Vindicator made me feel like a Dragoon...now I feel like a fat Daredevil

[Opihi.6972]

So clearly I was in the minority here, but I thought Vindicator was in an okay spot - it just needed some dps boost in the form of Bladesworn love. Make it so those skills that normally use energy instead increase energy - the higher the energy, the more damage output for the next "leap," with all accumulated energy lost after each leap. It could even be made with "Death Drop" "Imperial Impact" and "Saint's Shield" in mind, increasing the effect while decreasing its AE range. Personally, I really liked thinking of my "dodge" button as a major dps boost and burst attack, forcing me to think of alternate means of avoiding certain death, like using GS block or Staff evade - it's a similar mechanic to using a healing skill for offensive purposes and not for healing. If I wanted a class that hops around like my legs are made of springs, I'll play my Daredevil (she has a scarf specifically so I can watch it flutter while hopping about), but I want a big, fat, neck-breaking, spine-shattering Dragoon class that jumps sooooo high in the air that I disappear then reappear with a massive crater, big impact sound, and a massive cleaver shoved into the ground, with a dramatic wrist-flick of my blade as I pull it out (now that animation is way too fast to discern).

 

As far as PvP balance is concerned, just keep its current "fast leap" format. Maybe have a penalty afforded to players who dodge excessively, like a "Ghost" debuff (seen but can't be touched) that reduces the amount of currencies awarded at the end of a match, or make it so the effect of the jump is reduced with each passing jump. For example, you could make it so the energy bar turns orange for ~4 seconds after leaping that shows performing another leap at that point will cause significantly reduced effect, reduced damage, etc. If feeling particularly devilish, you could make it so that leaping with an orange bar will occasionally cause your character to come crashing down to the ground with a knockdown and vulnerability effect, which would prevent infinite leaping (gotta bring the dirt-napping meme from FF somehow XD). That, or make it so that dodging while the energy bar is orange will make your character perform a regular rolling dodge - that way, players can do a big fat leap then make a hasty retreat with a quick dodge if any energy is accumulated from Vigor/Song of Arboreum/Reaver's Curse after leaping. This could add another tactical flavor to Vindi - choosing whether to burn endurance on a regular dodge after making a leap, or save the endurance for a future leap.

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Even better, and in keeping with roughly how well your feedback would be received, why not just delete the vindicator's dodge ability entirely by random chance after executing a random number of dodges within a random timeframe. RNG seeded by your account ID, of course.

[Warscythes.9307]

I am going to present this a bit from both sides.

 

I also first initially picked up the class because I love spear wielding jumping dragoons in FF. I like the previous version and I thought I would dislike the current one. However after a few days of raiding/strikes, I feel both version has it's charm. 

 

Previous version you already explained, big one hit damage, dps is honestly bad but hey who doesn't love big numbers. However the gameplay was relatively binary and not as dynamic as you may think because you have to dodge to get your damage buffs and the longer you hold it the worse it gets. Your GS4 is the only real defensive you have because if you swap to staff or go to blue alliance to battle dance, your damage drops off a cliff. I would rather hit energy meld and dodge again generally.

 

Now Vindicator has the ability to practically dodge all the big hits AND keeping up the damage buff as needed. Because you are full melee, you have to greed as much as you can and this ability is what let vindicators minmax their damage via skill expression. Because a good one can stay in the bad and dodge everything while doing dps and other just have to run away. This is different from DD because DD have to drain their endurance as much as possible, from experience they dodge a lot more as part of their rotation which means most of damage avoidance is almost passive than active. The feeling is very different. I don't think the current version is bad because of this new found skill expression on a class with relatively easy rotation. You can now actually dragoon jump to avoid damage to minmax your damage in a practical sense.

 

Now I am also not completely against the idea of having traits that turns the core principle around. Currently you dodge to buff the rest of your damage. I would also like some traits that do the reverse, when you use skills that cost energy you gain X stacks. The next time you jump, it does Y% more damage based on the X number of stacks you have up to a cap. So you do your normal attacks, charge enough with hits and then jump for a big nuke. Maybe you still have 2 dodges but picking a trait add a F4 that would drain 100 endurance to launch a higher damage jump that uses up the stacks. I think this may be something they can try based on how people feel replacing some of the existing traits.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[Dawdler.8521]

Yep enjoy that new feeling of knowing that people now have zero respect for you because you're being carried by the build. It doesnt matter if you loved playing it before and was good on it then.

This is what vindicators are now.

A meta scrub.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Warscythes.9307]

8 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Yep enjoy that new feeling of knowing that people now have zero respect for you because you're being carried by the build. It doesnt matter if you loved playing it before and was good on it then.

This is what vindicators are now.

A meta scrub.

In PvE? Because I am pretty sure that's what this topic is about. I don't play that much PvP and especially WvW, but it doesn't look to be meta in PvP at least that I know of.

[Dawdler.8521]

7 minutes ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

In PvE? Because I am pretty sure that's what this topic is about. I don't play that much PvP and especially WvW, but it doesn't look to be meta in PvP at least that I know of.

Nobody care about its balance in PvE except dps counting raiders - and even if they did Anet would nerf it again within 5 seconds of someone posting a PvE raid video, compared to the months long response times for sPvP and years long response times for WvW.

[otto.5684]

The 2 dodge surely made Vindicator far more versatile in pve. Ya, I no longer feel like Meteor, and it feels a bit spammmy. However, this is a small price to pay for the efficiency.  

[Warscythes.9307]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Nobody care about its balance in PvE except dps counting raiders - and even if they did Anet would nerf it again within 5 seconds of someone posting a PvE raid video, compared to the months long response times for sPvP and years long response times for WvW.

What do you think most PvE balance is about? Open world? Yes plenty of people care about PvE balance lol. Also no why would Anet nerf it? There has been plenty of Vindi raid video. 

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

100% agree with your title. It’s literally just Daredevil+Support options now. Even the damage buff on Forerunner is copy paste from Bound 

[Warscythes.9307]

27 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

100% agree with your title. It’s literally just Daredevil+Support options now. Even the damage buff on Forerunner is copy paste from Bound 

Is really not, if you played a staff DD then you will see is not that similar to vindi right now. In fact is clunky because of the staff 2 animation lag and the forced movement on dodge. You actually don't really have that much dodge or defensive because you need to spam it for damage. Anything you dodge often times just lies up with your rotation than anything else. Vindicator almost always will have GS4 and 1 dodge on reserve, so you will actually be able to greed dps by playing better.

 

For example let's look at Deimos. If you play DD when he does his circle slam, Vindicator can just dodge it while doing damage. DD has to either wait and suffer losing dps due to having a dodge on reserve or be ready to staff 3/5, which means less damage since you need to wait for initiative. Same thing for mindcrush, Vindicator can just greed dps while everyone run to bubble then block with GS4. DD has to take bandit's defense which is a dps loss and even if you do, the counter attack is just a cc instead.

 

The two really does play more different than you think. A DD dodges attacks as part of its rotation, if it has to actively dodge then it has to hold off on skill use which disrupt the flow. Vindicator doesn't have this issue, it greed dps and spam attacks then "parries" the attack without disrupting the flow as an active avoidance.  

Edited October 9, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[otto.5684]

On 10/9/2022 at 11:07 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Nobody care about its balance in PvE except dps counting raiders - and even if they did Anet would nerf it again within 5 seconds of someone posting a PvE raid video, compared to the months long response times for sPvP and years long response times for WvW.

I would urge PvE balance is more important since significantly more players play pve than pvp. Plus, pvp balance has been hit really hard in the last 3 years. Sure, having things balanced would be nice, but pvp needs way more than buff/nerf to one elite. The whole current system needs to be scrapped.

[Catchyfx.5768]

14 hours ago, otto.5684 said:

I would urge PvE balance is more important since significantly more players play pve than pvp. Plus, pvp balance has been hit really hard in the last 3 years. Sure, having things balanced would be nice, but pvp needs way more than buff/nerf to one elite. The whole current system needs to be scrapped.

In my opinion, balancing PvE is lot esier then pvp/WvW, where things have to be truly working and doing something.
In PvE you only look at dps benchmark first(there it is ez, buff nerf, in OW everything dies on hit or two, and bosses both OW or Instaced, will snap you in 1-2 hits or do nothing at all )
this answer is really dumbed down, but you got my logic behind this.

[Zaret.1450]

On 10/9/2022 at 9:40 PM, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

100% agree with your title. It’s literally just Daredevil+Support options now. Even the damage buff on Forerunner is copy paste from Bound 

Rev has been a copy paste from thief sisnce a looong looooong time ago, yeah vindi evade is a copy paste from bound, but at least with 2 dodges instead of 1 we have the improved version instead of the inferior version we have in everything else, be it 1, 2, 3, 4 or a thousand bounces it has the same uniqueness, originality and is copied from the same thing, what difers is that now we can actualy make good use of the dodges in EVERY situation, we can dodge attacks as the core mecanic is, we can do dmg, we can heal, we can maintain the modifiers and we dont need to go around choosing if we want to get a modifier or survive or whatever.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

5 hours ago, zaswer.5246 said:

Rev has been a copy paste from thief sisnce a looong looooong time ago, yeah vindi evade is a copy paste from bound, but at least with 2 dodges instead of 1 we have the improved version instead of the inferior version we have in everything else, be it 1, 2, 3, 4 or a thousand bounces it has the same uniqueness, originality and is copied from the same thing, what difers is that now we can actualy make good use of the dodges in EVERY situation, we can dodge attacks as the core mecanic is, we can do dmg, we can heal, we can maintain the modifiers and we dont need to go around choosing if we want to get a modifier or survive or whatever.

Yes, you're completely right, it requires less of a brain to play the spec now. Great change

 

edit: how exactly is Rev copy paste thief?? Because the energy system slightly corresponds to the initiative system? Except it totally isn’t even close to similar in most regards due to CDs. Because it has “assassin stance” and phase traversal?? Because it focuses slightly more on evasion than blocking/invulns? Eh, I disagree with the “it’s just copy paste thief since the beginning.” That ignores the majority of the class (which has been here since it released) and only focuses on the Shiro/swords aspect

Edited October 11, 2022 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Warscythes.9307]

1 hour ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Yes, you're completely right, it requires less of a brain to play the spec now. Great change

But that's untrue, at least assuming this is PvE instance content. I would actually argue is harder to play if you want to play this correctly which is learning how to greed dps with your dodge and blocks. Previously you often just don't have a choice at all or you are making a huge sacrifice to swap to staff that is not worth it.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

35 minutes ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

But that's untrue, at least assuming this is PvE instance content. I would actually argue is harder to play if you want to play this correctly which is learning how to greed dps with your dodge and blocks. Previously you often just don't have a choice at all or you are making a huge sacrifice to swap to staff that is not worth it.

 

 

Did you play it at a high level before patch? Because I fundamentally disagree with most things you’ve said about the spec in your quotes to me and isn’t my experience with the spec at all.  I had no issue greeding before with one dodge. GS4 block is enough for almost every encounter; no swap to staff needed (plus S/S gives a second offensive evade without losing DPS).  Anything else got picked up by Energy Meld or supports or god forbid swapping to Viktor or using Riposting Shadows. I don’t know why all of you think it was so hard to do. It wasn’t. 
 

Two dodges objectively makes the class easier and require less brain power. All of the greeding you can do now, you could still do back then with one dodge, it just required actually critical thinking and planning ahead. Now it requires less of that.
 

source: someone who plays the spec at a high level, even before the patch 

Edited October 11, 2022 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Warscythes.9307]

49 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Did you play it at a high level before patch? Because I fundamentally disagree with most things you’ve said about the spec in your quotes to me and isn’t my experience with the spec at all.  I had no issue greeding before with one dodge. GS4 block is enough for almost every encounter; no swap to staff needed (plus S/S gives a second offensive evade without losing DPS).  Anything else got picked up by Energy Meld or supports or god forbid swapping to Viktor or using Riposting Shadows. I don’t know why all of you think it was so hard to do. It wasn’t. 
 

Two dodges objectively makes the class easier and require less brain power. All of the greeding you can do now, you could still do back then with one dodge, it just required actually critical thinking and planning ahead. Now it requires less of that.
 

source: someone who plays the spec at a high level, even before the patch 

Yes, with the exception of HT CM, Dhuum CM, KO CM and Q1 cm, oh and qtp because I usually pylon kite there. Also no TL, that fight is aids with melee in general. 

 

GS4 was often times not enough to pure greed, I am not saying that you can't greed before. I am saying that you can now greed even harder. Remember your dodge is not just an invul button, but also a movement while dodging. GS4 also really interrupt your gameplay flow due to cast time and yes stow cancels takes a split second too, dodging is just much more natural as a defensive tool.

For example Sam CM, if spear placements gets messy and often times it will, you want to double dodge through it and you really don't want to stay too far behind because all your friends just run through and you don't want to be the only person left with green. Double dodge is the safe way to do it. SH CM pool if is in a bad spot to quickly get across, Dhuum death marks to maintain your hp for scholar/invocation/devastation hp thresholds, 99CM last boss with the pull, then aoe, you can only really block 1 there. 100CM Ai lighting often comes in quick and fast succession. You are either face tanking those and lose your HP threshold damage boost or you can block maybe just 1/2 set. Ankka CM I had to block a tentacle hit and then jump through a krait because the kiter kited to me in a sudden turn and there wasn't time to react. There's quite a few examples that I could give. Also let's be honest, S/S 3 windup + landing means I really would not use it for the evade. Is a gapcloser most of the time or I want to meme. Everytime I use it to evade something is a ride on if I land in a good or bad spot.

 

Energy meld has a cast time, if you are reactively dodging something that cast time is what kills you. Nobody actually takes alliance for most fights and even if you do, now you are stuck in Viktor unless you can F1 to Shiro instead. Depending on your support to just aegis or stab you is a terrible idea as you really should be taking care of these issues yourself.

 

I agree it makes the class floor lower, I would also argue the celling higher. You can greed harder compared to when you were before. This is also objectively true. Having 2 dodges means that you will be able to play more risky because you can dodge more mechanics. Planning ahead means nothing unless you know exactly when the next big attack is coming like Gros slam is always the second attack, vast majority of the time is just purely reactionary which the older vindicator was worse at because whether it be energy meld or battle dance, you needed to press 1 additional button to actually react to it.

 

Source: I also played Vindicator at a high level, before and after patch. Unless you only count HT CM and KO CM as high level or something. I also have no idea about speedclearing dungeons or CMs, I just beat them playing whatever I feel at the time. So if you are talking about those, I got no idea.

 

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Warscythes.9307

[Fan Didly Tastic.7169]

7 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Yes, you're completely right, it requires less of a brain to play the spec now. Great change

 

edit: how exactly is Rev copy paste thief?? Because the energy system slightly corresponds to the initiative system? Except it totally isn’t even close to similar in most regards due to CDs. Because it has “assassin stance” and phase traversal?? Because it focuses slightly more on evasion than blocking/invulns? Eh, I disagree with the “it’s just copy paste thief since the beginning.” That ignores the majority of the class (which has been here since it released) and only focuses on the Shiro/swords aspect

Ignoring the edited bottom half since it isn't actually important to this discussion.  Gonna focus on the top half.

I am sorry friend but I must call this out.  While I won't argue that reducing complexity is always a good thing, I will argue that insinuating "how hard it is/isn't to play" as reasoning for "poor balance", isn't.  No offense, but I don't really care how good it makes you feel to "get something" when others "don't", especially in an MMO where everyone is supposed to be able to at least pick up a class.  So to be perfectly honest, this insinuation that "it is now easier for others to play at high-level" as a bad thing, really isn't a great look and just makes you look like a giant elitist.  I sincerely hope that isn't what you're trying to put across, but it's the message I am getting.

TL;DR, if your take is "it is easier now and that's bad", then you just have a bad take.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Fan Didly Tastic.7169
Minor Grammar Error

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

On 10/8/2022 at 1:57 PM, Opihi.6972 said:

So clearly I was in the minority here, but I thought Vindicator was in an okay spot - it just needed some dps boost in the form of Bladesworn love. Make it so those skills that normally use energy instead increase energy - the higher the energy, the more damage output for the next "leap," with all accumulated energy lost after each leap. It could even be made with "Death Drop" "Imperial Impact" and "Saint's Shield" in mind, increasing the effect while decreasing its AE range. Personally, I really liked thinking of my "dodge" button as a major dps boost and burst attack, forcing me to think of alternate means of avoiding certain death, like using GS block or Staff evade - it's a similar mechanic to using a healing skill for offensive purposes and not for healing. If I wanted a class that hops around like my legs are made of springs, I'll play my Daredevil (she has a scarf specifically so I can watch it flutter while hopping about), but I want a big, fat, neck-breaking, spine-shattering Dragoon class that jumps sooooo high in the air that I disappear then reappear with a massive crater, big impact sound, and a massive cleaver shoved into the ground, with a dramatic wrist-flick of my blade as I pull it out (now that animation is way too fast to discern).

 

As far as PvP balance is concerned, just keep its current "fast leap" format. Maybe have a penalty afforded to players who dodge excessively, like a "Ghost" debuff (seen but can't be touched) that reduces the amount of currencies awarded at the end of a match, or make it so the effect of the jump is reduced with each passing jump. For example, you could make it so the energy bar turns orange for ~4 seconds after leaping that shows performing another leap at that point will cause significantly reduced effect, reduced damage, etc. If feeling particularly devilish, you could make it so that leaping with an orange bar will occasionally cause your character to come crashing down to the ground with a knockdown and vulnerability effect, which would prevent infinite leaping (gotta bring the dirt-napping meme from FF somehow XD). That, or make it so that dodging while the energy bar is orange will make your character perform a regular rolling dodge - that way, players can do a big fat leap then make a hasty retreat with a quick dodge if any energy is accumulated from Vigor/Song of Arboreum/Reaver's Curse after leaping. This could add another tactical flavor to Vindi - choosing whether to burn endurance on a regular dodge after making a leap, or save the endurance for a future leap.

They could get the Daredevil Dash treatment and each vind dodge grants Exhaustion. THATS how I would have handled vind's infinite jump cheese (I even mentioned this to my rev friends as well as I also compared vind to daredevil for jumping)

[soul.9651]

Well at least in wvw it went from dragoon to fat daredevil to deleting entire build from existance. And why this reminds me of that lazy cata nerf when they straight up put dps reduction if you pick quickness trait.. 🤔 

[VladTepes.7042]

This is from a WvW perspective.

Everything that happened in the last weeks after the announcement of the two dodges was completly predictable.

Energy Meld, the Skill that was just a band-aid, is now completely useless.
The traits are now bland and almost meaningless. Reaver' Curse 1 Endurance per hit and Song of Arboreum 1 second of Vigor? Imperial Impact half a second of Protection and 2 Might for 4 seconds? Don't make me laugh.

Vindicator is now worse and more boring in WvW than it ever was with just a single dodge. I don't know about the other areas of the game, but what I wish for WvW is that they just go back to a single dodge and start over from there. Although i know they never will.

 

[Virdo.1540]

From Dragon to daredevil to wet noodle. rip vindi

[phokus.8934]

And people were excited to see @Cal Cohen.2358heading up balance.  He's making the same mistakes as his predecessors.  I'm all for balance but Jesus Christ, have some forethought into the changes you're making.

[eXruina.4956]

lol fat daredevil. 🤣

[Potato Slayer.3107]

I would prefer the opposite of daredevil; keep 2 dodges, revert the damage and changes, but decrease endurance regeneration by a default 50% when specd. You keep the two evade frames and damage, while you can mitigate the base handicap with sigil of energy, vigor, traits, etc to meet normal endurance gain rate. That is the only way I can see keeping two dodges and reverting the damage/effects back to previous levels.