After testing Vindi a lot over the period of Beta 4, i'd like to express some thoughts of mine here as well. These thoughts will only take Roaming and Zergfights / Guildraids into account.
I won't go into animations and visuals etc., as i absolutely do not care about these things.
At first, thanks for the changes so far to Arenanet. Vindi is much more playable than in Beta 2 and i hope my and others feedback will help to make the experience with the Spec even better.
Greatsword:
The GS in comparison to SS deals definitely more DMG, but is a bit slower. What concerns me, is the lack of CC and evades that the weapon provides. Sword, Hammer and Staff all provide CC (S4, H5, St5) and evades (S3, H3, St5), whereas GS only gives you a block. My idea would be to make GS3 an evade and to rework GS2 to something like a 2-staged attack: first stage would be a pull (i'd suggest a range of about 360), with the second stage being the attack (like what it is right now).
Alliance Tactics overall:
Alliance Tactics is a 2-in-1 legend, so it would be nice if you could use both (red & blue - shame on me idk the names, so i will go with red & blue), but as of right now, that simply isn't really possible. Changing your Alliance-Legend infight isn't an option, because the time it takes (0.5s cast-time + reation-time) is simply too long to use it actively in very tight situations where split-second decision-making is necessary.
I suggest two possible solutions for this: 1) They half the CD and Energy costs on every Alliance-Tactics Skill with the legend working as in Beta 2. This would guarantee you have access to both legends. Example: If you used your heal in Beta 4 a single time, you could use than both your heals in the same time, for the same cost. This would also (partly) solve the problem, that both heal skills are quite weak in comparison to other heal skills from Revenant. 2) They take away the cast-time from Alliance-Tactics and let it work like a "normal" legend swap - meaning it is instant, only depending on your reaction-time.
Both of them have pros and cons, but i'd personally prefer Option 2.
It would be very interesting if you could still mix red and blue with Option 2 - the use of Alliance Tactics then switches ... (2 options imo): a) ... all Skills to the colour that is less shown. Example: If you have 2 blue skills and 3 red ones, the use of Alliance Tactics will switch the whole legend to blue. b) ... all skills as they are with their corresponding counterpart from the other colour.
This would give the Legend a whole new feeling in context of versatility and adaptability.
Energy Meld:
I was overall pretty pleased with this one. You could argue to take away the cast-time, but that is very debatable. The thing that thorns me a little bit, is that your you need to use it on CD. It would be nice to see it doing something different, next to the Endurance, depending on the legend you are on right now - but this as well is pretty debatable.
Heal-Skills:
As mentioned above, the heals are a bit weak. Of course you have 2 heals in theory, but both of them take time to use and you need to swap your Alliance-Tactics. In a perfect world that would take you 1.5 + 0.5 + 1.5 = 3.5s + reaction-time. Thats way too long for the amount of heal that comes around, especially in comparison to Herald, Dwarf or Shiro. I'd like to see to make the heal a bit faster (like 0.5s less casting time) and increase the initial heal-output. One more thing: if Selfish Spirit (red) gives you Might, why cant Selfless Spirit give Regen or Resolution?
Awakening: Reavers Rage (the red counterpart) has a 1.5s daze, so i'd like to see for Awakening a small CC as well. Not by such a margin, but something like a small pull would be quite usefull - especially in the context that blue is the utility side of this legend.
Elites:
Oh man, where do i start... Both of them are more or less absolutely useless. I could use the Spear sometimes while Roaming, but it probably hit 1 out of 4 times - in Zergs its an absolute waste. I also dont really get why it should give Torment, doesn't really fit in my eyes. I'd like to see them change it to another way to access Fury for Alliance-Tactics, because right now its only Reaver's Rage that gives you Fury.
Another Redditor made some pretty interesting suggestions in how the Elites could work. I'm not gonna go into detail here with what he suggested, just read it for yourself. Kudos go to u/Anonynja. Here is the link to his explanations: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/raf7cm/getting_the_vindicator_elite_spec_from_good_to/.
Traits:
I'm more or less pretty happy about the traits and the changes that were made to the dodges. Sadly, some of them are simply no option for WvW. Redemptor's Sermon is one of them. The effect is quite nice, but 90s CD for just this is way too much. It would be a really viable option at the max. of about 30s, personally i'd like to see it more in the 20-25s range. The same goes for Reaver's Curse & Angsiyan's Trust - they more or less just do the same as Song of Arboreum, but there is simply no reason to not play SoA. In Zergs you cant utilise RC and in Roaming there are (in general) not enough targets that its worth taking. Same goes for AT, the Endurance you gain is just too little and the point where you grant your teammates Endurance is just irrelevant. I'd like for these two to see a complete overhaul, so the Master-Traitline gives more variety.
In this context i'd like to speak about the Heal-Dodge. I personally haven't tride a Heal-Build, but it feels like the heal and support you could overall give with Alliance-Tactics (+ Ventari i.e.) is not enough to compete with dedicated healers like Engis atm. It would be quite helpfull for this playstyle to make 1 of the 2 Master-Traits help this variant out. A spontaneous idea would be to get 1 (or 2?) endurance, for every 500 HP you heal your allies. I can't say if that would be broken, but it would definitely be an interesting option to enable the whole playstyle.
Roaming:
I roamed with GS + SS.
Build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAExzlxQmMP6k1RpMOClRSqMCqkpqlVsF-zVRYBRNyQMc5HSmShOFBRrAU8BIg9wt9Wi4MC-w
Sometimes i changed Chest and Helmet from Marauder to Berzerker.
Zerging / Guildraid:
I recorded some footage from Inhouses, Saturday the 04.12.2021. This is by far not perfect, it was pretty difficult getting used to only having 1 Dodge, so my DMG took some pretty deep cuts. But if some of you would like to see some action, go ahead.
Build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAEJldQmMH6k1QpsHCl9RqsAqkJ7lZsD-zVRYBRFyQMc5lSTRQmJQFhQ0FgtHgA2DvF9PjA-w
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-IHBHCXoaY
Tanks for reading this Novel. I hope this'll help Arenanet for what the final adjustments could or should be.
Have a good one.
