Willbender Feedback Thread

[Blue Pilot.5648]

I'll just start all my feedback posts by saying where my perspective as a player comes from. I play guildwars as a pve roamer, if that's even a thing. I do some light group content, world bosses, and all around enjoy exploring the world solo or with friends. I don't do much raiding, wvw, or pvp.

 

The Willbender was overall flashy and fun, a good proof of concept, but it could be improved. Visually stunning, I enjoyed all the animations and effects for the skills. However, for a class that is all about the rushdown, there are some weird inconsistencies in timings and ranges that throw the feel of the elite spec off.

 

 

Now for some scattered thoughts:

 

- A dual sword wielding Willbender has access to at least, 6 rush/shadowstep skills; and they all have different ranges. Please normalize them to be consistent. Bring them all up to at least 600 (maybe 900?) I don't know if this would be too strong in pvp/wvw, but for pve I want the Willbender to almost not need mounts. I want to be able to rush from enemy to enemy using all my movement skills leaving a trail of fire in my wake. 

 

- The active effect of the virtues could be buffed. I appreciate the lack of passive effects for virtues on this spec, because it pushes me into activating them more often. However, no other guardian elite looses the passive effects of their virtues and still gain access to new effects. As they stand right now, activating a willbender's virtue, gives me some mobility and then enables me to temporarily have what is normally the passive effect of that same virtue in another spec. On top of that, as a Willbender, I can only have one of these effects active at once, while the other guard specs have all three effects active just by existing. Allowing the Willbender's effects to trigger with less attacks, or buffing the current effect (stronger burning + might/fury, better heal + condi cleanse, aegis + resolution/resistance/vigor for example) would help the trade off feel worth it. 

 

- Major Adept Traits. These are kinda boring. "Power for Power" is the only one mildly interesting, because there's a real trade off there, but for the other two is just kinda "eh". Maybe one of these could be changed to give a bonus to using the Physical skills, or to having an offhand sword. Maybe something that gives you a little quickness or superspeed to further push the theme of this spec. 

 

- Awkward skills. As a rushdown elite spec, some skills felt like they went against that quick strike feel. The biggest offenders for me where "Rushing Justice", "Flowing Resolve"  and  "Executioner's Calling".

1. Rushing Justice has 3 main components: the dash, the uppercut, and the flames. The dash is a nice gap closer, and the fire claw effect is pretty cool looking. However, the uppercut is weird. It needs to either strike a lot faster after the dash, or deliver a wallop of a punch if it's going to have that big of a windup. As a move that presents itself as a combat opener, it just feels ill timed.
2. Flowing Resolve. I am not sure what to do with this skill. Out of the 3 virtues, this was the one I used the least. Of the three grandmaster traits, "Phoenix Protocol" was the first one I traited for, since I liked the idea of having alacrity so I could use my movement skills even more, but rushing through my opponent mid combat and having to re-orient myself did not feel intuitive, so even when traited for, I did not use this skill much. 
3. Executioner's Calling. The first hit felt like it took AGES to come out. If this ability is all about getting the follow up attack, maybe the dual strike should be the one that's slightly delayed. As it stands now, using this skill feels like a break in rhythm for what is supposed to be an agile class. 

 

That's all I have on the Willbender. Like I said, overall it's really cool, but it needs some fine tuning to really shine.

[cat.8975]

2 hours ago, Axl.8924 said:

Thats kinda disappointing didn't get any legit answers .

That's because you asked in the bug thread instead of this one lol
 

Quote

I got a question for you guys did you guys manage to figure out a way to make willbender work in pve? i didn't do the kind of extensive work you guys did. I'l admit that the performance i did with mindbender could have very well been a combination of lack of knowledge of guardian combined with a new spec i was even less knowledgeable about.

• Hybrid (grieving+flame legion) running Virtues 311, Radiance 221, WB 222
• Power (zerk) running Zeal 223, Radiance 233, WB 222
• Healer (dunno what gear lol) running the 2nd GM trait in Virtues and whatever else you want from a third line (probably honor for more healing or radiance for signet sharing/damage). The core concept is that you can just press f2 and pump out heals for 6s with some fast hitting attacks. This is probably the most flexible build when it comes to traits/weapons/utils/gear as I could see a very offensive version of this working just as well as a very defensive one, based on the traits they have access to.

[otto.5684]

18 hours ago, Ragnarox.9601 said:

who cares about pve, every spec can be top in pve, this one sucks badly in wvw and pvp. 

I do, and so do most players as the majority do not pvp. Not saying pvp is not important. As a former pvper I attest it is. Class design should keep pvp in mind but should not be driven by it.

 

And overall WB is bad. Incredibly bad. The worst iteration of elite I have seen in the game so far. Anet copy pasted OH sword from rev. Everything else is pretty much the same as power core and DH. It is the same exact rotation and mostly the same utilities. And the mobility in pve is really mediocre when I compare it to rev, Mesmer, warrior or thief. Even if WB holds the highest damage output in pve, I have zero interest in playing the same thing I have been playing in years, with 5% higher damage.

 

And pvp issues run way beyond just WB. Power guardian as a whole is not viable in pvp, aside from the kittening garbage trapper DH build. And this garbage build is not viable on the higher end anyway. WB, as power dps, will never work in pvp unless the fundamentals issues with guardian are fixed. As far as I have seen since Feb 2020, Anet did a paradigm shift in t pvp, did not think it through. Did not provide sufficient support to fix the issues. And now they are too “busy” developing the new elite specs. 
 

Talking about pvp is a kittening waste of time. 

Edited August 23, 2021 by otto.5684

[Guizao.4167]

My feedback: the spec has good potential and defensive options, I managed to stack 25s of Resolution in spvp and I loved it. My problems with the spec: I don't like the first roll of traits, you don't have a condition option there just power, healing and concentration, imo healing is worthless to have playing willbender and I'd like a condi option. There can also be more run for condition damage, I'm not sure how to feel about Willbender Flames and F1 skill. F2 skill could use more raw healing to par it well with Litany of Wrath and F3 is just perfect as it is. I'd also want to mention the fact that Willbender doesn't have much synergy with the rest of the core traitlines, especially Virtues.

[Jackcreanor.7546]

Putting my 2 cents in now that the beta is over. 

• I think a lot of people had the wrong idea of what the spec was supposed to do going into the beta. Plenty of people compared it to thief and expected a "hit and run" kind of playstyle, but I think this wasn't quite accurate. Guardians don't retreat, and this spec demonstrates that better than any other. I found this spec to be most fun and effective with the mindset of "hit and keep hitting". The minor traits were the highlight of this spec for me as they enabled this playstyle excellently without being overpowered. Righteous Sprint made me feel sticky on mobile targets and Lethal Tempo rewarded me for sticking.

I also enjoyed the way the changes to virtue passives played into core guard traits. I spent most of my time running a particularly volatile but deadly Mystic Rebuke+Tenacious Defense build in WvW, where I would dive into the middle of a zerg to absorb as many hits as possible, pumping out endless aegis and damage and trying to reset courage's CD to avoid certain death. Tons of fun.

A couple of areas I'd like to see polished before the expac drops are

1. Removing or reducing some of the awkward cast/after-cast times. Particularly with OH sword and VoJ, I would frequently find myself unable to use abilities for no apparent reason after using some of these abilities. This was particularly annoying when trying to proc my virtue passives within their limited window.

2. Virtue passives/Willbender Flames feel awkward to use on a single target. Its harder to proc virtue passives and it feels like I don't get much value out of any of the grandmaster traits in 1 on 1 fights. Perhaps Willbender Flames could deal 5 hits every interval divided between up to 5 targets, but I understand this would make the Holy Reckoning trait ridiculously strong, so I' not sure what the answer is here.

All in all I loved playing this spec, and hope that if any changes are made they don't take away from the "hit and keeping hitting" feel of the spec. ❤️

[Axl.8924]

9 hours ago, cat.8975 said:

That's because you asked in the bug thread instead of this one lol
 

• Hybrid (grieving+flame legion) running Virtues 311, Radiance 221, WB 222
• Power (zerk) running Zeal 223, Radiance 233, WB 222
• Healer (dunno what gear lol) running the 2nd GM trait in Virtues and whatever else you want from a third line (probably honor for more healing or radiance for signet sharing/damage). The core concept is that you can just press f2 and pump out heals for 6s with some fast hitting attacks. This is probably the most flexible build when it comes to traits/weapons/utils/gear as I could see a very offensive version of this working just as well as a very defensive one, based on the traits they have access to.

 

Thats good to know i wasn't sure if it was worth anything yet or needed changes. When i played it in fractals even though i had virtues honor dps build, i wasn't noticing huge dmg or anything of the like. So second question is: Did anet mostly intend this for PVP?

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Wutwurzel.9325]

An Idea for the Virtues: Change them from "you need to activate them everytime new" to stance-like "once activated, the Virtue stays active until you activate another one. Every x hit will activate the effect of burning/healing/aegis.", but with an internal cooldown of x seconds for each enemy.

If a Virtue is active, you can "activate" it a second time to rush/teleport to the enemy with an initial AoE-strike, as it currently is.

The rush/teleport could have the same cooldown as the Virtue itself.

 

Change the Willbender Flames-Effect from a ground-targeted "permanent" AoE to a Debuff the enemy will get, if you hit them with the initial AoE-strike from the rush/teleport. That Debuff damages that enemy every second, like the currently Willbender Flames, but you don't need to stay in Place cause of the ground-targeted AoE.

It may be a good Idea to add Quickness to Willbender Flames for every tick of it on an enemy. This would compensate the low Dmg of Willbender Flames and make it more important to use it everytime its available.

 

Also you could set an F4 to get out of the active Virtue without having another one to activate.

[Coinhead.7591]

Here is some feedback on specific skills:

• Rushing Justice (F1): Not fun to use, feels weaker than normal or dragonhunter F1. I wish it was more like Burning Speed
• Flowing Resolve (F2): I wish I could control the distance this travels.
  Physical skills overall: I fear these skills if not modified will end up like most physical skills in the game already: Not used.
• Roiling Light: Rollback feels very slow and range of it feels very low. 30 seconds cooldown in pvp feels long.
• Heel Crack: This skill doesnt feel very impactful.
  Flash Combo: The conditionality is not needed, should always allow teleporting back.
• Reversal of Fortune: Negating only one single attack feels weak. I often got attacked by multiple attacks and ended up blocking something irrelevant.
• Heaven's Palm: Very hard to land against players even when used with Judge's Intervention. I guess its OK for breaking bars in PvE.

Overall the specialization felt weak. Dealing damage to players was difficult. In PvE where opponents stand still there was no problem with damage or the use of skills.

[Kryhakk.8529]

Willbender's movement is fast, but the attacks are not, it's pretty hard to combo with it, and the attacks themselves don't do enough dmg...

Basically what I'm saying he's both attacking slow and having low dps... I feel like he should either attack fast with lower dmg, or attack slower but with higher dmg. Atm he's really bad I think, for everything (PvP, WvW, PvE).

[aymnad.9023]

Pvp impression: unranked

Many people say / said Willbender is like a thief but the profession with the closest design would be revenant. It shares way more themes with them (heal on hit, sword 4, sword 5, tp, effect on hit).

I did tried to play condi build with a lot of aoes. While it was fun the results was lacking a bit of damage because of the F1 change (see trait / utilities). Power can do some good burst but I think core (which I enjoyed a lot 3 seasons ago) offers a lot more defenses for a similar range of damage. For my final attempts I ended up playing symbol and got more success but I would rather not see too many symbol builds.

 

PvE impression: tested only on golem

Same as for PvP. I did get less damage than I expected with condi but got good results with power. It plays pretty much like a dh. Without that many modifiers it is a testament to how well core guard can perform.

 

Trait / utilities:

I noticed a few things but unlike the other 2 beta specs I cannot find suggestions or adjustments at the time of this post which make it very vague (sorry about that 😞). 

 

F1 : The effects can be hard to trigger but I loved the aoe effect and combined it with more aoe utilities. Finding the correct balance is probably hard. It should be a bit easier to trigger in pvp but at the same time should be looked at carefully in PvE. 

F2: I had a hard time landing the flame and triggering the effects in PvP. Just like F1 the PvP / PvE balance is probably a key point.

F3 : Gives a lot of bonus and be very strong. It is probably fine to leave it as it is.

Sword 4 : I found it a bit hard to land a hit. Someone compared it to warrior axe 4 which is weird because I did land axe on a regular basis. Maybe I was not used to it or missed a setup.

Sword 5 : It was ok. Not great but not bad.

Flash combo :  I have not found the reason why the blink + damage missed so often but I rarely got the return. Has some good damage in PvE.

Whirling light : Burn and weakness are good for everything.

Rolling light: Just like virtuoso strunbreak it is weir to load so many effects on this utility.

 

Suggestion:

The description of phoenix protocol is very unclear / confusing. It should probably be rephrased and avoid using regeneration twice. Maybe something like disable F2 heal on hit to gain regeneration?

Edited August 23, 2021 by aymnad.9023

[Monarc.9726]

14 hours ago, Wutwurzel.9325 said:

 

An Idea for the Virtues: Change them from "you need to activate them everytime new" to stance-like "once activated, the Virtue stays active until you activate another one. Every x hit will activate the effect of burning/healing/aegis.", but with an internal cooldown of x seconds for each enemy.

If a Virtue is active, you can "activate" it a second time to rush/teleport to the enemy with an initial AoE-strike, as it currently is.

The rush/teleport could have the same cooldown as the Virtue itself.

 

I like this idea a lot. It’s been mentioned before and I think making the Virtues stay activated until switching and adding some form of second debuff attack on cooldown would make for much more fun and engaging gameplay. It would also feel more like an elite spec. I’d also prefer no ground target for WB flames (if that mechanic even stays). It just doesn’t fit with the mobile play style.

 

This with a tweak to animation locks, better evades and quickness or block access, give OH sword a decent boon/debuff on 4 to make it feel more worthwhile, and a slight buff to physical skills and I’d be happy. 
 

Oh, and redo the trails so they aren’t so bad, lol. Can’t forget about that.

Edited August 24, 2021 by Monarc.9726

[mazut.4296]

Do not make teleport range the same for all shadow step skills, what a stupid suggestion...

[Ackzar.9156]

Willbender feedback

I wanted to wait a bit before posting my feedback, because I wanted to have some time to both play the specialization, as well as time to process my impressions of the elite spec.

 

Concept:

I liked the concept of a mobile, assassin styled guardian, as it's a fresh take on the guardian class. But despite there being some cool ideas behind the Willbender spec, it feels like you haven't been able to tie these ideas into one cohesive elite spec. You have the mobile assassin idea, but the spec doesn't bring the kind of burst or swift movements you'd expect (in comparison to thief or a shiro rev). You also have this kind of martial arts brawler, the utility spells are there, but nothing else in the kits seems to really tie into these physical skills. Again, there are some fun and interesting concepts going on, but I was left feeling like the Willbender lacked a cohesive concept and identity.
 

Traits:

The traits aren't necessarily bad, but they lack a bit of oomph. While the idea of "gain more of X stat, but lose some of Y stat" traits are cool, it seems a bit bland when all the adept traits are like this. The "gain power, but lose toughness" is an interesting one that I can see myself using in different situations, but the other options doesn't really offer you any stats you particularly want.. I tried some condi builds, but I just couldn't find something that works well. I didn't try a boon build, but at the same time, I don't see any major boon builds being viable for Willbender. So for the adept traits, they feel bland, and there's only really one of them that are actually good.

 

The master tier traits seems fine for the most part. I'd still like to see the traits shake up the way you play, or how your skills function. Something I'd like to see, is having Holy Reckoning changing how your Willbender Flames work, so for example, after using Rushing Justice, you next attack gains a bonus strike (similar to Rangers One Wolf Pack), or at least something that makes you think differently about how you use your Willbender Flames. It would be cool of Restorative Virtues would let you bypass the willbender flames restriction, and let you stack all of your willbender flames.

 

The grandmasters are pretty cool for the most part, they do well to pave out different play styles. I'm not sure why Phoenix Protocol grants alacrity. Alacrity without quickness feels a bit weird, and it doesn't really help the willbender accomplish what it wants to do. If this was changed to quickness, you'd have agency how you want to set up your burst damage, you'd suddenly have 3 very interesting GM traits that all feel good to use, and makes for interesting decision making. 

 

PvE:

The Willbender feels fun to play in the open world. You're mobile, fast and it's just a fun way to experience your Guardian. When it comes instanced content, and end game content, I was a bit disappointed. You use the exact same rotation you would use as a Dragon Hunter. So unless I was looking at the animation of my spells, it actually felt like I was still playing Dragon Hunter. I'm sure you could tweak some numbers that would incentivize the community to come up with a different rotation, but as it stands now, it feels too familiar to an existing elite spec. This is a problem, because either a) Willbender is stronger than Dragon Hunter, and you'd have no reason to play Dragon Hunter over Willbender or b) Willbender is weaker than Dragon Hunter on release, and the only reason you'd have to pick Willbender over Dragonhunter, is because you want to play the new spec. 

 

PvP:

In PvP and WvW (solo), I felt like I didn't have the tools and the power I needed. Willbender sells this idea of being a mobile "assassin" that uses offense as the best defense. But when I played it felt like I lacked the power to pull this off. The damage isn't really there, I had to go full berserker with scholar runes to feel like I could actually burst someone, but I still didn't pack the same damage as a thief or shiro rev.

 

I was a bit frustrated with all the cast times and animation locking that the willbender skills bring. You imagine that you'll be playing as this fast and mobile class, but your skills have cast times, and locks you in animations. This made the class feel clunky and a sense of the class actually being "slow". So neither the power, nor the mobility of this "mobile assassin" seemed to really be there. This can easily be fixed by tuning damage numbers, shortening cast times, and allowing us to move while casting the spells, so I don't see these issues as major problems. What I personally wish for, is to have some more tools carry to give us more agency. Like I proposed in the traits section, it'd be cool to give us the option to trait into a source of self-quickness. Having some more quickness would make it easier to pull of your burst, and land your damage spells in a shorter time frame, making the class feel more "bursty". I'd also love to see some more damage on the spec, not in the sense of damage modifiers, or number tweaks, but it would be cool to have something like Rangers One Wolf Pack, or Revenants Impossible Odds. Having another source of damage like this, would support the assassin feel of the spec, as well as further differentiate the feel of Willbender, from the other guardian specs.
 

[MementoMori.6087]

Of the 3 elite specs, Willbender wow-ed me the least, and I played it least of all. I expected the new Guardian spec to be more pvp-oriented, and it does seem to be fairly well suited for that (concept wise at least, I'll leave the functionality up to people who spend more time in pvp/wvw). The rest however seems wholly uninspired. The offhand sword is a blatant copy of Revenant, and although the idea of physical skills on Guardian sounds interesting, the skills themselves are... just not.

On to actually playing Willbender itself.
It's... a mess. It's supposed to be dynamic, fluent, mobile, but with pretty much every mobility ability comes an animation lock which makes everything you do feel sluggish and frustrating.

When looking at straight-up golem performance, damage might be "alright" (honestly, it doesn't need more if it's meant to be a pvp/wvw spec like Spellbreaker), but the way to achieve it is not interesting in any way. Just spamming f1 off cooldown to upkeep the buffs (even with the reduced duration) makes this a poor mans dragonhunter. Its redeeming factor should be that it's a "fun" spec in PvE, but with all its flaws, it's not. And I can't even imagine how bad it might feel when playing in a competitive environment.

[Avenrise.3592]

I'm going to keep this short and sweet because, if I'm honest, I wanted to hold off playing the elite specs properly until they release. 

 

Just a single suggestion that echos what so many have already said but this is just a +1 I guess- for a class based on heavy movement the F skills felt very lackluster. The idea is great but overall with the short time I played with the class I felt very limited. Multiple skills have movement but when they're mostly all just small jumps it made for a frustrating play.

[Crystal Black.8190]

Willbender has an identity crisis. Lore wise they are the bodyguards of the emperor but there is nothing in their skill kit that helps them protect another player. The class is supposed to be more selfish but in no skill is even a hint of being a protector while I would have expected an entire trait line dedicated to being a bodyguard. Another theme seems to be being an assassin, but willbender is worse fighting a lone isolated target or hunting one down. Instead Willbender favors hitting as many targets as possible to trigger virtues.

Virtues:
I like the idea of making them more active to use, but guardians rely on their passives to a large degree, be it to survive by healing and blocking or dealing damage by applying and triggering the on burn traits. Furthermore all the passive enhancing traits, which there are a lot of, suddenly do nearly nothing. This needs to change. An elite spec shouldnt invalidate most of the core classes traits. A possible solution would be to grant a stronger effect of the currents passive on each strike, while maintaining the even larger effect on every fifth. Eg purity of body could no longer grant passive endurance regeneration, but restores a flat amount of endurance every strike and an even larger amount every fifth.

There are also things like absolute resolve increasing the healing of virtue 2, but willbenders phoenix protocol grandmaster takes away all healing of virtue 2. No matter how bad and anti-synergistic the traits you chose there should never be a case in which one trait completely nullifies the effect of another.

While some passive virtue enhancing effects don't do much because they are just active for a few seconds there are also trait effects like reduced passive interval for aegis on indomitable courage that do nothing at all. While the rest of the trait has an effect, it feels quite bad if half of its usual effect just gets axed. I doesn't translate in a shorter cd for virtue 3 or reduced number of strikes to gain the boons. It just does nothing.

Virtues just proc every fifth hit, that means you are encouraged to hit as many targets as possible. That's not what assassins usually do that focus on one target to hunt down and kill. A possible solution to make willbender a better assassin in a 1vs1 scenario could be to apply to the first target struck after using a virtue some kind of mark. If you strike the marked target it counts as several hits for triggering virtue effects.

Rushing Justice and Advancing Strike have very similar effects. It is hard to tell them apart. Please change the effects of one of them.

Traits:
The general design idea seems to be that willbenders traits are not allowed to be positive. You need to give up something to gain something else. That is a nice ideas for one trait in each category, but you should not be forced to take them at all. So there should always be two alternatives that are purely beneficial. If there is a trait that takes something away from you the thing you gain needs to be a lot better than usual. You not only have to use a trait slot that you could spend on something else, but also give up even more things.

The traits also lack any synergy with the core class traits. For example conceited curate that reduces outgoing healing, but other trade lines like honor are built around increasing outgoing healing. A much better design approach would be to convert outgoing healing into something else. Like gain a fraction of outgoing healing as barrier or something similar. Something that synergises with higher outgoing healing and core traits. The higher your outgoing healing modifier the higher the selfish benefit. Even for a selfish build the core heal traits become now potentially useful and worth considering.

Other examples of the lack of synergy between willbender and the core class are the lack of boons willbender hands out. Willbender should be no boon support, but it could still hand out boons that benefit core class traits like altruistic healing. Like activating virtues could grant swiftness to allies too. Or the trait that hands out resistance on shadowstep could benefit allies or some vigor. Boons that arent overly powerful but are nice to have.

A big one is the lack of passive aegis. A lot of traits trigger on aegis blocking something. Heal on aegis shatter, damage on aegis shatter, gain boons on aegis shatter, deal more damage under aegis and other effects. Having regular access to aegis is a core aspect to guardians design and willbender lacks this. There should be alternative ways for willbender to gain aegis regularly now that there is no passive virtue like make the heal no channeled block, but an aegis buff to trigger that or a trait that grants aegis on virtue use or on use of a mobility skill. Something that weaves back in aegis to the elite spec.
 

Mobility skills. Giving willbender always access to mobility in the form of its virtues is good but we don't need more mobility in the utilities. Core guard has two teleports and a mobility skill on its melee weapons. Willbender brings more mobility with virtues, there doesn't need to be even more mobility. Use the utility skills to do something else than mobility, like giving them the bodyguard feel. Instead give willbender traits that enhance the already abundant mobility skills of core guards.

Bodyguards, that's what you told us willbenders are, but they are not good at protecting anything. Willbender should not be the usual support guard, but there are other ways to support. Like give them a taunt skill to safe allies. Enhance their ability to blind opponents. Blind is one of the guards' themes. Create a trait that blinds opponents if they hit you while having light aure+ make the virtues leap finisher. Or other ways to blind them. Apply weakness/cripple/slow/chill to take away their ability to hurt your allies. Grant swiftness/superspeed/vigor/resistance to allies to help them escape. That is also support but a different kind of support guard does so far, while also helping to sell that mobility and bodyguard theme.

[Kyban.4031]

The class just feels weak in general. There’s a lot of skill to using the mobility and speed of the class for little payoff, most of the power coming from core guard.

Separating the effects of the flash combo would help it out, moving the strikes to a different skill and getting the guaranteed retreat is very important.  The way it works now is clunky, removes combo opportunities, and you will almost never get all the strikes to connect in PvP settings.  

The traits aren’t great.  The straight trade offs feel like you’re forced to pick a boring stat option rather than get some neat benefit out of a trait.  Having an equal stat tradeoff also makes it seem like you’re not getting an actual buff that you’d expect from a trait either.  (Thief’s Deadly Aim trait also has this issue, making it terrible in most situations)

The rooting skills make the class feel clunky and at odds with the core design.  Coupled with chaining effects (like blink into rooted strikes) really messes with the flow of the gameplay.
The Elite could use a little more for the payoff and allowing it to stomp it’s primary target would make it feel awesome.  

The spec overall feels a little unfocused and doesn’t seem to match the provided lore in any real way.  It also has very selfish support skills that don’t mesh with base Guard particularly well.  I think it could use a tightening up on mechanics that support the playstyle and theme of the spec in a way that plays to Guard’s strengths and martial monk style.
 

[CJH.2879]

I just released a beta preview video, (was trying out the Elite Spec Classes on Hero Points during the Beta), so if Anet wanted to take a direct look at the elite specs in action to see where some of the fundamental flaws are during the actual combat, please feel free to do so >>

 

Also... feel free to >> LoL, I know I did a couple of times >> (specifically at my epic fails while trying them out!) << Cheers &... I hope it helps!

 

 

[wolfyrik.2017]

I've been thinking about this bizarre, counterintuitive virtue redesign and the only thing that I can think of that wouldn't abandon the passives and negate other traitlines would be to have the flames stick to the caster or target. Im thinking in the style of the Necro's Signet of Vampirism Active.

Right now the tiny aoe fields of the willbender flames dont make any sense, thematically or mechanically.

Mechanically; They work against the interests of the Spec. Having the flames affect a target or multiple targets and stick with them like a condi or the Vampire Signet active, would stop the abilities being negated by opponents simply walking a few paces. It would keep the pressure up and the fight moving. It would also allow the passives from other traitlines to work and be generated near the enemy. This could be great on multiple gamplay fronts, as if you move out of range of the opponent, you lose access to the passive effects.

Thematically; I really can't figure out this willbending idea, nearest I can tell we're moving our will from ourselves to use as a weapon? ie the willbender flames are the result of the avatar style "bending" of our will?

If that's the case, with the current model we're just spaffing our "will" over the floor to little effect, except in a niche WvW oversight where it's absurdly OP. By having the flames stay on target, we're essentially transferring our "will" to the opponent.

[Argo Silversea.4609]

Honestly I think what makes guardian a fun class is the opposite of the direction they took here. I play a support class because I want to help other players sometimes. It feels cool to know I can turn a bad situation around. I don't like that I have to make choices in my build that help me and reduce utility for the group.

 

I would want a defender not a pre-emptive strike rev, which is kinda what this feels like. Change the off hand sword skills to something like the riposte gw1 skills. Bring back group utility to the virtues the movement skills are terrible. Like everyone else has mentioned they're clunky and not fun.

 

This is not a bad class, it just doesn't have anything to do with how guardians play. Basically goes against player choice when we made a guardian to begin with. Which really doesn't make sense to do.

[cat.8975]

46 minutes ago, Argo Silversea.4609 said:

I would want a defender not a pre-emptive strike rev, which is kinda what this feels like.

Firebrand already exists and is in the game for you to play right now! Just buy Path of Fire and unlock it! 😄

Edited August 25, 2021 by cat.8975

[Shin Ryu.5802]

A compilation of observations that resonate with me so far:

Concept:  The idea of a guardian playing as a pre-foresworn Shiro Tagachi when he was still an honored elite imperial bodyguard is pretty awesome.  Of course, a profession with the core name of "guardian" is reasonably expected to be able to protect things, and willbender is notably weak in that regard.   This could actually have a valid explanation with little or no modification to the existing lore:  it's the idea of the elite bodyguard who, failing at their sworn mission to protect Emperor Angsiyan from Shiro, took swift action to avenge the emperor (and their own honor).  That being the case, it might make more sense to simply call this elite spec "avenger."   

Overall Execution:  The willbender can't seem to get out of its own way.  So many aspects of it not only lack synergy with other traits and features, but actively contradict and sabotage them.  The way its virtues work greatly reduces the utility of many trait choices, it ostensibly has more mobility, but at the cost of being locked into animations, and includes slow or long channeling skills into a spec ostensibly built around rapid attacking.  Someone earlier described willbender as having an "identity crisis," and that's pretty apt.

Virtues:  Guardians rely on their virtues, and like practically everything else about willbender, these feel unnecessarily nerfed and wonky in several ways.  Having no passive effects does incentivize the use of their actives, but only one can be active at a time.  And they still have long-ish cooldowns.  And because they're geared to proc on every 5th hit, the effects aren't particularly profound in a situation where one is trying to focus down or sustain in a fight against a single challenging opponent (as per concept); they're just crazy powerful against weak trash mobs where it doesn't much matter. 

One of the better ideas I've seen proposed to fix this is to allow virtues to continue indefinitely until swapped, with the cooldown only applying to the movement and willbender flame-laying effects.  They might not have realized it, but they were basically making a case for having willbender virtues function like the elementalist's attunements.  Frankly, that's a brilliant idea. 

There are two potential issues I foresee with this proposed solution:  One is that of tracking two cooldowns, the first being the movement and willbender flame activation cooldown, and the second being a virtue swapping cooldown.  One solution might be to unite them into a single short cooldown of roughly eight to ten seconds.  Another issue is the potential interaction with the Lethal Tempo trait; it might need some rebalancing.  Anyway, I just liked the idea of offsetting the limitation of only being able to have one virtue up at a time by allowing it to be up continuously.

Traits:  The word that comes to mind here is "zugzwang."  In chess, it's a situation where the obligation to make a move creates a disadvantage.  With willbender traits, nearly all choices entail giving something up in exchange for something that will ostensibly be of commensurate value.  However, the advantages are so negligible that the obligation to take a trait itself feels like choosing which net disadvantage to accept; it's almost better not to take them at all.   Trait choices already entail giving up two other decent possibilities for the sake of focusing on only one.  Having built-in mandatory sacrifices for every choice just feels like a double whammy.

Speaking again to the lack of synergies even within the specialization, there are no traits that reward or enhance the decision to equip a sword off-hand; no specific weapon skill cooldown time reductions, no stat boosts for wielding one, no boon or effect duration increases, nothing.  Something along these lines would make a good Major Adept trait.

Weapon skills:   These should be built to synergize with the willbender concept of high mobility and rapid attacking, but Executioner's Calling actively impedes that.  The high channeling time, slow combo time, and low payoff make this one of the most anti-willbender skills available outside of Heaven's Palm.  

Skills:  These look cool, but often confound the core concept of willbender as a high-mobility rapid attacker in some way.  I'll be more specific here, as imho, this is an area where the most improvements can be made with the least effort.

-Reversal of Fortune:  Prevents skill activation for two seconds and gives a fixed heal if a hit is taken.  An instant activation followed by one or two seconds of damage reversal similar to the herald's Infuse Light or the warrior's Defiant Stance would prevent this action lock.

-Flash Combo:  Looks cool, but yet another animation/action lockdown.  Take away the condition, "if all attacks hit" for Repose, allowing it to function as a potential skill cancel if standing still for the full duration of the skill becomes untenable.  Alternatively, have it mechanically function similarly to the revenant sword skill Unrelenting Assault, but with guardian (primarily cosmetic) flavoring.  Combine the two and it could be worthy replacement for Heaven's Palm as the spec's elite.

-Whirling Light:  This was wildly popular and really fine as-is, but there is a little room for improvement.   First, it's an animation lockdown, so allow for a skill cancel breakout similar to Repose.  Second, allow for control over the skill's "flight" path.

-Heel Crack:  A 2 second stun isn't horrible; it sets up combos well and it's decent against break bars.  It just feels like something that maybe could have been built into one of the off-hand sword skills to help justify equipping an off-hand sword.

-Rolling Light:  Going against the flow, I liked Rolling Light.  It could be improved by allowing it to overide and cancel out of other ongoing skill animations, but it's currently one of the few utilities that actually compliments the willbender's high agility concept.

-Heaven's Palm:  The essence of what I meant by, "the willbender can't seem to get out of its own way."  The spec is conceptually all about high mobility and rapid attacking, and yet, its elite skill locks down both its movement and ability to attack for over a second while it channels.  Odds are, it'll probably miss, but even if it fully connects, the payoff is pretty low.  It's like the distilled essence of everything currently wonky with willbender.  It might be fixable, but it'd probably be easier just to develop a new skill that has more synergy with willbender's concept.  There literally isn't a guardian elite skill (except MAYBE the support-oriented Signet of Courage) that doesn't already do a better job, so that's an admittedly low bar.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Shin Ryu.5802
Edited for clarity.

[Jokuc.3478]

I like the idea of Willbender, it sound fun to use in dungeon runs and open world, but when I actually tried it I was really disappointed. The virtues just don't do enough and the leap skills and such feel clunky cause of animation locks and after casts. I feel like the dps should be lower than DH but I completely agree with with what teapot said in their recent discussion video that a cool idea would be to give willbender boon corruption or something cause right now it's worse than core guard.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Jokuc.3478

[Klypto.1703]

On 8/18/2021 at 11:15 AM, Zeph.5927 said:

Did you try it on anything other than a standard, stationary PvE mob?!?

You have to remember how they develop this game for starters.  So they start out making an underwhelming power and then people complain about it.  So then they give it some ungodly OP ability where it becomes so broken that every single person in competitive is using it.  So then after awhile they drop it down to where its no longer feasible to use it and then wait for a long time before they decide to buff it back up to restart the cycle.