Vindicator Dodge

[Polar.8634]

for me vindi feels much more fluent to play as it is now with 2 dodges, big improvement. but in wvw too strong, hope will not be overnerfed because of that. mid traits should be reworked no normalise stamina regen

[artharon.9276]

4 hours ago, Lonewolf Kai.3682 said:

Theme/flavor of the dodge is ruined and the damage sucks now because it’s halved.  I’m ready for them to revert it honestly.   That being said, I was never in favor of having 2 dodges to begin with.
 

Also, just making a note now, the evade skills will be nerfed in some way (most likely energy costs) now because we have 2 dodges.  Just wait and see.

 

exactly. they they never really needed to do this on pve. it killed the fun for me.

[artharon.9276]

37 minutes ago, vekkth.5206 said:

Absolutely dislike the change. It felt great to slambomb, it did fit nicely into rotation. Now it feels like you are a bouncing rabbit. 

this too. it looks and plays stupid as...

[Kulvar.1239]

2 hours ago, Superkai.4692 said:

I dont understand why they did nerf the damage? Vindicator is a selfish dps melee(!) spec with no cc, no combo fields and no utility at all. pMech still deals a lot more dmg in a real fight and brings more cc. What a joke.

Because it's not a PvE balance patch. The PvE balance patch will come in a few weeks.

[Buran.3796]

  The patch is mostly PvP/WvW, there will be adjusts and a big one oriented towards PvE in November. In fact the changes in Herald are entirely focused in PvP.

   Now, after doing the usual stuff which earns gold for my account,  did spent 30 minutes playing the Vindicator in PvE and then five matches in ranked PvP:

   PvE: similar damage but much better at sustain; still able to 100% crit chance with 200%+ crit damage, perma fury, perma quickness, perma protection and 25 stacks of might... Only weakness is lack of cc and being fully mele.

   PvP: very busted, you can end evading and blocking so many times in a row (while sharing regen and other boons and chilling enemies... ) that burst capacity isn't even that important: you can waste so much enemy time...   Probably will be nerfed again. Still, way harder to play (for me) compered with power Herald (fought one which crushed me over and over):

   WvW: barely had time at it,  way better at cleansing camps, probably broke at roaming and small skirmishes.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

2 hours ago, Superkai.4692 said:

I dont understand why they did nerf the damage? Vindicator is a selfish dps melee(!) spec with no cc, no combo fields and no utility at all. pMech still deals a lot more dmg in a real fight and brings more cc. What a joke.

They nerfed the damage, not the DPS.

[artharon.9276]

However I did a quick test with the easy mode build jalis/shiro, don't really have the best equipments on my vindi and my personal benchmark was about 29k, it bumped up to 31k. I wonder what real testers will score.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Seen and just duelled Vindicators with nigh perma Dodges. Too oppressive, too high invuln uptime for almost no energy costs, allowing them to have stunbreaks and evades on demand without hindering their DPS. 

 

Hope anet balances this a bit. Amount of boons and self-heal is crazy on top of the dodges. Might be worse than Daredevil, since Daredevil doesn't have all boons in the game.

[Buran.3796]

  Saw reddit and there's also absolutely broken stuff in PvE/WvW: builds with Salvation/Reaver's Course granting half hundred  dodges in 90 seconds...

[Hawken.7932]

8 hours ago, Hawken.7932 said:

Feels a lot more fun to me. Like the best of what I like with Staff Daredevil, but with the more interesting complexity of Vindicator.  Pretty optimistic so far.

I need to revise my opinion here.  After playing with it all evening, I'm sad about this change. We really lost something in the flavour of the elite, I think.  I'm not too worried about the damage reduction, but we're now less inclined to use our other mitigation skills and the big downer is that the leap cannot really be used as a gap closer as it was before. You kind of already have to be on top of the target to leap and connect with them, because the evasion time has been reduced so much. 

 

I'm sorry to say, I'm also in the "revert it" camp. 😞

Edited October 5, 2022 by Hawken.7932

[BALONEYPWNY.9258]

I'm gonna do my best to enjoy this in WvW while it lasts 😆

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

33 minutes ago, Hawken.7932 said:

I need to revise my opinion here.  After playing with it all evening, I'm sad about this change. We really lost something in the flavour of the elite, I think.  I'm not too worried about the damage reduction, but we're now less inclined to use our other mitigation skills and the big downer is that the leap cannot really be used as a gap closer as it was before. You kind of already have to be on top of the target to leap and connect with them, because the evasion time has been reduced so much. 

 

I'm sorry to say, I'm also in the "revert it" camp. 😞

10000% This

REVERT IT ANET. TERRIBLE CHANGE AND UNNECCESSARY.

This is just going to get nerfed more in WvW/PvP AGAIN and it didn't fix ANYTHING in PvE, plus the flavor of the class is gone and the new/sped up animation SUCKS

Stop listening to people who complain about survivability, but can't be assed to actually figure out what their other skills do. Vindicator has never had a lack of survival options, people just need to use their brain a bit more and figure out where their blocks/other evades are

Edited October 5, 2022 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Angesombre.4630]

Vindicator was not good before, now I find it more dynamic, maybe now we need to review the intermediate features (Master).
If you look at Mesmer, he complains that he has only one dodge and we have seen that it is not something that works.

[ShionKreth.1542]

Feels so much better to me, like it's now a benefit rather than a punishment for playing vindi. 

[otto.5684]

5 hours ago, Kulvar.1239 said:

Because it's not a PvE balance patch. The PvE balance patch will come in a few weeks.

You are very optimistic. 

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

4 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Seen and just duelled Vindicators with nigh perma Dodges. Too oppressive, too high invuln uptime for almost no energy costs, allowing them to have stunbreaks and evades on demand without hindering their DPS. 

 

Hope anet balances this a bit. Amount of boons and self-heal is crazy on top of the dodges. Might be worse than Daredevil, since Daredevil doesn't have all boons in the game.

Yeah this is what I don't get at all. The spec was ALREADY getting nerfed in PvP and then they just decided "Oh, the problem with the spec for our PvP/WvW focused balance patch clearly is the dodge which we've already nerfed a few times, let's split it in half and do it really haphazardly!"

It was already an incredible duelist even after the nerfs and the fact that they didn't pay any attention to the middle traits when splitting the dodges says they have zero idea of the capabilities of the spec both before and after this patch

It's just more joke balancing with half-baked ideas without any actual testing. And now the spec is going to suffer MORE nerfs because of this as well instead of getting the buffs it actually needed

Edited October 5, 2022 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

Now that I have more time to write, I'll say what I like and don't like about the change.

The thing I miss the most is the big numbers on the bunny lord build.  With Sigil of Stamina, the ability to become an endless deadly meteor from space is gone.  The new build has the same rough DPS and evade time when using two dodges, but this creates more windows of opportunity for attacks to sneak in.  It's also far more taxing on the hands, requiring twice as many inputs.  I'm still adjusting my damage rotation (Which is really just "spam the skills off cooldown), since that previous dodge gave me plenty of breathing room to regain energy and tick down traits.

On the other hand, the flexibility in engagement is amazing.  In any non-stamina sigil abusing environment, it was a bit inaccurate to say that Vindicator had one dodge.  In any practical sense, it had zero.  Forerunner of Death and Leviathan Strength added up to be a 25% strike damage increase.  Vinds had to maintain these buffs, otherwise the whole spec would be inferior to a Herald camping toggles and auto attacking.  With their dodge being a necessary part of their damage rotations, vinds had... nothing at all to avoid attacks, really.  Most they could hope for is enough spare energy for a block skill.

[soul.9651]

Honestly for pvp and wvw they need to hot fix this new dodge, but for pve leave it as it is and give vindicator either quickness or alac. And then i kinda can see some unique supp vindi build existing at a current pve meta. And for dps people are figuring it out but overall it was a buff aswell, altho we might be still short a few (like 2k) to get to that 38k range.

Edited October 5, 2022 by soul.9651

[Polar.8634]

8 minutes ago, soul.9651 said:

but for pve leave it as it is and give vindicator either quickness or alac

naah, should be fixed in pve too. people are able to dodge non stop, with healing and boon dodge it is too strong. 

also not fun gameplay. Literally any botton vindi could press atm can be replaced by dodge, thats how often it is.

Middle traits in vindi traitline, people wrote about changing them right after the preview. Nice opportunity to give some utility.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Polar.8634

[Fan Didly Tastic.7169]

2 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Now that I have more time to write, I'll say what I like and don't like about the change.

The thing I miss the most is the big numbers on the bunny lord build.  With Sigil of Stamina, the ability to become an endless deadly meteor from space is gone.  The new build has the same rough DPS and evade time when using two dodges, but this creates more windows of opportunity for attacks to sneak in.  It's also far more taxing on the hands, requiring twice as many inputs.  I'm still adjusting my damage rotation (Which is really just "spam the skills off cooldown), since that previous dodge gave me plenty of breathing room to regain energy and tick down traits.

On the other hand, the flexibility in engagement is amazing.  In any non-stamina sigil abusing environment, it was a bit inaccurate to say that Vindicator had one dodge.  In any practical sense, it had zero.  Forerunner of Death and Leviathan Strength added up to be a 25% strike damage increase.  Vinds had to maintain these buffs, otherwise the whole spec would be inferior to a Herald camping toggles and auto attacking.  With their dodge being a necessary part of their damage rotations, vinds had... nothing at all to avoid attacks, really.  Most they could hope for is enough spare energy for a block skill.

You're the only person I've seen to be honest about this.  I've been telling people for months that our dodges are only in the form of abilities that require the exact same resource our rotation requires as our dodge is literally used off CD, part of our builds.  And these skills themselves have CDs on top of their energy requirement, while others were ALSO part of the normal rotations people would use.  I'll never understand how people forget that if something is in your rotation, you tend to have flexible access to it less.  Not rocket science.

With normal classes, you weaved a dodge in, less than a second.  Us?  We used to have to have our skill and/or weapon/legend swap(because our skills aren't all on one bar, or selectable) off CD and the Energy to spare, hopefully without killing our entire rotation for 6 seconds.  Three dodges, my kitten.  I shouldn't have to keep track of CDs on bars I literally can't see to know when I can ability dodge again.

I agree with everyone saying that the infinite spam play is scuffed, it is, they should work on fixing that.  We shouldn't, however, go back to a state where all standard issue dodges, one, two, seven, or thirty-eight, are required to be used Off CD.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Fan Didly Tastic.7169
Grammar, spell good now

[soul.9651]

2 minutes ago, Polar.8634 said:

naah, should be fixed in pve too. people are able to dodge non stop, with healing and boon dodge it is too strong. 

 

I meaaaan it is pretty op, but considering what other current meta supps are capable of, vindicator is just at their level, if we nerf vindi then lets nerf everything else too, altho after the patch i dont even know there are even more broken stuff with things like druid aswell and who knows what else has been broken. Too much bugs and broken stuff to even compare vindi with the rest of the specs xd.. first we need to get bug fixes instead of any nerfs or buffs anyway with everything.

[Polar.8634]

3 minutes ago, soul.9651 said:

I meaaaan it is pretty op, but considering what other current meta supps are capable of, vindicator is just at their level, if we nerf vindi then lets nerf everything else too, altho after the patch i dont even know there are even more broken stuff with things like druid aswell and who knows what else has been broken. Too much bugs and broken stuff to even compare vindi with the rest of the specs xd.. first we need to get bug fixes instead of any nerfs or buffs anyway with everything.

i agree that vindi was underpowered for long time compared to meta top picks, also i want vindi to be at level when i want to play it in something like fractal.

I i want it to be balanced in meaningfull way, not just overloaded dodge.

with 2 dodges, and cheaper stamina cost, imo all middle traits are obsolete, as well as energy meld. too much stamina, we already have scavenger burst,  song of the mists and dwarf passive to replenish enough energy.

one of the ways they could do better: song of arboreum gives x seconds of alac/quick on dodge - this would enable healing vindicator and be in line with bottom healer traits. ansiyan's thrust - this could give some vigor and be in line with boon providing middle traits. reavers curse - could give some stacking dps bonus, so it would not overpower vindi in competitive but give a lot of damage in pve, making pve dps role more viable and be in line with dps top traits.

energy meld, idk, would need to test changed middle traits to decide if stamina cut is enough already. if need to cut vigor more, them change energy meld to give something other then stamina

[Zaret.1450]

44 minutes ago, Polar.8634 said:

naah, should be fixed in pve too. people are able to dodge non stop, with healing and boon dodge it is too strong. 

also not fun gameplay. Literally any botton vindi could press atm can be replaced by dodge, thats how often it is.

Middle traits in vindi traitline, people wrote about changing them right after the preview. Nice opportunity to give some utility.

There you have it, a wise man, just change the traits that right now dont make that much sense, the dodge was suposed to be only one but having tons of ways to recharge it, but that doesnt realy work well, you had to spend energy, use sigils, and every possible thing in wvw so you had your dodge allwais, thus things like levi strenght realy didnt work well there, now you can just dodge once and have one for backup, just change those traits to work for the aliance, and the endurance skill to make something else, a combo attack of vik and archie maybe, there you have it, more utility, more uniqueness and the same number of dodges with less inconveniences

[Polar.8634]

3 minutes ago, zaswer.5246 said:

just change the traits that right now dont make that much sense,

it does not make sence, if something is broken people gonna abuse it. So just telling them to not take sigil of energy will not fix the game.

And i dont have inconvenience having that much dodges. In fact, i had much fun jumping on dead bodies non-stop yesterday. BUT, i felt it is broken so i provide feedback. Balance patch was competitive oriented, too many people here complain about they cannot SLAM boar in queensdale.

[Zaret.1450]

6 minutes ago, Polar.8634 said:

it does not make sence, if something is broken people gonna abuse it. So just telling them to not take sigil of energy will not fix the game.

And i dont have inconvenience having that much dodges. In fact, i had much fun jumping on dead bodies non-stop yesterday. BUT, i felt it is broken so i provide feedback. Balance patch was competitive oriented, too many people here complain about they cannot SLAM boar in queensdale.

Hey i agree with you, what i meant is, endurance traits now only work to make viable infinite dodge works, so we can change them and it would open space for more needed/better option on aliance, i didnt say anithing about nerfing energy sigil, it has a cd of 9 secs so it doesnt need nerfs.

And i love landing on peoples heads as much as anyone else, i killed someone yesterday doing that XD