Vind June 28'th

[Mike.7983]

So is this class preview update incomplete? Mega lack of any direct upgrades to Vindicator, horrible elite with bad dps let alone chock full of bugs that have not been fixed, looking at you stun mid jumps.  Had hopes the next update would buff the damage up to at least a competative level but this class is going down the drain fast now.  To bad time to move onto mesmer now for actual damage.  For pure greatsword dragonhunter, willbender and reaper seem to outclass it unless your on a mega hitbox with eternity.  Also what's with the horrible condi noodle elite spear on alliance, least give it a toggled buff or something nobody will ever use it. 

Edited June 25, 2022 by Mike.7983

[otto.5684]

Vindicator does more damage than DH and Reaper in PvE. You could argue that DH is better. Reaper is not by any means. Neither is any mesmer power dps, as they all lack consistency. 

[Buran.3796]

  The whole concept of Vindicator is just silly. 25% of your damage depends of using your only dodge to proc a 15% damage buff and the other 10% relies in your endurance meter being partially depleted. so you're forced to spam your single dodge ASAP to prevent your damage to fall to 80%. Plus the damage in your largest burst is inconsistent due can't place all the hits vs normal sized targets...

   So, let's say that you do it and keep that +25% damage buff 100% of the time:  then is not great due you only have a block to prevent enemy attacks, and some enemy skills and mechanics won't work well (looking at you Abominations) in a game designed around the concept of having two dodges available, so you'll end being one-shooted. Dead yo'll do 0 dps, and by the way Vindi doesn't provide anything interesting to team gameplay (the most useful boons are in the non-damage dodges). So support Vindi? Yeah, good luck competing vs Firebrand....

 

   The  is the other aspect, which is that in this game condition damage> power damage, so power is only better when the difference is huge. Which means that Vindi is permanently doomed to either be underpowered or overpowered, with no way to achieve balance.

   Power Vindi doesn't deliver more damage than condi Renegade or Herald, and in either of those I will always have 800 + armor and 7K+ more HP over Vindi, while retaining my two evades, and with condis also I keep delivering damage while I dodge or block.

[Mike.7983]

Moved onto condi virt benching 42k, and condi vipers 2 staff mirage for the extreme solo of content.  Rev was my main for past 2 expansions sadly putting to the curb now.  Power is really being nailed in favor of condi.

[Virdo.1540]

3 hours ago, Mike.7983 said:

Moved onto condi virt benching 42k, and condi vipers 2 staff mirage for the extreme solo of content.  Rev was my main for past 2 expansions sadly putting to the curb now.  Power is really being nailed in favor of condi.

you know condi virt will be dead at tuesday aswell?

[otto.5684]

3 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

  The whole concept of Vindicator is just silly. 25% of your damage depends of using your only dodge to proc a 15% damage buff and the other 10% relies in your endurance meter being partially depleted. so you're forced to spam your single dodge ASAP to prevent your damage to fall to 80%. Plus the damage in your largest burst is inconsistent due can't place all the hits vs normal sized targets...

   So, let's say that you do it and keep that +25% damage buff 100% of the time:  then is not great due you only have a block to prevent enemy attacks, and some enemy skills and mechanics won't work well (looking at you Abominations) in a game designed around the concept of having two dodges available, so you'll end being one-shooted. Dead yo'll do 0 dps, and by the way Vindi doesn't provide anything interesting to team gameplay (the most useful boons are in the non-damage dodges). So support Vindi? Yeah, good luck competing vs Firebrand....

 

   The  is the other aspect, which is that in this game condition damage> power damage, so power is only better when the difference is huge. Which means that Vindi is permanently doomed to either be underpowered or overpowered, with no way to achieve balance.

   Power Vindi doesn't deliver more damage than condi Renegade or Herald, and in either of those I will always have 800 + armor and 7K+ more HP over Vindi, while retaining my two evades, and with condis also I keep delivering damage while I dodge or block.

You have some legitimate issue. GS5 should be standardized against all targets, by making it a pulsing effect, versus what it is now. As for damage buff uptime, with experience this is a limited issue. Ya, you might lose the 10% sometimes, but overall, the down time is close to none. Vindicator sustain, even with the one dodge, is pretty solid. I think if the lower the CD of GS4 to 8 secs, se can call it a day.

 

As for condi vs power damage, this is an issue that goes beyond Vindicator and rev. IMO, the difference should be limited to no more than 10%. However, Anet is taking it slowwwwwwwww… when it comes to class balance. So GL.

[Mike.7983]

2 hours ago, Virdo.1540 said:

you know condi virt will be dead at tuesday aswell?

Haha how so, only real changes to virt is we gain 10% extra crit, and lost 5 bleeds from second bladesong, not sure where you get the dead tuesday.  Virt is more than fine.

[Virdo.1540]

25 minutes ago, Mike.7983 said:

Haha how so, only real changes to virt is we gain 10% extra crit, and lost 5 bleeds from second bladesong, not sure where you get the dead tuesday.  Virt is more than fine.

oh yea right i overread and thought they removed the bleed crit trait thing (Jagged Mind). Dont really play mesmer ^^

[Zenith.7301]

8 hours ago, Mike.7983 said:

Haha how so, only real changes to virt is we gain 10% extra crit, and lost 5 bleeds from second bladesong, not sure where you get the dead tuesday.  Virt is more than fine.

 

 

The funny part is nerfing condi virtuoso, which has ZERO utility, but leaving condi specter and machinist untouched.

[Catchyfx.5768]

In wvw, zerg fights, Vindi wiht salvation, can get closer to cleansegod scrapper. I really wanna see that. New Ventari could work, with better tablet movement. So I really wanna try this. Even now with Marauder stats, im able to keep alive my subgroup, if I go with blue legend.

Edited June 27, 2022 by Catchyfx.5768

[Kreed.2768]

On 6/25/2022 at 8:23 PM, Virdo.1540 said:

you know condi virt will be dead at tuesday aswell?

Nahhhh. It's gonna lose like 3k on the golem bench but otherwise be fine. All bleed on crit traits are still there, so this is a fairly minor nerf in the grand scheme of things. 

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Kreed.2768 said:

Nahhhh. It's gonna lose like 3k on the golem bench but otherwise be fine. All bleed on crit traits are still there, so this is a fairly minor nerf in the grand scheme of things. 

Hrrmn. That'd take it to about 38-38.5k. Which is starting to creep towards the low end for pure DPS, but still viable and probably fair given that it has long range and a simple rotation.

[soul.9651]

32 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Hrrmn. That'd take it to about 38-38.5k. Which is starting to creep towards the low end for pure DPS, but still viable and probably fair given that it has long range and a simple rotation.

According to snowcrows calculations it will be around 37k 

[X Anthony A.8409]

On 6/25/2022 at 1:29 AM, otto.5684 said:

Vindicator does more damage than DH and Reaper in PvE. You could argue that DH is better. Reaper is not by any means. Neither is any mesmer power dps, as they all lack consistency. 

I dont know what you mean Vindicator isnt consistent and has alot of randomness baked into it with skill 5 eternity's requim, also power mesmer virtuoso actually out performs vindicator and virtuoso is supposed to be a condition spec... by design so yeah thats kind of sad, also damage wise since vindicator is a mele spec with no option for ranged you might disagree but i believe the class should hit for 45k benchmark for the dps side of vindicator since its purely a power dps spec with selfish boons that you get from support specs anyways, since i heard that on small hitbox for example it does 25k barely.. and this makes no sense tbh i feel like this spec can be compared to how herald dps was people shamed it and mocked you for playing it cuz it didnt do that good of damage in raids for a dps spec and basically groups didnt want you etc.. basically i see people being hostile towards players just playing vindicator in content like cm fractals, etc, this class i feel needs major fixing sadly. Also the elite skill for Archemorus feels really unrewarding to use and in some ways feel like your missing an elite skill, plus the whole thing with being hit mid dodge doesnt feel right feels more or less like other classes that have dodges actually have a huge advantage.

Edited June 28, 2022 by X Anthony A.8409

[otto.5684]

On 6/28/2022 at 2:52 AM, X Anthony A.8409 said:

I dont know what you mean Vindicator isnt consistent and has alot of randomness baked into it with skill 5 eternity's requim, also power mesmer virtuoso actually out performs vindicator and virtuoso is supposed to be a condition spec... by design so yeah thats kind of sad, also damage wise since vindicator is a mele spec with no option for ranged you might disagree but i believe the class should hit for 45k benchmark for the dps side of vindicator since its purely a power dps spec with selfish boons that you get from support specs anyways, since i heard that on small hitbox for example it does 25k barely.. and this makes no sense tbh i feel like this spec can be compared to how herald dps was people shamed it and mocked you for playing it cuz it didnt do that good of damage in raids for a dps spec and basically groups didnt want you etc.. basically i see people being hostile towards players just playing vindicator in content like cm fractals, etc, this class i feel needs major fixing sadly. Also the elite skill for Archemorus feels really unrewarding to use and in some ways feel like your missing an elite skill, plus the whole thing with being hit mid dodge doesnt feel right feels more or less like other classes that have dodges actually have a huge advantage.

I think changing GS5 from what it is to pulses will work much better. Still, the difference between small and  large hit boxes is ~3k dps. Ironically, DH has the same exact problem with GS2, yet there is little complaining about it. 
 

IMO, power rev and DH are better than mesmer power dps. Chrono suffers from ramp-up, needing slow on enemies and lacks the ability to quickly switch targets. Virtuoso skills 3 and elite can and do miss, especially against small targets (I am seeing a trend here). It also brings nothing else to the table, and has one of the worst sustain among power builds. You could say I am biased against power mesmer. Condi mesmer is much better than the power variant in any and every situation.

 

Vindicator has issues, but most of the feedback I see tend to fall in, “it has one dodge, me no likey. It must soock doing damage and have crappy sustain .” Even though it does have the damage, has a low CD block and 2 evades (Shiro + new elite) with about 12-15% already evade uptime from dodge. In addition, it has CC breaks with no CD. On demand stability. And these do not come at the cost of trait and/or utility. Some builds would kill for this.
 

I really wish Anet would stop creating skills that could deal less damage on small boxes, and changes the ones that do, to a standardized damage in all situations. However, based on the recent balance changes we would be lucky if that happens before 2030.

Edited June 29, 2022 by otto.5684

[Buran.3796]

   Since most of the talk usually evolves around the performance in instanced content for teams I'll put a link of a video which covers the topic with fairness and and realism (by a player with knowns alot better about the topic):