Willbender - Meditation Swordbender Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on April 10, 2024 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A Power Willbender build for WvW Roaming focusing on burst damage and mobility. Deals less damage than the Radiance version but offers slightly better sustain for longer fights.

Skill Bar

Greatsword

Sword/Sword

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Contemplation of Purity over Smite Condition - trades a low CD source of Fury, healing and cleansing for a stun break + mass cleanse on a longer CD.

Heal

• Litany of Wrath - no passive cleansing and usually heals for less, but the low cast time makes it safer to use under pressure and the extra Fury via trait synergy could be relevant when you're not playing with Smite Condition.

Template Code

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Equipment

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Marauder

Accessory
Marauder

Accessory
Marauder

Amulet
Marauder

Ring
Marauder

Ring
Marauder

Greatsword
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Marauder

Sword
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Relics

• Relic of the Brawler - burst damage increase after using shadowstep skills such as Judge's Intervention or Advancing Strike thanks to Vanguard Tactics synergy.

• Relic of Antitoxin - better condition cleansing.

Consumables

Food

• - strong mix of sustain and damage.

• - cheaper defensive option.

• - active damage mitigation via more access to dodging.
  • is a cheaper version of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew and sufficient enough in most cases.

• - non-ascended offensive option.

Utility

• or

Usage

General

• Every Virtue skill is a mobility skill on Willbender. Besides their base functionality they are great for sticking to targets or escaping damage.

• Try to burn through all of your virtues before resorting to Renewed Focus. RF is a great skill to use if you're being focues by the enemy team and you don't have any CDs left. Just keep in mind that this skill makes you lose capture point contribution for its duration.

• Whirling Light is as much of a defensive skill as it is offensive, offering AoE Weakness application on top of great damage.

• One of Willbender's greatest strengths is its mobility:
  • Every virtue skill is a mobility skill.
  • Both weapon sets have either teleports or leaps. Most of the teleports require a target, but you can get creative with that by doing things like selecting a far away enemy target and spamming teleports to get across the map faster, or selecting objects such as a Trebuchet on Battle of Kyhlo to leave enemies behind.
  • Advancing Strike is a good mobility skill even without a target as it makes you dash forward.

• Blinds are important even when bursting targets as Blind spam prevents them from counterpressuring you. Symbol of Blades, Leap of Faith and Rushing Justice all apply this condition on top of doing great damage.

Sword/Sword

• The main source of burst damage here comes from the the offhand skills:
  • Advancing Strike deals good damage and sets up your next attack perfectly with Immobilize and Resolution (it's a shadowstep).
  • Executioner's Calling is the hardest hitting skill on this set and combos well with Advancing Strike.

• Zealot's Defense is both defensive and offensive, deals solid damage while destroying enemy projectiles. Note that the damage of this skill can be very unreliable in anything but melee range.

• Symbol of Blades has many uses: vertical mobility via teleportation, symbol for cleaving, Blind to make an important skill miss, or a combo field which can be used for AoE cleansing by executing a blast finisher in it.

Greatsword

• Whirling Wrath is the main burst skill in the build, make sure it lands - do an unexpected ranged burst with Judge's Intervention, or use it after pulling targets in with Binding Blade.

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Hydromancy and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Rage are there to help you secure Whirling Wrath by snaring enemies and speeding up the skill. Whirling Light is a great followup with Quickness too.

• When in combat, always try to combo Leap of Faith in a Light field such as Symbol of Wrath for Light Aura. Few things to note when using this for mobility:
  • If you're OOC (out of combat), swap weapons just before the leap finishes in order to cancel the final part of the skill which would otherwise bring you to a halt.
  • In combat this can be used for jumping away from the fight to avoid damage. To do that simply just detarget (click anywhere on your screen that's not an enemy player) before using the skill, and make sure that auto-targetting is disabled.

• Binding Blade is useful even when the target has Stability and thus cannot be pulled. The damage over time part of this skill is decent, and you could time it in a way that the target's stability runs out before Binding Blade does, allowing you to pull them in later. Note: the skill itself can be dodged, but once the blades are attached, you can pull targets out of any kind of evade frame! Last but not least, the blades seek out enemies even if they are Stealthed.

Ranged burst combo example

1. If possible, have an active Aegis to gain the damage bonus fromUnscathed Contender.
2. Weapon Swap to GS if you're not already on it (in combat this also procs your sigils).
3. Whirling Wrath - start casting it from range.
4. Judge's Intervention to teleport to the target right before WW starts doing damage.

Sustain

• Flowing Resolve is an excellent reactive skill which cleanses several conditions and even has an evade frame in case you need to dodge something but don't have the endurance.

• If taken Smite Condition can help you manage conditions and recover health frequently throughout a fight.

• If taken Contemplation of Purity is a purely defensive stun break and your best answer against an overwhelming amount of conditions. Usually a last resort for when you're heavily pressured and other options don't cut it anymore.

• Crashing Courage is an excellent and versatile defensive skill. Short CD, breaks stuns, grants boons, it's also a ground targeted ranged teleport which adds a lot of vertical mobility to the build. Leaving attackers behind while teleporting to the highground can save your life. As with most Willbender skills, it's not purely defensive - the AoE it leaves behind upon landing is a good source of cleave damage too, so you could sacrifice this skill to chase or pressure targets if you're fine with giving up a defensive CD.
  • Redemption adds a lesser Litany of Wrath proc to this skill, allowing you to recover health if you burst someone right after.

• Judge's Intervention is also a stun break but most of the time it'll be used to execute burst combos from range. Worth holding onto for defensive purposes when every other stun break is on CD though.

• As long as you have Renewed Focus you're somewhat safe. It's an incredibly powerful defensive skill which grants you immunity to incoming damage and CC (other than fall damage) when under heavy pressure, and refreshes all of your Virtues which could either help you stay alive longer or run away.

Related Builds

• Radiant Swordbender Roamer - the more high risk/reward Radiance version of Willbender.

• Radiant GS Roamer - core version.