Buran.3796

Everyone roaming in WvW is either "immortal" (running celestial/trailblazer builds with ustatin traits) or able to disengage from any fight (insane mobility and/or stealth). This is a random figth from las Saturday between me and a Bladesworn; (so far most of my fights at the time vs BS, Untamed, Mechanist, etc. were extremely long, no matter the result; the exception were Necros: any kind of them crushed me in matter of seconds): @captrowdy: my fault. Anyway, I'll remark that 3099 heal + 3099 barrier weren't the numbers from Vindicator in the Saint jump at the second beta: ANet tuned up those for the four and last beta because they normalized the endurance cost across all the dodge-jumps to 100, which means that they doubled the previous cost of the Saint. Now Vindicators keep paying x2 the cost but lost the compensations. Not like I care anymore: my work with the class in PvP and WvW is done and I returned to the vastly superior Herald and Renegade builds. I'm farming Vindis in PvP like crazy...

What are you talking about? The heal and barrier in PvP were exactly 3099, and THE SAME in WvW (with full damage stats, aka: berserker, viper, grieving, etc.). IF anyone was getting 6.2k then He was running minstrel cleric or some similar crap which means that his weapon attacks would do no damage at all (and EVEN then, I don't believe that numbers, taking in consideration that with the new patch ANet BUFFED the healing power coeficients and still you need 1000 heal power to recover the 1361 heal points the jump lost -so even in FULL CLERIC with Monk runes AND the current buffed coeficients you won't be able to heal 6.2K HP in a single dodge- ). Again, I must remark that the healing was never 6.2k; was 3.1k and now is chopped to 1738, which without dedicated traits and sigils to proc buff your vigor (which of course means dealing less damage) at 100 endurance unit cost means that you need 20 seconds to get a new dodge, and that puts the default "healing" from jumps at the astonishing number of 86,9 HP x second (around the same as the mango pie consummable).

They are all B tier at most. None is MAT meta.

Renegade wasn't played in PvP/WvW at all for more than two years, until the big nerf damage across all professions made Renegade able to survive for a while and then the Sevenshot changes made it playable in competitive. The same patches also utterly destroyed Firebrand in PvP. I can see a future in which Vindi isn't used at any game mode, at all. Already happened with other specs. Maybe could get some love at fishing in the squifs, or in the roleplaying meta, lol.

Why? At least Herald is competitive in WvW and PvP and Renegade has damage and sustain in OW (in instanced PvE will be replaced entirely by Mechanist, which shares alacrity while doing more dps and being easier to play). Further nerfs to Herald and Renegade won't make people use Vindi the same as nerfing rewards from Dragonfall and Drizzlewood won't make people to play the new EoD maps.

Given the new balance changes, I will surprised if a single Vindicator is found in the comformed teams at this MAT. I known that it will be a special PvP event casted this weekend by Mighty Teapot this weekend involving the top 7 teams from US and EU, but I don't known if will be played only with the new specs or at free will. If all specs are allowed, any Vindicator will be eated alive: no stackable dodges, 100 endurance units x dodge, Eternity's Requiem damage halved and barrier and health usueless if you're not running a support amulet = dead on arrival. Told you Vindi had 0 chances of becoming meta BEFORE the nerfs. Now is just a ballast in any team.

Nah, also affects WvW. Essentially halves the damage of Eternity's Requiem and greatly reduces the heal and barrier from the Saint.. I'm glad because I no longer have to keep testing builds and stat variants in those game modes: now Vindicator is fully behind power Herald and Renegade at both damage and sustain. No more false gods. Vindi is as mediocre for competitive gaming as any other spec with a single dodge.

Conformed teams won't run Vindi. They will need the superior mobility of the Thief, a support Guardian an the cc of the Necro. That leaves out to stack two Vindis, but Vindicator loses vs Herald, Holo and other classes in 1 v1 and is way more vulnerable to cc (the breakstun from Jalis is slow and costs 40 energy). Vindi is going to be a popular choice in ranked because mixes the burst from DH with the teamfigh support from the barriers from the Scourge, but is also a lot easier to focus. But in MATs as will happen in 12 days I doubt it would replace Herald, at all. By the way, I'm not opposed to nerfs; cut the damage and revert the increase of endurance cost for the Saint so we can have a bunker or bruiser (the class never had a good one).

For raids and so the power based Alacrigade probably won't be replaced by the Vindicator because the shared alacrity is more important than the dps advantage from Vindicator at the current moment. For OW hard content (soloing legendary bounties for fun, HP champs, etc.) power Vindicator will probably be fine but different: way faster at killing minor mobs (that sigil of endurance restoration after each kill combined with Forerunner of Death is brutal), but slower and riskier vs champs and bounties than condi Renegade.

Thanx for the advices; I'll take use of them. The whole cc thing tho, I'm not sure: Binding's Blade pull erases ~20% of a blue bar in most HP champs in a 25s cooldown, whereas Kick Retribution deletes ~45% ina 15s cooldown and Heaven's Palm ~55% in a 45s cooldown! That's assuming that everything goes fine and you don't get interrupted. Sancturay is the strongest breakbar in the game, but the cooldown is also large (50s to 40s), and comes as a opportunity cost (of leaving damage or other tools behind). I'm used to do it faster and in a more spammable way with Axe + Shield +F1 tome with the Firebrand, or just using a well placed Surge of the Mist, Forced Engagement or a Jade Winds + Chaotic Release combo in my Rev. I 'll try to make it work, tho.

Yesterday started (after the betas) to try the WB with burn based builds similar to the ones you link, mostly playing in maps from the living seaons, HoT and PoF. I noticed that the damage output was good, but I had two problems: 1) Lacking in sustain. Despite running either full trailblazer or full celestial or a mix of condi gear, with either Shelter or Litany, the 30s cooldown of the health and lack of other sustain sources made the fights very risky. Those builds are also a bit lacking in terms of stability and cleanses, so the burst I landed was good but oftenly interrupted and in a lot of fights I was close to downstate... or even ended in a death. Talking mostly about HoT HPs stuff. On the other hand, getting traitlines to reduce the cooldowns of Shelter or Litany would lead to weaker damage... 2) Didn't test the elite, but overall WB seems a bit lacking in tools to deal with defiance bars, and that seems to be a notable handicap. Breaking bars are not only useful to prevent bosses from using dangerous attacks, but also the stuns after getting them down opens a window for maximizing the burst damage from fire at low risk. And I had hard time trying to take down those blue bars...

Some inputs after testing more the spec: * The difference in damage from a build designed to fight in WvW/roaming (usually with Devastation + Retribution) and one designed to PvE (usually with Devastation + Invocation) is HUGE, even going full berserker in both. The gap can be even larger running Scholar runes (currently I'm using Fireworks due I don't wan't to resign to the 25% increase in movement in OW) * The gameplay mechanics of both builds are also vastly different. Just swapping from using your evade to avoid damage and gain health + barrier to use it to hit hard and gain an extra 15% damage requires to re-wire how you approch fights. Also, I'm not sure about using Brutality, Swift Termination or Dance of Death: all of them seem to be so situational (even in PvE). * So far not fan of running WvW/PvP builds in PvE with the Vindicator as I oftenly do with Herald and Renegade. Even with Jalis, Retribution and the third dodge trait I found that build frail in PvE and severely lacking in dps compared to the condi Renegade PvP build. Yes, power PvP vindicator does ~20%-25% more damage than power PvP herald when translated to PvE stats, but at the cost of being way more squishy and having worse cc. I did extremely poorly at HoT HPs using that build, whereas I like how I can run PvP's power Herald and condi Renegade in PvE and getting the job done with less risk. * As general rule you'll lose in WvW vs ranged foes. Necros in particular will eat you alive. Fights vs Bladesworns and Untamed are usually very long; fights vs Willbenders, Virtuosos and Mechanits very fast and very one sided (you win or lost very fast if any of the duelers make a mistake. * In the PvE build I would prefer Scavenger Burst to be centered on you; I find the douple tap to cast on terrain annoying and the 900 range is useless, since you don't share the boons with other people and you are a pure mele fighter with no other ranged attacks, and talking about that... * ...Spear of Archemorus is a garbage tier elite, worth to be in the "300 seconds cooldown" list. A slow casted highly telegraphed skill which deals lower damage than a couple of autos and deals 5 stacks of torment instead of something useful as vulnerability or might or cc. I don't get why this elite exits: utterly useless for a mele build tio have a super long ranged (2000) attack which is a net loss in damage and bufs a type of damage (condition) which doesn't works with the spec. Also: the burns from Scavenger Burst do ~1/6 of the damage from Guardian's Purging flames (5700 vs 34100) with condi stats. I known that has low cooldown but the energy cost will exhaust us before getting a fraction of that damage. I prefer to have more expensive/longer cooldown skills with more impactful effects than shorter ones to (not being able) to spam. * The Alliance helas are also ultrabad. Yes, Tree Song is very powerful, but even if I run Alliance I won't swap to Kurzik in a fight due my damage boosters are in Archemorus or the other legend; I would only run Kurzik in a support build (probably with Ventari) which means never. So far; I'll keep with the PvE and condi build test now. In PvP I'll finish my test in the next 15-20 ranked matches.

The problem is not "only one dodge" itself, but the "kitten you, now it costs 100 endurance". So you build a problem (removing a dodge stack in a game designed to usually have 2 saved), create the solution (traits and mechanics which help to gain endurance faster) and then create a point deficit to counter the solution to the original obstacle. Morale of the story: run Renegade, curbstomp the content and enjoy your second dodge for free.

Necro, Ranger, short bow Renegade, long bow Dragon Hunter, Deadeye... There's other professions/specs that can be good ad dealing damage at range but are risky in PvP (as staff Elementalist), but the ones I name are good in both PvP and PvE played mostly as ranged fighters. Must add that the Deadeye is mostly a single target fighter, so albeit it can do well in duels and against bosses doesn't clean crodws as fast as the others can.

Is so weird going to ranked PvP with a dps Vindicator build and ending having the best healing numbers of the match.... Or seeing how the most Vindicators you stack in a teamfight, the faster they kill and the harder is to put them down.

^Is slower at killing than previous PoF specs.

Of course you're talking about PvE. Is in the title. But your first post also talks about the patch of FeB 28 (EoD), and the patch changed nothing for PvE herald, which in its instanced builds hasn't been meta FOR YEARS. So EoD changed nothing in that regard. Want to play a meta Rev in instanced PvE content? Well, you can either run power Renegade or condi Renegade, based on the content. Pick your poison. And is perfectly fine: some professions doesn't have a single "wanted" build in that place. And by the way, instanced PvE is as niche as PvP/WvW, so is not a big drama. Most of the population are either OW farmers or OW afkers, the true meta of the game.

Power Herald is still the best PvP/WvW roaming build the Revenant has (and one of the best in the game, albeit in WvW roaming professions with stealth access dominate). Power Herald are still one of the most played WvW builds in zergs. Condi Herald is in wose placement: still usable in WvW roaming and small skirmishes, but now is weaker and also lost sustain. It lacks both ranged pressure and a viable condi legend.

You can farm the runes in PvP chest without doing the dungeons. Also, in PvE I find Shiro + Jalis in full viper or viper + TB to have more sustain than Kalla + Mallyx in celestial or TB gear. If you're running Kalla and want more sustain the obvious choice is All for One trait and not Heartpiercer (which obviously means a lose in damage), but either you're seraching dps or sustain. So accept the lower sustain and embrace full viper for dps or get the sustain from the mobility and damage mitigation in Shiro and Jalist.

Yep. Also, as someone which had died unter 40+ stacks of conditions from a condi Soulbeast, and which always runs Agressive Agility in his Revs to prevent being rooted by for eternity, I would say that Ranger also has his "things". Anyway, I'm fine with nerfs as soon as they ONLY affects the Vindication portion of the class: put a 300 seconds cooldown in the dodge and make Eternity's Requiem to cause an AoE daze and 0 damage. But don't kitten touch Herald in PvP nor Renegade in PvE: both are way better than that overrated lame Vindicator spec.

^But is slower at killing that some of the PoF builds. And talking about PoF, condi Soulbeast remains untouched in EoD.

Condi Soulbeast didn't rely on Tormenting runes or any other mechanic nerfed with EoD, so I'll asumme that is as broken and strong in in Solo PvE as was before the expansion, which means: can solo a huge amount of legendary bounties and fractal bosses. Outside this, damage in condi Rev and Necro is as good as ever, just the sustain has been shaved. Do it affect their solo potential? I guess that requires more skill and they have a more narrow window for mistakes, but probably remain highly capable. I don't agree about Bladesworn being the best at the moment: is tanky, but in a recent (excellent) video from Lord Hizen you can see that in killing time is lagging: 2'51" for Smoldge is 21" slower than Roul's Firebrand (pre-symbols nerf) or Mushroom Queen 1'22" vs 56", and 1'06" for Vintooth is way slower than viper Renegade. Anyway, my take is that none of the "best" solo builds are based on power builds: condition damage based ones always offer better tankyness and better damage over time, since they don't lose dps in the same way while they use defensive tools (plus HoT foes have more armor than the Musashi, which negates tons of potential).

Necro has a ton more of presence in teamfights since they can AoE fear and other cc, and can do it at range, plus the option to corrupt boons. Herald has good teamfight tools which the Vindi lacks (as Elemental Blast and Chaotic Release) but also is better at moving between nodes since Facet of Elements gives Herald perma swiftness. So the vindicator is good at delivering AoE burst of damage, but is easy to interrupt him and is not very good at roaming and decaping due lower mobility, which also translates at being worse at chasing targets and constantly pressuring them.

Is good at teamfights and that's all. Is not Necro good at teamfights, and has less mobility than Herald (which is also good in teamfights), which means that is much worse as +1 and as decapper. Lacks ranged damage and has very little cc.

Or any of the other 4-5 classes which are meta in Conquest. None of the EoD specs are S (or even A) tier.