Vindicator Feedback Thread

[Razgriz.9831]

Biggest letdown is the F2 profession skill when using anything other than legendary alliance. Spending energy on CD just to get endurance regardless of stance feels pretty bad. If it had endurance gain plus a legend specific effect it would probably feel better.

[Delgotta.3817]

small gripe. needs a bit more synergy with core traits, and third strike on greatsword  #1 human female animation as a "uppercut" feels slow and doesn't fit as final strike. needs to be more visceral, like a slam.

[Cougre.6543]

I wanted to provide targeted criticism, but right now it feels like every area of this spec requires either polish or drastic changes. If I had to choose a worst aspect however it'd be the cumbersome legend skills that flip over on a class that's already managing two separate swap mechanics, cooldowns, and energy.

[Caid.4932]

Didn't play it that much so just a few impressions.

Damage feels a bit low. Utility wise feels like a good step down from previous elites and i strongly suspect its damage is lower too so that doesn't feel right. Theres some nice bonuses potentially for a group but nothing too impactful, think this spec will live or die on its damage and if it isn't top tier it wont be used

Greatsword animations aren't great, primarily the 2 auto attack reskins on #2 and #4, feels like your waving your sword in their general direction more than swinging it, bit disappointing overall.

Playing with Shiro and Jalis feels a bit more natural and stronger than any alliance combination. I dont feel i have a great grasp of the alliance legend so maybe i'll change my mind, its a bit different to previous so a bit of a learning curve maybe.

Happy enough with the dodge, the short cd one feels pretty good with a couple of vigor traits, feel like i can dodge a fair bit more than most with that. Medium is ok too, though the various vigor and dodge traits feel a fair bit less valuable when specced. Long duration cd one was too long for me, just felt like it removed one of the better, more fun mechanics in the game to me and left you with a fairly boring attack when all is said and done.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Caid.4932

[RizelStar.3724]

Just an idea would it be bad if the middle dodge was split into two dodges and instead of jump was a dash(like Thief Daredevil), while doing what it already does?

 

Think it'd also give back multi dash for those who don't like the 1 dash mechanic while also providing flavor course as of typing it maybe people would still feel pigeonholed or w/e to using it. 

 

Also I agree with everyone on the redoing the #2 animations. Also I think my #4 skill on GS is bugged, the second half of the skill doesn't work. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by RizelStar.3724

[Kidel.2057]

7 minutes ago, GonzoNeo.4965 said:

I know for open world all is valid

Sure, but if swapping out Alliance for Shiro/Jalis makes the spec better, I think we have a problem. 

 

I've been testing this spec solo against Champions and Veteran Awakened Abominations. I can usually solo them no problem on Power Herald and Condi Renegade. I kept "getting good" at Alliance until I could defeat them and swarms of mobs, tweaking the build in the meantime. At some point I decided to swap for a core legend spec. Oh boy, that was so much easier. Took a bit longer since the dps is so low, but man the difference was stellar. Always had all the skills at my disposal, decent skills with no cooldowns instead of crap with long cooldowns. Hard CCs, AOEs, good upkeeps. 

- I love GS (a bit slow but can easily be fixed, this is a beta, come on).
- I love the dodge (sure, Death Drop is total crap, but the other 2 are just slow, another easy fix).
- I love the sinergy with Retribution.
- I hate F2
- I hate ALL adept traits (especially Leviathan Strength, that's so stupid, core Rev specs don't have CD by default, and that trait makes the spec WORSE). 
- I hate the cooldown on flipover.
- I hate both the elite skills, ESPECIALLY Urn (but spear is also bad, giving no benefits except damage but DPS drop since it has a whoopping 1s cast time). 
- I  hate that Death Drop takes 2.5 seconds.............

[Seod.7924]

As for me, I like everything except the flip skills

 

I would either let the player choose the one they want (be a offensive/selfish player or more of a defensive/support) 

 

Or, completely remove the cooldown on the skills. Anyway, the Rev is limited by the energy system. 

 

You either wait for energy to slowly go back up or you legend swap. So having to wait for your flip skills to go from offensive to defensive is (in my opinion) dumb.

 

I'm aware that F2 instantly flip it, but it also flip the ones that you haven't used yet. It's weird and got me killed multiple time.

 

[Virdo.1540]

The dodge can be interrupted by immob (which gets applied while dodging)

and by the Auto-Attack.

[Oldyoung.6109]

So far i'm absolutely loving the greatsword the skills feel impactful ad the sounds design is AMAZING.

 

However there are a few problems:

 

The flip on the skills is inconsistent forward movement flips to reverse works fine stunbreak flips to stunbreak is great but scavenger burst isn't a condi cleanse while tree song is, making it flow poorly.

along with the spear being something you want to spam for dps at odds with the urn wich you want to save for specific things or mash the button till it's gone and spear is back.

 

The ui art and such looks very basic and unfinished tho i'm confident that will change with the actual release.

 

 

The biggest problem is the dodge mechanic; it pushes you to spam it for buffs/dps when what you really want to do is save it for y'know . . . dodging, it feels really bad not having the second dodge when you need it and the energy regeneration is achingly slow even with double effectiveness vigor i find myself using Saint of Zu Heltzer  just to have  my dodge available with any kind of regularity.

I was also surprised how little Forerunner of death actually affected my damage the long cast time made my dps uptime so low that the increased damage was net neutral to simply not dodging at all.

 

 

 

 

[Heavenbat.9567]

It's odd to me that so many people are saying that damage is low for this, because of the three new builds, I had the easiest time with Vindicator in handling more than one lv80 enemy in PvE. Heck, in some lower level maps, I downed enemies in like two hits, which is absolutely buckwild to me. I almost feel like the greatsword does too much damage--not that I'm actually complaining about that, in PvE, cuz I don't really mind being able to take out enemies quickly. Not sure how balanced that'd be for other game modes though, since I don't really play those.

 

Personally, I enjoyed the visuals for Vindicator; I liked the blue icons with the red rim lighting, and I enjoyed the animations. Things looked neat to me. As far as visuals, my only complaint is that the 'mist' effect behind the skill bar (not sure what it's called?) is the same as for Ventari. Would've liked to have seen it be something different to reflect the dual nature instead--but maybe that's still a WIP?

 

I think it's a neat idea to have the two different utility skills rotate through, but in practice I'm not sure I like it as much. Especially with the Urn--I felt like I was constantly just quickly cycling through it to get back to the Spear, because that health drain is scary and I don't wanna risk putting my health too low and then essentially downing myself. I feel like there is a better way to implement the idea of sacrifice without being quite so extreme; maybe instead of draining health, applying conditions to yourself, like Cripple or Bleed or something, and maybe the longer you have it up the more it stacks? Still a risk, then, but one that would feel more manageable?

 

I'm also not sure how to feel about the dodge mechanic. It seems like it'd really take some getting used to, and I'm not sure if it's an improvement on the base dodge or not.

 

Overall, for me, this one felt like the one that requires the fewest tweaks to make playable, and it seemed like a lot of fun when I was playing it! The greatsword skills especially seemed p fun, if maybe a tad OP

[NonNonBiyori.1428]

I really love rev since i main it, been waiting for a good power spec for the longest and this espec is really bad for power..greatsword deals less than sw/sw, the skills  and everything feels very weak. The dodge takes way too long, let me plunge earlier, let me focus on power. Rev is always and have always been shoehorned into support..let us be proper DPS.

[Kidel.2057]

I feel like the health drain on Urn might be broken. The description says 1% damage, but it's 5% instead.

Don't get me wrong, it's still bad even if it's 1% just because of the fact that it takes so long to use even as a double tap with no upkeep. But well both elites are kinda of useless. You just need to use them to get Resolution and Fury uptime from traits. The damaging one is a dps loss, the healing one takes 2 seconds for a minimal heal and some boons. 

I've provided a lot of feedback here, maybe too much. I'll keep playing the spec tomorrow. My impressions for the day are mostly positive regarding the idea and the core mechanic, but GS needs more speed and Alliance needs to be reworked, as well as the traits. The dodges are slow and only 1/3 (Sain't Shield) is actually convenient to use over a regular dodge. Traits have no modifiers, skills are meh and have cooldowns for some reason (and you need a trait to be able to remove cooldowns every 40 second, something that core rev has as a baseline on almost every skill!)

Just so that we are clear: the flipover is NOT an advantage (like having 2 legends), it's a disadvantage. Let's say I need to cleanse condis, on paper I have Tree Song, right? Wrong, because it's flipped on Scavenger Burst and I need to wait 10+2 seconds or swap legend (or hope I have F2 available and I didn't use it actively to get endurance).

Since it's a disadvantage we need something to make up for it. Instead we got cooldowns. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Kidel.2057

[Mike.7983]

As was stated above by another post, please change the stance swap cooldown to permanently lock in the dps/support skills, it does feel punishing to use a skill then have to waste an already starved for energy class to have to pop support skill to go back to dps.  As is there is no reason to play this class unless major changes/overhaul before goes live, power renegade destroys this elite spec every way possible.

[Kidel.2057]

That's actually not a bad idea. 

 

F2: trades energy for endurance (like on any legend that's not Alliance)

F3: new skill - LOCKS Alliance skills in the current configuration. 

[Mike.7983]

Rev main here, but honestly if this stance dance skill does not get fixed I will prob retire the class and move onto virtuoso, renegade is super good but years of it gets old and was excited to have giant greatsword on my charr.  Clunky class design as usual while offering zero competive dps...where is our selfish power dps spec? every elite so far is support and more support.  If wanted to burst greatsword will stick with dragonhunter.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Mike.7983

[Xca.9721]

I am having fun so far playing it in PvP, using GS / Sword Sword. My main issues are:

1) No new animations, it doesn´t give you the feeling of playing something new. When you see the same animations for years, then you get a new spec and it´s basically a mix out of already existing animations, that is disappointing.

2) The Elite Skills are really underwhelming, there is basically no reason to use Urn of Saint Viktor. The spear is not only weak, it LOOKS really weak. Should be a better animation for an elite skill. 

3) No CC on Alliance Legend/Greatsword. Big issue for Rev, since it is the only class that can´t just pick another skill that has CC.

4) Right now Saint of zu Heltzer is the go to trait for me in PvP, just because it costs the least amount of endurance. I am not complaining, I just wish Vassals of the Empire would cost the same endurance. It would fit much more for the Roamer/Bruiser playstyle. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Xca.9721

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, Justine.6351 said:

Lmao went in to mess around with it and got into wvw after a few minutes of queensdale. Went in with my warclaw with his dodges and couldn't figure out why I didn't have a dodge on entering combat. Warclaw dodges eat the revs endurance. Like nobody at anet even tested this build at all to miss something so basic.

 

its actually the death from above trait causing issues with unmounting, resetting your rev's endurance back down to 100 of 150.

Well, that's the point of a BETA test ... to see what isn't working. 

[Kidel.2057]

The F3: new skill - LOCKS Alliance skills in the current configuration is growing on me. 

It basically transforms the new disadvantage of Vindicator into a cool mechanic that allows for some skill customization for the first time in this profession. 

It's perfect. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Kidel.2057

[Justine.6351]

4 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Well, that's the point of a BETA test ... to see what isn't working. 

Yeah minor bugs and balance issues. This is a major bug that within 15 minutes of testing I was encountering and half that time was going over the skills in queensdale lol.

[Kidel.2057]

1. change F2 to be only Energy Meld (even on Legendary Alliance). 
2. make a new Alliance Tactics on F3 and change the effect to "disable flipover and keep the current skillbar"
3. remove the cooldowns on Legendary Alliance skills (except the healing, of course)
4. replace Leviathan Strength with a permanent damage modifier (or something like +15% damage with Vigor)
5. obliterate Urn of Saint Viktor from existance.
6. make the dodges FAST. DPS and momento are more important than a longer evade window. All the dodges should be AT LEAST as fast as Saint's Shield. 
7. Death Drop basically removes your ability to dodge (can't be used frequently and needs to be used offensively). It needs a BIGGER payoff. At the moment it's not even good for DPS.
8. Slow/Cripple/Chill should not impact dodges. 
9. make GS as fast as the other GS core classes. At least. This is an elite spec, come on. 
10. add a hard CC to Nomad's Advance or Spear of Archemorus (last but not least)
 

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Kidel.2057

[Obtena.7952]

1 minute ago, Justine.6351 said:

Yeah minor bugs and balance issues. This is a major bug that within 15 minutes of testing I was encountering and half that time was going over the skills in queensdale lol.

That doesn't make sense ... there are obviously going to be bigger issues in this test than that, given that we are still 5 months from release. You can qualify the test however you want, but the point here is simply ... this IS the testing intended to fix the issue you found. 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[nerva.7940]

First e-spec I've enjoyed, and I'm not even a Rev main. GS is fantastic, the dodge is fun, and the class just feels fluid. The elites seemed like hot garbage though. 

Don't PvE much, but in pvp it will probably play as a bruiser with Shiro and S/s.

Edited September 21, 2021 by nerva.7940

[Randomm.2470]

The F2 is just worse core F2.

Adept line lacks any real options.

Forerunner of Death takes way too long to land to be an useful buff on dps

Eternity's Requiem feels too unpredictable. Also how come it can't get initial hit from the spin...

[Kidel.2057]

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

That doesn't make sense ... there are obviously going to be bigger issues in this test than that, given that we are still 5 months from release. You can qualify the test however you want, but the point here is simply ... this IS the testing intended to fix the issue you found. 

Unfortunately specs don't change too much on their core mechanics after beta events. The biggest change we got on Renegade after the first beta was to move the stun break from the Healing skill (lol, do you guys remember that? Brilliant idea, right?) to a Utility skill. 

The only way I see to fix Vindicator is to add a F3 skill to "freeze" the skillbar in the current config  and prevent the skills from swapping (and just use Energy Meld for F2, that's fine). That's a great idea that would allows Rev to get some minor skill customization for the first time ever. 

Unfortunately it's never going to happen. 

[Justine.6351]

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

That doesn't make sense ... there are obviously going to be bigger issues in this test than that, given that we are still 5 months from release. You can qualify the test however you want, but the point here is simply ... this IS the testing intended to fix the issue you found. 

you cannot seriously be defending such an obvious lack of internal testing can you? oh wait its obtena who just argues any position to death. dig those heels in boi.