VladTepes.7042

Devastation has been a uninspired disaster since they revamped it and introduced Battle Scars. Assassin's Presence change was just another nail in the coffin of creativity. I like the idea of Battle Scars, but not the fact that they take up a third of the traits. And with the changed Assassin's presence, there really isn't much choice left in Devastation. About Battle Scars: Assassin's Annihilation, the predecessor to Dance of Death/Battle Scars, was a smart and powerful choice that rewarded proper positioning in combat. Not only in PvE, but especially in WvW and PvP (at least for me). So outside of PVE, the introduction of Battle Scars was a nerf. Not only were there suddenly three life-stealing traits instead of one, they were also much weaker together than the predecessor was - albeit more reliably. One suggestion would be to either completely remove the Adept and Master Battle Scar traits (you do not need 20+ stacks of Battle Scars anyway) and increase the effect of Dance of Death, or at least to combine the Adept and Master into a (new) single trait, making room for a new trait which hopefully isn't that pointless. As for the rest of the Devastation traits, I have no ideas, but I agree that any suggestion made here would be better than what we have at the moment.

From a WvW Vindicator perspective Spear of Archemorus: The 2000 range was the best reason to use the spear in the first place as it was good for an opening and also the most interesting thing about it. There was no reason to change that. (it doesn't hit most of the time anyway - how about changing that?) Dodge: The ability to dodge while immobilized wasn't too powerfull, nor did it seem unfair to be able to (you still cannot move and remain immobilized). This change can be accepted even if it seems unnecessary, especially considering the bugs the dodge still has since the first beta. Overall, I still don't understand how anyone could change a spec so drastically without considering the consequences and still try to fix everything in detail afterwards when the foundation needs an overhaul. This specialization was designed for a single dodge, all the changes that have become necessary since the introduction of the two dodges have rendered large parts pointless and there doesn't seem to be any intention of changing this in the near future. However, this should be a top priority as any changes until then could mean an unnecessary amount of work.

I agree with you that you can still play him as a viable support, but that's about it. All other options have been severely curtailed and the gameplay of this specialization has been destroyed. At this point, i would rather go back to a single dodge and start over from there. Before October 4th it was generally better than now, not just as a Support. Although you could dodge less often, each dodge was forceful. While the traits were mostly dodge-focused, at least they weren't completely useless like they are now. I've never liked the constant dodging and I'm glad they did something about it, but all of this should have been known beforehand and action should have been taken. Now it seems as if they themselves have no plan what they are actually doing and that doesn't exactly inspire hope. I'm not saying the Vindicator is bad now, but we're right back to where it was before October 4th, just with two dodges, fewer options, more useless traits and overall less flavor. So all in all, in my opinion, worse than before.

This is from a WvW perspective. Everything that happened in the last weeks after the announcement of the two dodges was completly predictable. Energy Meld, the Skill that was just a band-aid, is now completely useless. The traits are now bland and almost meaningless. Reaver' Curse 1 Endurance per hit and Song of Arboreum 1 second of Vigor? Imperial Impact half a second of Protection and 2 Might for 4 seconds? Don't make me laugh. Vindicator is now worse and more boring in WvW than it ever was with just a single dodge. I don't know about the other areas of the game, but what I wish for WvW is that they just go back to a single dodge and start over from there. Although i know they never will.

My feedback relates exclusively to WvW, as I haven't played other game modes enough to be able to say anything about the Vindicator there. After playing the Vindicator a lot over the last few days, I lost my initially strong skepticism about this update. The gaming experience was significantly better this time. Not perfect yet, but the direction seems to be right. Although I hated the dodge-skill in the first (second?) beta, my experience this time was a very different one. I still don't like how many aspects of this spec are focused solely on the dodge or endurance gain, but the three dodges themselves are now a real joy. F-Skills The F2 skill is just a required tool for this spec, it has no flavor. Maybe it could also give a weak legend-related effect or buff, but the energy costs should under no circumstances be increased. Still not sure how i should feel about the F3 Legend swap, but its casting time is unnecessary and hampers the flow of the gameplay. The Legends While the legends are fun too and I've enjoyed playing them, besides optimizing numbers, I still see a few things that could be improved. Archemorus: I don't have much to complain about here, but a suggestion regarding individual opponents. Maybe Selfish Spirit / Nomag's Advance could work a little more like Scavenger Burst and Reaver's Rage, adding a base heal / base buff so they aren't that much weaker against a single opponent. At the moment i have the feeling that the heal is too situational and the one stack of might from Nomad's Advance is too little when you face a single opponent. Viktor: Again, there isn't much to complain about, just a suggestion: While Archemorus Heal not only heals, does damage, deals vulnerability and empowers you, Viktor only heals you and your allies. Maybe add regeneration or a barrier, or even protection, something for this ability to act more like the counterpart of Archemorus heal. The Elite Skills: I have no idea why I should use them. Archemorus Spear is to weak and slow and the Urn is not worth the risk and to situational to be usable in bigger fights (where it could have a use). Because of the risks i almost never used the latter. Just a few thoughts, not to pump up numbers but to make them more useful and add some spice to them: Spear: -Let it pierce! This should already be a thing given its powerfull looking build up. Also it is the only skill in Archemorus skill-set that does only hit one foe. -Add Crippled as soft CC -Increased damage against enemies in downstate (no idea how that would be usefull in PvE, maybe just more damage there) because I mostly used this skill when I didn't have time to deal with them and wanted to keep them from reviving. Urn: I have no real idea for the Urn, so i just use the Idea i had from the spear and mirror it. -revive allies every pulse, the lower your health is the stronger it gets with a bigger revive when you drop the Urn. Greatsword: Here, too, I have little to complain about, apart from the reused animations. My only other point of criticism, as others have said, is the small radius / angle in which you hit opponents. Maybe you could also add Chilled or Crippled for True Strike or/and increase its damage, right now I feel like it does little damage even if you've blocked all four attacks. Traits Major Adept: Leviathan Strength: Nothing special but that's ok Amnesty of Shing Jea: The best choice for using Alliance-Stance, but nearly useless outside of it. Redemptor's Sermon: 90s CD in WvW makes it unusable, at least in my eyes Major Master: This group could use a little variety. They all basically do the same thing. Reaver's Curse: Too situational for my taste. You gain only 20 Endurance when you hit 5 targets. Thats it Angsiyan's Trust: It requires you to swap Legends as often as possible to make it worthwhile, also the area of effect is small. Song of Arboreum: For me the best choice here and the only one that doesn't need anything else to work. Major Grandmaster: All three are good to use now, see no way to improve them further and not make them too strong

Nomad's Advance: Not sure if this is intended, doesn't look like it, but wielded weapon(s) disappear while using this skill

Love the Idea of skill-chains, it gives back the Alliance feeling it had in the first Beta and sounds a lot more interesting than what we have now and better than what we had before.

Hey, there are already many topics about gameplay-feedback, so this shouldn't be about balance, just about the theme of the Vindicator. Numbers can be tweaked, skills be changed, but there should be a theme. This is just a quick thought on the theme of the Legendary Alliance and how it is still missing, now more than before. The new F3 I don't like the solution they came up with to fix the problems with one of the mechanics, the double-legend-stance, by making it basically just a second legend swap so you can focus on one and ignore the other side. The Legendary Alliance Stance and the suggested way to play it is to ignore the Alliance-theme? Although i understand that it was an easy solution and that many players wanted it to be, i cannot understand it. One way would have been to make it worthwhile for the player and encourage them to use both sides of a skill or skill-set by making them more complementary to each other. Or just by giving a unique buff to stack by using both sides. Almost everything would have been more interesting and thematically more appropriate than this solution. The Theme As much as i disliked Kalla as a Legend(mainly because of the utility skills and the simplicity of this spec), at least she had a clear theme: The Charr rebellion. It was everywhere. In the weapon, in the utility skills AND especially in the F skills and traits. The Vindicator on the other hand has no consistent theme at the moment. The theme of an alliance between two foes for a higher purpose can rarely be seen, nearly exclusivly in the two skill-sets and the swapping skills. (Well, the latter no longer) And apart from the names, there is little in the traits that supports it. The F-Skills have no theme at all. I still hope that by the time it is released they can think of changes to give this spec a real theme that feels like playing an unlikely alliance. What are your thoughts about the new F3 and the theme of the Vindicator?

The Legendary Band-Aid-Stance strikes again. Jokes aside. I have to say that i like most of the minor changes in this update and i'm looking forward to play the Vindicator again this Beta. But i have to admit i was pretty dissappointed that there are still no intersting F-Skills and to see the new dodge-skill is still there or at least that there weren't any major changes to it. I really wished for normal dodges to return and the new dodge to become a F-Skill. That way many parts of this spec that attempt to compensate for the lacking dodge could be refocused on the theme of an alliance between two rivals for a higher purpose. Instead of dodging.

After playing the Vindicator for many hours, my impression of the Legendary Alliance Stance and especially it's skills is, that it tries to melt together two coins instead of showing two sides of the same coin. Therefore the skills or rather their swap mechanic feels kind of repressive while it could be a real nice back and forth, like the tides, skillset. First, i don't like idea of another (half baken) hybrid support spec, Revenant already has enough. I prefer a more selfish theme over anything else this time. Second, i don't see how a selfish Power set of skills and a (more or less) selfless support set of skills work well together in a back and forth kind of mechanic because you eventually reach the point there you want to dash out the skillset of the half you don't (want to) use. So i would recommend to rework the "selfish/selfless" aspect of the skillset into a more selfish "engage/sustain". Most of the skills don't need much work to reach this because they already kind of work like this. To keep it short i don't want to go into detail of every skill, these are just some considerations. The Archemorus side feels mostly nice to play, not much to change there(exept for the elite skill). Just smaller things like applying weakness and perhaps some more vulnerability, also a CC would be nice. The Viktor side will not really fit this theme. To much support and to less self-sustain which restrains the spec as a whole. So while Archemorus is the engage-side, Viktor should be the sustain-side. To reach this i would drastically cut down the supportive aspect of all the skills to get more self oriented sustain. For example Battle Dance: Instead of giving your allies restistance and regen, just give it to yourself and blind and/or cripple your foes before the evade backwards (there is already a strange "hit" animation on this skill, so i think it would be nice to do something else than just jump backwards). For both of the Elite Skills: I don't like both of them. Archemorus Spear is too slow and weak, the Urn a self-destruction button in pvp enviroment. Also i think they work to different to each other compared to rest of the skill set. Suggestion there: Make them both a charging skill that reach there limit after 5 sec, drain energy for the time till they reach their limit and than they can be used whenever you want to. You should also be able to instantly use them for much less effects.

This mechanic feels to me like you are losing the dodge mechanic as a whole and get a skill with high evade frame as a tradeoff. But in pvp-like-settings this doesn't add up. The new Dodge-skill is worse than having two standard dodges because you can't react or counterattack quickly after it like after the standard-dodge - it's the other way around: the enemy will attack you the moment you hit the ground. At least this was my experience with it.

Many things already been said. I like the idea of managíng between the legendary alliance skills but the cds feel unnecessary and the f2 skill ist just useless outside of the legendary Alliance. The urn is one of the worst skills ever seen, basically killing yourself in pvp environment. My biggist Issue is the dodge itself, at least in wvw. While i liked it in the beginning, the more i played the more i hated it. Basically it is a skill with a (huge) evade frame that completely locks you out of the dodge mechanic itself. You can't use it offensive because it leaves you vulnerable und if you use it as a classic dogde all the enemy has to do is to wait and think about how he wants to welcome you back. Also having half of the spec focusing on this new dogde-skill looks unimaginativ. I would rather have the standard dodges back and the new dodge-skill as an f-skill