Buran.3796

And why should Willbender be played but Firebrand not? To some FB is closer to what a Guardian should have been when they enrolled in the class, whereas, Willbender is closer to what they wanted if were interested into playing a Thief. Or an Holosmith. Or a Herald. Plus, core Guard is still meta above DH; they just nerfed some DH skills and you're still moaning about DH. People went from stacking Vindis to stacking Mechas and now stacking Specters and you're still playing the old song of being worried about a niche meme build which fortunately, is not dead as the rooting corpse that Firebrand is in PvP....

Run the other specs.

Tell that to the Mirage players and how has been for them in PvP since the removal of the second dodge. Top Mesmer playes as Helseth or Misha barely have touched the class since, and last time you saw a Mesmer in MATs Pluto was a planet (hyperbole, I known but you get the point). There's a structural flaw into designing an action-rpg game with a limited amount of evades (2) as baseline for all kind of contents as a limitation and then changing it. Was problematic with Mirage, which has been excluded from high end PvP for years due the cut, and has been problematic with Daredevil, which made Deadeye irrelevant in PvP for the last four years, due three is just too good to ignore. Also my main complaint about the whole spec wasn't the lack of the stackable dodge, but the increase of the endurance cost for ALL of the options. Remember that due that increase in the 4th beta ANet BUFFED the support numbers of Saint of Zu Heltzer. Now, they nerfed the numbers of that third trait WITHOUT restoring the cost of 50 endurace units. And in the way, they also halved Eternity's Requiem in damage AND disabled tracking on stealth (because albeit as portrayed as an AoE salvo of explossions, in reality is just a bunch of random single target impacts). Is not like I didn't look at the options: chose staff to get more blocks, use energy sigils to get vigor, run Retribution to buff your endurance... But at the end you find out that you get no rewards (damage) due the compromises made, and you look a lot like the poor Guardian using mobility runes (Traveler, Lynx...) and VIT amulets due their pace is pathetic and the base 11K HP is excellent to be one shooted. I won't die in that beach: I won't chase the dream of making it work. The jump should have been a sort of "elite" or "ultimate" skill as DIII Crusader's "Falling Sword" instead of the bad jokes as the Spear and the Urn the Alliance has. Don't bring up two new legends with two bad heals and two terrible elites ANet; make instead five functional skills and new "F" mechanics which sinergyze with pre-existent legands and traits. Now we even have to endure people moaning about Vindi having 3 heals... lol.

Good changes in the Willbender, but won't replace core support guard in PvP; also find weird the nerfts to Firebrand: has been deleted from PvP for over a year and half now... I known that is meta in instanced PvE, but at OW there are way better choices than FB, no need for further nerfs. Nice changes in the Revenant: two nerfs in a row for Jalis (which aside WvW zergs and some roaming is barely used) in the way to make the legend almost as bad as Mallyx, Ventari and Kalla. Still anyone will run it and either Herald or Renegade over Vindicator, so please nerf it more, because I don't care! Not familiar enough with the other builds to judge the changes, but at least they are now following closer the game balance. To be honest not much representation of the new specs in PvP: older specs are in general still better, which is fine to me.

Did play a similar build in PvE first with Diviner + Zerk stats to extend the boon durations and using Shiro + Jalis, and then tried full zerk with Shiro + The Alliance. What I found farming alone hero points in HoT was that power Herald in full zerk had both better sustain and dealt more dps, just because a dead Vindicator does 0 damage. Renegade was even better. I don't known; currently I'm experimenting with Willbender variants in trailblazer and celestial mixups, and albeit not as tanky as condi Renegade (or power Herald) they do damage faster than Vindi at lower risk.

Didn't have the opportunity to saw the MAT last weekend but plan to do it soon (when is uploaded). But so far I barely saw Vindis in my last ~25 PvP matches (since the nerfs).

Now that you say it, The Dreamer + Chickenado finisher seems to be one of the ultimate trolling combos...

The first 4 legendary weapons of the second generation (the staff, the pistol, the short bow and the axe) do have special quest and achievements to complete to get the stoff to craft them. Then ANet decided that those task were too long to program and ended making the rest of the legeandary very direct: some tokens, a ton of materials/gold and is done. I remember that Astralaria required things as completing the aetherblade puzzle in Gendarran (had to wait weeks to rent a mesmer to take a teleport!) and completing some achievements in some fractals, etc. The Shinning Blade doesn't demand any of that. I known that Chuka requires some achievements in fractals, and I'm wondering if amongst any of the requierement I would find any annoying PITA requirement. For hammers I already have better looking skins than Juggernaut/Sharur, but when I'll craft if it would be either Sharur or one of the new ones: I don't like the skin and effects of The Juggernaut; Sharur is decent but I do like the energy bolts of the auto attack (I wonder if Aurene's hammer would add a similar effect). Anyway, I use the short bow oftenly, whereas I barely touch the hammer (with any profession, sadly: the cc=no damage patch killed most of those weapons across the professions due they were mostly slower hitting weapons with tons of cc). But maybe I'll wait to Aurene's iterations before crafting the bow as Lucian suggest: is a task for second half of the year. I want to hear opinions, since up to date I crafted always the weapons I really liked, and now I'm mostly "filling slots" and not entirely charmed by the offerings...

I'm ending my second legendary armor set and aside from making the third one (already have most of the tokens) I'm planning what legendary weapon should I do the next. Since both mace and hammer seems "not that great for Rev" at the moment (taking PvP/WvW in consideration), and I have the other ones from this preofession I was thinking about crafting a legendary shortbow. But I'm conflicted about going with The Dreamer or with Chuka & Champawat: usually I'm not fan of "joke legendaries" but I like the sound effects of The Dreamer more than the muded roars from C&C; not fan of neither of the skins to be honest. On the other side, The Dreamer seems a bit more cheap and way less PIAS to obtain (Bolt or The Shinning Blade were both easy, but Astralatia had some achievements really hard to get, IMO). So what are your preferences about those two, and why? Gets one or another boring over time? Thanx in advance.

As a Rev main player which spent his first 30 ranked matches in this season playing only Vindicator and not liking and claiming that won't be vaible at MATs (before the nerfs) and being pro-nerf I'm happy about ANet removed Vindi from PvP so I can keep playing the more rewarding Herald and Renegade builds as before. This will teach ANet a new lesson about bringing to the game specs with single dodge, since seems that Mirage wasn't a warning enough.

In PvP? That's easy: power Herald >> power Renegade >>> power core Revenant > any Vindicator build. And being realist: you won't see anything but power Herald at MATs. Power Renegade is playable but too easy to counter/contain with anti-projectile skills. Core Rev won't be used due has no advantage over Herald and Renegade and if Herald loses weigth (due nerfs) its place will be filled by other professions as Ranger or maybe even a return of the Warrior (harder for Mesmer due the Virtuoso has similar problems against projectile hate as the Renegade). So, no place for Vindi. Is hard to argue vs facts: But as I said BEFORE the nerfs I don't care: I won't play a spec with a single dodge which also costs 100 endurance. Did 30 ranked matches with Vindi before the nerfts to the damage and sustain and never found it as powerful, useful or fun as Herald or Renegade, so since the butch didn't bother to play it again in PvP. I'm also not worried about future changes: took me 2.5 years to start using Renegade in PvP, and I can see a similar trend with Vindi: it will require deep changes in the greatsword and/or dodge mechanics to grow my interest again.

I don't care the change (as I said weeks ago), but I don't buy the reason. Was not a bug the same as the activation of the sigils changing attunements in Eles, kits in Engies or moving in/out from shroud in Necros is not a bug. Was a deliberated choice that for some reason now they chose to change it. Also don't buy your argument that they won't change it because is all about damage control and public perception: they backpedaled 180º in the past with the nerf of Shiro's Phase Traversal which inflamed the forums. Is just that this time we don't care enough about the change. But don't wield the "bug fix" argument when the whole class is a can of wurms in terms of bugs, and EoD only added more to the spaghetti-code fiesta. And by the way was a weird nerf: condi Rev using legend swap to trigger sigils wasn't a meta thing at any game mode (thanx to Mallyx being teared to pieces). Was like seen three kids bullying a smaller one and seen ANet as the teacher entering in the figth to kick him in the guts.

It's only 3.6 roentgen...

Naru thinks that in ranked is the best guardian spec, and He plays it superbly in platinum games. But in a premade AT team core support Guardian offers a lot more value. In roaming is far from being the best, but well played has a solid performance. In both cases is carried hard by the trapper runes. So, DH is a bit of a one trick pony in those game modes, but is not garbage. I would say that in WvW due the stats available the TB core burn Guardian and Celestial Firebrand at peak performance are a little better due their large marging for errors and the way they scale in small skirmishes. But in PvP trapper DH is better than core dps or any Firebrand build (FB has been so shaved in damage and sustain that without celestial stats is almost unplayable in PvP).

You're not the only one. Vindi seems designed to bite the dust soloing those HP: you're pure mele whereas a lot of them mix mele and AoE/ranged attacks; you have a single dodge and some of them invoke allies; your evade is also a main source of damage, so if you save it against one shoots you'll lose a lot of dps. Your bigest burst (Eternity's Requiem) has a 1 second cast, in which you're prone to take damage. You have no cc in the weapon nor the legend, so you rely on core weapons and legends to break the defiant bars. I saw some more skilled players doing well vs hard foes using the Vindicator (albeit with their HP dancing in the edge of a razor), and I'm sure that Lord Hizen will find a way to amaze us using the spec to solo legendary bounties, fractal bosses and so, but let me be honest: to me core Rev, Herald and Renegade feel better at OW than Vindicator, and that's a very recent feel due I did the HoT and PoF maps with the Vindi the last week. Conversely, I'm playing the EoD maps entirely in a condi Renegade build, and so far two first maps have been like playing in god mode, or one of those "no hit" Dark Souls videos: enemies barely touched me (the buff to Spiritcrush so now you can place it backwards is godsend).

He started with swords + greatsword due mace has condition damage, but lacks defense (neither axe or off hand sword), whereas staff has defense but barely does any damage in a hybrid spec. So double sword gave him physical damage + chill (and torment due the trait) and the sword #3 evade, and greatsword gave him also damage, chill + torment, and a block. But despite crushing randoms, dueling vs a good celestial Virtuoso the build was very weak: He was barely surviving while the Virtuoso was blocking almost everything with aegis and filling him with condis. The Virtusoso never fell below 50% and most of the time remained at 85% HP or full heal. Later Vallun was experimenting with mace. Imo celestial Herald is stronger. The positive thing is that Kurzik's Tree Song is a really powerful cleanse/healing skill, but that's all: celestial Mesmers, Necros, Rangers, Engies, Eles and even Guardians should have the upper hand. Vindi is not designed to be a great hybrid fighter. My argument is that Herald at leas can combo mace + axe with sword + shield, and a couple of dodges, and more freedom with the sigils and runes, so you have damage bul also blocks and heals and cleanses in the shield, plus more cc, Infuse Light and am AoE stbreak which reveals stealth.

I'm giving advice based on three weeks playing the spec non stop, and happens that the "absolutely irrelevant mode where everything is trivially cleared" is what most of the population plays most of the time, and the topic creator specifically expressed that FOTM/meta doesn't bother him. You can keep guiding people towards meta builds for abandoned content if you wan't. Really I couldn't care less.

Actually, Herald is way better than Vindicator for OW PvE. You can solo almost every HoT & PoF hero point champion with both power and condi Herald without much problems (aside from Mushroom Queen and Herald of Balthazar; still doable but very hard) whereas I tried to do the same yesterday with a power PvE Vindicator build and was crushed in almost every fight. In order to do damage that build requires full berserker stats (or a bit of diviner to enhance the boons) and fighting at mele; you only have a dodge and while dodging your dps is 0. You have no cc to break defiant bars outside staff (which greatly recuces your dps) or previous legends. If you use your jump to actively enhance your damage you can find out yourself with no evades vs heavy hits. Condi Renegade, compared to Vindicator at OW PvE, is god mode.

Necro is strong at every part of the game; specially in PvE solo, PvP and WvW. Tanky, reliable and easy to play, the new spec has mobility and single target burst but at the cost of being more glassy. Ranger is another easy to play profession with very good sustain with powerful builds for PvE and roaming. Of the new specs in PvP the ones "worthy" of being meta at the moment are Specter and Mechanist; this later is really powerfull in PvE also but being its performance so linked to the jade golem can make risky to main it: moans in PvP can end ruining the class in other game modes... I'll advice you against the Guardian: yes, is meta at every game mode. Because in most of them you don't need to run. The Guardian has two weaknes: their mobility (before Willbender) is bad and you base HP is 11K. So if you want +25% movement runes you're hurting your dps. And if you want more health to not be one shooted you'll lose dps. Yes, quickbrander works wonders in fractals and raids (in skilled groups which make no mistakes) and in WvW zergs were provides shared stability... But the average Joe soloing OW as Guardian probably ends in downstate more often than the average Ele, despite the memes...

Aside from farming, spent part of the day playing the power PvE Vindicator in the HoT maps, and starting the story mode so I moved my main to the first map of the expansion, which cleaned using a condi Renebow PvP build. In HoT and Dragonfall maps, power Vindi did decent vs most of crowds and regular foes. But facing alone the Hero Points I was crushed in most of them, and sometimes even fighting against some regular veterans, wereas playing condi Renegade, condi Herald or even power Herald I was able to solo every HP aside from Balthazar's Herald and the Mushroom Queen (and those came close to be defeated, specially with Renegade builds). On the other hand, Vindicator felt frail as f***. A pure glass canon. You need pure zerk stats, offensive runes and sigils and an aggressive gameplay to deliver damage (a must vs those heavy armored foes), and a little mistake in the execution puts you in downed state. Your sustain and recovery from damage leaves a lot to be desired... Yes, busting your fury, migth and quicknes with Archemorus, landing Forerunner of Death + Requiem and using the stamina sigil is nice vs weaker goons, but you stay in melee most of the time and you get hit a lot, and when you block or evade you're dealing 0 damage. Your sources of bar breaking are also either the staff (which reduces your dps) or the core legends. I don't think this spec will be popular in PvE for newcomers: is very hard to play, very glassy and leaves no room for errors. This afternoon also saw the Migthy Teapot tournament; the only EoD specs which had success and were "worthy" to become meta were Specter and Machinist. Vindicator were used in two matches from teams which lost the first round, in a sort of "yolo, let's try if can work". As expected, it didn't. Vindi is just a worse Herald which had toold from better teamfights (AoE burst and team heal + barrier) and once you deprive them from damage and team sustain becames irrelevant. On the other side, power Herald was present in every team. Nothing surprising here. Yesterday I also saw Vallun running a celestial Vindicator build in WvW roaming and duelling. Worked fine vs average players due He's extremely good, but once started a duel vs a celestial Virtuoso was unable to drop his HP below 50 a single time, whereas the Virsusoso's aegis blocked most of the damage without much effort, cleansed himself easily and forced Vallun to retreat and cut his HP below 15% a lot of times (killing him a couple of them). This is also what I expected: since the greatsword and the Alliance are very lacky in terms of conditions, the only way to work in a hybrid build is using celestial; but since you're mostly a melee fighter, is not easy to pressure other celestial/trailbrazer WvW builds handled by good players. Other problems are that staff does 0 condi damage and mace has 0 defenses, so if you chose to run staff when you swap your damage plummets, and if you run mace you become very vulnerable. The only positive thing is that Kurzik's Tree Song is very powerful vs condi builds, which still, wasn't enough vs that Mesmer... So, as I said: I'll keep running power Herald and power Renegade in PvP, and using power Herald, condi Rene¡gade and celestial Herald in WvW. For PvE I'll keep using mostly condi Renegade and power Herald (which is a bit lackluster, but has way better sustain than Vindicator). So far I won't use Vindi at any game mode any longer. I don't have much advice to ANet about changes in the Vindicator: when they announced that would be limited to a single dodge I hated it and was thinking about how it deleted the Mesmer from MATs; when the second beta arrived I was greatly surprised due one of the traits keept the endurance cost in 50 and made it viable in PvP. I enjoyed that part. Then they normalized the evedes to 100 units and rised the healing and barrier to compensate. Then EoD was released and people compleined about the damage and the support: they nerfed Eternity's Requiem halving the damage AND making that no longer tracked stealth enemies (because, you known, AoE damage doesn't hit you if you're hidden) and they nerfed the support (without restoring the energy cost to the initial value). I think that even restoring the energy cost won't make Vindicator more fun to play: IMO the jump duration is too long and doesn't make sense to be so long but not being entirely on i-frames for the duration. I also agree with others here: balancing a spec with a single dodge in a game designed to to have 2 as a default is a nightmare. As happens with Mechanit's golem, the golem will be always either op or useless in PvP. I won't rely in a spec which don't enjoy as much as the previous ones (or even core) and which usuability will always pend so much on balance changes. Hammer is garbage, as is Ventari, Kalla, Mallyx, now the Vindicator as a whole (and Jalis is on the road to get the same fate). So I'll stick to Herald and Renegade. Enjoy your useless spec, ANet.

First big tournament, only Specter and Mech proved to be viable and worthy to be meta at high level. Vindi absent from every comp except a pair of yolo matches which went as it should. Glad ANet killed it.

Scales o has a normalized size along all kinds of characters? I'm torned about making a female Charr engineer or an Asura. Pros, cons (jumping puzzles aside)?

No, after testing it in PvP/WvW I won't run Vindicator in those game modes, and in PvE I'm still looking at how it performs, bu so far both Renegade and Herald feel and work better for me. The same with Willbender. Bladesworn looks a bit more promising, but Warrior isn't my main. I'll give Harbinger and Spectar a try, but later. Currently too busy farming PoF maps to take advantage of the high prices of the stuff.

They don't care about PvP/WvW. Firebrand being a totally dead horse in PvP for more than a year doesn't worry them a bit since is widely used in OW and utterly meta in instanced content. If they don't bother about the most popular spec in the game being utterly absent in a game mode, why would they care about the most niche class performance in competitive modes. The twist in the screenplay is that I think they have overestimated the appealing of some of the new specs: I don't see most of them replacing the current meta in most of game modes, ouside maybe Mechanist, Specter or Hrabinger.

Cleansing + energy in staff and hydromancy + air or battle is what I run in power Herald.