Power Willbender - GW2 | Discretize [dT]

The Power Willbender is an easy to play build for fractals. It has many similarities with the Power Dragonhunter. It has great burst options and deals high consistent damage while providing medium defiance bar damage and Vulnerability. The build offers a unique party wide offensive buff by sharing Bane Signet for 216 Power and also strong on-demand defensive support with skills such as Wall of Reflection and "Stand Your Ground!" .

The Power Willbender has access to blocks with Shield of Wrath , Crashing Courage and a very strong heal skill ( Litany of Wrath ). It benefits from slaying potions and slaying sigils such as Powerful Potion of Slaying Scarlet's Armies and Superior Sigil of Serpent Slaying .

While this build has less burst damage than the Power Dragonhunter, it comes with some other nice benefits:

Swapping out Whirling Light for another utility to support your group comes at almost no DPS loss.
If boons are lacking in your group, you can take 2 optional traits ( Zealous Scepter and Holy Reckoning ) to ensure permanent Might uptime on yourself.
The Elite skill Heaven's Palm provides great extra CC on top of Bane Signet .

Before progressing to the advanced version of this page, we recommend acquiring an in-depth understanding of your CC skills and when to use them efficiently. You should be able to hit consistently high DPS, which you can verify with arc-dps . And finally, you should be able to execute the basic step-by-step rotation provided below without spending too much thought on it.

The advanced page provides a more complete overview of all the utilities the Guardian has to offer. If you ever feel like you are missing information feel free to already swap to the advanced page!

Equipment

Build

Radiance

Zeal

Willbender

Situational Skills

You should drop Whirling Light first.

	When Stability or a stunbreak is needed.
	Deals an additional 200 defiance bar damage.
	A stationary reflect lasting for 10 seconds.
	Huge CC and projectile destruction.

Rotation / Skill Usage

Step-by-Step Rotation

Step 0: Bane Signet

The Bane Signet grants you a passive boost to your Power. Its active effect (when clicked) will inflict a high amount of CC (300 CC) on your target and share the passive with your allies for 10 seconds through Perfect Inscriptions . Therefore, you want to do the following:

If a Mistlock Singularity is present, cast Bane Signet there to share its buff right before you run into the fight, then take the singularity.
If a boss starts with a break bar, you should cast Bane Signet at the start to help with breaking the bar while also sharing its passive to your allies to enhance their burst damage as well.
If a boss does not get a break bar early into the fight, you can use Bane Signet before the fight starts to share the passive and start right with your burst when the boss spawns.

Step 1: Greatsword Skills

The first step consists of using Symbol of Resolution , Whirling Wrath and Binding Blade off-cooldown (in this order of priority if multiple come up at the same time).

Symbol of Resolution and Whirling Wrath are your 2 biggest damaging weapon skills on the Greatsword.
Make sure to be in the hitbox of the enemy whenever possible for Whirling Wrath . Whirling Wrath deals additional damage when casted inside a hitbox.
Binding Blade will deal more damage if you are in the hitbox while there are extra enemies around.

Step 2: Virtue Skills and Whirling Light

Next up, it is time to incorporate Rushing Justice and Whirling Light .

Using Rushing Justice will create Willbender Flames and makes you inflict Burning every few hits. This will grant you a stacking buff from Lethal Tempo . You want to use this skill as soon as possible to start stacking the buff.
If you precast another Virtue before the fight, you can delay this skill a bit.
Whenever you need healing or Aegis/Stability, you can use Flowing Resolve or Crashing Courage instead.
Whirling Light deals high damage and can safely be used off-cooldown. It has a lower priority than most of your other skills.
If you kill certain enemies, your Rushing Justice will reset due to Renewed Justice . In this case, your other skills will still take priority until the current Rushing Justice runs out. The opener at this step looks like this:

Step 3: Sword of Justice

Now it is time to incorporate another strong utility skill, Sword of Justice .

Sword of Justice has 3 maximum charges. It summons a sword that will deal damage and inflict Vulnerability on nearby enemies while it is active.
Make sure to use one charge right at the start to help ramp up Vulnerability.
Afterwards, you can freely use this skill at any point of the rotation.

Step 4: Sword skills

This last step will not contribute much to your consistent DPS but can increase your burst by a good amount which is especially important in fights with shorter phases. We will use Symbol of Blades and Zealot's Defense at the start of the fight, then swap to Greatsword and do our regular rotation.

The opener should now look like this:

Improving Further

Once you are comfortable with the above steps, you are already doing most of the full rotation and will be able to deal great burst damage and good consistent damage.

There will be a few additional things on the advanced page to improve further but if you got here, you already know the most important things and these will have a smaller impact than what you learned so far.

The additional steps are:

Incorporate your Focus skills into the rotation, namely Ray of Judgment and Shield of Wrath .
Weapon swap more often on fights with long phases, usually after using Whirling Wrath / Zealot's Defense twice on the respective weapon set.
Precasts: You can cast lasting skills such as Symbol of Blades before the fight starts to get your damage up earlier and have 1 less cast in your opener.

Underwater combat

It is very much recommended to play Condi Firebrand 🡢 Go to build underwater since it provides much better DPS compared to the Power Willbender. If you still want to play Power Willbender, follow these rough guidelines.

Open with Refraction for resolution
Cast Purify and swap to spear. Camp spear now.
Priority list:
1. Zealot's Flurry (Spear 2)
2. Symbol of Spears (Spear 4)
3. Brilliance (Spear 3)

	A 1,200 range teleport to an ally.
	When Stability is needed. Also useful for precasting a fire field and Resolution at the mistlock.
	When extra Aegis is needed.
	When Stability or a stunbreak is needed.
	Deals an additional 200 defiance bar damage.
	A stationary reflect lasting for 10 seconds.
	A 1200 range teleport to an enemy.
	Cleanses conditions.
	Huge CC and projectile destruction.
	Recharges all virtue skills, grants Invulnerability for 3 seconds.

Bane Signet	300 damage
Pull (after Binding Blade )	150 damage
Chains of Light	250 damage
Hammer of Wisdom	200 damage
Sanctuary	750 damage
Heaven's Palm	400 damage (Knockdown) 150 damage (Knockback)