Clockless.2503

It's the opposite. The elite specs are intended to change the feel of the profession. So you don't get the Paladin feel from guardian elites, but you might like the Druid ranger spec, or the Bladesworn warrior, or the Herald or something. The Willbender is intended to appeal to people who usually like the thief.

Isn't that the same place you want to be standing to get the maximum value out of your mantras? I don't know why you'd want to take that step forward at all.

They should change the name from Mantras to Breath attacks. You aren't reciting anything at this point, you're just spitting.

I've been thinking about hammer a lot, because it seems a shame I can't find a reason to ever use it. I'd like to see Zealot's Embrace turn into a whirling pull. I've always liked the pull on Axe3 and I think it would open up some interesting gameplay. I'd also move the symbol to Mighty Blow. Symbols are too important to your build to put at the end of an auto attack chain.

We call them brass knuckles. I don't think they'll make focus a melee weapon just because a lot of the visuals would be strange. I think they would be more likely to add a new weapon type if they wanted that kind of melee/bruiser-style combat (and that would be hard because of the lack of weapon skins in old sets, but I've been wondering if they could maybe use the same skin as the dagger and leave off the blade so it's just a hilt?). Off hand scepter is definitely possible, there are a lot of classes that could make something of that. It's mostly just visuals. Greatsword can be a ranged weapon, staff can be melee, anything can be anything.

It would be nice if you could deliver gifts to Skovtrolde Hearthstead

It's definitely much-improved. The virtue uptime is high enough that I don't feel the loss of passives, the offhand sword is a little better (though I have a lot more success with Scepter/Torch somehow, even on power builds). I like having the choice to make a condi build even if the damage is quite a bit lower than I'd want. You basically have options now, which feels a lot better even though everyone is going to end up doing the same things anyway. The UI flames are great, I'd like it if they were a little more visible though, or maybe if they went *poof* a little when they ended. I wanted to reduce the virtueless periods as much as possible, and between the faded effect and the flickering it was hard to see when one was ending. Reversal of Fortune... works. The utilities are okay, it's not like you are forced to use them all, they're just more options, and, except for Heel Crack, I think they all have their uses. Flowing Resolve is an awkward little scoot. I think it would work a lot better if it were a straight-up disengage like Roiling Light (double-tap to reengage?). I never wanted to use it at all (and if I did I regretted it). Swapping back-and-forth between Justice and Courage is all you really want to do right now.

Guardian - Willbender When Willbender made its appearance in Beta 1, we were hoping it'd dash into your hearts. It didn't quite make it, so we've executed changes on some of the major pain points we saw brought up and are excited to see you get your hands on it again soon in Beta 4. Key pieces of feedback that we identified were: 1) Skill animation felt stiff, with many skills rooting you in place during their animations. Specific changes made in response to this feedback: We've taken a look at a bunch of skills, with the approach of 'is there a strong gameplay reason why you shouldn't be able to move while executing this skill?' For several of these, the answer was no, and we've made appropriate adjustments. For example, Whirling Light now not only allows you to move during it, but increases your speed. See the full list of changes below for details on all adjusted skills. This relates to the following feedback we took to heart: 2) The teaser video and theme were about motion and momentum, but the specialization did not effectively deliver on this. Specific changes made in response to this feedback: We wanted to double down on the essential feel of Willbender; fast, mobile, never stopping, and rewarding you for pressing the attack. We've taken special care to update the Willbender Virtue skills to carry this sense of momentum. The F1, Rushing Justice, has been updated to decrease total execution time, improve the transition between the dash and the finishing attack, and to make the attack portion always execute. The F2, Flowing Resolve, is now a short dash that holds two charges, allowing you to space them out to capitalize on the healing effect, or use them back-to-back for quick direction changes, leaving multiple trails of Willbender Flames behind you. In Willbender's traits, we've reworked Restorative Virtues to be a key component of aggressive builds, as it now reduces the cooldown of all of your weapon skills whenever you trigger one of your active Virtue effects with subsequent strikes while a Virtue is active. 3) Lack of synergy with core Guardian trait lines, due to little support for Burning, and lack of exciting interactions between active virtues and Virtue-boosting traits. Specific changes made in response to this feedback: While the Willbender excels at being a fast and deadly dual-blade attacker, Beta 1 showed that there was a lot of room to improve the trait selection to allow for other strong and interesting build combinations. We've revamped the first tier of Willbender traits, removing the attribute reductions, and focusing them on improving Condition Damage (and adding Burning to Willbender Flames), Power, or Healing, respectively. We've also created interactions between traits in other locations, such as updating the grandmaster trait Phoenix Protocol to work with the Virtues grandmaster Battle Presence to be able to apply Alacrity to allies. Full List of Changes to Willbender: Willbender Virtues: Willbender Flames: Using the same version of Willbender Flames will no longer cancel itself, to better facilitate Flowing Resolve's new functionality. Rushing Justice: Improved the transition between running and punching. Increased velocities toward the end of the run and initial punch. Total range of the skill has been increased, taking the ability from maximum 450 to maximum 800 distance. Strike damage has been improved from 0.6 to 1.5. Reduced cast time of the attack by about 1/4 second. Flowing Resolve: This ability will now use ammunition and its maximum ammunition has been set to 2. Flowing Resolve now stacks in duration. Velocity and distance have been reduced by 40%. Crashing Courage: This ability now delivers a five-target area attack on impact, in addition to setting the Willbender Flames. Offhand Sword: Executioner's Calling: The secondary attack of this ability now delivers 4 strikes simultaneously. Secondary attack damage has been reduced by 50% and is amplified by 20% to targets struck by the initial attack. Advancing Strike: Increased power coefficient from 1.0 to 1.4 in PvP and WvW. Utility Skills: Flash Combo: You may now move while executing this ability. Flash Combo - Repose: You may now move while executing this ability. Whirling Light: You may now move while executing this ability. While active, this ability now grants a 50% movement speed increase while active and is affected by both movement speed and animation timescales. Attack radius has been increased from 170 to 240. Added a radius fact. Reduced cooldown from 20 seconds to 15 seconds in PvP and WvW. Heaven's Palm: This ability is now targeted with a 600 range and will shadowstep the Willbender toward their target before performing the area attack. Traits: Boon Pact: This trait has been reworked and renamed to Searing Pact and will now provide 120 Condition Damage and cause Willbender Flames to apply Burning to enemies it strikes, with a 2 second duration. Power for Power: This trait has been reworked and will now provide 120 Power, while causing Willbender Flames to inflict 33% increased strike damage. Conceited Curate: This trait has been reworked and will now provide 120 Healing Power, while causing Willbender Flames to heal the Guardian on a successful strike. Restorative Virtues: This trait has been reworked and will now reduce the cooldown of all Guardian weapon skills by 1/4 second when a virtue's effect triggers, with no internal cooldown. Additionally, activating Flowing Resolve will grant the Willbender 2 seconds of Alacrity. Holy Reckoning: This trait has been reworked and will now grant the Willbender Might each time any virtue triggers. Additionally, activating Rushing Justice grants the Willbender 3 seconds of Fury. Vanguard Tactics: The boons this trait applies have been adjusted. Shadowsteps will now grant the Guardian Resolution for 3 seconds and Protection for 1.5 seconds. Activating Crashing Courage will now grant the Willbender Resistance for 3 seconds. Lethal Tempo: This trait now increases both strike and condition damage dealt. Baseline damage increase has been decreased from 3% to 1% in PvE, and from 3% to 2% in PvP and WvW. Phoenix Protocol: This trait now includes Alacrity in addition to Regeneration when applying boons in a circle, when traited with Battle Presence. Tyrant's Momentum: This trait now increases Lethal Tempo's damage bonus from 1% to 3% (2% to 4% in PvP/WvW) per stack. Other effects of this trait are unchanged. Other changes: Shattered Aegis: This trait has been given a 1 second cooldown when Willbender is equipped, to prevent infinite loops of death in conjunction with Crashing Courage.

You can get the points from anywhere. You can even start banking them now for End of Dragons. I actually prefer to unlock the specializations a little slowly so that I can get a feel for the options, rather than dive into the whole thing and just taking someone else's meta build. With Scrapper, in particular, I felt like the hammer was such an improvement over core Engie weapons that I didn't see a high cost to basically running only two traitlines for a little while.

I think that would be too big of a change. You could make them track their target.

Hoelbrak wouldn't be too bad if you were able to use mounts and gliding.

Crusader Deborah doesn't show up too much, but surely she would count.

That's only if you are looking to use the full charge. It seemed to work pretty well if you were willing to accept a smaller payoff and more frequent shots.

The easiest way to give your character a new voice actor is to change languages, although that introduces a new problem. I do think it would be nice if there were a language selection option at character creation so that you could see what they would each sound like. Right now I think you need to restart the game just to test one out, which is a bit of a hassle. Even something like that really isn't worth implementing though.

The noise doesn't bother me, just the animation. I avoid using it just because it's so ungraceful. The weapon definitely doesn't need any buffs, though, that's staff.