Willbender - Radiant Celestial Roamer
The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good
Focused on: Hybrid damage and Mobility
Designed for: WvW Roaming
Expansions required: 
Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on April 16, 2025 and is up to date for the March 11, 2025 patch.
Overview
The hybrid damage and sustain offered by Celestial combined with the outstanding mobility of Willbender makes this a rather formidable roamer in WvW. The addition of dual Pistols made the condition aspect of the build even stronger.
Skill Bar
Pistol/Pistol
Axe/Torch
Utility
Skill Variants
Weapons
- Players without access to Weaponmaster Training from the Secrets of the Obscure expansion will have to use Scepter instead of Axe, and Sword/Sword instead of Pistol/Pistol. Take on Radiance as this is a bit more Power-oriented setup.
Heal
- - worse cleansing but it might work better under pressure due to the lower cast time (assuming it blocks an attack). The same's true the other way around, this could let you quickly recover some health while pressuring targets without skipping a beat. Both healing skills are popular options.
Utility
- over - it's a much stronger stunbreak if you're fine giving up a mass cleanse.
Template Code
[&DQEQGS4aQS84AQMBBAE2AUcBBAHYGi0BNwE3AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADNgAFAGYAAA==]
Specializations
Equipment
Head
Celestial
Shoulders
Celestial
Chest
Celestial
Hands
Celestial
Legs
Celestial
Feet
Celestial
Backpiece
Ritualist
Accessory
Ritualist
Accessory
Ritualist
Amulet
Ritualist
Ring
Ritualist
Ring
Ritualist
Pistol
Celestial
Pistol
Celestial
Sigil
Sigil
Axe
Celestial
Torch
Celestial
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic
Equipment Variants
Relics
- - adds a new condition to the build.
- - higher burst damage when playing with Sword/Sword and .
Consumables
Food
- - great defensive food that also provides some offensive stats, much like Celestial.
- - active damage mitigation via more access to dodging and a bit more
Might stacking. Also has great synergy with Relic of Rivers.
- is a cheaper version of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew and sufficient enough in most cases.
Utility
- Optimal:
- Budget: either from Canned Food Crates found in WvW s or purchased from the Permanent Portable Provisioner.
Usage
General
- What sets Willbender apart from other burn Guardian specs is how they apply
Burning. Unlike other builds where you're holding on to the F1 for passive condition stacking, here you're encouraged to use on CD because the passive only works for an 8 second period after using the active of the F1.
- Sword version:
Resolution increases your critical strike chance by 25% via while passively provides a high uptime of 
Fury for another 20%.
- Every Virtue and shadowstep (teleport) grants Resolution from the traits and . Most of the time these skills are part of your burst combos so you don't have to worry too much about maintaining this boon.
- Every Virtue and shadowstep (teleport) grants
- Every Virtue skill is a mobility skill on Willbender. Besides their base functionality they are great for sticking to targets or escaping damage.
- is refreshed after each kill so make sure you always have it on cooldown right before a kill (this is very useful when soloing camps). Using it also applies AoE
Blind which is great for stomping or making high priority skills miss. It's also one of the hardest hitting skills in the build.
- Try to burn through all of your virtues before resorting to . RF is your strongest defensive skill but since your virtues have cast times you can't use them once you begin channeling RF, causing you to potentially lose out on a lot of value.
- 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.
- Most of the teleports require a target, but you can get creative with that by doing things like selecting a far away enemy target (even a random NPC) and spamming teleports to get away from an enemy chasing you.
- is a good mobility skill even without a target as it makes you dash forward.
Damage
- Use on CD. While the skill itself hits rather hard, the main purpose of this is the 8s burst window that follows, a window where every 3rd attack inflicts Burning on your foe.
- Try to get as many hits in during this time frame as possible using Symbols or skills that strike multiple times such as or .
- is a great source of passive AoE burning - it's instant and doesn't interfere with your combos. While active you'll have access to its chain skill which lets you throw a ball of fire at your target for burst damage.
- Using or beforehand (depending on whether you use Axe or Scepter mainhand with Torch) can help with landing the projectile.
- The trait occasionally procs its own version of , you can throw this too if you're on Torch.
- On Pistol/Pistol your primary burst combo is followed by . Projectiles fired by HoJ inside the symbol inflict Burning.
- Using before this chain or after placing Symbol of Ignition could increase your damage significantly.
- is a solid filler that requires no setup. It has great range and is one of the few non-projectile skills on this set so it cannot be reflected.
- Sword-only deals good damage and sets up your next attack perfectly with
Immobilize and Resolution (it's a shadowstep).
- Sword-only combos well with Advancing Strike as it benefits from the setup of the Immob.
- Scepter acts as your best source of ranged damage in the build, but that's not saying much. The projectiles are rather unreliable at a distance so most of the time this is more of a midrange/melee weapon. Even skill #2 is best used in melee as that way you're getting buffed while the enemy's taking damage.
Sustain
- is an excellent reactive skill with multiple charges which cleanses several conditions and even has an evade frame in case you need to dodge something but don't have the endurance.
- (your healing skill) is best used when an attack is already coming your way or you're absolutely certain that you're going to be hit in order to get maximum healing (and block value) out of it. If you're not being focused but want to heal consider moving briefly into an enemy AoE skill.
- 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.
- is an excellent and versatile defensive skill. Short CD, 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.
- 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 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.
- causes Willbender flames left behind by your Virtue skills to heal you when they damage an enemy, further encouraging you to fight inside the flames.
Related Builds
- Willbender - Radiant Burnbender - Conquest PvP version of the build.
Ratings
Update: After buffs this is now the best all-round build for guard roaming. It loses many 1v1 matchups that DH would win/draw, but smurfs on newbs 1vX and flees from ganks/losing fights far better than DH can. (Also use sword, it's far better than axe.)
Great burst damage and mobility, both of which are very important things for roaming. Makes good use of Celestial stats too, although it doesn't have the healing output of other cele builds. It's somewhere between "great" and "good" for me, I could be convinced of either of them. Depends on the situation really but one thing's for certain, it's viable. I'm giving this a 5 for now because I consider it to be better than other Guardian builds in most situations.
Comments
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