Willbender - Radiant Spearbender
The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility
Designed for: PvP Conquest
Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on September 15, 2024 and is up to date for the August 20, 2024 patch.
Overview
A new Power Willbender build for PvP utilizing the most recent addition to Guardian's arsenal, the spear. This build was made to deliver massive bursts in teamfights and while +1ing.
Skill Bar
Spear
Sword/Sword
Utility
Skill Variants
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.
Elite
- Quickness could help you deliver burst damage while also buffing your team. is often used with this elite for even stronger bursts. - this is seen as less competitive and thus much less popular, but the
Template Code
[&DQEQPi41QS84AQMBBAE2AUcBBAHYGi0BNwE3AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCQFaAAA=]
Specializations
Equipment
Spear
Sigil
Sigil
Sword
Sword
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Relic
Usage
General
- Resolution increases your critical strike chance by 40% via , pushing it near the crit cap while you have this boon. Always try to maintain Resolution or at least apply it before bursts.
- 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 skill is a mobility skill on Willbender. Besides their base functionality they are great for sticking to targets or escaping damage.
- Blind which can be useful for stomping or making high priority skills miss. It's also one of the hardest hitting skills in the build. is refreshed after each kill so make sure you always have it on cooldown right before a kill. Using it also applies AoE
- Try to burn through all of your virtues before resorting to . 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.
- 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.
- 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. and all apply this condition on top of doing great damage. could fill a similar role as the Weakness is great for mitigating incoming damage while also pressuring opponents.
- Stability and Resistance (among other things) which allow you to ignore CC and debilitating conditions like Weakness while bursting targets. Being a shadowstep (teleport) skill it could also reposition you right on top of your target so that you may follow up with or immediately for burst damage. grants you
Sword/Sword
- The main source of burst damage here comes from the the offhand skills:
- Immobilize and Resolution (it's a shadowstep). deals good damage and sets up your next attack perfectly with
- is the hardest hitting skill on this set and combos well with Advancing Strike.
- 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. is a good setup for this too.
- Blind to make an important skill miss, or a combo field which can be used to combo Light Aura with a leap finisher. has many uses: vertical mobility via teleportation, symbol for cleaving,
Spear
- Spear has its own unique mechanic called illumination. Using any of skills 2-5 and fulfilling the right conditions gives you the Illuminated buff, which increases the effectiveness of your next skill.
- Starting off with is recommended, because it ensures that the rest of your combo is illuminated.
- and go well together, you should aim to line up the 2nd strike of GD with the pass-through damage of HR.
- is the main burst skill here, a powerful AoE with heavy damage that can also heal and cleanse allies in range. Make sure that this skill is always illuminated.
Burst combo examples
Willbender isn't a very complicated spec and you don't have to work hard to do a lot of damage. This section is only meant to give you a few ideas for sequencing, especially when it comes to doing damage with minimal risk.
Defensive burst combo
- Protection and Stability which should ensure that you get to do the rest of the chain uninterrupted. for defensive boons including
- to root the target into the flames left behind by Crashing Courage and the upcoming step.
- Weakness. for damage and
- Blind enemies and do AoE damage. to
- You can continue adding skills that blind enemies from here. This chain does a lot of damage while making it hard for enemies to counterpressure you.
Spear Combo
You basically just go through your skills from right to left, 5 to 2.
- Optional if you're outside melee range.
- for CC and to illuminate the rest of the combo. You don't have to stay inside the symbol!
- , the goal here is to hit the target with the second strike at the same time Helio Rush connects.
- through the target.
Sustain
- The build is rather squishy, Willbender relies heavily on its mobility to avoid damage, jumping in and out of fights to deliver burst damage while keeping melee contact to a minimum.
- 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.
- is worth holding onto for its passive in order to get free condition cleansing, but don't hesitate to use it on low health (and even its active can cleanse conditions).
- If taken (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 stunbreak 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, 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.
- is also a stunbreak but most of the time it'll be used to execute burst combos from range. Worth holding onto for defensive purposes when every other stunbreak 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.
Top Streamers
- Twitch: Naru
- Twitch: Josh
Related Builds
- Willbender - Radiant Spearbender Roamer - WvW version of the build.
Ratings
It's easy to play and offers overwhelmingly strong DPS. Jump in, one-shot your target or the enemy team with solar storm, then pop Renewed Focus and run or port away. With all the ports, it's essentially Thief 2.0, but without the drawbacks. While it’s not as strong in P2/P3, you're mainly up against the minority who possess the knowledge and speed to counter it. The only true drawback is that it's squishy, but you have a robust boon setup with Aegis and Resolution spam to mitigate a significant amount of damage. Although not mentioned, this is likely to be added to the nerf list for the October 24 patch. If it isn't, it won't be long before it meets the same fate as Warrior Spear/Staff.
Spear has insane damage if the burst actually connects, but it's probably going to be one of those builds that drop off hard once people learn the animations. Which isn't hard, since the weapon is on the slower end with very well telegraphed attacks. In games where enemies let you do your thing, it's easily 5/5. In games where people actually know that they need to build distance the moment you drop Symbol of Luminance or Solar Storm, it's a 3/5 at best. Great build for dominating lower tier games but I think it fizzles out after a certain rating bracket.
Very strong, good sustain, great against condis, only loses when it's outgunned, which isn't often. the amount of mobility the build has makes it easy to leave a fight that isn't going your way. If people using terrain is making it difficult, swap OH sword to torch.
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