gwalt one.4895

After playing Vindicator during all the beta events and waiting until this last balance patch and reading through the majority of this thread and agreeing with plenty of thoughts and suggestions, here are my thoughts and suggestion on/for Vindicator: Utilities: Remove the swap between red/blue. Give us the option to select our own utilities from both red and blue skills potentially opening up some group utility rather than completely locking yourself out of a set of utilities for 10 seconds, also the Alliance Tactics just doesn't feel good but more like a band-aid for what was the original flip mechanic that's just still there. 10 new skills but only one upkeep? Upkeep is part of the profession identity/mechanic, maybe make Scavenger Burst/Tree Song a pulsing upkeep that also shares it's boons adding more group utility. Remove/Change Elites. Maybe remove torment from Spear of Archemorus and add a taunt/pull/knockback/knockdown/immob, something to add some CC to the spec aside from 1.5 second daze from Reaver's Rage. (A thought is maybe have a spectral Vizu pop up behind the enemy to immob/stun them). Another thought could be to turn both the elites into upkeep skills that summons the corresponding legend to join you in battle like... an alliance. They could either be like a pet doing damage or healing and/or a mobile spirit providing buffs. Greatsword: Fix Phanton Onslaught; either give it the stated 900 range or fix the tooltip. Eternity's Requiem: Could be changed to a large aoe pulsing blast centered on the Vindicator (like the EMP from Legion Waystation) doing reduced damage each pulse. This makes it a reliable damage dealer regardless of hitbox. Alternative could be every enemy within range is affected by the attack and marked by a rift that explodes x amount of times each time dealing reduced damage after the first (like the final auto for sword but multiple strikes and applied to AoE) Dodge: Give back the second dodge. Reduce the effects of the traits and the entire animation to be in line with regular dodges if need be. That aside, an alternative to the pain point of a long animation that locks us out of doing damage (odd to keep dps out of a fight), a thought comes to mind; give us the distort effect like a Mirage dodge and have a shadow (or the real us and the distortion be a shadow) do the jump effect, this allows us to stay in the fight. Building upon this idea, the shadow version can be the legend that your current elite skill is set to or maybe based on the trait you have selected; Archemorus or Viktor, one does damage while the other heals/barriers.

I think this time around it feels better for sure but just wanted to share my thoughts as I'm still unsure where I land with Vindicator at the moment. I think the dodge mechanic could use some further tweaking(like the idea someone else had about making the jump into the F2). I have a hard time remembering to use my dodge offensively since it's mostly been used defensively since the game first launched with some exceptions withstanding(mirage, daredevil, etc.). I understand this can be muscle memory tweaking but sometimes I feel punished for dodging offensively as dodge won't be there when it's needed to, well dodge. Also I'm honestly I'm still opposed to the flip mechanic of the dual legend as it just feels like another F1/Legend Swap for a set of utilities that more than likely won't match your gear and I think it could be a "double" legend allowing us to select which utilities we want as that's what Rev is missing. The idea would be say maybe I want Selfish Spirit heal and Battle Dance evade on the same bar since GS3 already has an engage(buggy but still there) and don't necessarily need Noma's Advance. Allowing some customization of our utilities would have been nice. You could even keep the flip button(still not a fan tbh) which could swap your current selections for their counterparts.

I don't have much to add on top of everyone else's points but just wanted to share some thoughts on giving us more control of our builds and profession. Flip mechanic - Get rid of the automatic skill flip and instead allow us to slot either red or blue abilities(something we don't have) and then F2 can keep the skill flip. I'm not a fan of adding an F3 or F4 because then it just feels like we're getting F1x2, in which case they might as well have just given us 2 separate new legends to use Dodge jump - I like the idea of the mechanic but I feel like I'm being punished for using it, there's a few ways I think this can be tweaked. First would be to behave similar to raptor/skimmer in that the longer you press the dodge key the longer it takes to complete, this would give us a degree of control over our dodge instead of locking us in timeout(where I've been cc'd and damaged even though it's a "dodge"), can be tweaked to either fully consume endurance on landing or not, requires a minimum amount of time/endurance in order to land, etc. Another option would be to allows us to activate the dodge key a second time to land. If there's a concern for pvp/wvw and seeing the landing marker then again you can make it a minimum amount of time required before the jump can be ended. I just don't like the feeling of the dps jump taking me out of a fight for so long, seems counterintuitive.