Willbender - Support Alacbender

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Condition cleanseBoon supportHealing and Crowd control

Designed for: WvW Zerg

Expansions required: Heart of Thorns buildsEnd of Dragons builds

Difficulty:
Hard
This build was last updated on October 17, 2023 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.


Overview

A support Willbender build for WvW. Provides a large amount of Alacrity Alacrity as well as cleansing, healing and boon support. Sustained healing is lower than other secondary supports, but in a large squad with at least 3 primary healers per alacbender it can provide significant offensive boons (Alacrity Alacrity, Might Might) for a subgroup with pure DPS like Revenants and Dragonhunters.


Skill Bar

Staff
Scepter/Torch
Utility


Weapon Variants
  • Shield provides projectile hate, crowd control and protection uptime.
  • Axe provides crowd control and fury uptime. Scepter isn't mandatory to upkeep alac since F2 changes.
Skill Variants
  • if more stability is needed
  • good fury uptime + 2 condition removal but lose the burst heal from signet
  • if you want res utility


Template Code

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Specializations

Variants
  • if running shield can improve healing


Equipment

Head
Minstrel
Shoulders
Minstrel
Chest
Minstrel
Hands
Minstrel
Legs
Minstrel
Feet
Minstrel
Backpiece
Minstrel
Accessory
Minstrel
Accessory
Minstrel
Amulet
Minstrel
Ring
Minstrel
Ring
Minstrel
Staff
Minstrel
Sigil
Sigil
Scepter
Minstrel
Torch
Minstrel
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic


Equipment Variants

Sigils
  • for increased healing
  • Stacking healing sigil

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
Low
  • Crowd Control


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 Toggle
  • - stunbreaking
  • - for Immobilize Immobilize
  • Dodge Dodge
  • - 600 range shadowstep + personal stability and aegis
  • - 3 Conditions cleansed + 3/4s Evade
  • - Aegis Aegis + 2 Conditions cleansed


Detailed Explanations

Condition Removal

  • Use shouts to cleanse your allies with and
    • Use frequently to cleanse small amounts of conditions
    • Use to pull large amounts of conditions
      • You'll need to cleanse yourself after casting , make sure or are ready to follow up
    • Ideally save for healing, but if needed it can be a last resort cleanse
  • Use to cleanse allies with
    • Be careful not to double tap the skill if not intended
  • Use to cleanse in static situation (stairs / choke point) or against enemy well bombs
  • Blasting symbols or Light Fields with will remove 1 condition on 5 targets
  • Use while shouts/ aren't available and against pulsing condition application
    • is a great tool to help allies cross wells/
Condition Removal priorities Toggle
  • -
  • -
  • -


Alacrity

  • Use before casting your Symbol skills on ennemies
    • Alacrity Alacrity is shared because interacts with
    • You need to hit targets to gain Alacrity Alacrity while Flowing Resolve is active. Now also applies alacrity on activation and not only on hits.


Boon Application

  • Defensive boons like Protection Protection or Aegis Aegis should be prioritized when your group is on the defensive
    • Apply Aegis Aegis for enemy ranged spikes
  • Offensive boons like Might Might should be prioritized when your group is on the offensive
Boon sources Toggle


Healing

  • Be careful when healing others, , and are powerful heals but can easily leave you out of position if misused
    • Understanding when to use can be hard but it can really carries the party in difficult moments
Healing priority Toggle
  • (if you have time to finish cast)
  • (also projectile-hate, you may want to keep it a bit)
  • Dodge ()
  • Aegis Aegis if is taken
  • Regeneration Regeneration
  • (Can almost full heal someone if aimed correctly)
  • (Huge Burst heal pulsing Protection and Resolution while channeling)


Crowd Control

  • Use to Immobilize Immobilize enemies at the tail of an enemy group moving away from or through yours
  • Use your CC when:
    • Your group calls a spike or bomb:
      • Winds -
      • Wells - +
      • Shades -
      • Traps - +
    • On top of enemy downs (while alive players are on top of them)
    • Enemy groups moving defensively while your group is pushing
CC Priority Toggle
  • (Weapon choice)
  • (Weapon choice)
  • (Weapon choice)

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

  • and
    • They are mobility skills you can use them to go support someone really fast to save them with (or to come back to squad)
      • F1 will follow a targeted enemy or go straight in the direction your character is facing while F2 and F3 will follow your cursor
  • permits you to use your weapon skills more often if you hit enemies, this will help you give more boons and healing.
  • Mesmer with works well in a alacbender party.


Gameplay Videos


Ratings

This build has a rating of 4 stars based on 4 votes.
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5 stars
Peliagudest gave this build 5 stars • August 2023
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
4 stars
Lyco gave this build 4 stars • February 2023
- 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.
3 stars
Dolan gave this build 3 stars • December 2022
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
5 stars
Fowin49396 gave this build 5 stars • December 2022
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

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