Vindicator Feedback Thread

[Raffart.4087]

Hello. Thank you for beta testing time and opportunity to share thoughts in this threat. First of all, I would like to say that adding to reventant an elite specialization that use power greatsword was definitely a bull’s eye. From the animation perspective the strikes of the greatsword feel heavy and impactful. I’m also impressed with the decision of merging Kurzicks and Luxons champions into one legend. Creative but hard concept to implement. Playing it feels very fresh.

 

From the mechanic point of view I have some concerns that I would like to share:

- In current state flipping mechanic with utility skills are a mess. It’s really hard to get the skills u want. In offensive build many blue skills look like bad advertisement. And u have to click them to disappear… Beside this, for now, Victor and Archemorus are fighting each other to get the player attention (something like children shouting – play with me! No… with mee!) The concept was that they fight side by side, wasn’t it? F2 skill doesn’t resolve this problem and also doesn’t have fluid synergy with core legends.

- Dodge Mechanic “Doomfist” doesn’t feel coherent. “Doomfist” animation is created  as a powerful strike from the air. Using it from time to time feels good. While attached to dodge skill, it have to be used  constantly, so it kills the concept of the skill. Up and down, up and down, up and dawn, dusk and dawn? At the beginning it was like superhero entrance, now it’s just funny.

- Both elite skills don’t feel like ELITE. Spear looks like stolen from renegade. Beside this, it has low damage, lack of cc and slow throwing time. It’s easy to forget that it was even used. Urne looks nice but it’s a suicide button.

 

I also have some ideas that could help resolve these problems. I wouldn’t repeat concepts suggested above. So:

- The utility skills look like they would perfectly fit to daredevil utilities – they are flipping right? J From the beginning they can be red or blue. Then they flip and have a few seconds to use on the other side. At the end they get cooldown. Of course the utilities should be redesign to get the real synergy but some animations and effects sound good to use as a part of it. For example blue avoid, red leap, stunbreaks. Elite skill can also be mix of both without flipping – something like Kurzicks and Luxons Reunion.

- Change dodge to normal state

- Change F2 skill to “Doomfist” (animation from current dodge). It can also get the bar in UI. The bar would fill with some synergy with the revenant energy. For example, the bar can be filled while swapping legends – the lower energy, the more percentage of bar you get. Once it filled you can unleash “Doomfist” as a skill without energy cost. In that scenario “Doomfist” will not be used as common skill but rarer as a really powerfull strike – as it was designed.

 

These changes save the overall concept, i.e. feeling that Victor and Archemorus fight side by side. Using F2 skill will also feel much more rewarding because it would be connected to the core energy mechanic. In result the whole thing becomes simpler and more coherent. I hope all the ideas in this threat will be helpful!

[Barraind.7324]

I will say, as far as meme builds go, vindi is fantastic.

 

Do you want to dragoon your way across a map, chain death diving mooks and critters into the ground?  Grab that Zerksassin gear, runes of the renegade, sigil of stamina, and hop to it!  

 

Want a build that just healhops every 3.5 seconds, gives permanent regen, protection, self vigor, and almost perma stab?   Grab that minstrel / Harrier gear and camp dwarf stance until you need to swap to faceroll blue buffs for more stun breaks and condi cleanses (and the mandatory f2).

 

 

Just dont ask it to be a real boy in PvE.  

Edited September 22, 2021 by Barraind.7324

[Jthug.9506]

Anet isn't going to change the dodge mechanic back or undo the flipping skills in the legend. The best we can hope for is some hard cc, and toying with the numbers. I for one think that increasing the time the dodge leap takes for the high damage variant is clearly a bridge too far. It already costs more energy and has a smaller area of effect, does it really need to take 3x as long as the heal variant to complete as well? If they reduce the dodge air time on the dps traited one, and increase the damage bonus at least in pve I'll be happy. The heal variant of this is already quite strong, and fun to play, the dps variant is just about 20% under-tuned especially in pve. Finally I think we can all agree that victor takes a bit too long and or hits a bit too soft, and especially that the urn skill is a major problem as is, and that it's flip over should absolutely be instant cast.

[Raven.8156]

I enjoyed this e-spec a lot. 

I played it as support, using the dodge to heal with clerics gear. It is fun to balance with the Urns elite skill, selfless healing and the salvation trait line. It pairs well with staff. 

 

imo, the "flow" between the two legends is not something we have had before. I enjoyed this flow.

 

One complaint: I don't quite understand why the F5 has to consume energy AND have a CD, we already are stuck with the utility skill CD, even if you use F5 to flip the skill bars. Maybe F5 should remove the utility skill CD if it's going to cost energy? it feels a little messy to manage. 

 

It would be great if "dropping" the Urns results in a small AOE heal + regen or something, a little more reward for the high risk. (I really enjoy the risk component of this elite skill)

 

I think I will make a Rev for EoD :D 

[Raven.8156]

55 minutes ago, Barraind.7324 said:

 

Yes, as is, its a stupidly designed skill that has multiple different limitations on it all working against each other. 

 

 Make the upkeep the traditional "costs 1 upkeep if active" and its a very good team heal thats mitigated well by the spec dodge mechanic.

 

Keep the upkeep but have a better reward on the drop, and it doesnt feel bad.

 

Remove the cooldown and let you drop it without the 2 seconds of pulses, and its yet_another_regen/prot_tool. 

 

As is, it actually cant be both a useful pulse and a useful drop. 

 

Edit - OR go crazy with it and have it be an energy GENERATOR that rewards you for holding it (reduce the pulse healing) and bad things happening to you, and let it kill you if you dont drop it in time for its boons (and let the drop affect you)

I agree with the second part of this, increasing the reward of dropping the urns. I think an AOE heal or regen boon to allies

Edited September 22, 2021 by Eric.7813

[Raven.8156]

1 hour ago, Heinel.6548 said:

This is one of the criticisms as well. In PvP, where this spec actually matter, everyone is gonna interrupt your drop so you kill yourself.

Yes, no one should be able to prevent you from dropping the urn. 

[Dyamly.6817]

The new dodge mechanic jump can feel a real hit or miss depending on the game type and which grandmaster you pick. Forerunner to Death just feels like forever for a dps increase dodge and really takes you out of the fight. I feel like this mechanic would be better used as the profession mechanic without the use of endurance. You could still keep the grandmaster traits to change the effect and make Forerunner of Death more power dps oriented and quicker rather than slower.

 

If you wanted to keep some dodge interaction I would just say make it like the Daredevil dodges where its a quick "Misty" dash with a samurai style "Cut" to any enemy it passing by or through.

 

As for the new Legendary Alliance stance it feels clunky and punishing in its skill flip mentality. I saw someone make an excellent post where it feels like a kit inside of a kit, or an attunement swap inside of an attunement. If you are going to make flip skills they should synergies with each other and not be complete opposites forcing you into a different role you do not want to play, and instead always feel rewarding to press. On top of that: remove the cooldowns and just use energy costs to balance them so they can be double tapped if the player wants. 

 

The Revenant is missing a solid power spec so why not cater the alliance legend to that role? Make it the 'Guardian' stance for the Revenant. Where one side of the skill is a selfish 'damage' side and the flip is selfless 'damage support' side. Synergies could be anything, but maybe a skill that does damage on one side and damaging boons for your team on the other would be a good example. This could open avenues to other sources of on demand aegis to compete with Firebrand.

 

To add some flare to the stance skills maybe incorporate the Spear and Urn artifacts into more of the skills even its just as VFX visuals, so they aren't just subtle orange and blue hints to bland looking abilities. 

 

The Saint of zu Heltzer can be very fun and provides good barrier. So another alternative would be for the legendary alliance to be a 'Scourge' melee greatsword power variant.

 

The greatsword is pretty solid. A good weapon choice for a power spec if the Vindicator was one. Maybe just a rift pull to help setup cleave and give the Vindicator some good CC options. 

 

I understand this asking for quite a hefty rework, but the scrapper needed a hefty rework to make it more desirable. 

[Caid.4932]

1 hour ago, Sagarsdude.3209 said:

Do you understand why this is bad? Do you understand that they have created a spec that completely revolves around trying to maintain dodge upkeep instead of actually playing the game? I don't understand how people can want this gameplay. And guess what?? IF vindicator can't upkeep its dodges then its immediately off meta in pvp/wvw because it will get FARMED by any spec pre EoD. Just look at META mirage builds around and the sigils it equips and tell me what the strategy is for mirage??? This is the end game for vindicator, either dodge or get farmed, and if you dodge then get your next dodge ready. 

I can understand not loving the gameplay of it (i do) but in terms of balance i just cant imagine it ever being a problem. Like i forgot to list the built in evade on sword 3, hammer 3, staff 5 and the 2 second block on greatsword. The next dodge is ready, always.

If all else fails (i'm really struggling to see how you run out of dodges and blocks on this) then Jalis leaves you better equipped to tank damage than any other spec i can think of.

I quite like Mirage too and i've always used energy sigils on mesmer - you get a clone when you dodge from dueling. I like this and find it fun.

I'm pretty sure energy sigils have been meta on all mesmer builds for 8 years due to that trait.

How do you feel about Daredevil out of interest?

Edited September 22, 2021 by Caid.4932

[Kidel.2057]

44 minutes ago, Jthug.9506 said:

Anet isn't going to change the dodge mechanic back or undo the flipping skills in the legend. The best we can hope for is some hard cc, and toying with the numbers. 

Sadly this may be true. At best I think it's possible they separate the f2 into f2 and f3 but still keeping the current mechanics. If they at least do that, I at least hope that the skill flip gets no CD and no energy cost. 

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

1 hour ago, Jthug.9506 said:

Anet isn't going to change the dodge mechanic back or undo the flipping skills in the legend. The best we can hope for is some hard cc, and toying with the numbers. I for one think that increasing the time the dodge leap takes for the high damage variant is clearly a bridge too far. It already costs more energy and has a smaller area of effect, does it really need to take 3x as long as the heal variant to complete as well? If they reduce the dodge air time on the dps traited one, and increase the damage bonus at least in pve I'll be happy. The heal variant of this is already quite strong, and fun to play, the dps variant is just about 20% under-tuned especially in pve. Finally I think we can all agree that victor takes a bit too long and or hits a bit too soft, and especially that the urn skill is a major problem as is, and that it's flip over should absolutely be instant cast.

They're trying to "reward" you for spending 150 energy on the kitten dodge, so they give you 3x the Evade frame.  Unfortunately it just feels terrible and isn't rewarding due to incredibly low damage for time invested.  Needs 3.5x the damage if it's going to stay this long

[Kidel.2057]

Just now, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

They're trying to "reward" you for spending 150 energy on the kitten dodge, so they give you 3x the Evade frame.  Unfortunately it just feels terrible and isn't rewarding due to incredibly low damage for time invested.  Needs 3.5x the damage if it's going to stay this long

It doesn't have to stay up this long, period. Giving it more damage is not gonna solve anything. Damage is not all you're giving up when staying out of the fight for 3 seconds. If you really want to pay that off it should have insane amount of damage to make a full damage spec with no utility. And that'd still be bad, since it would force you to use it on cooldown and basically give up the ability to dodge. To make a decent payoff this would need some BS-level damage (that's currently benchmarking at 53k dps). 

[Pumpkin.5169]

1 hour ago, Kidel.2057 said:

Got some problems with that. 

First of all this spec has 1 upkeep. And it's the most expensive one in the game. Urn costs 10 pips per second. I get you may have excluded it on purpose tho, let's all pretend that skill doesn't exist.

Second what's the "proper f2 use"? Flip loadouts or endurance gain? Because when I want to get endurance I may not want to flip my skills or vice versa. Having the 2 effects together is just stupid. Separate them and put the flip on F3 with no cooldown. And now we may have something decent.

Third, the energy cost of Alluliance are overall off the charts. It's just that the skills are situational and not very good, so you don't use them so often. Compare them with Shiro (actually some are very similar but much better) and Jalis. 

 

I agree with the rest.

 

You have really good points, and I actually agree with all of them, in review.

 

I totally forgot abou the Urn upkeep! And the separation of the effects on F2 would do wonders.

 

Someone mentioned here before an idea and I think this would be fantastic.

Your skills would not flip after using it, but it would flip ONLY when you press F2. So you can change from attack to support at your own will, and make it feel more like it is two legends in one, instead of one that is blended together a mess to control. Some tuning on the F2 would still be necessary, but at least you wouldn't feel obliged to play with skills you don't want all the time.

[Shao.7236]

The energy consumption on base F2 is too much, it ruins the flow and prevents from keeping any follow ups. Having to use it for skill switching is already enough management, itself having a cast time too that can be interrupted. It's not like you're getting any extra benefits outside endurance, unlike Ancient Echo which has powerful effects on top of extra energy, if it did have side effects like Ancient Echo I'd understand but otherwise, it's too much.

 

It should consume energy if it's traited instead of CD increase, that I could understand since it's a skill reset, otherwise no. It kills the specialization potential.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Shao.7236

[SkinnyT.5382]

I don't have much to say about the Vindicator to be honest. It's very much a hybrid spec which is how I like to play. That being said I I don't think I would use the GS with Legendary Alliance. But maybe that's just me.

The GS attacks feel a bit slow, and a little lacking on the damage. I needed something to speed it up... aka Shiro which I never use so I'm happy about that.

And I would like to see the character animation for Skill 5 of the GS changed if possible just because it looks just like the necro GS skill. The aoe effects are cool though.

I'm actually really happy about this one. Can't want to play it on my Rev. It might be my go to Spec.

[TheGrimm.5624]

Going with assumption that its a bug that when trait Death Drop GM trait in WvW. You mount up with full endurance but when you dismount you have to refill your endurance bar since its lost that extra 50 endurance while mounted so you can't immediately dodge after dismounting. If you mount up with full endurance, you should have full again once dismounted. 

[leoleez.1243]

Tenacious Ruin has a weird delay underwater between the animation finishing and the actual damage occurring. I suspect this has to do with the jump animation and it behaving weird underwater.

[X Anthony A.8409]

Where is the Dps Benchmark for this spec, I don't see one as of now does the spec lack in Dps or is it just me i tested it by myself and had opener damage of 18k but averaged around 13-15k with the buffs on in the golem but i dont know if i played it out the way it should be for dps but still where is the benchmark for this spec???

[Howluffu.7259]

"Anet is not going to change the dodge and the legends mechanic".

Guys! They did already changed some things from rev before. They can and will do if people agree on the issues this lacklusting e-spec has.

 

Thats why they made this official feedback thread. So people can give the feedback necessary to change and tweak the e-spec before the xpac release.

 

My feedback is the same as nearly every feedback comment:

-dodge mechanic issue.

-2 legends in 1 that makes a clunky messy gameplay.

-lacklusting GS skills.

Others had told them with more depth. 

 

Keep sending feedback to this thread and let's all hope our EoD e-spec turns out to be a polished great spec to play🤗

Edited September 23, 2021 by Howluffu.7259
better structure to make it easier to read

[Barraind.7324]

7 minutes ago, X Anthony A.8409 said:

Where is the Dps Benchmark for this spec, I don't see one as of now does the spec lack in Dps or is it just me i tested it by myself and had opener damage of 18k but averaged around 13-15k with the buffs on in the golem but i dont know if i played it out the way it should be for dps but still where is the benchmark for this spec???

 

I have to find links for it again, but the last update I saw was

 

Shiro/Dorf - 31k 

Alliance/Shiro - 29.5k 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Barraind.7324

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

2 hours ago, Kidel.2057 said:

It doesn't have to stay up this long, period. Giving it more damage is not gonna solve anything. Damage is not all you're giving up when staying out of the fight for 3 seconds. If you really want to pay that off it should have insane amount of damage to make a full damage spec with no utility. And that'd still be bad, since it would force you to use it on cooldown and basically give up the ability to dodge. To make a decent payoff this would need some BS-level damage (that's currently benchmarking at 53k dps). 

I mean that’s the point of the skill since it also has that 15% damage mod on it.  They clearly want you to use it as part of the rotation and not just as a reactionary dodge.  If this skill is going to be part of the rotation it’s going to be used nearly off CD.  Daredevil and Mirage also more or less give up their ability to dodge if they want to achieve their maximum DPS as well.  The problem is right now (In PvE) the skill sucks because it doesn’t do enough damage or provide enough of a damage modifier to justify it. It’s not inherently bad because of the duration as Bladesworn has shown. 
 

If it becomes shorter duration then it also needs to cost less endurance and still do more damage than it does currently.  If it stays the same duration then it needs a massive amount of damage added to it to make it viable. 

Edited September 23, 2021 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Aedil.1296]

The idea looks OK on paper, in practise f2 need to be divided into 2 skills, one to switch the bar to archemorus and the other to switch all to Víctor. Would be cool if when using an utility you could get some energy so you can always stay in alliance legend without swapping? 

Also, Urn of saint Victor...would be cool to make it a useful support upkeep with lower cost and no suicide 😄

Edited September 23, 2021 by Aedil.1296

[Zenith.7301]

 

Does not function as a competitive power DPS PVE spec we need. All feedback tested on ascended berzerker stats.

Spec does no damage whatsoever. Wastes an entire master trait row to compensate for the dodge mechanic in order to grant endurance to mitigate the awful design of the single dodge mechanic. No damage modifier traits, which would be fine if the base abilities scaled well and had high base values to compensate. The utility traits are absolutely worthless gimmicks in organized PvE.

 

In the training area with all boons, meaning 25 might and 25 vulnerability and all profession specific auras, Greatsword 2 hits for less than mainhand sword 2, and the rest of the skills go downhill while mainhand sword+offhand do more damage on everything but the auto chain.

 

The Archemorus ultimate hits at full stats for a measly 17k. It legit hits for less than mainhand sword #2.

 

Why does a power spec with no condition damage anywhere else on the utilities or greatsword even waste ability budget on applying torment in its elite skill? Make it remove 3 boons/apply weaknes+cripple on strike instead.

 

This is on a class whose power weapons and power spec damage output is still atrocious and non-competitive in organized group PvE.

 

Even should you nerf Bladesworn DPS by 10k DPS, it's still 8-10k DPS more than this pitiful espec is putting out, with zero access to meaningful utility, and absolutely zero CC.

 

There is no synergy between the vindicator toolkit and the rest of the traitline because you don't trigger disable related traits, you don't grant yourself fury, you don't blind or chill.

 

What is this spec supposed to accomplish? Sole healing and if traited a bit of barrier on the side is absolutely worthless in organized PvE. Why would you bring this over a healbrand or druid? Why even bring it over a heal renegade, which isn't even brougt because it can't compete with druid or healbrand utility?

 

Do you not learn why heal tempest sits in total disuse, or heal scrapper? Or heal renegade? Or scourge without transfusion and traited well of blood? Pure healing specs will never be used in organized PvE content because organized PvE content can be done with 1-2 healers, that have competitive healing throughput relative to pure heal specs, and bring a panoply of critical boons, aegis, stability, protection, resolution.

Revenant has no viable power DPS build in PvE. Vindicator was supposed to cover this gap. Instead you created this confused mess of schizophrenic healing, condition cleanse duality with pure damage zero utility zero CC kit.

The support spec is herald. Save your ideas for Saint Viktor and actually make Herald competitive and useful as a PvE support spec. Renegade is the condition damage spec.

You need to stop designing in a vacuum and actually play your own game, including doing PuG raids and challenge mode fractals.

Retool this spec to be a proper, competitive power DPS spec in PvE that revenant is lacking.

 

---

 

Unacceptable mediocrity in visual design:

 

Literally the same swing animation on the first chain of greatsword autoattack and greatsword skill 2. Greatsword skill 4 particle effects don't even feel like a revenant, but more like an elementalist. The weapon trail effects are incredibly plain and muted. I'm comparing a normal greatsword to the legendary Eternity, and virtually no projectiles or particle modifications.

 

The Archemorus utility skills 1-4 are virtually all the same animation effect outside mobility skills displacing your character. The only visually distinctive stance skills are the elites.

 

What happened with this expansion? The ability icon art and the legend art looks super garish and nowhere near as painterly as the previous art assets. The orange and blue are so saturated and ugly.

 

Compare the previous legends, particularly renegade and herald and mainhand sword animations with this EoD batch. This mediocre presentation cannot go live.

Edited September 23, 2021 by Zenith.7301

[Angesombre.4630]

I will start with the features, I find that these features already of sure are badly done: "Leviathan Strength" and "Amnesty of Shing Jea" which only works with the new legend. They are simply useless if you use other legend.
Why not put one that boosts the power of the legend a bit and another one that improves the buffs?

I think swordfish lacks a little bit of power, but mostly a CC.
I was looking at all the skills of each class with a swordfish, each has a CC on it except for the warrior, but he on the other hand has a lot of utility with control so it might be nice to have one vis a vis this new specialization.
-On swordfish skill 4 the true strike should have a slightly longer time to be used, as should the ranger's kick on his 4.
-Swordfish skill 5 is too random.
-Skill 2 should have an effect that is the size of the animation area on the ground because it is misleading.
-Skill 3 is not talked about too much it must be buggy on the running distance of this skill

The utility skills, I think that the time after a skill switch be removed, either it is the skill that we just used that should have a CD and not the next. Otherwise we should separate the alliance because I just find that the current mechanics make the character slow, disabling. As others have said, the new specialization is a little better with other legends than the alliance.
-I find that using the "Battle dance" is too long in the execution, we are faster to launch "Nomad's advance" than the other to be able to go back.
-I don't understand these skills after maybe I'm wrong: 
"Scavenger Burst" because I don't see the need for the burn knowing that we don't have any alteration more than that, why not eventually replace with one that doesn't do damage. 
"Spear of Archemorus" same it inflicts torment while we don't have more than that on this elite, it could be improved by doing zone damage.
"Urn of Saint Viktor" I recognize the effort on the fact to move the urn and the buffs granted to the one who carries it, but why with the speed of consumption of the elite and already the malus of 0 of care that we can receive not just remove the damage received with the urn kept the rest and give the buffs existing when we put the urn to 5 players, it remains an elite skill.

The F2 is not top I find more useful for the alliance and useful just for the skill of dodge with the other legend. And I understand that it remains an attack skill but the fact of knowing where you move in the air is not an advantage. Or one should have a little invulnerability or even the possibility to go down before. This should be changed by the time of the release but speed up the jumping animation when going up and down.

This is an example (or a dream :p): Possibly make an F3 attack buff for 5 people with attack speed and on the other side a defensive buff for 5 people that can be used on all legendaries.

I'm quoting ideas that I liked:

And some in this post: 

 

Edited September 23, 2021 by Angesombre.4630

[Gustaff.6581]

i get a lot to comment about this new specialization but i will just resume it in two points.

Blend dodge with jump skill doesnt look like a good idea, i prefer jump to be another alliance tactic skill, with a cooldown and an energy cost, dodge is too important in this game to have a single dodge.

Urn of saint victor can work but not this way, i prefer that, rather than giving their bonuses by health treshold, better give them by time channeled, not able to be healed during channel is bad too, you get the most of this skill at low health, but after droping the urn health will still be low, exposing yourself to be downed.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Yeah why not make the "dodge" F2, give us our regular, functional dodges back and allow us to select which of the Alliance utilities we want in the slots? Boom. Problem solved.