Vindicator Feedback Thread

[Krillaklise.9461]

Hard cc and chill let's go!

[Adah.8371]

We need more conditions on the Greatsword. It will make the spec more hybrid and give us a choice.

We only have the shortbow as a condi weapon.

 

[Kidel.2057]

1 hour ago, Dark.8093 said:

Sorry, but this craft, which for some reason is considered a legend by a misunderstanding, looks like a mockery against the background of other classes. The second beta testing only strengthened my opinion. Please give us only GS and the legend next time 

 

This "legend" reflects nothing and carries no history or meaning.

 

You heard us and added F3, thanks! But why was it only partly heard? F2 is still useless rubbish, having both cd and casttime, and does not really give anything to other stands, from the word in general.

 

Evasion had to be moved to F2, and the current meaning given to oblivion.

 

Elite abilities that are ashamed to press will soon become the revenant's calling card and thanks again

Thematically the legend is fine. Follows the lore and reflects Asian philosophy pretty darn well (Yin/Yang for example). The issue is that it doesn't work because Alliance skills themselves have nothing unique over core legends and are not strong enough. 

I kept using ALliance until I was decently good with Vindicator (using either Alliance+Shiro, like I wanted on paper, or Alliance+Jalis). Then I swapped to Shiro+Jalis. Man that felt so better. Strong heals, strong CCs, strong upkeeps, good elites, the same boons and more conditions, no Urn, no need to swap, no need to use 3 buttons to heal over 5 seconds...

Alliance needs: better CC or at least on both loadouts (and please, no stunbreak on the same skill used for CC...), a stronger heal (make it a global CD with the other heal, but it's crap to have to heal+F3+heal), useful elite skills, a unique boon.

At the moment I see no reason to use alliance over Shiro+Jalis, can you provide one? 

The dodge is fine. Learn to play and get over with that. It's the only thing that gives a unique flavor to the spec over core Rev. Don't make it yet another F skill. 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Kidel.2057

[Lonewolf Kai.3682]

Absolutely love the way Vindicator works now!   Thank you for making these changes.

 

just some quick requests:

1.  Please, please, please for the love of all that’s good and holy, either change auto attack 1 or skill 2 to a different swing animation!  Maybe give it a spinning move or something.  Both being the same move feels really bad.

2.  GS damage numbers still need to be bumped up a bit.  They dps numbers still feel really low.

3. Damage dodge also needs a bit more in dps numbers as well.

4.  Real minor, but can we change F2 to the Alliance flip and F3 to the Endurance recharge?

other than that, I loved the new Vindicator and will be making it my new main now.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Lonewolf Kai.3682

[Angesombre.4630]

This is just a suggestion:
For the red Elite I would see either an attack zone, because I like that distance, but I could also possibly like to provide buffs (offensive) to allies because the red side does not have energy consumption like all other legend.

For the blue side, the elite made that it can provide buffs (defensive) to the allies has consumption and not by putting the urn vis a vis health, because the condition of not being able to be healed and lose health and already a malus in itself.

[Caid.4932]

100 endurance dodge doesn't feel great at all despite a lot of nice bonuses.

[DEDA.6394]

Fun: YES
Effective: NO

The dodge does feel better to use but it gives more flavor than usefulness.
Give Vindicator atleast one normal dodge back and put the dodge on F skill. Something like Celestial Avatar on Druid where the dodge is getting charged on how much energy u spend. Let's say every 150 energy you spend u get a Vindi dodge.
Please give the normal dodge back. Or atleast make the Vindi dodge 2 stack.

GS in general needs some form of hard CC.
GS3 could use some evade frames.
GS4 feels out of place...the animation feels like I'm playing a Scrapper.
GS is fun to use but is not worth picking over anything else Rev already has. Also some chill would be nice to synergize with other traitlines. Atleast a traitline in Vindi that gives GS chill.

The ALLIANCE STANCE does not live up to its name. The changes made it more comfy to play but now it feels more like SEGREGATION STANCE. I got the impression that the ALLIANCE is gonna be.. well... an ALLIANCE - a way to mix and match the red and blue skills.
Both heals and elites still feel clunky and inconvinient to use.
Scavenger Burst and Tree Song would be better if they effect an area around the user. Or make the Vindi shadowstep to the aoe location.
Other skills are ok imo.
ALLIANCE STANCE still needs a rework tho. Maybe make the skills mantras/shouts where they have 2 stacks (1 red, 1 blue). If a red skill is used, the blue becomes instantly useable. The red skill is put on CD and if the blue skill is not used - it becomes red again once it's off CD. Alliance Tactics can then be used to set the starting Legend, be it Viktor or Archy.

Vindicator is definitely 100% GUARANTEED FUN to play and the changes in BETA4 did make it more fluid and easier to manage. It does not however provide anything useful to the party/squad in both PvP and PvE over Herald and Renegade respectively.

Jack of NO traits, master of EVEN LESS..............but FUN. 😉

[Kidel.2057]

So now I've been playing Vindicator for a couple of days and I'm ready to provide some extensive feedback and humble suggestions. 

First of all, thanks to the devs for the changes so far. The spec is not perfect but feels much better compared to the first Beta. I also hope they'll send a feedback form like with the previous beta and that the form will include judgement over single aspects of the spec (Legend, weapon, traits, core mechanic). Also thank you very much for making the 3 landing effects different from each other. 

There are also still many bugs, but I'll ignore them for this review. 

TL;DR version:

Vindicator has a nice class mechanic with the new dodge and Greatsword is a welcomed addition (despite needing CC). Yet it's not visually appealing in weapon and skill animations, and the legend artwork feels cartoonish compared to the core ones. Alliance lacks real utility over core legends (namely Shiro+Jalis) and F2 is uninteresting. F3 is a good change, but should not be so punishing to use. Archemorus and Saint Viktor fail to give a clear answer to the question "why should you run the new legend?"   
Also please rework Urn of Saint Viktor for solo content too. 🙂
 

Most of my mechanics comments are to be intended as nitpicks, but the graphic/animation needs some serious improvoments now. 
I'm generally happy with Vindicator. 

Core Mechanic - Tenacious Ruin

This is honestly great. I like this idea a lot. I'm still afraid it can be troublesome to use in some encounters, but that can be easily mitigated by adding evades on skills (Battle Dance and Tree Song are good examples, but also old skills like Surge of the Mists and Riposting Shadows). Overall the spec needs these type of skill-evades because Tenacious Ruin needs to be used either offensively or to support (basically on cooldown). 

Core Mechanic - Energy Meld
Separating it from Alliance Tactics was a step in the right direction. Unfortunately this is still pretty annoying to use. Given by the fact that it's so useful it's almost mandatory to use every time you dodge to regain instant endurance. I think this should have no cast time or be a passive skill. Or at least provide some beneficial effects.

Core Mechanic - Alliance Tactics
Nothing much to say here, this is a good band-aid to handle Legendary Alliance. Maybe it's a bit slow and punishing to have yet another swap. 

New Weapon - Greatsword
Again, Revenant needed a Greatsword, and the cleave sure is nice. However, in the current arsenal, this is the weapon that has less sinergy with Legendary Alliance. 
Vindicator is a hybrid [power+support] spec with less access to regular dodge and almost no access to CC while in Legendary Alliance. Yet GS is the only weapon that doesn't give dodges and CC. Compare this to Staff: has Surge of the Mists (1s evade + CC) and Renewing Wave (heal + condi cleanse). Something similar can be said about Sword/Sword and Hammer. 

This has been said on this forum since Beta 1: GS needs to be on par with other weapons and have hard CC and evade at least. 

Graphically I only like Eternity's Requiem (I'd prefer it to have a unique character animation however), but the rest is kind of bland. The icons are oversaturated and feel like Saint Viktor skills. 

I also believe that the sound is bugged, doesn't sound like GS on other classes. 

- Mist Swing (GS1-1) and Mist Unleashed (GS2) have the same attack animation (and hitzone is ignored, see https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/r7b83f/my_one_complaint_about_vindicator_5_targets/ )
- Mist Slash (GS1-2) and True Strike (GS4-2) have the same attack animation.

Legendary Alliance Stance
This is still the weakest part of this spec.

The graphic is terrible, with super bland (almost invisible) skill effects. Compare it to core legends or Herald (have you seen Chaotic Release and Elemental Blast? Or any Firebrand skill...). The Legend picture with the 2 power rangers looks like a cartoon and is completely out of tune compared to Shiro, Kalla, Glint, etc. 

But, most importantly, I can't find a clear and sound reason to use Alliance+whatever over Jalis+Shiro. Overall both Alliance sides may have useful skills if you consider all 10, but the right one for the situation often requires flipping over with F3, which is not ideal. This is very much obvious with the 2 healing skills, that require using one, pressing F3 and using the other to achieve a decent heal over 5 seconds. Considering the lack of utility of the elite skills, and the terrible (terrible) heal skills, the 10 alliance skills feel like 6 or 7, and require 1 extra button to access them. 

To quote another user:   

On 12/1/2021 at 5:04 PM, Dahkeus.8243 said:

So far, the only real distinct advantage from the stance (outside of some small movement skills) is either extra damage or condi cleanse.  The healing of the kurz side is nice, but competes with the heavy sustain that Jalis provides.  The lux side is definitely more damage, but the dwarf stance is still good for damage since it's a constant, uninterrupted AoE cleave.  Most of all, the utility of the stability road is just far beyond anything the Alliance stance really seems to provide.

The new stance isn't bad, per se, but it's not the clear superior choice for Vindicator like Dragon Stance is for Herald. 

Let's go skill by skill.

- Selfish Spirit and Selfless Spirit: 2 very weak heals. As said previously, I often have to use one, press F3 and use the other. Please make 1 strong heal and give it global cd on both sides of the flipover (or keep them different but make them strong with a global cooldown over the other one). At the moment I find no reason to use this over Soothing Stone. But even Enchanted Daggers is far better, healing for 1600 immediately and 800*6 with hits. Vulnerability and Might are super easy to get, there is no real benefit to have them on Selfish Spirit, just make the healing strong, fast and reliable. 
- Scavenger Burst, Tree Song, Awakening and Reaver's Rage have the same exact animation. 
- Selfish Spirit and Selfless Spirit have the same exact animation.
- Alliance Tactics has no animation at all 
- Awakening: no CC on this one (why? the flipped version has it)

Finally let's go to the elites. Oh boy. 
- Spear of Archemorous: 2000 range is nice on paper, but you never make real use of it. If you're too far it just misses (Out of Range), but generally any target is always far too close for that to be useful. What's the situation? Also an elite skill that just does ranged damage? On a mainly melee spec? Why? It's also slow and super easy to dodge in PvP/WvW. Used it 5 times, failed 4 times, the only hit was just damage, stopped wasting energy on it. Needs to be faster, with range indicator and do something else beside damage. This is a good place for some hard CC. 
- Urn of Saint Viktor + Drop Urn: this is still unusable. It seriously needs Stability or something like that to avoid Drop Urn from being interrupted. It's far too easy to get stunned while using Drop Urn and just self-kill (the animation is too windy and slow, should be unblockable or give stab). Plus Drop Urn does nothing useful except some boring boons that the class can already get permanently from dodging (not to mention other skills). Can't even heal the damage done by the upkeep itself. Even "double tap" is useless. So basically this can only used in VERY EASY group content (basically where you can't die even if you can't be healed and lose gradually HP) to make it even easier for them but harder for you. Again, I can't think of a situation where this skill is useful. Drop Urn should give all the effects regardless of threshold and should also provide a big healing so that it can be safely double tapped to have some use in normal scenarios. 

Traits
Overall nothing much to complain except Reaver's Curse, Angsiyan's Trust and Song of Arboreum. Those 3 basically do the same thing. Many people already suggested to make this group more interesting and flavorful. Also I think you should always pick Sonf of Arboreum here even if you have some reliable source of Vigor beside the dodge. 


Overall I've been having a great time playing Vindicator with Staff / Jalis+Shiro, so I'm sure there is hope. 

Thanks for reading. 

Edited December 3, 2021 by Kidel.2057
typos and forgot to mention traits. Changed my mind on some skills

[Thon.3780]

Test beta round2 day1

 

1.I want to know definition of

"Profession ability " in Amnesty of Shing Jea mean ??

 

as i test with Red : healing and Utility skill give only 1 might

as for ble : give  regen ( well it is ok) 

so  i have no idea how profession ability trigger .

 

2. Elite skill : Spear of Arch animation is good but it take long time to activate. so it cant be use in reality.  you may use for opening in pve but cannot use in pvp or wvw .  why ?  coz your friend will see Big Arch from far away..... if it just show and shoot out then it might ok

 

3. after split red and blue , the energy consume rate is better and more smooth. 

 

4. as for design mechanic . correct me if  misunderstand .  the new concept of revise vindicator will be hard hit and retreat fast 

coz red combine multi hit and multi heal depend on mob size.  if you fight single big boss. you have no effective heal for red, then you have to switch to blue and retreat for healing and refill health then switch to red and back to war.. 

 

for me, I can accept the revise version in pve and some wvw coz i can use torment rune to make more sustain from HP gain but for pvp. it still doubt.

for support- blue. no question. all skill give regen. except urn which i need to think how to use. ( i cannot use them in emergency case coz it risk to die first from HP drain) 

 

 

5. as many ppl say F3 cast time should be faster

 

 

[DarkLancer.1902]

(beta 4 feedback)

You claimed to have designed this for versatility, something in which it is sorely lacking.  At straight power damage, it works great, but the support abilities are underwhelming, and the flip mechanic is clunky.  I found a way to pull sustain & recovery out of the basement, so overall good build. 

A suggestion: Instead of having the F3 skill determine whether you are focused solely on the Luxon or Kurzic side of the stance, make each slot skill a chain of the two, and the F3 skill chooses which is the first skill in the chain.  If you don't want to use the second skill, you just let its timer run out.  With this, and the support numbers tuned up, Vindicator could actually become the versatile build you wanted it to be. 

Also, devs should be aware of a bug: whenever you dismount, enter or leave an instance, use a waypoint or asura gate, and even just at random times while out of combat, the slot skills flip to the support side.  It makes playing difficult, when I go to use a skill and it comes out wrong.  In high-level maps, this bug has caused me to dodge roll off a cliff a few times, when I tapped skill key 7, and executed a [Battle Dance] instead of [Nomad's Advance]. 

Edited December 3, 2021 by DarkLancer.1902
Found a bug after spending more time playing the spec

[Kidel.2057]

14 minutes ago, DEDA.6394 said:

Please give the normal dodge back. Or atleast make the Vindi dodge 2 stack.

this can (and should be) easily mitigated by having evades on Legendary Alliance (which it has, 4 indeed, but lacks utility beside them)

[HotDelirium.7984]

3 hours ago, Kidel.2057 said:

Thematically the legend is fine. Follows the lore and reflects Asian philosophy pretty darn well (Yin/Yang for example). The issue is that it doesn't work because Alliance skills themselves have nothing unique over core legends and are not strong enough. 

I kept using ALliance until I was decently good with Vindicator (using either Alliance+Shiro, like I wanted on paper, or Alliance+Jalis). Then I swapped to Shiro+Jalis. Man that felt so better. Strong heals, strong CCs, strong upkeeps, good elites, the same boons and more conditions, no Urn, no need to swap, no need to use 3 buttons to heal over 5 seconds...

Alliance needs: better CC or at least on both loadouts (and please, no stunbreak on the same skill used for CC...), a stronger heal (make it a global CD with the other heal, but it's crap to have to heal+F3+heal), useful elite skills, a unique boon.

At the moment I see no reason to use alliance over Shiro+Jalis, can you provide one? 

The dodge is fine. Learn to play and get over with that. It's the only thing that gives a unique flavor to the spec over core Rev. Don't make it yet another F skill. 

I know its a little absurd but I'm almost like let's make this the ultimate celestial spec and combine every alliance skill (in balanced ways I suppose) like if your health is over 50% it does more of the dps side and if its under 50% and does more support stuff...BUT at the same time. The healing spec side is all thematically accurate but ill never use it and I'm not sure how viable a healing spec it is compared to others.

[VladTepes.7042]

8 minutes ago, DarkLancer.1902 said:

(beta 4 feedback)

You claimed to have designed this for versatility, something in which it is sorely lacking.  At straight power damage, it works great, but the support abilities are underwhelming, and the flip mechanic is clunky.  I found a way to pull sustain & recovery out of the basement, so overall good build. 

A suggestion: Instead of having the F3 skill determine whether you are focused solely on the Luxon or Kurzic side of the stance, make each slot skill a chain of the two, and the F3 skill chooses which is the first skill in the chain.  If you don't want to use the second skill, you just let its timer run out.  With this, and the support numbers tuned up, Vindicator could actually become the versatile build you wanted it to be. 

Love the Idea of skill-chains, it gives back the Alliance feeling it had in the first Beta and sounds a lot more interesting than what we have now and better than what we had before.

[Kidel.2057]

I get what you mean, this band-aid is basically yet another legend swap.

This is why I opposed to this in the first pagsles of this feedback thread during the first beta. I was a fan of "loadout lock" or "loadout reset", to at least make it different from a swap (and keep the flipover). 

 

I'm personally not a fan of skill-chains tho, since it would require them to make the single side to be underpowered compared to regular core skills. It would also make it hard (if not impossible) to build full offensive or full support. 

 

This second swap is not the best thing they could have made, but I think it's better than skill-chains. 

[Kidel.2057]

On 9/18/2021 at 4:46 PM, phokus.8934 said:

Basically permanent dodge is lacking?  What in the even is this nonsense I’m reading?

The dodge is fine. It's the only part of the spec that I don't feel to criticize now. It looks cool and it's carrying the espec in PvP and WvW alone.

 

People still take Vindicator with no GS and no Alliance just for the dodge. The dodge is strong and looks nice visually. Everything else is subpar in power and appearance. 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Kidel.2057

[DonArkanio.6419]

Legendary Alliance Stance could use 2 separate icons (orange and blue). This way we will know which legend we are swapping back to when we are on a core legend.
It could be pretty helpful in my opinion. Especially in competitive scenarios.

Let's say you're fighting someone and all you see is the original orange-blue Alliance icon. That doesn't tell you which of the 2 legends you are going to swap back to. And in case you forget, you might evade backwards instead of dashing forward. Happened to me a couple of times and I think it could be a useful addition.

[Zikory.6871]

Pleasantly surprised with how Vindicator played in WvW but still pretty clunky and the alliance stance still feels bad. 

Alliance Stance - Just let us pick between the two legends skills so we can mix and match instead of being locked into one legend. As damage, swapping to Saint Viktor feels like a mistake or you just ignore it. Being able to hybrid the skills would be way cooler. 

Dodge* - Tie Tenacious Ruin (the dodge) to F3 (instead of the skill flip cuz ^). Return normal dodges but have both F3 and dodge share Endurance. This would allow Vindicators to use Tenacious Ruin and have the option of a 2nd dodge via endurance regen. 

Energy Meld - Either drop/reduce the cast time OR give it something more, honestly anything. Skill is boring. 

Alliance Stance or GS need another CC. The stun on stun break is ok but feels like its missing something. 

*I'm still conflicted on losing normal dodges but I'm giving Tenacious Ruin a solid go this week. Was pretty fun last night.

[Angesombre.4630]

This is just an idea, but I don't know if I'm precise enough in my explanation.

On the fact of switching the skills like in the first beta was not necessarily bad except that the cd should have been on the skill used and not the next skill. So it should have been a bit like the herauld. The F3 could have been a skill lock that would lock on the skill either in red or in blue.

For the pvp it would allow to be mobile and then according to the situation to be able to block in a precise domain.

[suialthor.7164]

1 hour ago, Kidel.2057 said:

The dodge is fine. It's the only part of the spec that I don't feel to criticize now. It looks cool and it's carrying the espec in PvP and WvW alone.

The endurance juggling to make dodge functional is what I hate most about the spec.  

[Huo.4865]

Overall I've really been enjoying Vindicator this time around. All of the dodges feel nice to use, The greatsword is mostly good other than skills 1 and 2 having basically the same animation, and could maybe use an extra cc in PvE? It's breakbar damage overall is pretty weak unless you take staff. 

 

The blue side of the alliance skills are decent support skills, and while they could be modified to be a bit more useful in PvE, I enjoyed using them to heal in WvW. I even like the Urn, which a lot of people seem to dislike, although it could use some buffs, maybe a larger radius or a shorter dropping animation?

 

My main issue I have is with the orange side of the alliance stance skills, and the alliance mechanic in general. While the manual swapping of alliance is a bit better than before, it really just feels like having an additional stance for the spec rather than an actual alliance. Additionally, the orange side of the skills feel a bit lackluster by themselves for a damage-focused build compared to the other options base revenant gets. Maybe the mantra-like idea that was suggested earlier in this thread, where once you use a skill it swaps to the other side until the first side is off cooldown again, could help fix both of these issues?

[Kidel.2057]

26 minutes ago, suialthor.7164 said:

The endurance juggling to make dodge functional is what I hate most about the spec.  

Yeah, F2 is a bit boring, I've also written it here in my complete feedback thread 

 

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

Vindicator seems to have lost it's yin yang feel without the unique ability for skills to change from one skill to another skill on use to achieve balance. The Class functions perfectly in Celestial Gear and I highly recommend it.

 

For example, if I used say, Selfish Spirit, it would immediately change to Selfless Spirit. Please change back the old method of how this is done.

 

Other than that, the skills are fun to use, but it's truly lost it's unique special style of game-play that it had in it's first open beta.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

The heals don't feel powerful enough to warrant the (joint) channeled cast time.  I'd recommend a self-Aegis on the Viktor one to help mitigate a little bit of damage (he was likely a guardian or monk afterall, surprised there isn't any aegis in his spec already) and a big damage buff to the Archemorous one so that it actually feels good to hit someone with it like the skill wants you to. 

Edited December 1, 2021 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Tungsten Monarch.6058]

15 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

The heals don't feel powerful enough to warrant the (joint) channeled cast time.  I'd recommend a self-Aegis on the Viktor one to help mitigate a little bit of damage (he was likely a guardian or monk afterall, surprised there isn't any aegis in his spec already) and a big damage buff to the Archemorous one so that it actually feels good to hit someone with it like the skill wants you to. 

you have 3 heals or more based upon your skill bar set up and trait line selections. Try running Celestial Gear traveler runes with the following trait lines, Corruption 222, Salvation 1 2 1 and Vindicator 2 2 2.  Run Staff and Two Handed Sword and try it. Weapons with sigils that aid strike damage and provide torment on crit.

[Cebcurg.4850]

Vindicator is still pulling tickle damage. Sadge