazed/knocked back. So all in all...

[VergilDeZaniah.3295]

A really simple feedback compared to the previous ones, I will simply focus on the design in general. I am mainly a WvW player so I'm talking about my experience in that mode only.

 

Willbender is absolutely fun to play! I really love the movements, and the lore behind the spec. Also, most traits seem rather balanced (I haven't spent that much time playing around with them), I love the risk/reward aspect.

 

1. Regarding animations, most of them are really great though they lack fluidity and lock you in place.
2. Movement skills should be a bit less clunky and maybe should have a longer range (450 for F1 and F2 is really short).
3. As it is advertised as a sword/sword spec, I think that Sword 3 need a rework: the spec is supposed to be all about movement, and this skill locks you in place for way too long. Maybe change Sword 3 depending on the OH and make it really mobile when Sword/Sword?
4. Sword 4 should feel more like an "execution" and be a bit faster. Most targets can run away after the first hit.
5. Healing skill feels a bit underwhelming, especially with the amount of heal provided. As a WvW player, I feel like my heal is negated nearly as soon as it has happened.
6. "Quick Retribution" needs a longer range: if I go back 300 with "Rolling Light" and the target runs away, QR is totally useless.
7. "Heaven's Palm" needs a slightly bigger radius (300 would be perfect). I really love the animation of that one!

Edited August 18, 2021 by VergilDeZaniah.3295

[vilkanor.3072]

[WvW]

 

I'm starting to familiarize, but can't stress enough on how important is to deliver on mobility: Willbender (omg please reconsider the naming) has some good opening, but it fails at finishing what it starts.

Also, the healing skill seems designed around the assumption of a group fight, but the class is much better at 1v1 than any other scenario. The low hp combined with the absence of a key boon from base Guardian (protection) is easily noticeable.

As someone else pointed out, skills need either shorter animations or less revealing telegraph, or this class will quickly become a sitting duck against the above average player

[NomadProphet.1752]

Alrighty well after trying multiple gear sets hoping to use something new like Grieving or Plaguedoctor, it seems Willbender works great as a bland old Power DPS spec with Berserker.  I was really hoping this expansion would break the meta, GW2 has so many cool armor sets that could make for interesting builds which are totally neglected. I thought maybe when Anet said they would 'break the rules' with these Elite Specs that we would see more hybrid stuff, but alas no. Willbender has some cool stuff when things go right, teleporting and charging from enemy to enemy like a kitten royal battlefield assassin in heavy armor, however things do not always go right. These are views I have gained from my time doing PvE but I would imagine much of this would be a problem in PvP as well.

 

1.) The heal skill needs something to prevent interrupt, or to mitigate its frequency. Fighting in Maguuma jungle for example against enemies that constantly launch/push/knockdown makes healing a coin toss.

 

2.) The flow of combat is regularly broken due to the anime style 'hang in the air before hitting hard' which (although cool) causes a lot of problems with timing these abilities and getting hit a lot during them. The return of Flash Combo/Repose is a cool animation that also gives enemies a lot of time to close to my location after shadowstepping away thus nullifying its use.

 

3.) The synergy problem with Guardian traits and the lack of Virtue passives has been brought up a lot and I would be surprised if Anet was not already aware of this and had changes in place further down the line (if not, PLEASE rework this or this spec is dead in the water).

 

4.) Willbender Flames. I see this makes sense when looking at how the effects of Virtues work after using them, helping to get those attacks in so that the damage/healing/alacrity/aegis can trigger well. Problem is this is a pretty quick game, enemies move a lot (Bonebreakers, Rolling Devils, Forged Surfer Guys that I forget the name of are good examples) and unless they are kept stacked together these fields are just meh. If you aren't going to change anything meaningful in the damage meta then can we please just get burning? Or a new DOT? Other ways of triggering the virtues need to happen.

 

Final Notes - Currently I main Firebrand in PvE, and have played plenty of Dragonhunter in PvP. I can heal and sustain myself, buff myself and my team, and have great cleave as well as decent single target DPS. Willbender does none of these things well. It has potential with its movement, but this is the only reason I would play it currently. Its a fun change. This will inevitably mean players will go back to previous specs very quickly as they are simply better. We were sold the WIllbender as a Royal Assassin type spec, it needs to fulfill this fantasy. Deadeye does an amazing job as a bounty hunter, the voicelines, animations and raw single target damage with stealth as an excellent escape really make the class fantasy real. This NEEDS to happen with Willbender. Where are my bodyguard style abilities? Why don't I have much in the way of escape or defense? I like the trade off of becoming squishy so I can be fast and deadly, but then I actually need to be fast and deadly enough to get out of the way of things. Maybe add evade frames to charges? Maybe give us more unblockable attacks? Willbender is flashy and fast (for the most part) and has the potential to make me feel like a real menace. I can see the bodyguard in full plate, burning blue energies surging behind them as they close in on the threat before it even makes the threshold of the throne room. I want so badly for this to come to life and I am sure Anet does as well. Right now, flashy, fast and ultimately a gimmick.

[Sutepun.9450]

A possible rework for the virtues would be a focus system, where a willbender still has access to passive virtue effects, but only access one set of passives at a time. In terms of UI, make it similar to the mesmer clone tracker, where there are empty circles over the virtues. When you activate a virtue, a flame will light up above the last used virtue. In addition to the current virtues existing functionality, you can make it have a weaker version of guardian passives that is usable until you use another virtue. The weaker versions could be:

1. Lesser Justice: Number of attacks to trigger: 8 
2. Lesser Resolve: Regen is half the effect of normal. Battle Presence can only share Resolve when "focused" in Resolve
3. Lesser Courage: Cooldown is 60s

This would solve the problem of certain trait synergies being nerfed on Willbender in comparison to other specs (e.g. Fiery Wrath, Radiant Power). Even if you don't want to rework how virtues currently work, consider putting the UI tracker for what virtue effect is used currently, as it will be useful for players to track their virtues in situations where they cannot reliably look at the fields like in open world PvE zergs and maybe WvW zergs if someone decides to use it there.

[Tolsis.3518]

Willbender is a bad name. Such a bad name.

 

Alternatives might be: Dimacheron/Dimachero/Dimacheris (variation of Dimachaerus a dual-wielding Roman gladiator class), or - well pretty much anything other than 'willbender'.

 

To whomever phoned that one in, and to whichever bright spark green-lit it, I say 'Bad Job, Chump.'