Willbender is the better Shiro.

[Ulysses.2058]

I'm almost ready to re-roll a Guardian just for the sake of playing how I wanted Shiro to be for Revenant. In fact, that was my main reason to go for Rev: when Shiro was announced as a playable legend I just couldn't help it. But due to the profession's design and legends available to us, we just can afford to play like Shiro (i.e. high-mobility, high-damage) half of the time, and choosing between being a boon-bot or a charr ritualist the rest of it, and that is if you want to have some synergy between legends.

I want to know what you think if you have already tried Willbender. If Rev's e-spec ends up being something other than a power legend to pair up with Shiro, I think this expansion will be the end of my path as a Rev main.

 

Edit: Just saw we are probably getting GS, so there's hope. I'm sorry for those who wanted a second ritualist-like spec for Rev.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Ulysses.2058

[reddie.5861]

willbender is not even half as good as revenent

[Buran.3796]

6 hours ago, reddie.5861 said:

willbender is not even half as good as revenent

   This. Good luck with that, Ulysses.  I'm just now making my beta characters, but I've seen the Naru streaming, which mains Necros and Guardians, and the Willblender is fun but weak. In His own words "every time I duel a good player with it I end defeated". He also thinks that probably core Guardian is stronger, and as the night was going He moved from using mostly physical skills to use 4 meditations and one physical (which worked well in +1 and skirmishes, but still a glass canon and with lower burst than the DH). The Harbinger, on the other hand, proved to be very strong but boring. So probably so far the Harbinger is the strongest of the three new specs in the beta, but with a very plain gameplay style. And Willblender while fun is so frail that one of the best Guardian players is already asking for buffs...

Edited August 17, 2021 by Buran.3796

[phokus.8934]

The only thing WB has over Shiro is it can cover more ground at the cost of using all of your utilities.  Shiro/Herald is still way better.

[RabbitUp.8294]

WB is fun in pve, but in pvp you quickly realise that mobility alone is not enough if they can kite you forever. You really underestimate what rev's sword brings with spammable chill and the skill 3 to follow them through their own mobility.

 

WB on the other hand has has to hope to land their cc to pin targets down. I saw a lot of people using hammer with Glacial Heart for the chill to try to make WB work.

 

Naru gave up and played DH again. Why bother chasing people when you can just pewpew them at 1200+ range?

[Telgum.6071]

You know, Glint/Shiro has an amazing assassin flow with a very respectable mobility. Sure it doesn't has as much leaps and jumps as WB but still I think Herald is better.

 

The constant flow of boon generation, AoE damage, superspeed/knockback, then Shiro into evasive or aggressive gameplay paired with S/S kit and Staff, then back to Glint... Is something that no other class has. It will suffer against conditions and maybe eles (kitten eles) but other than that, is a very enjoyable gameplay.

[Kreed.2768]

I've only played around with WB a bit, but I find it really jarring that there's several skills in its kit that root you in place during their animation. Feels really odd on a spec marketed for its mobility. 

[GrayHawk.7560]

Played around with WB a bit and Guard and Rev ate both part of the classes I primarily main.

 

At this stage I disagree with the WB is a better Shiro assessment.  Rev Shiro feels a lot stronger at present and has a lot of similar features.

 

For all intents and purposes Shiro and S/S on Rev has 4 full mobility skills plus a speed boost, our longest range blink also gives quickness and our sword mobility skills either give fury (which is super charged on Rev) or evasion, multiple attacks and might.  Our speed boost also gives us a second hit and that can add up real fast.

 

Rev OH sword also has a nuke on 4 and a gap closer at 5 but our 5 comes with fury (as above) and a big hit and our 4 is a nuke that hits multiple targets, CCs them and if traited burst heals.

 

The only thing really holding Rev S/S Shiro back is energy management being limiting.

 

 

That's just a summary really.  I'm not sh$#ing on either class because I so far enjoy them both.

Edited August 18, 2021 by GrayHawk.7560
Omitted a point

[GrayHawk.7560]

1 minute ago, GrayHawk.7560 said:

 

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by GrayHawk.7560
Clicked quote instead of edit for my post above.... Oops

[Dahkeus.8243]

Willbender is faaaaaar worse than Shiro.

 

On paper, Willbender looked better or at least competitive, but it really falls behind because of a few reasons:

1) Willbender's mobility is largely from charge or leap-like mechanics with shorter range, which is inferior to pure shadow steps

2) Many mobility skills are tied to attack animations that are slow and don't stay on target as well as a shiro rev

3) When reaching the target, Willbenders just aren't able to pressure the target nearly as well as a rev since they have generally weak damage

4) Willbender also has CC that is far inferior to the AoE CC on short CD which rev has

5) The Willbender CC is also far inferior because it requires them to stop attacking and block.  Compare this to rev that can heal while staying aggressively on offense.

 

Willbender looked good before the beta event, the consensus on Willbender is that it's just a bad spec all around; particularly in PvP.

[Sereath.1428]

After all the outrage it will certainly be after some overbuffing.

[quaniesan.8497]

I would argue that Willbender does ALOT better than Shiro in two aspects:     i) how to get killed fast in any game mode. ii) how to slam all the buttons, dancing around all fancy and still miss  the environmental  bird within 300 range.

Edited August 19, 2021 by quaniesan.8497

[Aeolus.3615]

i almost died to a moa using daze :=)

[Ulysses.2058]

Coming back to this post just to admit I was wrong 😬

[RabbitUp.8294]

WB vs Rev

[Scoobaniec.9561]

Its like ppl forgot what garbage rev was before glint. UA not having built up evades screaming unload everything in me for whole 2ssec etc. Concept wise WB outperform Shiro rev. Just wait for buffs

[RabbitUp.8294]

17 minutes ago, Scoobaniec.9561 said:

Its like ppl forgot what garbage rev was before glint. UA not having built up evades screaming unload everything in me for whole 2ssec etc. Concept wise WB outperform Shiro rev. Just wait for buffs

We never got to play that version of rev. Yes, WB is also in beta, and they can iron out some clunkiness, like the F1 slow attack animation, or up the damage for off-hand sword, but it's not realistic to expect fundamental changes. 

 

You also have to keep in mind that Shiro is part of base rev, it will always be available regardless of e-spec. 

[Scoobaniec.9561]

1 hour ago, RabbitUp.8294 said:

We never got to play that version of rev. Yes, WB is also in beta, and they can iron out some clunkiness, like the F1 slow attack animation, or up the damage for off-hand sword, but it's not realistic to expect fundamental changes. 

 

You also have to keep in mind that Shiro is part of base rev, it will always be available regardless of e-spec. 

But i did and thats an example

Thats how much of a meme rev was. The second hit of aa chain was a projectile and after this vid it was changed to what it is now during the beta. Yw

 

Guardians got that change much later on with their sword aa. The concept behind FB is solid they just gotta clean up the aftercasts and adjust some numbers cuz it clunky af for a mobility duelist spec

[RabbitUp.8294]

1 hour ago, Scoobaniec.9561 said:

But i did and thats an example

Thats how much of a meme rev was. The second hit of aa chain was a projectile and after this vid it was changed to what it is now during the beta. Yw

 

Guardians got that change much later on with their sword aa. The concept behind FB is solid they just gotta clean up the aftercasts and adjust some numbers cuz it clunky af for a mobility duelist spec

I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove. Revenant was an entirely new profession and received fundamental changes during the betas. It even got weapon swap out of nowhere, which was a much more impactful change than any skill tweaks. And yes, there were bugs.

 

WB doesn't suffer because of bugs. We also shouldn't expect the same level of changes as rev got. Yes, the damage will be tweaked, but that's true even in regular balance patches.  

 

At the end of the day, WB might be a good alternative for the +1 role, but that doesn't mean it has to invalidate any existing specs, and it's precisely that doom and gloom I'm addressing.

[Scoobaniec.9561]

25 minutes ago, RabbitUp.8294 said:

I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove. Revenant was an entirely new profession and received fundamental changes during the betas. It even got weapon swap out of nowhere, which was a much more impactful change than any skill tweaks. And yes, there were bugs.

 

WB doesn't suffer because of bugs. We also shouldn't expect the same level of changes as rev got. Yes, the damage will be tweaked, but that's true even in regular balance patches.  

 

At the end of the day, WB might be a good alternative for the +1 role, but that doesn't mean it has to invalidate any existing specs, and it's precisely that doom and gloom I'm addressing.

It depends. So far rev is just a +1 class. If thats the direction where they will take WB with they will be competing for a spot and it be down to who can provide other things better. WB so far has just as much mobility and upper hand in condi management.

Also rev wasnt suffering with bugs either, thats how originally it worked. Back then you couldnt even fight anyone with reflect on a sword bc u would end up  hitting urself. During beta and launch rev received many buffs which resulted in him being a powerhouse at the time from basically worst class ingame.

Guardian weapons dont fail here. Neither core traits. What needs work is virtues and number tweaks and once they get there.. bruh in current state i can see them pushing out herald out of meta for 1+. Not that i mind, +1 is lame no balls role

[Ragnarox.9601]

Willbender cant even carry shield for revenant how bad he is. Willbender is pure trash if they dont change something. If revenant get good gs skills and other utilities and good elite i will change my main from guard to revenant. 

Edited September 8, 2021 by Ragnarox.9601

[otto.5684]

From the beta, WB was trash. Shiro is better in every conceivable way. 

[Loules.8601]

I think that first Beta of new expansion - not the best tool for rating a specialization 
If we talk about core-mechanics, I think that WB will be better "Shiro" than Revenant "Shiro" (and I like Revenants, not Guardians). Because Shiro - just 50% of your spec (realistically - even less because there is no full-corresponding traits for Shiro) and WB - full class mechanic. So:
Shiro: core-mechanic, 50% of your active spec and almost zero traits for assassin/assault play-style

WB: "latter" e-spec with 100% of gameplay around this play-style and corresponding trait-line (Yep - not current, but In future I think so)

Maybe WB will change around release; but after some balance and trait-rework in current design - I think that WB will be "full version" of Shiro. Main future of Rev-Shiro, I think, that you can use "assassin-like" play-style to compliment your other Legend in various situations - not to play your build like real Shiro 

Addition: I think that WB - almost the same "corps" as original Shiro. 

 

Edited September 8, 2021 by Loules.8601
Additions

[Buran.3796]

1 hour ago, Loules.8601 said:

 

WB: "latter" e-spec with 100% of gameplay around this play-style and corresponding trait-line (Yep - not current, but In future I think so)

Maybe WB will change around release; but after some balance and trait-rework in current design - I think that WB will be "full version" of Shiro. Main future of Rev-Shiro, I think, that you can use "assassin-like" play-style to compliment your other Legend in various situations - not to play your build like real Shiro 

Addition: I think that WB - almost the same "corps" as original Shiro. 

 

   Everything is possible due the changes in the damage and the short bow skills made Renegade strong enough to be meta in PvP for a few months (still strong) and already one of the best WvW builds, despite the spec was utterly garbage at release for both PvP and WvW.

   So the same can happen to the WB. But at current beta state some of the mobility skills have very short range, their skills have pauses which make them hard to hit and for a "assassin type" class it performs way worse vs single targets than against large crowds (and in both cases has problems surviving). Current core Rev with Shiro Jaris is stronger at anything player vs player related.

[ASP.8093]

On 9/8/2021 at 5:15 PM, Loules.8601 said:

Shiro: core-mechanic, 50% of your active spec and almost zero traits for assassin/assault play-style

What?

 

Here are a whole bunch of Rev traits I would say suit the "assassin/assault play-style" (attacking a lot, in-and-out engagement, good chase potential, strong opening bursts and strong "finisher" potential) quite well.

 

Devastation:

Swift Termination — big "finish them!" damage bonus similar to Thief's Executioner ability

Unsuspecting Strikes — bonus damage for your opening burst

Brutality — Quickness and a Stability ripper (both are great for bursts)

Dance of Death — life steal gimmick that rewards you for attacking

Assassin's Presence & Notoriety — strong damage boosters for Power-based builds

Aggressive Agility — removes immobilize for a more "slippery" playstyle

Expose Defenses + Targeted Destruction — Vulnerability

 

Invocation:

Rapid Flow — movement buff

Roiling Mists — big trait for guaranteed crits

Invoker's Rage, Ferocious Aggression, Contained Temper — all traits to support crit-oriented Power burst builds

 

Herald:

Rising Momentum — another big movement boost

 

Renegade:

Brutal Momentum — helps you get crits in your opener; the Vigor-on-Fury component enhances your ability to play fluid and aggressive

Endless Enmity — helps you keep your damage up when it's time to "finish them!"

Ambush Commander — quickly-ramping damage buff