This is purely from a PvE perspective, mainly Raids and Fractals and Open World: It feels like Vindicator is not made for PvE.
- Boon extension is redundant with Herald and not enough to push a heal spec in PvE, otherwise heal Herald and Tempest would be more than just niche, the latter purely for it's OP might generation, rebound and open design.
- Being a hybrid damage/heal build is redundant with Renegade (yes, Renegade is overtuned but it is what it is, so are Firebrand, Scourge etc.) and to a lesser degree Herald.
- The dodge is clunky and takes you out of the fight for way too long for a minimal benefit. I'm sure you can tweak modifiers but it's killing the flow, it's hard to tell where you character is, he might even take fall damage (lol) and why does the dps dodge have to be the slowest animation, given that dps rotations tend to be fast paced?
- If I want to do damage, the heal part (St Vincent) is annoying to get rid of. The issue might be lessened when healing but why would you ever run this heal spec in PvE? It brings nothing to the table, absolutely nothing that you can't do better with Herald or Renegade. The only relevant heal spec in PvE without access to significant buffs or boons is Scourge for its hard res potential, Vindicator has nothing and will end up like Scrapper - unused.
- It sorely lacks CC, especially on the Greatsword
- Both elites need a rework, especially the urn.
- Greatsword feels bland, I am missing something interesting here. Warrior's GS has a clear feel to it, Ranger's GS is very unique with the in-built combos. Vindicator's GS is a generic [insert weapon type] that does [insert damage number] to [insert number of targets] with a tad of chill on it. Chill is not a noticeable condition on targets in PvE.
- Everything feels so slow, where is the sweet fast action that Revenant is known for?
- The flipover skill has no interaction with other legends, Rev has done better in the past
- The traits are way too one-dimensional and there is not a lot of interaction with other traitlines
I do think that Vindicator has a ton of potential in PvE but it needs to decide what it wants to be, at the moment it seems to be in an identity crisis because nobody needs a healer in PvE that does nothing but healing and for a damage spec, it's too clunky, slow and lacks fun combos.
Maybe Vindicator is supposed to be a pure WvW/PvP spec, similar to the original Scrapper? It might be awesome there but it would be nice if it did something in PvE, too.
Edit: Oh yeah, and many people were hoping for a good power spec for Revenant because it has covered the other bases pretty well in PvE but this is clearly designed as a hybrid spec, so we're getting the 3rd hybrid spec for Revenant. Is that really necessary?
So what is good?
- I still like the idea and I think there is potential if the dodge fits into the fast-paced flow the flipover skills and Rev in general demand. If we get proper trait and skill interactions and a good flow as well as some output, this will become a super fun class to play.
- I like that GS has good cleave and some mobility
- If the healer side gets some utility, it might find a role because the healing numbers are very strong. Unfortunately, role compression is what matters for healers, not healing numbers.
Please figure out what this spec should be good at and tweak it accordingly, and please rework the dodge so that it feels smooth and fits into the flow. Thank you for your time.