Willbender Feedback Thread

[Raven.8156]

2 minutes ago, Darknicrofia.2604 said:

The OF sword skills seem designed for an entirely different class, in fact it probably functions more fluidly on Rev than it does on Guard.

 

That's what it feels like for a majority of the skills, nothing from any of the base Guardian weapons/traits really synergize at all with any of the WB traits/utilities, in fact in some instances they actively contradict each other. On top of the clunky animation delays it just feels and plays like a badly thought out mashup.

oh I agree, 

 

Anet seemed to advertise this as an assassin-style and pushed the dual swords concept. 

 

Then they have traits and skills referencing the Monk. It doesn't feel focused. 

[Artyport.2084]

Also I’m gonna say it…

it’s not too late to add mainland focus and make this an actual brawler. The mechanics of this class isn’t calling out for duel swords. It literally wants to be a monk.

 

The offhand sword giving more mobility is useless and it’s main attack not only has a silly animations but doesn’t work.

 

give them the ability to punch things 

[Srolo.5208]

2 minutes ago, Artyport.2084 said:

Pretty sure the dev who posted this didn’t say anything about only raiders and pvpers posting their feedback… no she didn’t. Y’all need to get off your high horse… because they’re are way more players like me in this game then raiders and pvpers.. 

If a class is unusable in content, that's a problem. That's what you're not understanding. EVERYTHING works in the basic open world content. Everything. I could throw on a set of blue armor, with no runes/sigils, and pick 3 random traitlines with no synergy and be fine in open world pve content. As it stands now, you can do this with WB. The problem is, that doesn't mean the spec is okay. It's not. It needs help. It's clunky and downright unusable in anything other than running around the world and killing a couple random mobs here and there because of the roots, cast times, and animation locks.

For a spec that's supposed to offer high mobility, it sure fails on that front when an enemy can just take 2 steps backwards and be untouched after you use those mobility skills because you're locked in place.

[Artyport.2084]

2 minutes ago, Srolo.5208 said:

If a class is unusable in content, that's a problem. That's what you're not understanding. EVERYTHING works in the basic open world content. Everything. I could throw on a set of blue armor, with no runes/sigils, and pick 3 random traitlines with no synergy and be fine in open world pve content. As it stands now, you can do this with WB. The problem is, that doesn't mean the spec is okay. It's not. It needs help. It's clunky and downright unusable in anything other than running around the world and killing a couple random mobs here and there because of the roots, cast times, and animation locks.

For a spec that's supposed to offer high mobility, it sure fails on that front when an enemy can just take 2 steps backwards and be untouched after you use those mobility skills because you're locked in place.

I actually disagree with you as a very casual pveR is doesn’t even work in open world. 
I feel like they made the spec as a monk originally but got nervous about mainhand focus and then just slapped on offhand sword. 

[fran.8157]

The movemant especially the shadowsteps feels very clunky. The 4 skill need dps buff and a range buff like 4 of the rev. I feel like I can't finish people with duel sword. I really feel the core guard is more assassin then the will bender. It feels like in pvp I don't get any of the adventage of the new virtues mechanic. In solo PvE It was kind of fun but lack of dps with sword 4 and 5 and the kicking skill. Sword 5 has a aftercast which kinda annoying. Feels like the tradeofs traits don't serve you at all in pvp

Edited August 17, 2021 by fran.8157

[frareanselm.1925]

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.

[Klypto.1703]

Mostly its F1 to me should have a bit more range but otherwise that is the only problem with this spec.

[Touchme.1097]

Tested it today.

I have to say the WB doesn't perform very well as an assassin build against the Golem.

-DPS is low

-F1 cooldown doesn't synergize with dual swords and GS ability CDs, might as well take the duration to 10s or add RNG to refresh on hit

-F1 damage is ridiculously low and negligible on 1 target to small groups

-You might consider changing S4 and S5 abilities into a proc or combo burst and the other into a hit and refresh S3+immobilize

-Utilities add just more dashes and little damage, you might consider reworking one into a condi transfer to the opponent as this will definitely bend their will as the name says. The damage of those utilities are pretty low.

-The new Elite ability's animation is too slow, if you don't add clipple to WB's kit please consider increasing the landing speed of its Elite ability, it's too easy to dodge as it is.

-There is a lack of synergy between WB and the other specializations. This means a change to WB traits would sort this out.

 

Edit:

-Replace swiftness from virtues with Superspeed

-Give Virtues the ability to evade all attacks while dashing as this is how dashing usually works on most mechanics.

 

Overall I understand this is Beta and all numbers are not final, I am looking forward to seeing some changes in the future.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Touchme.1097

[Kuya.6495]

Mobility is pretty good in pvp.  The healing power traits in exchange for outgoing healing didn't seem to help much in making a bruiser and the trait that let's willbender flames heal you also didn't seem to do much if you're running a bruiser in pvp. I dropped these soon after playing.

 

The ability to surprise spike someone using JI and the heaven's palm is great but the follow up with sword 4 seems to be lacking. It takes off quite a chunk of hp but not enough that it feels like it compensates for how easily you'll get spiked back once your cool downs are finished. I think sword 4 could use more damage on its second hit.

 

Edit: just to add to what others have said: f1 when used without a target does a sudden stop that ruins mobility. It also feels really easy to avoid  for how little damage it does in the first place.  The range makes you feel like you're better off walking.

 

Sword 5 also is super clunky.  You use it and  by the time you reach your target they're already our of range of the shadowstep.  This skill would be infinitely more useful if it were simply a shadowed rather than a rush. So far f1 and sword 5 are the most frustrating parts of the kit. With sword 4 being a close second with how little damage it does considering how long it takes to land it.

 

Edit: 2

Is the heal skill supposed t

to allow you to get hit multiple times before it procs? It feels like i activate it and keep getting hit and then die before the triggered heal actually reacts. 

Edit 3: can we generally just increase the range on all the virtues? It feels like you severely limited the range on them cause you thought guard would be too tanks to merit a range to match the with their shadowsteps but it really just feels like you're spamming useful combat skills just to move the same distance as JI and that just feels wrong.

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Kuya.6495

[phreeak.1023]

Ftom what i have seen WB is just dash dash dash dash shadowstep dash dash dash with ok damage. As power with GS + S/S maybe a bit weaker than DH. The F keys are clunky to use, lot of times i ended up running/jumping away/through the mob and had to run back 😛

 

Sustain is rly good with selfheal. Made the meta event on the lw3 map with this worm and the golem who attacks the worm. On DH sometimes its harder to fight the elites, with WB it was easy. 

 

 

Condi makes zero damage but only tested it with little modified pve condi fb traits. 

 

While even with the weakest laziest rotation, its easy to hit 20k burn burst on FB. On WB with all that burn on F Keys, with purging flames it was hard to even get 7k burn ticks (on golems) 

Edited August 17, 2021 by phreeak.1023

[Nedaro.2375]

I should preface by saying I’m a very casual pve player. 
 

With so many movement skills, they don’t feel distinct enough. Plus a lot are very short range. I’d rather have fewer distinct long range than more random short ones. Also, I wouldn’t mind if some leaps/shadowsteps would position you behind your enemy like rev axe 4. 

 

Sword 4 and 5 feel weird with sword main. I’d rather have a block/counter and aoe/cc big impact damage skills. 

F1 is way too slow. F3 not epic enough (it looks epic though). WB flames way too weak (and should burn or function as symbols so you can buff them with traits). All aoe’s could be bigger. 
Maybe this is personal, but I’d prefer it if F1 would function the same as F2 (dashing a fixed distance), and then the extra offense being added on your first auto, or whatever. Because with so many other movement skills, I don’t think it would matter much if I leaped way beyond my enemy (if I activate it in melee range), and either have them walk in my flames to me, or quickly re engage myself. And this also allows for more kiting and fun play imo. 

Also, F1 has a bit extra range after the dash, but this isn’t calculated when looking at the red indicator in the skill icon. 
 

Could also use some block/counter/extra’s on utilities. They feel a bit stale atm. Love the aoe burn and teleport with return. But the stun breaker feels awkward and slow. 

Elite skill looks epic but feels meh. For pve I’d rather have it pull enemies in instead of pushing out. Heal skill also doesn’t really work for me, don’t know if it’s bugged. It seems like it isn’t triggering perfectly, and cc will just knock you out anyway so that’s weird. And it should be longer than 1 sec. 
 

Overall very cool spec, but it feels clunky and slow. Could really benefit from quickness probably. And, but this is just what I personally really enjoy, maybe some extra defensive offense? Like sneakingly hiding some heal or aegis into utilities or via traits. Something like battle scars on rev. Maybe like when you switch F skills you heal for each sec left of your virtue stance thingy. Really promoting offensive playstyle to sustain and push the usage of F skills

Also a solid condi option in the traits would be cool. 
 

EDIT: also feeling WB could use some more cc’s, maybe adding chill/cripple to burns while keeping in mind the amount of burning it can put out. Or but the slows on WB’s flames. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Nedaro.2375

[Gwaihir.1745]

F1 should get a 3 second quickness. It is thematic for justice and would fix its issue.

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

Clunkier than dragonhunter, and that's telling. For an elite spec that's supposed to feel fluid, the aftercasts and large movement on skills that specifically do not require or want it feel like a significant nerf compared to core guardian.

Herald is currently far superior at both survivability and setting up their burst. Considering guardian's innately low health pool, the offensive power that the traits grant do not feel significant enough to justify discarding a core trait line. This doubles up when using willbender's physical skills and virtues, because the telegraphs make you a sitting duck.

Last, but not least, off-hand sword probably won't be played. For aforementioned clumsiness and lack of flexibility, I see focus as a superior alternative if and when this spec is seeing play. The beautiful visuals were deceitful - unlike with virtuoso, which seems superior in every way at the moment.

Edited August 17, 2021 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Tearthy Flame.1463]

To be 100% honest, I think Willbender should change the Skills of Main Hand Sword too, that alone would really help with changing how Willbender interacts with enemies and make sword animations look less weird and add on a exotic sword dancing style. It'd also be cool to not have a Symbol Skill for a change. I really like the idea of Leaps and Dashes and new Shadow Steps with Sword skills no weird long range attack. I just hope you consider what I said here. If it makes sense to change Main Hand Sword Skills with a Grand Master Trait, I'd love it, it sounds really interesting.

 

 

Anyway.

I'm glad we're 6 months away from release, 'cause Willbender is in a terrible state.

 

I honestly do not recommend going forward with these current Traits.

The first 3 Major traits alone could have been combined into a Minor trait like you already did with Firebrand, but I still don't recommend doing that because it's not original. Honestly please don't do random Attribute Traits, because Gear and Runes can fill in the gaps with Power Damage or Healing and Boon/Condi Duration, etc.

All the Traits don't make sense and feel like they do nothing. Actually they do nothing with Core Guardian and Willbender Abilities, and the Virtue change alone breaks up the synergies with Core Traits. All of this is really bad, it makes Willbender Builds a terrible experience to build.

Like your whole build will be based on Rune/Sigil and Attribute Stats alone and has nothing to do with your Traits and what those Traits are doing to change your character. Everything feels broken and not fun.

There's only one Trait that changes or interacts with Utility Skills, [Vanguard Tactics], there's no greater benefits like adding Burning (or other Condi) Condition to all Physical Skills, or reduce CD. Adding more Weakness or stronger CC like Stun and Daze when you do X Ability.

What is Willbender doing other than moving around?

The reason why that play style works on Thief is because they have the traits and utility to actually achieve that; Core Guardian Traits do not work with Willbender Traits and Utility Skills. Again, nothing looks like it works.

 

[Boon Pact] is a dead Trait, it doesn't have any value, someone would rather swap out all or some gear for Diviner's without a 50% boon penalty to allies.

 

Having a 760 base toughness with the [Power for Power] Trait (that's below the base 1000) with no toughness gear makes the profession too squishy and unplayable when the Skill Style is around getting up close to your target. NO! Everyone will complain about dying all the time and that's not fun. The base 1000 is squishy enough for a Heavy.

 

[Conceited Curate] I just wonder why? Because Willbender is not a healer by trade you wouldn't focus on healing allies anyway? You hardly heal people. Why?

 

I understand you want to have a trade off, gain X but lose X other thing, be selfish and gain more benefit from support professions. You're dangerously getting close to a Holy Trinity and I'm not sure that's a smart idea.

I know I'm being quite mean spirited and harsh, but I really care about this. Personally I really dislike Dragonhunter, the Traits are equally un original alike these Willbender Traits. I want you to understand that Damage Modifiers and Attribute Plus X is a extremely underwhelming way to create a build that has synergy with its own skills and special abilities. Also poor synergy with the other core profession mechanics.

 

Can we please not completely disconnect from how Core Guardian works.

 

Firebrand is the best example of adding so much more value to using Virtues/Tomes and having traits that change the play style drastically. Your Traits have a drastic impact on what other Trait Lines you want to take. What other types of Equipment Gear or Rune/Sigils you take. When I look at Willbender right now I don't know how I would gear it, because the Traits and Virtues make no sense.

 

At least use Virtues as a Stance or Buff you gain for a limited time like how Berserker works, but affect Weapon Skills 1-5. Let the Virtues change what your attacks apply; entering into Justice has really aggressive attacks to quickly deal with a lot of enemies and deal bursts of burning and/or Weakness; Resolve is minor ally healing and offensive boon support; Courage would have the stronger defensive support boons for when you and allies are in danger of big damaging attacks. Because that's the main theme of the Guardian's Virtues, and it'd be easier to put the Passive Abilities into those Stances when you activate them, so Willbender would still work with Core Traits, but in a really unique way.

 

Willbender could be so much more fun with some really big changes and have these changes cause incredible interactions with foes in combat. I really hope Anet makes drastic changes to Skills and Traits overall because the direction with Willbender now is concerning to me.

 

But I can say I really love the ideas behind the Utility Skills and they're fun to use, they'll just need to be balanced more damage wise and better animation flow. Give them more interaction with Traits in Willbender and some with Core Guardian.

 

 

Thank you so much for reading this really long post, I know my feedback was stronghanded but I say it with love and to really help. I just want to be honest. Again, thank you for reading this.

[oscuro.9720]

Here are my initial thoughts on the Espec. I addmittedly haven’t played it enough or delved in enough to give specific recommendations. This is just what I noticed.
note: This is limited to dueling in Armisitice Bastion against a range of player skills. Opponents were both using their mains or using the new Especs, so the diversity of combat in a 1v1 scenario was fairly diverse, though not as diverse as it could be. That is somewhat to be expected for an initial reaction. 
 

Reaction: 

The Virtues are great. Especially when coupled with the Virtues line, the mobility and boon output really changes the class’ feel, allowing it to stick to a target like glue. It’s really fun to play with the virtues as they are.
The delay on the effects makes the class squishier, and not able to stay in melee as well as core or DH, which makes the “stick to the target like glue” play style that the mobility urges you adopt is actually not ideal. The typical guardian peek-a-boo style is a better way to play, with high speed kiting. Definitely adds a dimension to guardian that was not there before. Overall, the Virtues are really fun. Arguably the most fun of the specs so far.

OH sword, however, is not good. The 4 skill is extremely difficult to land in a competitive play style. Sword 5 is fine, just unnecessary with the massive amount of mobility built into the kit. The other OH weapons are simply better because they provide some additional balance to the class imo. Honestly, if sword 4 had more reliable hit patterns, it would probably work better and my opinion would change, but landing the damage on sword 4 was not happening for me, with the amount of blind, aegis, super speed, and Iframes. 
The Utilities were fine as well. The long CC one was what I mostly took (spacing on its name) and it definitely helped to set up good bursts. The range on it felt a bit short, but not too bad. It’s probably because I kept trying to use it like shield bash (I am a war main), expecting it to go further. Probably a l2p issue. 
The heal was not good. It doesn’t signify it is a block, nor does “blocking” appear as a signifier, making me think it would function like FC. However, occasionally the skill would channel and just eat damage and not heal. I died multiple times from the Reversal simply not registering the damage that was incoming. When it did work (such as using reversal on a true shot to almost full heal) it was great. As a warrior main, I love the last-second activation to turn the fight around. However, the heal was extremely unreliable. The concept is great, it just was not consistent. 
Overall; this is definitely the weakest especially. The idea is great, many aspects work well, but compared to Virtuoso and Harbinger, WillBender is clearly a tier or three below them. It’s not so bad that a better player couldn’t out play the other two, it’s just clearly behind. Part of this is the reliability of the damage as well as those two specs being able to have good mobility and superior damage uptime. In addition, WillBender doesn’t have that much mitigation. In my opinion, it is weak compared to the others. It’s very fun, which is great, but fighting Guardian mains on their normal roaming spec vs Wilbender showed it clearly was missing something.

[binidj.5734]

My main bits of feedback are that the spec is incredibly squishy in WvW, the shadowsteps and dashes are entirely too short to feel worthwhile (I ended up using sword 2 far more than any of the others), this leads on to not being able to chase down a fleeing opponent with any kind of mobility (unless they're a wb too, in which case they're easy to chase down).

[Caid.4932]

Not loving the various animation locks. I was pretty surprised by the contrast in survivability between this and other guardian specs, i guess them virtue passives are doing some heavy lifting because it feels very different. If mobility is meant to be my new source of survival then please stop locking me in place.

Sword 4 feels very underwhelming, the wind up is long, the hitbox is small and the damage is nothing to write home about. Sword 5 feels pretty great but cooldown is probably on the long side of things. I think i'd probably be back using a greatsword in a week tbh, especially if the 5 hits to proc virtue buffs remain as is. Teleports are pretty good tbf but i have so many easy ways to access similar effects that it needs to do more really. Maybe i'll use it as a 2nd weapon set.

I think after an hour i'm pretty much done with the physical skills. The stunbreak is good and I might use that but the long animations and how many of them root you in the same spot just feels like a good way to get myself killed for some fairly run of the mill effects.

Virtue 1 attack animation is too kitten slow and the range pretty underwhelming.

Most things are underwhelming really. I feel like you could ask about any detail of the new spec and the answer would be: its ok but ... and list off a dozen annoyances, weaknesses and shortcomings.

Picking how you want to gut the core class with traits isn't a great feeling, i've left the first line of traits blank. I can see some sense in trading power for toughness but I think i'd just end up gearing myself in a way that i wind up in the same place. The tools being given just aren't strong enough to warrant the various tradeoffs

[Archwizard.1603]

Do the grandmaster traits for Virtues work on Willbender? the toptip only lists Indomitable Courage has showing up on f3 but Permeating Wrath and Battle Presence do not appear to do anything on f1 and f2.

[Caid.4932]

7 minutes ago, Archwizard.1603 said:

Do the grandmaster traits for Virtues work on Willbender? the toptip only lists Indomitable Courage has showing up on f3 but Permeating Wrath and Battle Presence do not appear to do anything on f1 and f2.

Kind of. Its hard to tell tbh.

Battle Presence just seems to give the old resolve passive to allies. Permeating Wrath lowered the hits to trigger the f1 stance, dont know if or how the aoe effect works. Someone mentioned Indomitable Courage above.

[Bunny.9834]

There's a nice fluidity to the spec and it's the most enjoyable to play out of the 3. 

 

Offhand Sword needs improvement. Sword 4 needs to attack faster and Sword 5 needs to have 900 range. 

 

[Archwizard.1603]

17 minutes ago, Caid.4932 said:

Kind of. Its hard to tell tbh.

Battle Presence just seems to give the old resolve passive to allies. Permeating Wrath lowered the hits to trigger the f1 stance, dont know if or how the aoe effect works. Someone mentioned Indomitable Courage above.

Yeah Indomitable Courage gives the stab and stun break. You're right with the Battle Presence, I just can't see with Permeating Wrath. Hard to tell me f1 skill is active now and applying burns to see the effects.

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Poledra Val.1490]

First the good part, the mobility is excellent its very fluid overall enjoyable to play and move around with. (Baring the weird locking in place when you use your virtues)

 

Now the second part, the class in PvP feels utterly underwhelming.

 

Damage is very low even on zerk amulet the class is also littered with a lot of bugs in both tooltips and in actual numbers during combat.

 

Sustain is literally bottom tier at the moment on this spec in my opinion the Willbender heal is also extremelly underwhelming probably one of the poorest to date on Guardian.

 

Some of the traits are interesting but i find way to much give and take on a lot of these traits in comparison to other specs. There arent any extraordinary traits here just seem fairly generic and in truth as i mentioned earlier way to much give and take.

 

Utilities are pretty much extremelly poor and felt like an afterthought.

 

Overall this spec needs a considerable amount of tweaks/buffs to make it at least relevant in PvP at the moment.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Poledra Val.1490

[Kikk Dorr.5341]

As some one who has mained guardian for most of my time here in Gw2, the Willbender elite spec is tragic.

Willbenders are so fast, and with all this speed you are able to teleport into someone's face only to freeze for a few seconds while they backpedal away to safety due to the aftercasts. You can then proceed to caress their faces softly with your OH sword.

Luckily, we are able to stay alive for a decent while if we trait into the courage line's immunity from downstate, which means we can spend even more time running around singing the green hills theme tune, only to be downed by the life siphon of a nearby afk necromancer.

 

This needs a rework.

 

 

 

Pls.

[Fates Guidance.6014]

I skimmed some of the longer posts in here so I'm not sure if it was mentioned yet, but if you run indomitable courage (the trait in virtues that gives you break stun/stability on f3), you don't get the stability until after you land the shadow step.  So multiple times today I would try to use the f3 to break stun and tp, only for it to get interrupted immediately and do nothing.  Where as on dh and core guard, you get the stability instantly.