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

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on March 29, 2024 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 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 recent addition of dual Pistols made the condition aspect of the build even stronger.

Skill Bar

Pistol/Pistol

Axe/Torch

Utility

Skill Variants

Heal

• Reversal of Fortune - 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

• "Stand Your Ground!" over Contemplation of Purity - it's a much stronger stun break if you're fine giving up a mass cleanse.

Weapons

• Players without access to Weaponmaster Training from Secrets of the Obscure will have to use Scepter instead of Axe, and Sword/Sword instead of Pistol/Pistol. Take Righteous Instincts on Radiance as this is a bit more Power-oriented setup.

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Specializations

Variants

• Tyrant's Momentum increases your damage (and even your healing because the other GM trait makes your healing worse) while giving you longer burst windows on your F1, but it's going to cost all of your Alacrity so you'll pay the price with longer CDs.

Equipment

Head
Celestial

Shoulders
Celestial

Chest
Celestial

Hands
Celestial

Legs
Celestial

Feet
Celestial

Backpiece
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Pistol
Celestial

Pistol
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Axe
Celestial

Torch
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of the Mirage - adds a new condition to the build.

• Relic of the Brawler - higher burst damage when playing with Sword/Sword and Righteous Instincts.

• Relic of Antitoxin - offers better cleansing.

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.
  • is a cheaper version of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew and sufficient enough in most cases.

Utility

• Optimal: or , whichever is cheaper (the difference beween them is negligible, a grand total of 2 condition damage stat in favor of Tuning Icicle).

• 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 Rushing Justice 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 Righteous Instincts while Inner Fire passively provides a high uptime of Fury for another 20%.
  • Every Virtue and shadowstep (teleport) grants Resolution from the traits Vanguard Tactics and Virtue of Resolution. 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 skill is a mobility skill on Willbender. Besides their base functionality they are great for sticking to targets or escaping damage.

• Rushing Justice 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 Renewed Focus. 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.

• 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.
  • 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.
  • Advancing Strike is a good mobility skill even without a target as it makes you dash forward.

• When playing with Phoenix Protocol you gain Alacrity when you're scoring hits on targets while under Flowing Resolve's effect. For this reason you should consider using one charge of this skill only for the Alacrity even if you don't have to evade or cleanse, especially if you're not playing against condition-based builds and you don't have to worry about losing out on some cleansing later.

Damage

• Use Rushing Justice 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 Whirling Light or Zealot's Defense.

• Zealot's Flame 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 Zealot's Fire which lets you throw a ball of fire at your target for burst damage.
  • Using Blazing Edge or Chains of Light beforehand (depending on whether you use Axe or Scepter mainhand with Torch) can help with landing the projectile.
  • The trait Radiant Fire occasionally procs its own version of Zealot's Flame, you can throw this too if you're on Torch.

• On Pistol/Pistol your primary burst combo is Symbol of Ignition followed by Hail of Justice. Projectiles fired by HoJ inside the symbol inflict Burning.
  • Using Rushing Justice before this chain or after placing Symbol of Ignition could increase your damage significantly.

• Peacekeeper 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 Advancing Strike deals good damage and sets up your next attack perfectly with Immobilize and Resolution (it's a shadowstep).

• Sword-only Executioner's Calling 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 Symbol of Punishment is best used in melee as that way you're getting buffed while the enemy's taking damage.

Sustain

• Flowing Resolve 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.

• Reversal of Fortune (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.

• 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, 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.

• 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.

• Conceited Curate 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.