Buran.3796

Mostly ignoring the F3. You'll need it sometimes in WvW, but rarely in PvE.

Keep the older. You can delete the other ones once they reach the 8th birthday, since after that only you older will get full benefits from the age.

1) I'm not sad about numbers, I don't care about max dps otherwise I would have been playing Scourge. 2) No I didn't wanted. I don't care about Energy Meld because unlike Citadel Bombardment or Full Counter or the Fireband tomes or the Dragonhunter and Willbender F skills the Vindicator F2 does nothing. Increasing your dps or your defense or you endurance or your energy pressing F2 is not not fun, is not rewarding, IS NOT A GAME MECHANIC at all. Renegade's short bow was a giant pile of crap until the game mechanics of Sevenshot were changed into something functional, NOT because they changed the numbers. And F2 will keep being an insipid , ignored button until the average playe sees that does something, which this patch won't achieve. 3) Numbers means nothing and I don't have allies. Bladesworn and Willbender are stronger than Berserker or Firebrand in numbers, but thay are more complex and tricky to play so unless you master them most of players will prefer run the later. And you're giving too much credit to me: I've succesfully ignored Ventari, Kalla and Kurzic all this time and I known that as is designed I won't touch Energy Meld even does a 100k AoE hit x push.

...On a 30s cd. Versus getting a bit every time you evade (and Vindi evades more than a couple of times x minute, for sure!). Yesterday saw the American MAT hosted by Vallun. Only two Revs in the entire roster of the tournament (missed 20 minutes), a condi Herald and a power Vindi with Devastation and Invocation. That last one was in the Naru team, which won, but I wouldn't say that that makes Rev fine in PvP since the level of the #1 american team and everyone else in the continent is probably so large that any team comp won't matter much. I have no idea of how went in EU since Teapot didn't host (was busy showcasing World of Addons while bleeding audience), but I suspect no pressence of Rev (really the only one with minimal/no presence). BIG EDIT: Now that I think, they changed the entire nature of the mid column of the Vindicator traitline: currently two of the traits are devoted to provide either extra raw endurance or vigor when we dodge, and the middle trait grants endurance while changing legents. With the 7th Nov patch, ALL the traits in that column are linked to Energy Meld: one trait to reduce the obnoxius cooldown (typical: they introduce the problem of "having" to use a bad skill, then they sell youthe "solution"); the second one acknowledges that F2 is useless, so gives energy when you press it and the third one grants endurance and vigor around when F2 is used. So we have now a entire colum of traits focused on a F key no one is using, which provides tasteless, unimpatcful effects, instead of being a column designed around the peculiar nature of the special dodge that Vindicator has. WELL DONE. I swear that I'll run that trait slot empty if that is what we will get in a couple of weeks.

Why? Renegade has that piercing and is not played. I'm currently seing the MAT and I don't see any Rev. Rev in WvW is an entirely different beast than in PvP. I will argue that the buffs to the short bow are too much, since in WvW is op, but in PvP? You won't see any Rev in the next MAT (which again: is fine, but don't see that the patch will buff every class, since most of the chages are related to PvE and/or unused weapons and skills). Edit: correction, I already saw a Vindi in the Naru team and a condi Herald in other team.

^ I do preferTB + viper stats at Willbender over celestial in PvE because Willbender is weak at providing himself boons and you reach near 2k condition damage with those stats, but the Renegade is better at that task and gets more advantage of having boon duration with celestial. I don't known the dps numbers of TB Renegade but with celestail the Rene build is ~18k. Also, despite the thread is about PvE (so you can ignore what I'll say now), in WvW celestial is a better choice, if you want to run the same gear and don't want to craft an extra xet.

I run a WvW roaming build based in his build using greatsword + short bow; I changed the rune + relic and sigil choices based on my preferences, but outside that is mostly the same: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmgAUFlZSMsTqjhScsUyjpSksSign1UVsF-D2IY1o6/QiUBlpUtXRhIvEkgA+bxMzKA-w I think is the strongest solo WvW Rev currently has and amongst the stronger roaming builds any class has in the game; works well in solo PvE but at that game mode there's stronger options replacing greatsword with mace & axe since the gs barely delivers condi damage and the power builds for gs are WAY les tanky. So in PvE my go to is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmzAkeVlhQKsIyiJRXMICjBSiMBqgj2zarC-DyIY1oj/MKUJkrMQhHDCRg2DvGQMtBqA-e My favourite PvE OW build in gameplay remains power Vindi with gs + dual swords, which is faster vs regular mobs but weaker vs hard foes: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmwAExzlZSMsTqjhScsUyjpSksSign1kfsF-DSRYiRNH0cQvHSmSheFBVoAE5lgEIwe4+7kAENR0pEA-e Two first builds share cele stats, last one is power based so runs Marauder + Dragon in a mix to grant 100% crit chance and high ferocity (further optimizations can be done to increase damage but will cost sustain).

I agree with that first part. I the same way that Renegade was NEVER a PvP spec (was released with the breakstun in the heal skill and the Kalla skills didn't work in like 60% of the surface of the PvP maps) despite buffs made it strong for a brief lapse untill regressed to mediocricy, Vindicator is a spec which I never liked in PvP since as with the Mechanist, due gameplay design was always cursed to be either too powerful or irrelevant. They alreday did the same mistake of messing with evades in the Daredevil and Mirage and it ended with DD being the only viable Thief for most of game existance and Mirage being so powerful that the nerf removed the spec from PvP. So Vindicator was fated to either be brokenly op or a predictable bag of bugs in PvP. I'm totally fine of how is doing it now. But In WvW, where you have gear options, and sigils, runes which actually do things (and now also some relics) there was room for Vindi to work, and it currently does, and I'm worried about changes which could turn it in what Herald and Renegade are at roaming: functional but massively handicaped vs the current meta. About the last point: : they removed the breakstun at legend swap, so that casn't a "cooldown increase" at all. @Warscythes.9307: You're right, Contained Temper is mostly a PvP trait. I was also wrong since as Yasai explained even in PvE the change won't have much impact.

I do agree that the impact will be minimal, since outside Herald Vindi still has lots of access to fury; the more negatively impacted will be (again) the Renegade. And for solo content it won't be that important since the more powerful builds aren't based on power anyway. So yeah, is a small nerf, which coincidentally will buff some instanced builds, but won't be noticed by most of players, anyway. Let's call it a tie: another trait which you won't notice if gets ereased.

Then follow Roul's videos or Mela streaming since they oftenly solo dungeons, bounties and fractals with glass cannon builds and most of the time they have success.

9.5 seconds on a 30 seconds cooldown which has an energy cost and has a cast time which can be interrupted vs 1.5 seconds which works simultaneously with your evade frames, has no energy cost and can be used twice in a row. I known which works better in a human vs human fight. I have no problems with the state in which Energy Meld is currently, and I don't thing buffing its numbers will make it more appealing unless they introduce a different mechanic (which ANet won't). I'm not opposed to changes the same way I don't oppose to changes in hammer since I woun't use it, but I'm against nerfs in traits which already have a a good use. We have plenty of useless stuff already. You known how running Vassals of the Empire became the most used Vindi final trait at PvP/WvW roaming? At the beginning everyone did use the damage trait (Forerunner of Death) but they nerfed it to the extent it become useless, so then people moved to the healinh one (Saint of zu Heltzer), but then they nerfed the heals so the people got cornered to use the one not which they wanted to play but the less worse in a list of baddies: Vassals. The same happened with entire traitlines as Retribution and Devastation: make it bad enough until Salvation makes sense even for dps builds since at WvW/PvP Devastation is a joke, so at least you have some sustain. There's a cognitive disonance in game design from ANet since in one hand they don't want people one shooting others but on the other they don't want tanks able to endure as in the bunker meta, so they did nerf both damage and sustain and at the end the meta is weird af since people at PvP and WvW run dps builds with strong self sutain traitlines (Defense Warrior, Salvation Revenent, etc. ) and the damage comes from landing 2-3 cc skills in a row to kland your burst and at the end the one shoots happens the same since they removed lots of stunbreakers.

Why? In PvE, if you play well, you'll never get anything if it since ideally you'll never get stunned. And in WvW you have more sources to proc it as is now than sources to proc a breakstun once the change is implemented. You like having useless traits/entire traitlines?

Rev got nothing in PvP aside from the nerfs in Song of Arboreum and Contained Temper. The buffs in the unused weapons won't make it a choice, the same that the buffs to condi Rev over the last year didn't increase amount of Rev players nor the changes to Firebrand did anything in the past (the new FB looks better, tho). But I don't moan: I'm perfectly fine with Rev not being a thing in PvP. I'm just pointing that not all professions got buffs at PvP and as Myror said some were placed in things which had no use at all.

You're proving his point: is a nerf.

Song of Arboreum with my current WvW setup (+59,6% extra boon duration acoring to the build editor) grants 1.5 seconds of vigor, swaping to the Alliance another 6.5 seconds and energy sigils grant another 50% (25 points) of endurance on swap. So each time we dodge or swap to Alliance or swap weapons we are close to being able to dodge again, and dodge not only provides evasion frames, but also removes conditions, gives extra healing sources, might and protection. The legend swap is also a huge source of fury and regeneration (in large numbers (8 and 9.5 seconds respectively). So it works like a well greased mechanism with plenty of synergies to use. I don't see any advantage in the change. And related to playstile and the need of having a flavour for each spec so they don't feel redundant or useless a little reminder: * Herald's "playstile" is currently something like this: you activate a skill with a heavy upkeep energy cost to provide quicknes to your partners, then you camp auto attack being careful to not use anything else to not mess the quickness uptime. Really exciting stuff. * Renegade's playstile brings much more freedom since you can provide perma alacrity at minimal cost of oportunity which brings you free hands to use plenty of skills. Sadly the quorum is that Renegade is weaker than other alacrity providers so the real identity of Renegade is "you are niche". And is no longer a most if you want to play at range so... The reality is that with the change the F2 becomes a copycat of Ancient Echo, which instead of providing energy for free provides vigor in exchange of energy. I don't need vigor if you don't steal if from Song of Arboreum in first place, thanks, and if getting "getting vigor" from pressing F2 will become the "flavour of the spec" then wow, Firebrand users did die from a diabetic shock with so many flavours at their disposal. SotO weapon masteries homogenized choices and gear, this allows to fix weakness in past specs, but if the spec already lacked any maningful mechanic because they spent 15 minutes in the wc designing it, there's no way the changes will add anything. How can you compare Emergy Meld with Spellbreaker's Full Counter, Specter's Shadow Shroud, Deadeye's Mark, Druid's Celestial Avatar, Holosmith's Photong Forge, etc? Even specs with utterly meh new mechanics as Tempest have more flavour than Vindi in the F skill regard. The closest thing to Vindi in terms of nothingness of F skills is the Daredevil, which has as only distinction to have the ability to stack 3 evades with a better animations. The flavour in the Vindicator is in the dodges, they shouldn't try to make Energy Meld a thing I(specially making worse other things which do work) because at the end of the day Energy Meld is and will keep being an uninspiring thing with low impact, 0 visual flavour and a stolen animation recycled from other class. So don't make worse my dodges to try to buff a ultra-low-effort design failure as is Energy Meld.

Then buff the skill without butchering a functional trait in use. I don't known the general quorum of this subforum at WvW roaming, but in my opinion after SotO Vindi is the only Rev spec with favorable/neutral matchups against the monster specs which emerged from EoD. Power Rev, condi Rev, Renegade... all have clear weakness, whereas Harbinger, Willbender, Catalyst, Virtuoso... they don't fool around. The main achievement of Vindi in competitive game modes was binging up condi cleanses to Rev; SotO sealed the deal providing a viable ranged weapon for sustained pressure, so Vindi is now competitive. The changes makes Vindi weaker. This patch will end in nerfs to to short bow (which got buffs no one asked as happened with Forced Engagement which later was nerfed and finally "restored" to a weaker version than it was) and a nerfed Vindi evade. And worries me since CmC has been running in circles buffing a condi Rev for PvP which go to nowhere while constantly nerfs the power output of greatsword and Archey. They had success at making me abandon Rev in PvP after 8 years, and I'm seing the lines of a similar aftermath in WvW. Also there's nothing wrong with my keybinds, I use all F keys in Guardians quite oftenly and even F4 in Renegade. The problem is that for Vindi to me the F2 did never exist, because did nothing, so my muscular memory prevents me for using F2 while in Vindi. And having F3 with the Alliance but not Shiro also confuses me. That doesn't happens with professions with consistent design as Guardian...

You lose vigor on evade and your +25% increase in effectiveness for the vigor you granted to yourself. The trait already shared normal vigor with nearby allies. I don't see how this couldn't be considered as a nerf, unless you only play at PvE (and even then...). And for what? To give relevance to a F2 skill in a spec which alreday lost most of its personality? @azaroth: I don't really care about the buffs in hammer; you can only nerf a thing to a dregree and for a time it allows to some redemption later and for me that point was crossed too many years ago, so it became nauseating. And I don't care if becomes the best weapon in the game since I won't run it. At the moment I'm perfectly fine in PvP playing the worst spec in the game and my ratings didn't decline.

Didn't saw the p`resentation, but I think you don't get it. The idea behind of Vindicator was to provide Revenant with a power spec with good cleave. That came from the gretasword. The "profession mechanic" (Energy Meld) is trash tier, absolutely irrelevant (and counterproductive since requires to spen energy in a spec which has legend with 10 skills which doesn't reset energy when you swap between orange and blue). So you waste energy in a spec with traits enough to give you perma vigor... Again absolutely irrelevant. But now you have that your main weapon is shared, and your cleave was toned down, and the jump evade is just a gimmick since it ended being the same in cost as a regular dodge animation and, to be honest, I prefer the regular animation since doesn't have lost frames or weird interactions. So: what is the purpose of Vindicator? None: the same as Renegade. You have the laziest F1 skill in the game (I mean: Ancient Echo is 10 times better, Facet of Nature is 5 times better, Renegade has the best F skills in Rev), you have a weapon with similar damage and cleave as the sword but since is a two hander doesn't allow you to run axe or the now buffed shield, and you now have to press F2 to gain vigor instead of proccing it with the dodge.... I known that the focus is instanced content, but those changes hurt WvW, and I'll argue thatb the later has more players. At the end, CmC is having succes at the "bobbykotickfication" of the game, which is: removing fun from it. I want access to vigor while evading instead of having to pay energy to get it and being unable to spent it in useful tools. I undertand that energy doesn't matter that in PvE since most of the damage is autoattacking and you have Chagred Mist, but in WvW doesn't work that way. If I press a F key I want skills which provide some value, as in the Guardian, or in the Mesmer, tc. If not, leave that keys alone so I can use F1 to swap weapons and F2 to swap from orange to blue. Energy Merde

Only two things: One: I think that the changes in short bow are too much. Short bow is already OP in WvW and the buffs also punishes the Renegade since theres less and less reasons to to run that spec unles you want alacrity or the bombardment. So you buff a weapon which didn't need it and at the same time made the spec which was tailored to that weapon less relevant. Two: Song of Arboreum gest a HUGE nerft. I'm ALL for removing Energy Meld from the game, it does nothing, has less relevance at any game mode than Charged Mist in PvP (which is not an easy task!), makes the use of F skills less intuitive and convoluted and just uses space. The change nukes Song of Arboreum in the process, which was the only usable trait from that column in competitive game modes, and replaces it with... nothing. So very depressed from the changes, since currently I only play one spec of Rev and only in two game modes and I think that the Song of Arboreum change will remove Rev from my WvW days...

That's just plain wrong. I've soloed the elemental event in the forest of Sandwept Isles with power Vindi and cele Vindi and the times were close; I also soloed Stargazer in the same map and in that case the celestial build was significantly faster because Stargazer has lost of cc, and with power builds that interrupts your damage, whereas with condi your Embrace the Darkness keeps pulsating.... Then, did the same trial against Seneb and in power starts did break my face whereas in cele I did it. Is hard to do perfect comparisons since the unstabilities are random, and skill level has also a place (heard of people ding it in berserker stats), but one thing is not ramdom: celestial stats provides 59.45% more stat points than 4 stat gear and 74.38% more stat points than 3 stat gear, so as long as your build uses every stat it gives players tons of benefits (specially on Renegade, which tops crit cap easily). But run what you want/works for you. My perspective and advice is from an average player in full legendaries which made his test and can swap for free to what works better for him. Since crafting a full ascended set (just armor) is ~300 gold coins (or a lot of tokens) my advice for most players is that cele should be your first or second ascended set unless you're running something like a Bladeswornm which is mostly a power build. And once you have one or two ascended armor set, a player should aim to get legendary gear isntead of crafting new ascended items... ...Which also remembers me that so far the runes nerfs with SotO is headin¡g to cost me between 250 and 300 gold coins just in replacements.

^Nothing, but taking in consideration their background I assume: * That will be free to play. * That will have competitive game(s) mode(s). * That will have a tons of skins and cosmetics to sell as the main source of incoming.

Ashes is product of a fan of Archeage. I played Archeage for a while and didn't fill me, and don't expect anything from Ashes, specially since their economic model. I also doubt they will even be able to release the game, since they are far from finishing it and seems that already have budget problems. I don't care if the Riot MMO takes 2 or 3 years more, is perfect to finish some titles in my library. Riot has a massive bank account and they had success with every competitive game thay release (and they keep them in movement, unlike Anet or Blizzard).

I think that over time he became refined. He used to run mostly Trailblazer builds at PvE but I remember that for a while his Mirage builds did use Rampage for the extra condi procs on crit. Tormenting runes used to heal on torment procs, then got nerfed to provide regeneration but now with the relics they are just a worse alternative to Trapper. But see, sometimes He ditches condis entirely: his Bladesworn builds rely entirely in Assassin gear to cap crit chace and maximize damage, whereas sustain comes from traits and Immortal Dragon if needed. Cele is not inherently better: in WvW with Willbender I run a Dragon/Marauder mix due the weapons which work better there benefit more from power and sustain and survability comes from mobility, but with Firebrand I run cele because the mobility is largely lost and I need the tankiness and stat abundance from cele. Cele benefits builds which take advantage of every stat: that's why also I run cele Vindi in WvW. The thing is: in PvE, ouside a comple of builds or maybe three, cele is better in most of cases. Cele Mirage and Vindi, for example, get permanent vigor and regeneration just running cele, while having 24-25k base HP large armor (near 3k with bthe vindi). By the way, Mirage in cele can ouput over 22k dps, whereas Vindi is around 14k, and yet is overall a stronger build (in his tier list Hizen crushed Seneb in 2'40" on Vindi, and that includes the time to reach the battle stage... ). I don't see how people can have trouble about others running cele in OW when it can allow to solo legendary bounties in minutes.

Probably. They share the same amount of points in vitality and expertise but Trailblazer has 533 extra points in thoughness and in condition damage. But on the other hand part of the damage gap is cut with power damage due cele provides 639 extra points in power, crit chance and ferocity, AND on top of that another 639 points in helaing power and in boon duration. So, a naked traiblazer Renegade with full ascended trailblazer gear (no traits, skills, sigils, runes or relic: Base power (1000), crit damage (150%) 1633 vitality (22252 HP) 38% crit chance (Renegade traitline) 1172 condition damage and 42.2% condition duration, 3443 armor: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmQAU+AA-DSJYkRBPAA-e Same scenario with a naked celestial Renegade: 1639 in power, vitality (22312 HP), precission (68% crit chance), 639 in ferocity (192% crit damage), condition damage, expertise (42.6% condition duration), thoughness (2910 armor), healing power and boon duration (42.6%) : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PmQAU+AA-DyIY1ogHAA-e As I said the bonus to power stats will reduce the dps gap but the boon duration alone is a massive +42% buff with benefirts both the stack of offensive bonus as might and defesinve ones as resistance, resolution or vigor (albeit in that sense Herald and Vindi take even more advantage due better access to regeneration and quickness). On top on that, 639 extra healing power. The thing is: it doesn't matter if TB does more damage than cele, because in a race to do more damage viper or griever already have that crown. It matters if playing solo your pace at killing is enough to overcome certain limitations (as the 10 minute cap for bounties and some other events) and how easy to play is the build or how tanky/able to recover from damage is. And in that regard, is hard to argue that the extra damage from traiblazer would be worth enough to compensate the extra boon duration and healing power. The healing power is less maybe relevant since Renegade doesn't spam regenedation as Herald or Vindi, but +42% boon duration is metal AF.

I will surprised if any western MMO survives in good shape after Riot releases its MMO. And I'm not guessing that will be good, but taking in consideration its track record and how they support the competitive part of their games, unless the combat system ends being terrible there's a chance that it will engulf everything else. Also, I doubt we will have any GW3 at all...