Willbender - Radiant Swordbender
The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Direct damage and Mobility
Designed for: PvP Conquest
Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on January 19, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.
Overview
A glass cannon PvP Power Willbender build that's all about massive burst damage (with 100% crit chance when fully buffed) and exceptionally high mobility to chase down any target.
Skill Bar
Greatsword
Sword/Sword
Utility
Template Code
[&DQEQPi45QS7jGgMBBAE2AUcBBAHYGi0BNwE3AQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]
Specializations
Equipment
Greatsword
Sigil
Sigil
Sword
Sword
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Usage
General
Resolution increases your critical strike chance by 40% via , pushing it to 100% 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 and shadowstep (teleport) grants
- Every Virtue skill is a mobility skill on Willbender. Besides their base functionality they are great for sticking to targets or escaping damage.
- 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 . 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Sword/Sword
- The main source of burst damage here comes from the the offhand skills:
- deals good damage and sets up your next attack perfectly with
Immobilize and Resolution (it's a shadowstep). - is the hardest hitting skill on this set and combos well with Advancing Strike.
- deals good damage and sets up your next attack perfectly with
- 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.
- 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 for AoE cleansing by executing a blast finisher in it.
Greatsword
- is the main burst skill in the build, make sure it lands - do an unexpected ranged burst with , or use it after pulling targets in with .
- When in combat, always try to combo in a Light field such as for
Light Aura. Few things to note when using this for mobility:
- If you're OOC (out of combat), swap weapons just before the leap finishes in order to cancel the final part of the skill which would otherwise bring you to a halt.
- In combat this can be used for jumping away from the fight to avoid damage. To do that simply just detarget (click anywhere on your screen that's not an enemy player) before using the skill, and make sure that auto-targetting is disabled.
- is useful even when the target has
Stability and thus cannot be pulled. The damage over time part of this skill is decent, and you could time it in a way that the target's stability runs out before Binding Blade does, allowing you to pull them in later. Note: the skill itself can be dodged, but once the blades are attached, you can pull targets out of any kind of evade frame! Last but not least, the blades seek out enemies even if they are 
Stealthed.
Ranged burst combo example
- If possible, have an active
Aegis to gain the damage bonus from. - Weapon Swap to GS if you're not already on it (in combat this also procs your sigils).
- - start casting it from range.
- to teleport to the target right before WW starts doing damage.
Sustain
- 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.
- (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 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.
- 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 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 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: Cara
Related Builds
- Willbender - Radiant Swordbender Roamer - WvW version.
- Guardian - Radiant Greatsword - core/F2P version of the build.
Ratings
Not as good as SPEAR double swords, can consider replacing SPEAR hammer with another style.
Still as good as ever and THE dps guard build at higher ratings. I disagree with Stygian, this isn't unplayable at all in fact it's quite popular in plat. Sometimes I have games with 3-4 Willbenders. Hardcountered by thief, holo, reaper? Sounds like skill issue my guy. The burst is really good and if something goes wrong there's still a bunch of movement skills you can use to reset fights.
Good noob stomper but that's all it is. Basically unplayable in plat2+ lobbies. Hard countered by any thief, vindi, holo, scrapper, DH, reaper which you will see 2+ of every single game in the current meta.
From-Space mobility & does everything. Great cleave and boons. Beware of things with multi-hit unblockable spam. But you should be able to take apart / kite just about anything in the game rn. Brawler relic makes this kinda nuts.
Now that virtues stack, this is again top tier build for anyone with fast hands. Signet of Resolve is also viable more offensive teamfighting option. Beats thief in 2vs2 and 1vs1 situations so can give you lot of control off points.
The best dps option guardian has. Currently maining it, won't lie sometimes I'm having a hard time but I always have enough damage and map presence to be relevant. Atm Plat 1 but plat 2 seems possible with it too at least for me who's somewhat average. Wish we had some resistance boon from somewhere maybe the heal, that's all I'd like to see improved, something to counter the weakness and blind spam.
Falls short compared to valor mediwb, both in sustain and overall damage, even with the loss of critcap, though still works as a non-worthless thief alternative
Still great, but the nerfs can be felt. The S+ tier damage and mobility used to compensate for its low sustain, so getting the sustain/mobiity nerfed (F2 losing a charge) AND then hitting the damage too made it lose some of its popularity. Still has great damage, but it's harder to play now and people are gravitating more and more towards other options like Herald.
I couldn't tell this got nerfed if it wasn't for me reading the patchnotes. Slap on the wrist at best, still 5/5, still top damage every game. Melts people as always.
This is a meta-defining build. No spec should have access to this much mobility, burst, and teamfight support - especially while having a low skill floor. Expect it to be nerfed in the next balance pass.
You all make me laugh rating this crap 4.8 hahaha
This is the most broken spec of all EoD, brainless to play, insane low risk high reward.
Voted bad by little guardian mains who don't wanna get nerf this hardcore carrying build.
10/10 damage
10/10 mobility
Can take any spvp role on demand, 1vs1, roamer dps, team fighter, +1.
Ape tier build which shouldn't be in the great section or even meta, should be Meta+++ Overpowered.
Great build for beginner pvp players. It doesn't require that much skill, so you can make more mistakes and get away with it. Sadly you have more mobility than a specter, more sustain than spellbreaker and let's not talk about it's ridiculous dmg. It's straight up overpowered and hopefully gets nerfed to the ground, because having 4 willbender in every ranked game (low plat elo) isn't fun.
Ridiculously strong teamfighter/roamer/+1er/sometimes even duelist. Imagine herald but a lot better. Massive damage, decent sustain, provides group condi cleanse and stab, incredible offensive and decent defensive mobility. This will be a meta DPS until balance changes happen.
Just tried this build for the first time tonight, i've been playing willbender in pve exclusively so i'm pretty familiar with its new skills.
This build has high mobility, evasion survivability and damage output.
Great build, it can and will be one of the best when mastered.
I believe this build will work its way into the current meta purely because of how customisable the weapons are and how well it gels with the meta shout guard + necros.
It has high survivability and you can swap out the GS for mace/scep+focus depending on the enemy team comp. You can also keep whirling or change it for smite/SY. There's just so many different options on this I think you can build around your team and the enemy so that you're more effective. Other builds are too rigid to do this.
Has way more sustain than DH! Big damage big mobility and the stability access is great, even big stab for your teammates!
3° time ive commented 5 stars
My another commentary was deleted 3 times. Later ill right edit this and comment everythig again.
Comments
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