Willbender - Radiant Spearbender Roamer

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

Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on October 06, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

The usual, notorious Power Willbender roaming build for WvW, but this time with Spear.

Skill Bar

Spear

Sword/Sword

Utility

Template Code

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Equipment

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Dragon

Accessory
Marauder

Accessory
Marauder

Amulet
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Ring
Dragon

Spear
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Marauder

Sword
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

• Relic of Speed - offers even better mobility at the expense of damage.

• Relic of the Brawler - focuses more on burst windows rather than consistent pressure. Also a good alternative in general if you want an offensive relic but haven't unlocked Stormsinger yet.

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of Fireworks - better boon duration without sacrificng too much damage.

• Rune of Superior Rune of Durability - more tanky option.

• Rune of Superior Rune of Strength - good offensive stats and better Might stacking.

Stats

• On the current set you should have ~87% crit chance with Resolution (assuming full Ascended quality gear). You gain another 10% against Burning targets via traits, but that's not going to be active all the time. Our goal was to achieve consistency without overcapping crit chance in most situations while leaving some room for other buffs, but you might still overcap occasionally when we factor in things like Borderlands Bloodlust and other WvW buffs. Since you can't have permanent uptime on Burning or Fury and WvW buffs are largely out of your control we believe that a higher crit chance like this is better, but replacing a few Marauder pieces with Dragon stats for lower crit chance (until 80% or so) and slightly higher Ferocity is also a viable option. That way you'll have slightly higher burst damage if things go well, but a bit more randomness.

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.

• - cheap crit chance boost (brings you up to 90%) with armor ignoring damage procs that also heal you.

Utility

• or

Usage

General

• Resolution increases your critical strike chance by 25% via Righteous Instincts, pushing you 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 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. Using it also applies AoE 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.

• 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.

• One of Willbender's greatest strengths is its mobility:
  • Every virtue skill is a mobility skill.
  • Both weapon sets have either teleports or movement skills. Most of the teleports require a target, but you can get creative with that by doing things like selecting a far away neutral NPC (mosquito, dolyak, etc.) or objects such as walls or Catapults built by the enemy and spamming teleports towards them to get away from danger.
  • 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 and Rushing Justice all apply this condition on top of doing great damage. Whirling Light could fill a similar role as the Weakness is great for mitigating incoming damage while also pressuring opponents.

• Crashing Courage grants you 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 Whirling Wrath or Whirling Light immediately for burst 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. Advancing Strike is a good setup for this too.

• 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 to combo Light Aura with a leap finisher.

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 Symbol of Luminance is recommended, because it ensures that the rest of your combo is illuminated.

• Gleaming Disc and Helio Rush go well together, you should aim to line up the 2nd strike of GD with the pass-through damage of HR.

• Solar Storm 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

1. Crashing Courage for defensive boons including Protection and Stability which should ensure that you get to do the rest of the chain uninterrupted.
2. Advancing Strike to root the target into the flames left behind by Crashing Courage and the upcoming step.
3. Whirling Light for damage and Weakness.
4. Symbol of Blades to Blind enemies and do AoE damage.
5. 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.

1. Symbol of Luminance for CC and to illuminate the rest of the combo. You don't have to stay inside the symbol!
2. Optional Judge's Intervention if you're outside melee range, pre-cast Symbol of Luminance and use JI right at the end of the cast.
3. Solar Storm
4. Gleaming Disc, the goal here is to hit the target with the second strike at the same time Helio Rush connects.
5. Helio Rush 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, unless the target has Blind and Weakness.

• 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.

• Signet of Resolve 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).

• Contemplation of Purity 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.

• 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.

• Judge's Intervention 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 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

• Willbender - Radiant Spearbender - sPvP version of the build.