ArthurDent.9538

On paper CoR is way easier to read and dodge as an animation compared to gunflame which is just a slightly slower auto attack with a new (and extremely fast projectile animation). Also the cascading effect of CoR is often a massive hindrance over a normal projectile as it becomes useless on a lot of terrain. Normal kill shot is bad though no debate there.

Correct but the original op (there are at least 2 threads merged together) was saying vindi should have been hot fixed along with staff spb. Hotfixes are typically reserved for builds that dominate the meta and are required on every competitive team not a build that can't even get into the semifinals of the last monthly. People wanting hotfix nerfs to your favorite class as soon as it becomes mid tier meta viable after over a year of mediocrity is obnoxious. Btw, hammer vindi still rarely seen in my q's, I'm still not seeing the problem everyone else is having against it.

Yeah, all classes should have the same mechanics just with different particle effects so that we can get balance.

I figured the sarcasm would be obvious enough at least to the people who cared enough to do the research. There were no vindis (or revs of any type) in the top 4 teams. It's hard to take people seriously that think a build with that little representation in top level play should be targeted for a hot fix nerf (unless maybe it's some gimmicky cheese build dominating low tier play but I really don't see that being the case). Ironically from op complaining thief being weak by comparison, specter deadeye, and daredevil were all used in the finals match let alone basically every serious team, sounds like the rich complaining middle class are spoiled with wealth. I could make the argument vindi was actually underpowered off those tournament results but I know it was used a bit more on NA and was actually on the winning team. That just means its viable and balanced that teams can chose to use it or opt to take other things and both options are reasonably fine. Lastly I'm going to be that guy who defends death drop damage. The leaping dodge is vindi's schtick and falling from the sky to deliver an attack makes sense flavor wise otherwise what is the point of jumping so high if not to get more kinetic enegy for an attack on returning. From a mechanic standpoint, saying you have to dodge their dodge isn't true, it's a well telegraphed melee range attack which can often be played around with simple wasd along with most other forms of active mitigation which is much easier to counterplay than all the sources of random instant ranged damage or passive trait procs. In current balance it realistically rarely hits harder than 4k damage even in glass vs. glass matchups and they are vulnerable at the end when the damage hits so a lot of builds can just soak that damage and hit back hard. Since deathdrop has been added to the game it's probably only been meta for maybe 10% of that time, it's really not that strong of a mechanic that it will always be op because we have so many times historically to reference where it was simply not really even competitive. I do wish the visual bug that causes enemy vindis to look like they are running in the air was fixed though it seems to have mostly gone away since they got the 2 shorter dodges.

Everyone saying core specs need to think what that means as there are very few things that only affect the core profession. Mesmer, ranger, thief, ele, and warrior don't have anything exclusive to the core class. Core engi only has the elite tool belt skill exclusive to it and core rev only has ancient echo. Guardian has exclusive core virtues but they are just the most passive and non interactive version of virtues possible. Then there is necromancer, which has core death shroud making it the only class with a significant core identity. All other parts of core classes can and will be used on especs.

It's crazy how vindi is allowed to just dominate the meta like this without any hot fixes while poor little staff warrior gets nerf hammered over nothing.

My 2 cents, I don't play nearly as much as I used to. I saw two hammer revs one of which was much more effective on their warrior the other wasn't much of a threat. During that time staff warrior was played in basically every game I played since it's release often stacked and always tougher to deal with compared to those 2 hammer revs. Metabattle doesn't even have the hammer duelist build on it even though all the other new meta builds are up to date. I'm a rev main but haven't even tried new hammer since I find range weapons lame and boring in general. Hammer 4 1.8 coefficient @ 1200 range on a skill with excellent defensive utility seems kinda nutty but is a testament to how bad the rest of the kit is that it's stayed an unpopular sleeper pick for so long. Let's be clear, this is revenant hammer we are talking about, the single most neglected weapon in the game since its release all the way until just recently. It had never seen a single buff before recent changes while also never having seen significant competitive usage ever and it couldn't really function as a meme one shot weapon aside from the first few weeks of its existence. Seriously name me a more neglected weapon prior to the recent change. The point is: it is only potentially getting popular after stronger stuff has been nerfed which would not indicate something broken and needing a hot fix. Second I suspect a lot of people have literally never seen a hammer rev in pvp before now, have no clue how it works, and very likely have some l2p issues. Lastly it would be nice to let it have a month of meta status before it can go back to dumpster tier for another 9 years instead of expecting it to be nerfed with all the real fotm's and never allowed to shine even a bit.

Rampage 3 isn't a cc but the final hit of the auto chain is a daze iirc.

And a minor trait vs the main gimick of an espec + grandmaster trait. Also 5k death drops are abnormal; I would advise putting on armor if you are being hit by the regularly as my full glass vindi needs to prestack significant vuln or have a teammate give significant amounts of might to get death drops in the 4k range.

I think they should require LOS or have a cast time. Just no instant + no LOS at the same time.

Instant daze isn't exclusive to druid. Mes and thief also have it.

Jalis hammers give a lot of extra sustain and even do more DPS than shiro in cleave scenarios. Run jalis over alliance or shiro and your sustain will likely be just as good as core again.

NA finals were mirror comps. Core guard + DH + DE + Druid + Reaper.

If it was even close to out dosing zerk/vipers (spoiler it often really is quite close to vipers) that would be incredibly broken because zerk/viper have absolutely nothing going for them except for damage. Cele damage is actually disgustingly close to vipers stats for most condi builds so long as they have a decent amount of hybrid damage yet it has a ton of extra defensive and support stats baked in almost for free. Yet, none of that matters, people want absolute max damage on their damage dealers and would consider cele "niche" even if it made them literally immortal (see the old 100% damage reduction herald for a completely broken and overpowered build that was never meta merely "niche").

Those are literally examples that my support my point: encounters designed where defensive stats have less value.