Heavenbat.9567

It's odd to me that so many people are saying that damage is low for this, because of the three new builds, I had the easiest time with Vindicator in handling more than one lv80 enemy in PvE. Heck, in some lower level maps, I downed enemies in like two hits, which is absolutely buckwild to me. I almost feel like the greatsword does too much damage--not that I'm actually complaining about that, in PvE, cuz I don't really mind being able to take out enemies quickly. Not sure how balanced that'd be for other game modes though, since I don't really play those. Personally, I enjoyed the visuals for Vindicator; I liked the blue icons with the red rim lighting, and I enjoyed the animations. Things looked neat to me. As far as visuals, my only complaint is that the 'mist' effect behind the skill bar (not sure what it's called?) is the same as for Ventari. Would've liked to have seen it be something different to reflect the dual nature instead--but maybe that's still a WIP? I think it's a neat idea to have the two different utility skills rotate through, but in practice I'm not sure I like it as much. Especially with the Urn--I felt like I was constantly just quickly cycling through it to get back to the Spear, because that health drain is scary and I don't wanna risk putting my health too low and then essentially downing myself. I feel like there is a better way to implement the idea of sacrifice without being quite so extreme; maybe instead of draining health, applying conditions to yourself, like Cripple or Bleed or something, and maybe the longer you have it up the more it stacks? Still a risk, then, but one that would feel more manageable? I'm also not sure how to feel about the dodge mechanic. It seems like it'd really take some getting used to, and I'm not sure if it's an improvement on the base dodge or not. Overall, for me, this one felt like the one that requires the fewest tweaks to make playable, and it seemed like a lot of fun when I was playing it! The greatsword skills especially seemed p fun, if maybe a tad OP

Honestly, as a whole, I actually kinda like this spec. I'm not big on competitive play, mostly just spend my time in PvE, and I enjoyed being an Ele swingin around a hammer. There's a few things I think could be tweaked, but overall I had fun with it. The hammer weapon was by far my favorite part of the spec, although I feel like the damage output either needs to be increased or the range does; eles are just not built for close combat, so forcing an ele to get so close to enemies is a dangerous game and, imo, should come with a bit more reward. This weapon set feels like it could be an excellent glass cannon spec; get up close for massive amounts of damage, then maybe have to dart back to avoid getting hit. There's a few hints of that, with the air 4 skill, but at the same time it does feel a little asynchronous to have a skill dedicated to putting space between you and the enemy... on a weapon that requires close range combat. I also am not sure if I like the Earth 1 skill... it feels a bit too "busy" somehow for a tier 1 skill. The spikes erupting from the earth repeatedly is a Bit Much. Overall, though, I enjoy hammer, and can see myself using it. I like the visuals, too! Some neat animations, I like the little orbs for the 3 skills, I really enjoyed the fact that the Earth 5 skill is named Ground Pound (got a good chuckle out of me, lol). Some of the animations felt a tad reminiscent of Rev hammer skills, but eh, there's only so many ways you can animate swinging a hammer around. The Jade Sphere... is a really interesting concept, but imo it really fails to deliver. It's got some absolutely rad visuals, but... I didn't find myself ever in a position where I could really benefit from it. It's basically worthless if you're running around in PvE by yourself, and I can't imagine having a stationary, rather small field for combos would be overly useful. I almost feel like the Jade Sphere should follow you around, giving a radius effect centered on you, rather than being a stationary field, or else should be a much bigger radius? I feel like it should give more buffs/debuffs/damage based on what element it is as well. Give it more of a use outside just combo field, imo. The utility skills all centering around the Sphere also makes them feel rather lackluster, given the small radius of the Sphere. A lot of combat is focused around movement, so having a small stationary circle where you get some stuff feels counterintuitive, especially for a class that generally requires extra movement to avoid being hit. The Ultimate skill also feels... rather pointless, imo. Cooldowns aren't really long enough for that to be a problem to dedicate a skill slot to fixing, and, again, having to be within radius of the sphere to get the boons is not ideal. I can't see any circumstance in which I would pick that over, say, being able to turn into a tornado or summon an elemental. tl;dr--hammer cool, sphere not so much

I'm mostly just a casual player, spend most of my time in PvE and I don't really tend to care as much about 'optimizing' specs--I like playing what feels fun to play, and Bladesworn feels like it could be fun... but in the end kind of feels like I'm juggling way too many things to actually be enjoyable to play. Especially if I'm playing with the off-hand pistol--now I gotta keep track of Flow, Bullets, AND cooldowns on skills, some of which have multiple cooldowns, and then a stance-within-a-stance with its own cooldowns. It doesn't feel intuitive, imo (which is ironic for an ability called Flow). I'll agree with what a lot of the others have said, that Flow feels like it builds up far too slowly, and drains far too quickly. Dragon Trigger could be really cool if I got to access it more--and, imo, the inability to move while using Dragon Trigger is Not Great. Or, rather, the fact that moving ends dragon trigger isn't great. I wouldn't mind it so much if it acted like some other skills, where it locks you in place and doesn't let you move, but far too often I found myself clicking dragon trigger just a little too quickly when I was already moving which then immediately ended it, or else forgetting that I had to hold still for dragon trigger and accidentally ending it before I could use any of the abilities. I also honestly don't like there being an entire skill dedicated to just increasing Flow rate gain--like, to me, that says y'all realized Flow gain was too slow so you put that in to try and improve it instead of just increasing the base rate of Flow gain. I don't want to have to dedicate an entire skill slot just to be able to maybe hit Dragon Trigger before enemies die. I also feel like the Gunblade skills have way too long of a cooldown; more often than not I found myself literally unable to do anything except the base attack because I was waiting forever for my other skills to recharge. I like being able to switch it up between attacks; to me, that feels like a more accurate "flow" of battle, rather than just hitting the base attack fifty times in a row because I cannot do anything else. The aesthetics, though, were really cool imo. It felt like exactly the sort of self-indulgent over the top anime gunsword vibe I was expecting, complete with entirely unnecessary (but extremely appreciated) explosions. Why's it gotta explode? idk but I enjoy it 😛 I also do appreciate the animation of running around with the gunblade slung over your shoulder, that was a really fun touch.