Buran.3796

Why would anyone like to see a basic feature from the mechanics of the game removed from their main class? When they did that to the Mirage, the class was removed from the PvP meta. And Vindicator, with a single non-stackable dodge which cost x2 the endurance of any other class or spec (and which needs to ruin his damage taking traits and sigils to just to compensate that cost), has 0 chances to be viable in PvP. Is like: "who thinks that losing the passive effects of virtues on the Willbender is cool?" or "who likes Berserker's armor being shaved by 300 units?" Those are lame "balance choices", they should have boosted the core classes instead. No one want's to run a downgraded version of what they had. Other MMOs are revamping their basic classes (BDO) to try to level the qol the new ones bringed to the players Did any of the tradeoffs ANet implemented bring any FUN to the players that are running those specs? Why to focus on making the things WORSE when the game is FULL of weapons and traitlines and skills so bad that no one uses them at ANY gamemode?

If I craft and equip a SECOND Conflux, how many Conflux orbs can I display around? 1 Trascendence + 2 Conflux = 3 orbs or I will still be caped to 2 (one bluish and another redish)?

They should fix the Phantom's Onslaught tooltip correctly displaying "Range: 450". Also work in the animation for Norn and Human/Silvari for that skill: the charge looks a lot better in the Charr and Asura races than in the other ones.

I played mostly the heavy armor classes. The Bladesworn is the one I enjoyed the most: I like the overall design, visuals and skills, albeit the new weapon (off hand pistil) is a crapy one. The new F mechanics and Gunsaber are cool, and albeit the changes in the 4th beta reduced the damage the specs seems more open to be used with a variety of weapons. Is my fav new spec of the batch. The Willbender feels redundant: is not better at dealing damage than a Firebrand or DH (PvE) and is worse at giving support or having sustain (specially in PvP) compoared to core or DH. Won't use the WB at any game mode. Albeit the flow of the skills was improved reducing the casting times or post-cast animations the nerfs to resolution made it worse. At the second beta I though I would hate the Vidicator, but the third evade at regular cost (50 endurance) and with heals and barrier gave him potential as a solid bruiser. Now with 100 endurance cost all across the traits for the single, non stackable dodge (which means 1/4 of a dodge compared to other classes) is a giant pile of garbage in PvP/WvW. Doesn't compete vs Renegade at PvE, so I have no use for it. So overall I'll play Bladesworn in EoD, and I'll keep Herald/Renegade and DH/Firebrand as the main choices for PvP/WvW/PvE. Specter and Mechanist seems good but I'm bad at playing Thieves/ERngineers, and Untamed is interestong but I like the Soulbeast more.

Eternity's Requiem will be nerfed, sure, but not due the damage (which is way lower than in PvE) but due how randomly kills people (carpet bombing a large area). It kills people which outplayed you gaining your flank or back and will be spammed the same as DH traps in silver to gold tiers. But aside of that the Vindicator is way worse at PvP than power Herald, so won't be used at competitive games (same as Willbender, Harbinger and Catalyst). Half of the new specs are a direct loss when comes to PvP...

So you think that Alliance > Shiro or Jalis for PvP? Then why wasn't used in the French Wurms vs Team USA Beta 4 exhibition tournament in the Mighty Teapot streaming yesterday? Pro's are skipping Alliance due is too stronk?

PvE players keep having this notion of PvP that you can make something to work just adding a valuable effect desired to the recipe, as having mass alacrity, mass quickness, mass stability or mass cleansing makes a build "meta" in instanced content. But PvP doesn't work that way. Vindicator won't earn a place in the PvP meta just because you add a hard cc to it. Is too lacking in sustain and mobility to replace Herald or Thief or a Holosmith as a +1; is not a good support build and is a weak vs conditions as Rev has always been. Has also worse theorycrafting potential than Herald due you're utterly chained to some traits, sigils and runes just to grant to have a quarter evade every 10 seconds (or just ignore them a play in PvP with a single jump every 20"). If you want cc for PvE is fair: call it. But don't pretend that you want it for PvP because in that landscape Vindicator is dead on arrival.

Just a reminder Arenanet, because I've just being killed in WvW due I forgot to check the skills at swapping the game mode and your incompetent template system shuffle my utilities so my Riposting Shadows to avoid the AoEs turned into a Phase Traversal which got me nuked. Keep adding mecha dragon skins to the gemstore while leaving basic mechanics of the game in this mess of a state for years without adressing the problem or giving a single word about when would be fixed or why never will be fixed is not fun. At all.

Taking in consideration how poorly the Firebrand currently performs in PvP I doubt is in the mind of ANet balance team to punish his PvE performance.

In PvP, of course: organized teams usually runs some kind of support with shared cleanses which makes condi builds much less effective, and strike damage instead can't be cleansed. But the same Renebow build which uses berserker or demolisher amulets in PvP usually runs any mix of trailblazer/dire/viper/grieving stats as a WvW roamer instead, because both the stats available in WvW are much stronger and provide damage + tankiness in a way not present in PvP, a also because random roamers or small groups oftenly don't run organized teams in which there's a support role, and condi builds work better when everyone uses selfish loadouts.

^ Which lost quickness on Shiro (IO), the burst AoE damage on the legend swap, the vulnerability stacks on Burst of Strength (and the vuln procs from all traits), the damage in Chaotic Release and Drop the Hammer, which saw CoR turned from a 2s cd tracking attack which hit hard into a 8s which doesn't track, interrupts itself if you walk a bit lateraly/backwards while casting it and hits like a dusty towell... Power Herald is a +1 teamfighter in PvP, at which lacks the sustain to solo most of the other meta clases, and in WvW is a glass cannon mele fighter with no access to stability and poor cleansing abilities, which faces buffed foes running celestial and trailblazer stats and elusive classes with tons of ranged pressure and freely access to stealth.

Vindicator went from being unable to compete vs Herald in PvP as a 1+ but had good potential as a bruiser with the third evade trait (the only one which did cost 50 endurance as the rest of the classes/builds on the game, and the only jump which was used by players in the second beta) to being cornered in a single no stackable dodge as the Mirage but the only one which needs 100 endurance to gets access to it. You literaly need to stack Song of Arboreum + Unwavering Avoidance + energy sigils just to be a quarter of what everyone is in terms of evades, and after thet jump (which doesn't provide i-frames for the full 2 seconds in the air) is a sitting duck. Aside for that greatsword damage got buffed so ANet can nerf it after the release when everyone (fairly) starts to moan about Eternity's Requiem being a AoE carpet bombing which kills people randomly with no skill required. The changes in the control of The Alliance legend made it better, but is still worse than Shiro/Jalis/Mallyx at any game mode, so people won't use it, anyway. So how I would value the changes, overall? They made it better at PvE, where still has no chance to compete vs condi Renegade or alacrigade, and nuked it at PvP/Roaming where it has less dps potential than Herald but could have worked as a bruiser/tank. For me, is a loss.

I would love to see the same dude trying that gainst the veteran Bristleback in the Desert Borderland , just to put in perspective what will happen in a high level fractal or raid boss when a foe that hits back and can melt your HP in seconds puts his eyes on you after having spent your single evade for the next 10 seconds...

But GS already has a huge disparity in cooldowns between PvE and PvP/WvW, where they are way larger, so the main room for a nerf will come in the form of numbers.

I had yesterday a fun AT match in which the enemy team had 3 platinum power Heralds. I'll asure you, being the skill level enough, Vidicator has no chance in PvP against Herald. As vs DH, nothing puts a larger smile in the face of a Infuse Light user than a well telegraphed heavy burst of damage. Ah, the smell of the napalm in the morning...

With a power build if you catch an enemy player without stunbreak or "panic button" available you can burst them in seconds... with a condi build if you cath an enemy foe without cleanses it will die equaly in seconds. The difference as you say is that to do that as a power Rev I need to run with 16K HP and ~2300 armor and figth in mele because our ranged power weapons are terrible (outside underwater), whereas as a condi Rev I can do the same while having 25K+ HP and over 3K armor, and figthing at range if I please. So power builds should do more damage. That's in PvP/WvW, in PvE power builds works are beyond any hope to reach condi numbers due how condi ignores armor and keeps doing damage while you dodge, block, etc. whereas in power most of defensive actions stop entirely your own damage.

Third day playing it. People saying that Vindicator has any place in PvP are crazy. Is literaly a toned down core Revenant which already can't compete vs Herald. Greatsword + anything is already inferior to swords + staff at PvP. You give up a second dodge and your only one now costs 100 endurance. With the dodge damage trait a full berserker Vindicator does a bit over 2K damage to the PvP heavy golem, ~4800 if crits. The equivalent of three autos from a power Herald. But you have no fury and no migth, because you gave up Herald. Not to mention that the 2 seconds jump doesn't provide i-frames for the full animation, so you can be interrupted whereas dodges are shorter but instant cast. Herald also provides more mobility (at no cost) and the (maybe) best healing skill in the game. Plus a soft and a hard crowd control skill. And a stunbreak which blinds and reveals in AoE. And their active skills cost no energy. I've been testing the Vindicator in PvP matches and WvW; greatsword will be loved in zergs due Enternity's Requiem performance in zerg vs zerg, untill gets "hammered" (like Rev's hammer, seriously) due in PvP everyone will be complaining about how carpet bombs a huge area and provides random kills. But in 1 vs 1 is a slow hitting weapon full of large windows to be interrupted, so again the hammer comparison seems to fit. Competitive teams won't get a fraction of the Herald's burst capability and overall sustain running a Vindicator, so its role will be a one trick pony "burn guardian" meme build for lower ranked matches. Until gs #5 gets GoR'ed. PvE damage is heavily lagging behind condi Revenant builds (~70% more time to kill the same foes, and I'm talking about fighting targets that use cc and skills that can potentially disrupt your rOtations, not like a piñata golem which stands doing nothing) as the giants, while also being less tanky. I tried a condi (celestial) build in WvW and does more damage, but doesn't work vs roamers with good mobility or ranged pressure (including terrormancers). The previous version of the Vindicator at least has fast access to dodge so was tanky, has potential as a bruiser. This new one is useless: a power spec which doesn't do better than the already existing power specs; a condi spec which lacks ranged game and sustain; a bruiser which does no damage and melts under pressute. Sorry but I'm out. I will play EoD running a condi Renegade in PvE, and I'll keep using a power Herald as main build in PvP, swapping both and celestrial Herald in WvW. Vindicator was for me a solid 3-4th place amongst the 9 new specs in their first iteration, this second one is just not fun for me to play and I'll place ith 6th.

Some first impressions about this second beta: *) The implementation of the beta characters is really bad. Rune and sigil selection is garbage, you can't buy new ones to test from the BL market, etc. Is as bad as it was, but the first time I had no clue about what wanted to build, now I known and I can't. And that's despite having the full armor a ring, a back piece and most of the weapons in legendary status. I won't craft overpriced runes and sigils just to properly equip the crapy equipped beta characters, and this is a rant that aleady saw before from other . Give us propper tools to test or go away, ANet! *) Dodge is now garbage. 10 to 14 full seconds to fill a bar using Song of Arboreum + Unwavering Avoidance + two sigils of energy (the whole build, and you still lag behind eveyone). You won't get more that 4 second vigor in PvP. Dodge is o bad that in some PvP matches forgot for a while I had a it for ~30 seconds due my brain was focusing on survive with weapon and utility skills because dodge was "oh, that thing that you no longer has and you die while waiting it, better forget about it kid!" By the way, aside from increasing the cost of the third evade x2, we lost the healing (we heal ~160) albeit we get a 4k barrier (which makes me remember how much I hate barrier, this mechanic stolen from other games which works so badly in PvP due was never mean to exist in it). *) Sword #3 keeps undelivering; at most it reachs ~450 units, half of what is promised. *)Sword #4 counterattack doesn't track and the only use it has in PvP is letting other characters to interrupt us. Is specially dangerous if you have a thief running around you. *) Sword #5 seems the most unrewarding random movement in the game: sometimes you place yourself rightly facing your foe/s just to deliver the hits on any random place in the area for 0 effect, and other times an enemy expertly avoids your placement and reachs your flank/rear just to be engulfed by a swarm of hits which you had 0 hopes to land. It would be a super frustrating skill for any player which valiues skill, for sure. Expect huge nerfs.

CONDI Renegade wreacks the Legendary Corrupted Facet in 4'35", good luck doing the same below 6' with any power build with this class. The same with every bounty, or world boss, or anything, really. But this is not about PvE, this is about the crap damage power Revenant builds do at PvP/WvW, while also being usually very frail to condition damage.

Of course not, non-Vindicator Rev has the same access to energy sigils and Unwavering Avoidance from Retribution as a Vindicator, and the only advantage they have which is gaining 50 endurance on F2 at 10 energy cost on a 20 s cd and Song of Arboreum granting vigor after our only dodge won't outpace the x2 endurance cost of each dodge compared to core Rev, Herald and Renegade cost. And this another reason why I think that power Rev needs a damage buff: sure they can tune the damage numbers for Vindicator to work in PvE (instanced PvP, leave any hope about OW): Vindicator won't work vs humans with the new nerfs to dodge, and power Rev is both more frail than condi builds and also does way less damage.Guess how fun will be to figth vs condi celestial/trailblazer Thieves in WvW against their new ranged Specter spec full of teleports if they are already curbstomping power builds with their current mix of stealth + condi ranged burst.

Condi damage is either fine or op, not asking any buff to mace, but hammer and swords? Hammer deals less damage over time than staff, and is only picked in zerg vs zerg due CoR and Phase Smash ignore "projectile hate" skills. Swords and staff don't cut across enemy players since damage was shaved from cc abilities and nowadays everyone in WvW is running trailblazers or celestial stats (because celestial obviously needed a buff, I mean: they removed it from PvP for balance reasons, cut 200 stat points from vit & armor from the crusader amulet but then gave to celestial concentration and expertise for free, what could be wrong?), so they have high armor values while doing excellent burst of condition damage, as you can see in the video. By the way, did you look how the changes in torment affected mele builds (as power Herald, since we don't have ranged weapons feasible for combat vs humans)? Torment is almost like a second burn in terms of burst, since when you pressure a foe you're not moving. Nah, I'm not fine with the power Rev damage, they removed quickness from our arsenal and other things like damage at legend swap (which was fair because it was impredictable, but, you known, what about stealth? what about instant casting F abilities from Mesmers? why not a call as Invoking Torment?) and even our highly telegraphed attacks now do 10 points of damage because (as sadly happened with Warrior's hammer) they had cc attached to it. Plus Surge of the Mist rooting us in first place, etc. ...And now they pretend us to play with a mele power build with a single dodge which costs 100 endurance? They must be kidding.

So OW, which is what most players do most of the time is not valid for balance, and also neither PvP/WvW (which are competitive), and what matters is instanced content, which is played mostly by guilds and in numbers so low that ANet no longer produces new raids.... Ok, I got it. No wonder ANet currently spents more efforts in the gem store than anything else.

Yeah, as long as you don't want to play it at PvP/WvW. Or soloing things at Open World at which condi Renegade will still curbstomp Vindicatot (and which is what most of players do in the game: not PvP, not WvW, not instanced "abandoned content" PvE but solo OW PvE).

^ I agree. Is what happens when the designer of the class is no longer in the company. Main point of Herald as support wasn't sharing boons (which tons of other classes can do) but having a 50% boon duration increase which was shaved to nothing when they decided that boon duration, insted of being buffed by runes or active skills, should be granted by a new, highly expensive gear as diviner, which players had to grind again if they wanted to stay competitive in instanced PvE content. So now Herald is a support build that provides weaker boons than other specs, but still is weak at dps, specially at physical damage.

Yeah then why ROM, which is amongst the highest ranked players in EU at the moment, was comenting this noon in his streaming that He was better then, when was able to play FULL TIME every day than now, that has a family, more obligations and therefore can only play/stream a limited amount of hours a day (and of course not every day). Pros in 2013 already had thousands of hours of experience just in PvP, and in WvW the leader of Red Guard was already level 9999 at that year; saying that the level in PvP today is better when there's less people playing the game mode than ever, as the Glicko numbers prove, and less organized teams, and more problems with bost than ever is just silly. The "people generally sucked back then compared to now" line which I quated is just a plain dumb statement. If all, the level is now worse due there's less people, less strong teams, less amulets, runes and sigils to make a difference (and yes, the game has now more skills and traits, but that doesn't translate into a huge variety in the meta (some classes don't have a secured spot in the roster despite having a core class + 2 specs).