Willbender - Radiant Spearbender

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on October 29, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 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.

Currently one of the most popular builds in ranked arenas, but somewhat less prevalent in tournament play.

Skill Bar

Spear

Sword/Sword

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.

Elite

• "Feel My Wrath!" - this is seen as less competitive and thus much less popular, but the Quickness could help you deliver burst damage while also buffing your team. Relic of the Sunless is often used with this elite for even stronger bursts.

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Equipment

Spear

Sigil

Sigil

Sword

Sword

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Usage

General

• Resolution increases your critical strike chance by 40% via Righteous Instincts, 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 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 some sort of movement abilities. 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.
  • 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. Optional Judge's Intervention if you're outside melee range.
2. Symbol of Luminance for CC and to illuminate the rest of the combo. You don't have to stay inside the symbol!
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.

• 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).

• If taken 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 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.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Naru

• Twitch: Josh

Related Builds

• Willbender - Radiant Spearbender Roamer - WvW version of the build.