Vindicator - Defensive Power Vindi Roamer - MetaBattle

Skill References and Alternatives

Skill Variants

Weapons

Spear is a versatile midrange AoE weapon introduced in the Janthir Wilds expansion with medium damage but plenty of utility value in the form of CC, evade frame and healing reduction via . However it's not the only viable option:

Hammer - good mix of ranged damage and survivability, but it's quite a slow and telegraphed weapon. Still a solid pick especially if you want something a bit more defensive.
Shortbow - purely an offensive set, Shortbow offers very little in terms of defense. While it has the highest burst damage of the 3, it's also heavily reliant on projectiles. Unlike Spear, the skills on SB also require you to face your target, which makes it harder to use this weapon while you're being pressured and need to kite.

特性

救赎

唤魂

裁决者

惩戒

General

Invoking a legend resets energy to 50 (potentially 75 if traited), removes 1 condition, and could even trigger the sigils of your active weapon set (if they are not on CD) among other things. Swapping legends is basically the main resource management tool in the build - swap whenever you're out of CDs, low on energy, or need to cleanse.
活力涌流 allows for easy permanent 迅捷 uptime.
Dodging removes 1 condition via 避开否决. This is your primary line of defense against conditions.
不屈奉献 provides damage mitigation for a short while after you're healed. Ideally you should have permanent uptime, 活力涌流 and the Holo cake consumables could help with that.

Shiro

附魔匕首 is a skill with life steal, which means the damage it deals bypasses any damage mitigation including 保护 or even 痛苦忍耐. That being said it still can't go through evasion or invulnerabilities such as 失真.
压倒优势 can augment any skill and increase your damage output significantly while active. It's quite expensive though, so don't maintain it for more than a few seconds at a time, use it only for bursts. Note that it's only single target damage, doesn't cleave.
- Always stop maintaining this skill if you're about to hit 0 energy - turning it off sends it on a 1 second CD while running out of energy results in a 4 second CD.
位面穿行 is great for initiating fights from range and immediately starting off with 急速 coupled with unblockable attacks. Quickness can be used to do burst damage or cleave downed targets better through auto attacking, while the unblockable attacks could seal the fate of enemies relying on blocking as their last resource option for sustain.
翠玉风暴 won't be used often because it exhausts most of your energy pool, leaving you defenseless and with barely anything to capitalize on the CC. This should only be used to set up kills for your teammates, or to interrupt very important channels like a rez or a stomp.

Weapons and damage

and are great AoE skills, but the latter deals more damage against single targets. Use these on CD.
Archemorus in a way acts as your 3rd offensive set.
and add a bit of extra reach if you're on GS or out of shortbow CDs. The Spear has a huge delay so you could even precast it in a fight and line it up with other damage sources for burst damage, or burst targets while the spear is charging which forces them to choose between using their defensives to avoid the spear or your other attacks.
- Swapping legends doesn't cancel .
- applies which makes it a great setup skill for GS burst combos or it could speed up your attacks when you need downed cleave.
does a lot of damage on a very short CD, if your weapon skills are spent then this is a solid option for pressuring targets at a reasonable energy cost. Being a mobility tool is a nice added bonus and makes it more versatile.

Spear

The spear autoattack automatically flips between melee and ranged versions depending on your distance to the target.
Spear is built around (AR).
- The skill becomes more powerful the more you use it (you can see the stacks above the right side if your skill bar), and swapping weapons at 3 stacks of AR does an AoE attack.
- It has multiple charges and you should never sit at max charges for too long, so keep using this as much as possible.
- Every other Spear skill reduces its CD by a certain amount.
- It'd make sense to use this skill right as you swap to Spear so you can start reducing its CD immediately with other skills, but (for CC) and (for evasion) often end up taking priority.
- The AoE ring is small and the skill's a bit slow, so it can be hard to land on moving targets. Works great as a followup to CC though, or if you're getting attacked in melee in which case the enemy isn't moving around as much.
- The weapon swap bonus at 3 stacks is more of just a nice bonus. Don't camp spear just because you're chasing the 3rd stack, especially if you're out of CDs or getting focused by multiple roamers.
is the strongest skill on spear, delivering heavy AoE damage while also CCing targets and enabling you to land other skills freely. Makes it much easier to land AR too.
does decent damage and also recharges AR by a significant amount, use it whenever it's available but make sure that you're missing an AR charge.
is a skill with evasion and should be kept for defensive purposes.

Sustain

Greatsword is the more defensive of the 2 sets.
is great for blocking attacks under pressure and could be used not only as a gap closer but also a gap builder (just make sure you don't have an enemy targeted).
The Kurzick (blue) side of is your defensive legend, atlhough both the Luxon side and Shiro have some great defensive skills too.
is your mass cleanse and basically a 4th healing skill on the build because of how much it heals for each condition that's removed.
Both legendary stances have access to an evade skill: on alliance stance and on Shiro. If you have energy but not endurance to dode then these are great options for avoiding damage. While Battle Dance doesn't directly remove movement impairing conditions (unlike Riposting Shadows) it does give you - it can be used while d so you'll be able to move freely after the evade frame.
The best defensive skill is actually found on the most offensive legend: the Luxon skill is always useful. The can stop incoming burst attempts while the makes it easier to get a full channel of your heal off. It even breaks stun and does decent damage.
If you're low on health it's common practice to use both and back-to-back, especially after Reaver's Rage for .
is good for surviving heavy incoming damage if you have no other way to avoid it. It offers strong mitigation but also drains your HP and makes it so you won't be able to heal yourself, so don't maintain it for long. Only use it briefly, and rarely.