Buran.3796

I agree with both your points: 1) Rev has always been strong at PvP, others had much worse luck and 2) there's still moving parts so maybe Herald could fill a slot. But my point is: Rev is not very good at instanced content and naturally lags in popularity due was released later than the vanilla game and requires a expansion purchase; they nerfed Renebow due was was essentially farming EoD specs (most of which are heavy reliant in ranged attacks), and Herald just can't endure the condi spam from EoD specs (Harb, Specter, and Virtuoso are mostly played in condi variants and even WB has tons of burns to spam). Disclaimer: talking there about power Herald, condi Herald is entirely fine against the EoD meta, just top players didn't try it yet. Now, there's Vindi, the new spec: I knew when was announced that the single dodge would make it fail, then was the second beta and surprisingly the 50 endurance dodge worked well. Then was the 4th beta and the dodge was nerfed to 100 endurance; then the release and we saw nerfs in damage, healings (multiple times), barrier, cleansings and energy costs. Still, some pros were able to made it work (despite at that time very few players were able to play Vindi without dying in seconds. After a 2 month hiatus I did chose to play the current Ranked season with Vindi; first 25 matches with a 40% w/l ratio (my worst ever, not that I'm great, but I can do it better with classes which I barely touch). Now ANet releases a new balance patch which, as we feared, is moving skills from a class with low cooldowns balanced by high energy costs, to skills with large cooldowns as everything else but which on top of cooldowns must spent high amounts of energy for doing anything but autoattacks (and remember that the full rotation of Alliance skills costs 185 energy points, WAY more than the 135 from Shiro). Add also that swapping between Alliance legends provides exactly 0 energy points... So, to nerf "bunker Vindis" which doesn't exist in automated tournaments (every Vindi in a team was running berserker amulet) neither in ranked (at least in the few dozens of matches I played in this dead PvP game mode) CmC and company chose to triple the cooldown of the Alliance heals (which heal for a pity 714 HP and were designed to be used oftenly, in one of the finest examples of "cognitive disonance" I've seen in the game, as if the guy which designed the spec and the one which is making the balance changes had no communication between them, or the new one had any clue of how the spec works). So, every Rev player in the MAT ditches Vindi like a used kleenex and moves to either poser/support Herald (which overall performs poorly in the current meta) or to another class. An now we have a spec which least than 5 months after EoD release is dead in every game mode: is not meta in instanced PvE, is one of the worst specs at OW PvE, has no place in WvW zergs, is not particulary viable as a roamer and is just bad at PvP. Slow clap.

Just saw the Automated Tournament which finished moments ago... Congrats ANet, after almost 5 months from EoD release, and 8 months of nerfs since the 4th beta you got it: Revenant no longer is a meta class in PvP. Vindicator entirely erased, core and Renegade missed for years/months and only two players able to work with Herald (Azurrs and Boyce) which anyway wasn't enough to get the tournament (every other Herald just farmed by the new triple thief meta). I guess they no longer count of banking in selling the expansion to Rev older players, so now the badly designed Vindi is "out" at every part of the game but they can now focus in their favs or the expecs for the next expansion. Talking of that, which silly tradeoff would you like to have for the next Rev spec? No weapon swap as Bladesworn? -300 armor as Berserker? Maybe no legend swap?

In the rigth conditions power Vindi does 2/3 of the damage of condi WB, which also has an extra +50% armor, two dodges, team stability and some aegis to share. The real fail of this thread is people refusing to accept that game designers don't play Rev and they expect Rev players to move to Guardian, Engineer or something useful. That's all folks, just play another class or even better try other games!

That numbers seem to be entirely deserved given the amount of effort ANet puts at PvP and WvW. Don't worry, Riot is gestating a MMO: if has PvP (probably) you'll learn how a competitive game mode receives propper support.

Guardian, Engineer, Thief, Mesmer and Necro are classes with some specs which at the moment are meta for hard instanced PvE content. Everything else is supar. Also, the bias of the team which designs the balance patches was confirmed: some of them doesn't care about some classes they don't actively play and therefore they even't try with those.

At the moment, despite the meta isn't entirely finished since some some top PvE builds are still testing (others just leaved/stopped playing the game), there's not a single Revenant build which is meta at hard instanced PvE (fractals, raids, strikes). Support (heal), quickness or alacrity Revenant builds aren't meta, since there's other specs which perform better at those roles while having better damage, better utility tools (shared aegis, team stability, teleports, boon rips, reflects...), easier gameplay or a mix of some of those factors. Since at the support role Rev will be marginalized (if the content is hard won't be picked in the place of a class which performs better or does similar with less effort), the alternative role is doing well at dps. Vindi is comically bad at this: low dps with inherent sustain problems due the way in which maximizes its pity strike damage, and no condi builds because this was supposed to be a power build (because Renegade & Herald used to be strong at condition damage before the EoD nerfs). So at PvE Vindi is only meta at roleplaying; a t-shirt memeing "I known that the voices aren't real, but man they come up with some great ideas!" would fit wonderfully our tripolar heroes.

Just play a game which doesn't stress you. The goal should be to have fun, not to be worried about developers botching that fun.

But with Renegade Forced Engagement had a reach of 1200, now 600, and Planar Protection a cooldown of 20s, now 30s. I wouldn't touch Renegade at PvP ever again. Rene was already OUT of meta before EoD, and the nerfs to Jalis and Retribution due ANet didn't care to adress Vindi made Ren even worse. Is like them nerfing core Engie for no reasons while no one is playing it while buffing Mech. Anyway: meta yesterday was guards, necros and specter, nothing changed.

Now that Vindi heals are as bad as Firebrand ones in PvP ther's no longer an excuse to try to play Vindi at ranked and fail miserably instead of play FB and had a moderate success with a troll build...

I'm already using Dance of Death, so along Forerunner of Death thaose are my two main sacrifices in damage (in stats I run a mix between Dragon and Berzerker, with Diviner weapons and Fireworks runes). Tried full zerk full damage traits in the past but didn't work for me: too many deaths. I'm curious about what TTK you achieve with your Vindi vs some specific targets: one is the Champion Mordrem Vinetooth at Auric Basin. It takes me ~2 minutes to kill him with my celestial Firebrand, ~1'20" with my condi Renegade, celestial Herald and power Vindicator, and ~54" with my trailblazer Willbender (all roaming/OW builds, not specifically built for instanced PvE). The other is the Veteran Bristleback from the Desert Borderlands WvW map: It takes me ~24" seconds to do it with my condi Renegade and Herald, and saw a player doing it in 22" with a PvE Vindicator, but with my Vindi I'm currently unable to mog it before dying. For comparison, takes me 11 or 12 seconds to melt it with my trailblazer Willbender.

I find that Vassals overall is better for OW, the protection + might + boon duration and chill that brings better sustain chances against dangerous foes compared to just have the brute force of a heavy hitting impact of Forerunner: yes Forerunner one shots a lot of weaker foes and combined with stamina sigil makes trivial tro crush small mobs. But when you face some Hero Points or Bounties which are capable to kill you and require longer fights those extra burst of damage weigth less in my opinion that having the ability to endure hard hits or sustained damage without going down. The same happens with the sigil of force which overall I find out to be a better choice than stamina, which essentially does nothing vs bosses. Forerunner is also a a weirdly designed skill since the duration of the damage boost is a bit ridiculous: 15 seconds. Imo the jump should be shorter in duration but safer in frames and there's no need for 15s lasting buff since if you hit for 40k with a smaller cast you'll try to spam it as much as possible, whereas curerntly there's a imbalance between the need to deplete your stamina ASAP to get the Leviathan Strength bonus and the need to have some kind of backup defense to avoid heavy damage (you have blocks but they don't work vs some skills, and Riposting Shadows and the Kurzik evade are dangerous as hell in some fights vs bosses at which the terrain is filled with mechanics than will one shoot you if you step in the wrong location. You're rigth about Renegade traitline, tho. I forgot about alacrigade. Still not as deep as Mechanits or Firebrand, but yeah, I think that both agree in that Vindicator's traitline has the deep of a rain pond.

Yes. And now I'm playing an equally broken legacy build (celestial Herald) which puts both WB and HB in troubles if they aren't carefull. That's how battle for survival evolves: evolution doesn't grant survival to the strongest or fastest or smartest, but to the ones which are lucky (a very bad long term strategy, as the dodos proved) or the ones to adapt. Jump to the wagon of new dominant specs OR identify their weakness and build something specific to try to counter them. Did you saw Sindrener in PvP lately? He's playing power Deadeye (a spec which in the past He hated) because the meta in PvP (condi Harb, condi Spectre, Willbender) is stronger than the spec He likes to play (power Specter), so He swaped to power Deadeye and so far is working for him in ranked. Would work at MATs? To be seeing, but at least He's trying to counter the meta with a build that enjoys, instead of jumping in condi Specter and play using 3-4 keys as most of bandwagoners.

Vindicator really doesn't have a traitline. The first mandatory trait is Leviathan Strength since the two alternatives were nerfed so doesn't make sense using them at any game mode, and the second mandatory trait is Song of Arboreum since delivers a consistent buff which both synergizes with Leviathan Strength and the new dodge mechanics and costs. In the last column we used to have choices, since we had different endurance costs and strong buffs, but the nerfs to Saint of zu Heltzer were large enough to make it useless, so now Vassals of the Empire is the norm for every game mode but instanced PvE at which Forerunner of Death would be the meta if weren't by the fact that Vindicator is not suitable to be meta at instanced PvE... Is not that rare, tho: Renegade was mostly 222 or 221 when used in PvE and 122 at PvP/roaming, with very little use for the other traits, and the same happened with other professions. Having an elite traitline with varied traits usefull for different builds based on role (strike dps, condi dps, support...) is only a reality when your spec is designed to be a versatile swiss knife AND your class is favourite amongts the game designers. But Revenenat isn't anything of that, just accept it.

WB has very powerful AoEs and in messy n vs n fights can burst people easily, but is also a bit one dimensional and when players are aware and play well I don't think that offers better value to small teams compared to Firebrand or some other bruisers. Harbinger's prevalence is a bit artificial since ANet actively nerfed legacy specs which countered harbs. I loved fighting Harbs with my Renebow in the betas but now that Forced Engagement was botched from 1200 to 600 range and Planar's Protection cooldown was increased from 20s to 30s I feel that my Renebow is a free meal for Harb's ranged pressure spam and therefore I stopped playing Renebow while roaming. Some of the new specs were in fact widely unable to deal with legacy builds along the betas, but ANet "conveniently" nerfed the later ones to sell the new power creep. Remember that despite the game gear doesn't have any vertical progression with expansions (the same top quality of ascended and legendary remains) the new specs are itself a power creep, in the form of adding new skills and traits to your choices, having more powerful tools or numbers or sometimes delivering the same performance but with less effort. Is like in a fighting game when you have characters with lots of potential but which require very narrow windows of execution which makes them hard but then the developers add new characters with the same damage but way easier to play...

The real explanation is simpler than that: the population is SO LOW that the matchmaking doesn't work anymore and you're just seing a platinum player mogging some silvers.

More on my favour.

Yep. Rev has bugs which randomly shuffles the utilities while leaping from game modes and which jails you inside wall while using some teleports, whereas Guardians have bugs which grants them a free aegis each time they mount/dismount in PvE and WvW. Seems balanced to me.

Current Vindi "meta" is Shiro + Alliance. * The total cost of activating all the skills from Shiro at least one time is 120; until EoD was the most expensive legend in terms of energy spending, with Jalis, Mallyx and Kalla sitting at 90 each, and Ventari at 66. The cost of the stunbreak in Shiro (Riposting Shadows) is 30. * The total cost of activationg the skills of The Alliance at least one time is 152, the "new record" (85 from Archemorus and 67 from Kurzik); the cost in energy of each one of their stunbreak is 15, but both have a cooldown of 10 seconds. More important: SWAPING FROM ORANGE TO BLUE (or viceversa) DOESN'T RESET VINDICATOR'S ENERGY. Vindis don't run Charged Mist, so all they have is a legend swap each 10 seconds with grants a reset of 50 energy and 5 energy points earned every second (if energy reaches 0 it takes 4 whole seconds to start that energy regeneration again) to pay tthe use of the skills (and I talked ONLY about the cost of the legend skills). Even swaping legends each 10 seconds and doing nothing for the next 10 seconds you'll only stack 100 energy units to spent in Shiro's 120 or Alliance's 152. Resume: a Vindicator can't rotate their whole legend skills every 10 seconds and if tries not only will deplete his energy pool entirely but also be unable to use any weapon skills. According to Terrorhuz Vindicator has always evades, blocks, stunbreaks and protection available; I wonder how it could afford such energy costs...

Wait, Guardian, Engineer and Necro isn't hard enough trinity? We have also Virtusoso for pure dps goals...

You wasted one of your first 6 post in rising a thread that have been dead for 4 full months. You're clearly a natural born Necromancer...

So acording to you Vindi is bunker, but doesn't work in 2 v 2 (which favours bunkers), and lacks dps (but Vindi players are using zerk stats at MATs), and is "the first classin years that can be truly identified as bunker", yet you had to open a thread moaning about Tempest (not beacause their support but due their self sustain vs pew pew builds). Dude, you can have the pie or eat it, but not both at once... I restate: Vindi is garbage and scarcely used even in ranked, where most of players are moving to run Harbs for ez ranged kills while staying at 27K HP. Yes, Drazeh's Vindi's will kick your kittens, but that's mostly due the skill gap, and he will do the same running a core Warror. As I said, I'm fine with any Vindi nerf from past of future anyway: didn't touch mine in the last 2 months.

Vindicator is extreeeeeemely hard to play, to the point that maybe there's 20-30 players in the world able to make it work; in Conquest most of the Vindi players just melt. In 2 vs 2 I've only seen one Vindicator in 47 matches, which sugests that playing a mele character with a single evade (heavily nerfed) and limited cleanses is not very successful in the current meta (Harb, Willy, Specter and Virtuoso are played mainly as condi builds at the moement. Maybe Sikiekï is unkillable, but that is far from being transfered to the general population: you see tons of Harbs and Willies, Virtuosos are certainly becoming more popular, but Revs are on decline: their new spec is an aberration which doesn't fit at any game mode.

Thats a nice tip; I'll take advantage of it. Thank you Mikansei.

Currently I have the legendary amulet and backpack from PvP and the legenadry ring from WvW, which made a lot of my ascended trinkets collected along almost 10 years obsolete and filling a lot of space. I can salvage them at the cost of 1 gold coinf and 1 laurel for each kit, but turns out that the materials recovered barely reach 50% of the cost of the gold coin. That contrast with the salvaging of armor, weapons and underwater respirators, which at least provide Ball of Dark Energy, which is useful to craft new ascended/legendary recipes. So: should I just ditch all my unused ascended trinkets to get free space? I'm on the verge of it ouside keeping a sample of each I bought with laurels just due their unique icons, droping everything else... There's another use for them? Thanx in advance.

Hybrid Willbender: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PWwAw+tlVwUZdMM2IW2WbxUA-zRZYchRGMb0NFSgFQpRQHJgDzyjeaA-e Modus operandi: Charge with F1 against the main foe, release Purging Flames, roundhouse kick everyone with Whirling Light, place Symbol of Blades and unleash Zealot's Defense. Recharge F1 ASAP and engulf yourself in flames with the torch skills (you can run greatsword as secondary if you want). You'll get stacks of 37+ burns while having ~20K HP and over 3K armor and large stacks of migth. Most of things will melt in seconds, witout even beinga ble to do anything, and the build has decent sustain. The build has a lot of mobility and a good flow casting skills which remembers some fighting games, in the sense of trying to nail combos and air juggles but instead doing everything to proc as much burns as you can. The build is very flexible in gear: dire, carrion, viper, grieving, trailblazer or celestial, everything works! With condi damage over 2K and over 90% burning duration, is entirely ahead over any pure strike build you could run, specially in the expansions at which tons of mobs have huge amounts of armor or inmense HP levels.