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ARCHIVED - Power Willbender

Power Damage Build
  • August 5, 2022
  • 11.53 min to read
Overview
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Template Code
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Boons
Conditions
Role
  • Power Damage
Synergy high
DPS high
Independence average
Acquiring basicseasy
Achieving masterydifficult
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
for 216 Power and also strong on-demand defensive support with skills such as
and
.
The Power Willbender has access to blocks with
,
and a very strong heal skill (
). It benefits from slaying potions and slaying sigils such as
and
.
While this build has less burst damage than the Power Dragonhunter, it comes with some other nice benefits:
  • Swapping out
    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 (
     and
    ) to ensure permanent Might uptime on yourself.
  • The Elite skill
    provides great extra CC on top of
    .
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!
Although this build lists 162 Agony Resistance, it is not a strict requirement! We recommend getting started with this build anyway - even if it might be suboptimal while being in Tier 1 or 2 fractals. Keep upgrading your Agony Resistance until you reach the suggested variant. In the beginning, it is much more important to learn about fractal mechanics and your skills rather than equipping optimal gear.
Equipment
Build
  • Radiance
  • Zeal
  • Willbender
Situational Skills
You should drop
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.
CC skills
300 damage
 (after
)		150 damage
250 damage
200 damage
750 damage
400 damage (Knockdown)
150 damage (Knockback)
Rotation / Skill Usage
This build plays very similar to the Power Dragonhunter and therefore the rotation, as well as the step-by-step explanation, will be very similar.
Step-by-Step Rotation
Step 0: Bane Signet
The
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
. Therefore, you want to do the following:
  • If a Mistlock Singularity is present, cast
    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
    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
    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
,
and
off-cooldown (in this order of priority if multiple come up at the same time).
  •  and
    are your 2 biggest damaging weapon skills on the Greatsword.
  • Make sure to be in the hitbox of the enemy whenever possible for
    .
    deals additional damage when casted inside a hitbox.
  •  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
and
.
  • Using
    will create
    and makes you inflict Burning every few hits. This will grant you a stacking buff from
    . 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
    or
    instead.
  •  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
    will reset due to
    . In this case, your other skills will still take priority until the current
    runs out. The opener at this step looks like this:
  1.
Step 3: Sword of Justice
Now it is time to incorporate another strong utility skill,
.
  •  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
and
at the start of the fight, then swap to Greatsword and do our regular rotation.
The opener should now look like this:
  1.
  5. Swap to Greatsword
  6.
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
    and
    .
  • Weapon swap more often on fights with long phases, usually after using
    /
     twice on the respective weapon set.
  • Precasts: You can cast lasting skills such as
    before the fight starts to get your damage up earlier and have 1 less cast in your opener.
Step-by-Step Video
This video shows the step-by-step approach to the rotation listed on the left.
by Ascers
Golem Rotation
This video shows the full rotation on the golem. It will slightly vary from the step-by-step version. It also uses the raid setup so numbers will not be comparable.
by Nagy
Underwater combat
It is very much recommended to play Condi Firebrand 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
    for Resolution
  • Cast
    and swap to spear. Camp spear now.
  • Priority list:
    1. (Spear 2)
    2.  (Spear 4)
    3.  (Spear 3)
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