Vindicator change ideas

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

So, we got another change that makes no sense, and likely was balanced around PvP. I think that a rebuild for vindicator is probably in order at this point, the alliance concept is always interesting, but in the current climate design it seems that it doesn't work out for ANet in general. So here is what I propose for vindicator;

Let's steal a bit from the mechanist as far as build design goes, how do I mean? Simple, the trait line picked determines which of the two in the alliance your skill bar is going to take on, in this case the grandmaster trait. The top one gives you full DPS Archemerous, the bottom gives you Heal zu Heltzer, and the middle line gives you DPS support Archemerous.

There of course would have to be multiple other changes to balance things out but here's where I would start;

Alliance Tactics - This would be changed based on which of the three; Archmerous gives a burst of super speed for X seconds as you feel the rage. Support Archemerous gives a burst of super speed to allies within X distance for X seconds consuming them with rage. In zu Heltzer, Alliance Tactics will gives several stacks of might, fury and protection for allies with X distance for X seconds, using cool headedness to guide the team. Of course, Alliance Tactics CD will have to be adjusted as a result in these instances.

Next change, Balance in Discord. Currently it says you get boons when you swap legends, but this only works for the alliance not for other legends. This should be changed when the vindi swaps legends in general. Furthermore, when you have Imperial Impact or Saint's Shield equipped, then the boons provided by swapping legends should affect team members as well.

Now, the thing that will actually help bring vindi's into the spotlight more; give quick (preferably to fit theme) or alacrity to their grandmaster traits in these specific ways; With Imperial Impact, the vindicator now applies quickness to their team when using Scavenger's Burst within the area. Similarly, Tree Song should provide Quickness as well.

Another change I think is needed is to Selfless Spirit, I've suggested this before. When the Vindicator has the Urn of Saint Viktor active and uses Selfless Spirit they attempt to revive people around them. Given the Vindi has to take the risk of receiving damage and can't heal themselves while the Urn is active this would also given them some extra utility.

Finally, speaking of the Urn I think the health thresholds need to be looked at. These are extreme considering how little one would actually see them for so little benefit. You're very unlikely to apply Resistance at 25% health with that much sacrifice going on. How about instead since there is a lot being given up while the urn is active, whenever the Vindi applies a barrier they give these boons as well. The urn is a very risk versus reward power to use since the vindi is incapable of healing themselves during this. The boon durations also need to be looked at since giving 25 stacks of might is pretty much looked at for any heal along with quick.

Basic idea, needs tweaks of course but general gist is what I am aiming for here.

Edited March 21 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Angesombre.4630]

As the Alliance CDs are pretty short, I'd be more in favor of giving the alacrity to Vindicator. After all the crap changes, I have to admit I'm starting to get fed up with revenant, even though it was love at first sight, so to speak.

Edited March 21 by Angesombre.4630

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

21 minutes ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

As the Alliance CDs are pretty short, I'd be more in favor of giving the alacrity to Vindicator. After all the crap changes, I have to admit I'm starting to get fed up with revenant, even though it was love at first sight, so to speak.

There's a reason I am curently playing Chrono to heal. Herald is boring and not a good healer (only really good if it's stuff that doesn't need major healing to begin with), just a great boon stick. Renegade is a mess, and vindi is an awesome healer but good luck getting anyone to let you heal as a vindi in strikes, fractals or raids since you don't bring adequate boon support (and I love playing as Vindi I miss it but I prefer being a healer not a dime a dozen DPS).

I chose quickness for vindi because of the whole get into fights and rage thing, but I am on the idea that renegade should be more DPS focused now and the vindicator should be alac, but then that should probably mean changing how the alac would be applied in that instance. I think part of renegades problem is, unlike most alac appliers, renegade always has it which, by their designs, greatly impacts how the base DPS should be affected (never mind the really gross energy costs of using Kalla).

Edited March 21 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Angesombre.4630]

He could have put it on "Energy Meld", that would have given it a purpose.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

Yes, could do that, but would you then tie it to Song of Arboreum (since it makes the most sense) or keep it applied to the grandmaster traits? I think leaving it attached to the grandmaster would be a way to solve this but the time on energy meld of 20 seconds I think there would need to be an alternative way to also apply baby alac, like the mechanist has as well. Though if I am being real, that feels really janky in set up, much like Orders from Above for Kalla does. Why I gave up on quick scrapper because it's so janky to do decently.

Edited March 21 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Angesombre.4630]

Yes, in relation to a line.

Since they also modified the scrapper, yes, it's a pain too, I don't understand their "fun" ideas or not.

Edited March 21 by Angesombre.4630

[Octavice.5019]

16 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

vindi is an awesome healer but good luck getting anyone to let you heal as a vindi in strikes, fractals or raids since you don't bring adequate boon support

Holy hell yup. I'm totally into Vindi healing, but 100% what you've said is true, it hurts that they've completely ignored half of the spec. I get that some might be worried of Vindi dps turning into potential juggernauts/tanks in some modes, but at that point you'd just have the skills more drastically tuned for healing power (lower base but higher healing power multiplier).
Alac feels like a better choice, and I wouldn't mind if it means we get our CD's increased because of it, but at this rate i'll take either.

Urn also feels incredibly bad to use considering the boons you get, for the duration, and the HP you have to be at to achieve it. I would almost prefer Urn to pulse Barrier instead of healing, and make it cost health that bypasses shield. The rest of the kit feels good, its just the lack of important boons and the elite that does nothing to encourage players to play with its mechanic.
 

Edited March 21 by Octavice.5019

[Angesombre.4630]

The Forced Engagement nerf is also not just for Vindicator, but it's an absurdity because other skills do it better and on several targets. The worst is the envouteur grapple with the Into the Void focur because it has a range of 600 with a radius of 600. There's no better grapple for me than that because you don't even need to target.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

2 hours ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

The Forced Engagement nerf is also not just for Vindicator, but it's an absurdity because other skills do it better and on several targets. The worst is the envouteur grapple with the Into the Void focur because it has a range of 600 with a radius of 600. There's no better grapple for me than that because you don't even need to target.

I mean I understand why it was nerfed, was a bit ridiculous with that much area CC, but at the same time doesn't feel they compensated it nor does it seem to "taunt" anything like the tin says. The only time I really used dwarf is in fights where having steady stability was more important than having Shiro or Ventari. Of course I imagine if Vindi got a decent boon heal setup, dwarf would probably be the off pick instead of Ventari outside of select fights, like Boneskinner which that barrier is quite useful for.

[Yasai.3549]

They really should have planned Vindicator a little clearer as to what made them unique over the other specs or builds. Dodge is just uninteresting and shouldn't have been what made Vindicator's trademark, but that was fine for awhile because Dodge was very powerful. Now they're hammering Dodge's utility down, making the only point of running Vindicator being the Alliance stance or being a Death Drop user. 

Of all the EoD Especs, Vindicator literally felt like "Core Plus" to me, with a majority of their uniqueness tied to Alliance Stance. If people could use Alliance stance out of Vindicator, no one is gonna use Vindicator, I can assure you. 

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

2 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

They really should have planned Vindicator a little clearer as to what made them unique over the other specs or builds. Dodge is just uninteresting and shouldn't have been what made Vindicator's trademark, but that was fine for awhile because Dodge was very powerful. Now they're hammering Dodge's utility down, making the only point of running Vindicator being the Alliance stance or being a Death Drop user. 

Of all the EoD Especs, Vindicator literally felt like "Core Plus" to me, with a majority of their uniqueness tied to Alliance Stance. If people could use Alliance stance out of Vindicator, no one is gonna use Vindicator, I can assure you. 

Considering most people don't get that dodge on vindicator is an attack and not really a dodge, says a lot in general. You would think people would realize that since the leap attack does not get a small burst of speed like normal dodge's get, or even mirage's using their dodge mechanic change. Though I do like watching someone desperately spamming leaps to try and get out of death circles.

Nomad's Advance and Battle Dance are the dodge's of the spec at that point, and can also charitably say Phantom's Onslaught can also be considered a dodge.

That being said, the problem is that vindicator is well defined; if you are playing DPS. But the zu Heltzer stance is basically being neglected or has been getting nerfed due to the simple fact of the ability to swap. However, you can't even call it DPS support because it offers no boon support ability even before all these nerfs came down. At the best of times zu Heltzer could be used as an emergency healer in bad group comps, which I've done in the past, but in most decent groups this will not really be needed. I know in PvP and somewhat in WvW, a vindicator can be more useful as a healer, though WvW it's falling off thanks to the boonball meta which heal vindicator cannot really participate in.

If you get the rhythm down you can survive practically anything with vindicator in melee, which is often baffling to me that anyone says the vindicator can't do anything at ranged. Outside of a few mechanics in certain boss fights, you don't really need to worry about getting out of melee, and in those cases we got shortbow (which is really good on vindicator ironically) and now a buffed up hammer which is getting better for being at range. Hell certain mechanics I boost my DPS for a bit thanks to Imperial Guard.

I don't consider vindicator ill defined, I consider half the spec being neglected because ANet seems to be trying to stick to this one spec for quick one for alac and a pure DPS spec thing going on, but it's not working, not in the slightest. Poor Renegade is suffering because, unlike other specs that need to use a trait to unlock Alac, Renegade has it on call no matter what and thus the entire spec has its damage determined by the simple fact it can keep calling on alac. This is why I am open to the idea that maybe they should take alac away from renegade and stop trying to pidgeon it in this weird position and make it a hard DPS spec now, and give alac to vindicator then.

Edited March 23 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Yasai.3549]

58 minutes ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

Considering most people don't get that dodge on vindicator is an attack and not really a dodge, says a lot in general. You would think people would realize that since the leap attack does not get a small burst of speed like normal dodge's get, or even mirage's using their dodge mechanic change. Though I do like watching someone desperately spamming leaps to try and get out of death circles.

Nomad's Advance and Battle Dance are the dodge's of the spec at that point, and can also charitably say Phantom's Onslaught can also be considered a dodge.

That being said, the problem is that vindicator is well defined; if you are playing DPS. But the zu Heltzer stance is basically being neglected or has been getting nerfed due to the simple fact of the ability to swap. However, you can't even call it DPS support because it offers no boon support ability even before all these nerfs came down. At the best of times zu Heltzer could be used as an emergency healer in bad group comps, which I've done in the past, but in most decent groups this will not really be needed. I know in PvP and somewhat in WvW, a vindicator can be more useful as a healer, though WvW it's falling off thanks to the boonball meta which heal vindicator cannot really participate in.

If you get the rhythm down you can survive practically anything with vindicator in melee, which is often baffling to me that anyone says the vindicator can't do anything at ranged. Outside of a few mechanics in certain boss fights, you don't really need to worry about getting out of melee, and in those cases we got shortbow (which is really good on vindicator ironically) and now a buffed up hammer which is getting better for being at range. Hell certain mechanics I boost my DPS for a bit thanks to Imperial Guard.

I don't consider vindicator ill defined, I consider half the spec being neglected because ANet seems to be trying to stick to this one spec for quick one for alac and a pure DPS spec thing going on, but it's not working, not in the slightest. Poor Renegade is suffering because, unlike other specs that need to use a trait to unlock Alac, Renegade has it on call no matter what and thus the entire spec has its damage determined by the simple fact it can keep calling on alac. This is why I am open to the idea that maybe they should take alac away from renegade and stop trying to pidgeon it in this weird position and make it a hard DPS spec now, and give alac to vindicator then.

I just consider it ill defined because it's characterized by something can be swapped out of the utility bar. Notice how Alliance Swap also disappears when you remove Alliance? It's because it's not a Vindicator mechanic, it's an Alliance mechanic. 

That's my problem with Vindicator: It's not really the Espec defining itself, it's the utilities you gain access to defining the Espec. And I really do not consider having funky dodge as having a strongly defined identity. And as I've mentioned, they keep nerfing the dodge too. So what's really left is just Death Drop keeping Vindicator as an option and this is after Anet's heavy tampering. It just feels bad to be pigeon holed into "using dodge as an attack" because all other options were nerfed. 

 

[Aeolus.3615]

On 3/21/2024 at 5:55 AM, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

There's a reason I am curently playing Chrono to heal. Herald is boring and not a good healer (only really good if it's stuff that doesn't need major healing to begin with), just a great boon stick. Renegade is a mess, and vindi is an awesome healer but good luck getting anyone to let you heal as a vindi in strikes, fractals or raids since you don't bring adequate boon support (and I love playing as Vindi I miss it but I prefer being a healer not a dime a dozen DPS).

I chose quickness for vindi because of the whole get into fights and rage thing, but I am on the idea that renegade should be more DPS focused now and the vindicator should be alac, but then that should probably mean changing how the alac would be applied in that instance. I think part of renegades problem is, unlike most alac appliers, renegade always has it which, by their designs, greatly impacts how the base DPS should be affected (never mind the really gross energy costs of using Kalla).

Herald suport build can be decent depending the situation but it is very very situational, it cathes 1 or 2 spikes but that's all and it is the easiest support to get killed.

Edited March 23 by Aeolus.3615

[Angesombre.4630]

As far as I'm concerned, the forced change of "Energy Meld" has already broken vindicator's entire mechanism. They could have made mechanics like "Song of arboreum" before November 28, 2023. Since they changed, it's gotten worse and worse for me. So obviously this is just my opinion, but I'd prefer it the way it was before. As for the other 2 features, they had to be changed for sure. Not to mention the constant nerves that become really heavy. If you've got a person who gives you vigor, you can get away with it, even if I hardly use it anymore. I can't take as much pleasure in it now, even if it's still "good".

And the GS I find lacks a bit of impact from its big nerve.

I don't even know if "Sermon of the Redeemer" is used much?

The thing that annoys me the most about revenant is the 1s buff with certain traits I don't even understand the point of.

When I compare a bit with Daredevil, there's really 1 or even 2 traits that have to do with specialization: the first is the baton and the other is physical skills. The others are based on dodging and general thief mechanics.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

1 hour ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

As far as I'm concerned, the forced change of "Energy Meld" has already broken vindicator's entire mechanism. They could have made mechanics like "Song of arboreum" before November 28, 2023. Since they changed, it's gotten worse and worse for me. So obviously this is just my opinion, but I'd prefer it the way it was before. As for the other 2 features, they had to be changed for sure. Not to mention the constant nerves that become really heavy. If you've got a person who gives you vigor, you can get away with it, even if I hardly use it anymore. I can't take as much pleasure in it now, even if it's still "good".

And the GS I find lacks a bit of impact from its big nerve.

I don't even know if "Sermon of the Redeemer" is used much?

The thing that annoys me the most about revenant is the 1s buff with certain traits I don't even understand the point of.

When I compare a bit with Daredevil, there's really 1 or even 2 traits that have to do with specialization: the first is the baton and the other is physical skills. The others are based on dodging and general thief mechanics.

Vigor I always found to be amusing since in a decently maintained rotation, a vindicator is self sustaining. With Scavenger's Burst and decent rotation you are pretty able to spam leaps in a decent rotation with your only downtime being when you legend swap out of the alliance to maintain decent DPS. As far as energy meld changes, I mean I never used energy meld before, now I have a reason to, namely to boost my damage even more as pure DPS, and if I was able to support provide vigor, which is another boon wanted by heal support at the least. I am sure in PvP this is a different story, but honestly what was offered before in the master line was just garbage anyways, the new line is better.

Edited March 23 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Yasai.3549]

2 hours ago, Angesombre.4630 said:

As far as I'm concerned, the forced change of "Energy Meld" has already broken vindicator's entire mechanism. They could have made mechanics like "Song of arboreum" before November 28, 2023. Since they changed, it's gotten worse and worse for me. So obviously this is just my opinion, but I'd prefer it the way it was before. As for the other 2 features, they had to be changed for sure. Not to mention the constant nerves that become really heavy. If you've got a person who gives you vigor, you can get away with it, even if I hardly use it anymore. I can't take as much pleasure in it now, even if it's still "good".

And the GS I find lacks a bit of impact from its big nerve.

I don't even know if "Sermon of the Redeemer" is used much?

The thing that annoys me the most about revenant is the 1s buff with certain traits I don't even understand the point of.

When I compare a bit with Daredevil, there's really 1 or even 2 traits that have to do with specialization: the first is the baton and the other is physical skills. The others are based on dodging and general thief mechanics.

Glad you mentioned DD because it's another thing to look at comparing Dodge Especs. We're gonna bring in Mirage as well btw.

DD has a unique dodge and +1 Endurance bar but what really makes them different is that the 3 GMs give different dodges. Now that's huge because you suddenly unlock 3 different functioning playstyles with the Espec. One for good mobility, one for oppressive damage, one for Condition pressure.

Mirage has only 1 type of unique dodge but do you know what they have that works on that dodge? 7 different Ambushes in which up to 2 can be equipped at once. 

Suddenly, Vindicator feels super shortchanged with their Dodge staying the same but just different properties. It was fine because the dodge was just really powerful but then these nerfs again hammer it down to the point it's clearly a weak link in what makes Vindicator Vindicator.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

4 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Glad you mentioned DD because it's another thing to look at comparing Dodge Especs. We're gonna bring in Mirage as well btw.

DD has a unique dodge and +1 Endurance bar but what really makes them different is that the 3 GMs give different dodges. Now that's huge because you suddenly unlock 3 different functioning playstyles with the Espec. One for good mobility, one for oppressive damage, one for Condition pressure.

Mirage has only 1 type of unique dodge but do you know what they have that works on that dodge? 7 different Ambushes in which up to 2 can be equipped at once. 

Suddenly, Vindicator feels super shortchanged with their Dodge staying the same but just different properties. It was fine because the dodge was just really powerful but then these nerfs again hammer it down to the point it's clearly a weak link in what makes Vindicator Vindicator.

Except, again, if you are playing vindicator you can essentially give yourself near endless endurance, and mirage dodge might get ambushes but a majority of those are just condition based, and in order to make one of those ambushes really good you need to take one trait in the line. I don't have much experience with thief so I don't know if the daredevil dodge actually does anything beyond dodging so I am not going to comment on that.

Since I do play a mesmer I can easily say you're definitely playing the "grass is greener" card quite well since Mirage isn't in a good spot at the moment, especially comparing to vindicator. Most of their utilities are ignored outright in most builds, sometimes taking one and what is taken has long cooldowns, definitely compared to the vindicator who has short cooldowns and some of the cheapest energy costs on revenants so maintaining high endurance for leaps is child's play. The one thing that Mirage could have brought, alac DPS, is overshadowed by chronomancer DPS now. It also doesn't help that Mirage is so heavily focused on condition damage so if you try to power build to take advantage of that greatsword, you are not actually helping your DPS.

I can also say which is more fun to in the end. While I like the concept of the mirage it just isn't in a good spot, never mind ax itself works against it, meanwhile Vindicator is buckets of fun. In the end, while I think vindicator needs more, at least in the range of support, I think you are trying to put in problems that don't really exist for vindicator.

Edited March 24 by Ravenwulfe.5360

[Angesombre.4630]

I'm not an expert on thieves, but in addition to these 3 dodges, he has mobility, stealth and other dodges, for example with the 3 D/D skill.

He also has traits for vigor.

Minor Master, Feline Grace, Gain vigor upon successfully evading an attack. "Similar a Relic of Evasion"

Hard to Catch Gain endurance when you shadowstep.

And on the daredevil he has 1 to 3 traits to regen stamina.

And I couldn't see more the wiki screwed up.

Without energy cachet and Relic of Evasion.

Edited March 24 by Angesombre.4630

[Manpag.6421]

21 hours ago, Ravenwulfe.5360 said:

You would think people would realize that since the leap attack does not get a small burst of speed like normal dodge's get

It does still get a very small burst of speed. I found that out by accident during Lunar New Year when I was doing the Festival Footrace achievement and using the old Imperial Impact to extend alacrity while having Speedometer running. My running speed increased slightly during each dodge.

It’s not much, and certainly not enough to get you out of most AoEs, but it’s not nothing. It’s why I stay in Archemorus most of the time, because Nomad’s Advance is a pretty good replacement dodge for getting you physically away from the source of damage, while I actually prefer the evading-while-standing-still behaviour to regular dodges.

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

2 hours ago, Manpag.6421 said:

It does still get a very small burst of speed. I found that out by accident during Lunar New Year when I was doing the Festival Footrace achievement and using the old Imperial Impact to extend alacrity while having Speedometer running. My running speed increased slightly during each dodge.

It’s not much, and certainly not enough to get you out of most AoEs, but it’s not nothing. It’s why I stay in Archemorus most of the time, because Nomad’s Advance is a pretty good replacement dodge for getting you physically away from the source of damage, while I actually prefer the evading-while-standing-still behaviour to regular dodges.

If there is a burst of speed it is very negligible, imperceptibly so. But I will take your word for it.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Vindi should get a normal dodge. Its a gimmick class that never should have existed.

[Angesombre.4630]

Anet should stop massacring it.

[arazoth.7290]

2 hours ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

Vindi should get a normal dodge. Its a gimmick class that never should have existed.

back to pvp forums 😂

[Ravenwulfe.5360]

Hrmm well if it's a gimmick class, I certainly love it. So good gimmick class.

Edited March 25 by Ravenwulfe.5360