Willbender - Support Alacbender
The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Condition cleanse, Boon support, Healing and Crowd control
Designed for: WvW Zerg
Difficulty:
Hard
This build was last updated on August 31, 2024 and is up to date for the August 23, 2024 patch.
Overview
A support Willbender build for WvW. Provides a large amount of Alacrity as well as cleansing, healing and boon support. Sustained healing is lower than other secondary supports, but it can provide significant offensive boons ( Alacrity, Might) for a subgroup.
Skill Bar
Spear
Mace/Torch
Utility
Variants
- Weapons
- Axe for CC
- Scepter makes Alacrity upkeep much easier
- Shield provides projectile hate, crowd control and protection uptime.
- Utilities
Template Code
[&DQExOi4rQRt/AAAANgEAAEsBAAAWAQAAiRIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]
Specializations
- Variants
- if running shield can improve healing
Equipment
Head
Minstrel
Minstrel
Shoulders
Minstrel
Minstrel
Chest
Minstrel
Minstrel
Hands
Minstrel
Minstrel
Legs
Minstrel
Minstrel
Feet
Minstrel
Minstrel
Backpiece
Minstrel
Minstrel
Accessory
Minstrel
Minstrel
Accessory
Minstrel
Minstrel
Amulet
Minstrel
Minstrel
Ring
Minstrel
Minstrel
Ring
Minstrel
Minstrel
Spear
Minstrel
Minstrel
Sigil
Sigil
Scepter
Minstrel
Minstrel
Torch
Minstrel
Minstrel
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
x6
Infusion
x16
x16
Infusion
x2
x2
Relic
Consumables
-
- personal food option
Usage
General
- Focus on using your skills to cleanse allies
- Make sure to have the active effect from as often as possible
- Use your burst heal to help during high pressure moments
Overall Priorities
- High
- Moderate
- Other Boon application Might Aegis Regeneration Protection
- Low
- Healing
Surviving
- This build has high passive defense
- This build has high mobility skill access
- Make sure to drop target when using for mobility
- This build has high active defense
- While your active defenses are strong, they are ideally saved for your group and not used selfishly
Active defense priority
- Immobilize - for
- Dodge
- - 600 range shadowstep + personal stability and aegis
- - 3 Conditions cleansed + 3/4s Evade
- Aegis + 2 Conditions cleansed -
Detailed Explanations
Stability
- Apply Stability before allies get caught by enemy CC
- When using cover the application by applying other boons immediately after the cast
- Avoid overlapping multiple Stability sources on your party, both your own and other players
- Enemy CC is most likely to land when they spike your group, your group is moving through theirs, or your group is moving away from theirs.
- Prioritize over since it has a shorter CD
Condition Removal
- Use
- Be careful not to double tap the skill if not intended
to cleanse allies with
- Use to cleanse in static situation (stairs / choke point) or against enemy well bombs
- Use
- is a great tool to help allies cross wells/
against pulsing condition application
- Make sure you're Illuminated before using
Condition Removal priority
- /
- -
Alacrity
- Use before casting your Symbol skills / on enemies
- is an excellent way to apply many hits for
Boon Application
- Defensive boons like Protection or Aegis should be prioritized when your group is on the defensive
- Apply Aegis for enemy ranged spikes
- Offensive boons like Might should be prioritized when your group is on the offensive
Boon sources
- Might
- gives might when virtues are triggered
- with
- Fury
- - when Illuminated
- Protection
- with
- Regeneration
- with
Healing
- is a powerful heal but can easily leave you out of position if misused
- Use whenever you have downtime for healing
Healing priority
- Dodge ( )
- (Can almost full heal someone if aimed correctly)
Settings
- Under General Options / User Interface check Always show squad health bars and Always show party health bars. These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support.
- Also under General Options / User Interface turn on Thick party health bars
- Thick squad health bars can be used too as a matter of personal preference, but is not recommended for large numbers
- Under Squad Options uncheck View as a grid. This will allow you to keep track of your allies' boons, conditions and health, enabling a better decision-making and skill management.
Tips & Tricks
- They are mobility skills you can use them to go support someone really fast to save them with
- F1 will follow a targeted enemy or go straight in the direction your character is facing while F2 and F3 will follow your cursor
(or to come back to squad)
and
- They are mobility skills you can use them to go support someone really fast to save them with
- Mesmer with works well in a alacbender party.
Ratings
Same cleanses than druid or ele, good burst healing with some passive heal, a lot of alac and some boons. Really good 2nd supp with different option if you need go more deffensive, stabs, signet, etc.
The only thing is has low CC
- Fairly easy to use (No hidden CD compared to Tempest/Scrapper nor the need to do field finishers) but still rewarded for reading the situation well with Purging Flames / Signet of Courage, using your mobility skill to help people stuck and using the CC that comes from guardian weapons. As of patch 14/02/22, you don't lose the active effect of virtues if you use another (so you can use f1-f3 when you wish now as you won't stop the flowing resolve effect).
- I believe the closest meta build would be support tempest (Alacrity / Cleansing / Healing), Alacbender gives more alacrity (and as it pulses, even after ennemie corrupt it gets reapplied instantly), Cleansing feels similar but the Tempest really takes it in the healing deppartement (the party with the willbender will get a lot more Aegis compared to other subs tho, helping mitigating damages) while having the best res-utility with Glyph of Renewal.
- It really improves the capability of pure damage dealers with perma alacrity and high might uptime due to Empower having low CD from playing Willbender (IE : Revenant hammer skill 3 goes down to 9s, which makes it sync with hydro sigil procs from legend swap which makes the gameplay much more fluid). It's a nice "offensive" support but wouldn't recommend running only that as support class in a squad, it's an exotic Build with niche applications, that can be strong, but is by no means a staple in comps.
Pros: Very fun to play, very good cleanse, good alac reapplication \\
Cons: limited usefulness, lacking lots of necessities \\
Overall: Has no place in a squad in the current iteration. Cannot be the healer/off-support role because close to no healing (and no, signet of courage is not a potent heal), cannot replace chrono for strips (as it does not strip), cannot replace fb as there's literally no stab or group resistance. It's just an awkward cleanse/alac bot. I've really enjoyed playing it (albeit with a bit of a different build) but it just doesn't really fit anywhere in current squads. \\
Note: signet of courage also does NOT apply stability in wvw
Still a solid meta build. An insane amount of relentless a.o.e. cleanses to employee, and just so you don't get bored, you can always play that wonderful little game of drifting, simply the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
Comments
Get MetaBattle Premium
Enjoy an ad-free experience & support the website, for less than $1 per month! Upgrade to Premium
Enjoy an ad-free experience & support the website, for less than $1 per month! Upgrade to Premium
MetaBattle is recruiting!
We are seeking an experienced Build Admin for Throne and Liberty with a deep understanding of the meta across most weapons and game modes. Get in touch with Galaxian on Discord if you're a good fit for the role or know someone else who is. This is a paid position.
We are seeking an experienced Build Admin for Throne and Liberty with a deep understanding of the meta across most weapons and game modes. Get in touch with Galaxian on Discord if you're a good fit for the role or know someone else who is. This is a paid position.