EDIT 22/04/2019Well, I've been back in the world of Vindictus for almost a month now. So much has changed and the game has finally gotten over the rough patch caused when all the old content was gutted but there was nothing new to take it's place. Vella got a revamp which changed a lot about her playstyle and really closed to gap between the lesser skilled players and those with a lot more skill and experience, although the gap is still there, it has just shifted slightly. Also, the forum finally seems to have gotten some level of formatting, though it seems rather complex and I haven't really dove into it yet. Although I may need a bit of help reformatting it, (hell, chances are I'll probably end up making a giant google document instead) I plan on updating and revamping this guide to reflect all the changes that have happen and the current state of TS Vella since I'm going to have a lot of spare time over the next few weeks due to some upcoming ankle surgery. I'm still relearning the character, but I'm excited about the future
And excited to hear back from all of my old TS Vella friends
Twin Sword Vella's Skills.
To start us off, I'll explain some things that you really need to understand properly about Vella's skills in order to become a flexible and powerful Sword Vella. The key is to not only know what you must do, but to understand why you must do it.
Blade Heart
This buff is gained by hitting an enemy with any of Vella L normal or R smash attacks. Managing this buff well can increase your overall damage output by a large amount, as well as making Vella that little bit easier to use. Getting hit by any attack will take this buff down by a single level.
In total, Vella needs to connect a total of 15 separate hits in order to reach the final level of the Blade Heart buff.
The Blade Heart buff has three levels of power.The first is gained when Vella connects but a single attack and is the weakest form of the buff. Although it provides only a small increase in damage, it will allow you to pass through opponents when using Cross-cut and offer full invulnerability when doing so, as well as giving a rather large damage boost to the counter.
The second is gained after an additional 6 hits and, as well as further increasing the power of Vella's smashes and counter-attacks, allows her to use less stamina up when using a counter.
The third and final stage of the buff is gained after an additional 8 hits when in the second stage and offers further increases to Vella's abilities. Again, it will increase the power of her smashes and counter-attacks and, as an added bonus, reduce the stamina cost of Cross-Cut to zero.
The most important things to understand about Blade Heart is that, firstly, the higher the level you build before a counter, the less stamina that counter will take up.
Secondly, the higher your level of Blade Heart, the more SP you will gain from Cross-Cut and Double-Cross.
Utilizing this buff properly in terms of stamina and SP management is key to dealing as much damage as possible whilst keeping yourself safe from harm.
Wind Step
Twin Sword Vella's dodge. The invulnerability frames on this dodge are absolutely insane, coming in at a whopping 0.8 seconds. That's the length of time from activation where she is completely invulnerable to any sort of damage.
Whilst the movement from this dodge isn't the best in the game, it is still fairly good and, add in the fact that she can use her 2-hit smash straight from it, is a big part of maximizing your overall damage output and survivability
The true strength in Wind Step lies in the invulnerability frames. These can be timed and used to dodge most attacks in the game, easily filling in for when a boss throws an attack your way which can't be avoided by either running or using Cross-Cut.
A good example for this are the large flame circles that the raid boss 'Pantheum' can call forth when in his fire mode. When surrounded by multiple circles, it is very easy to simply time a Wind Step and use the invulnerability frames to completely avoid damage.
Using this technique to avoid getting hit around bosses, it is possible for Vella to stay within a very close proximity whilst staying completely safe, thus further increasing your overall damage output.
Slashing High
An SP skill that is not unique to Twin Sword Vella, but is a massive part of her gameplay. Slashing High offers an increase to animation speed, infinite stamina for it's duration and complete resistance to knock-down. Slashing high costs 750SP and when maxed out, lasts for 19 seconds whilst providing a 20% increase to animation speed. I'll go over these 3 attributes below.
Animation speed increase - What's important is to realize how this is different from attack speed. Each point in attack speed will increase your hidden base speed, which starts out at 100, by 0.5%. This stat will only increase how fast you swing your weapon and nothing else.
An increase in animation speed will boost the speed of
every single action. This includes potion drinking, using feathers, armor repair kits and extends right through to your base running speed, dodge speed and yes, attack speed included.
At +0 attack speed, a maxed out slashing high will give you a 20% increase on the natural hidden 100 base, totaling to a +40 increase. What makes animation speed so special when it comes to attack speed is that it will also give that 20% buff to any additional speed that you have stacked from enhanced weapons and enchant scrolls.
I'm not going to go into any boring math, but in conclusion, the higher your attack speed stat, the greater the attack speed boost you will receive when Slashing High is active.
Infinite stamina - Aah, what really makes this skill to die for. Twin Sword Vella eats stamina like a fat kid eats cake. She needs a lot of it and can easily consume your full bar without thinking. To counter this, there is Slashing High.
For the full duration of the skill, Vella will be constantly at full stamina, meaning that you can spam smashes and level 1 Blade Heart Cross-Cuts to your heart's content whilst never worrying about Vella becoming tired. When used correctly, it is not hard to regain the full 750SP cost back by the time slashing high has run out and you are starting to run low on stamina again, at which point you can reactivate the skill and let the frenzy continue.
Knock-down resistance - Both a blessing and a curse. During Slashing High, Vella will take full damage from all incoming attacks but will be unable to be knocked down, which also includes standing endurance not activating at all.
This little attribute can easily cause you to take far more damage from certain attacks that usually would have knocked you down, thus rendering you invulnerable, by keeping you on your feet and allowing attacks to hit you multiple times (if they are able to do so in the first place, of course).
Whilst not being so bad if you have decent defence, this can be disastrous in raids like Iset, Havan and Siglint, where getting caught in a multi-hitting AOE attack can cause you to be hit for
massive damage.
Of course, this only matters if you get hit by those attacks, so you should always be very aware and careful when Slashing High is active.
Kommentare
Typhoon Slash
Often overlooked, this skill was changed slightly in the revamp. Although it still works in the old fashion when used directly from a quick-slot (not recommended to use in raids), how it works when done from her LRR combo got updated.When using the LRR method, the pulling effect is skipped and she goes straight into the attack. As an added bonus, the SP cost is halved, meaning that it only costs 125SP. To activate it this way, you must first use LR, and then once the animation is close to finishing, hit and hold the second R until Typhoon Slash activates. if you try to activate Typhoon Slash too early, the game will bug and Vella will jump whilst still using up the SP, essentially wasting it.
Other added bonuses include the ability to chain in Vella's final smashes when activating it from the combo, as well as Typhoon Slash in itself having 0 stamina cost. Add all of this together and Vella is pumping out a ton of damage.
This combo is best used on sandbag monsters in general where Slashing High and Sword's Will won't really do much, as Typhoon Slash in itself is easily Vella's highest hitting attack, with her able to crit for over 20k in total spread over the 2 hits (when capped on attack and a maxed out skill rank).
Tempest
Twin Sword Vella's 750SP boss stun skill. When it hits a boss, it will lock them down for several seconds whilst Vella's gets to be all fancy and do her thing, giving your party members time to just go ham.Although the cost of this skill may be 750SP, you can easily use Wind Rider to gain some SP back before using it, as the skill itself causes enough hits to grant you full Blade Heart again by the end of it, causing the typical cost to be closer to 500SP.
Now, there will be reasons why you'll need to save up SP to use this one every now and then, such as for cancelling Ulchas' heal, but instantly going for this skill isn't always the best option. Using Tempest means that you won't really be able to use another SP skill for quite some time, which can often render a you useless, as you'll quickly burn through your stamina and you don't have the SP to activate Sword's Will or Slashing High counteract it. This is a rather selfish way of playing, but if you don't find the idea of sacrificing your gameplay for the parties benefit then that's your own choice.
Of course, there will be times when this skill is clearly a better choice, such as when your party members are a lot stronger than you and will cause a ton of damage during the stun, far out-weighing the damage you'd cause just by having your other skills active. On the other hand, there will also be times where it can slow down a party, since the opposite situation is possible, where you have the high stats and your party are rather low.
Just use your intuition on this one if you're going for efficiency. Otherwise, just do whatever you want, really. It's your choice as the player.
Berserker
A pretty standard skill. 250SP for a one-minute buff of 540 attack. Not really many reasons you should be using this, since most of Vella's SP goes right into Slashing High or Sword's Will and you should be attack capped on all of the content you're doing. It's out-dated, best to throw it on an alternate hotbar and forget it existsTwin Sword Vella's Combos
For this section, I'll be covering the basic L + R combos, as well as the XE move for players on the XE servers of the game.
0-Smash AKA Gust Stinger
Vella's standing smash. Low speed, only a single hit and it's rather weak. The only positive thing this skill has going for it is that, when fully charged, it instantly catapults Vella up to maximum Blade Heart level.
There is absolutely ZERO reason to ever use this in a regular battle over other smashes when the boss is actively attacking. How ever, it does have a single, very situational use against some bosses.
When an enemy is invulnerable, it is possible to time and charge up this move so that it hits the moment your opponent becomes vulnerable again. Some examples include an animation that Keaghan does in his 1st stage and Pantheum when he is either changing forms or is throwing out the homing fireballs whilst in his fire mode.
1-Smash + Typhoon Slash Combo
Vella's LR Smash was never really regarded as brilliant, since it has too much hit-drag to be thrown at bosses during small windows and it's very difficult to know just when Vella will recover and be able to Dodge or go into Cross Stance.
However, everything changed during the twin Sword revamp. Whilst the first LR part of the combo still isn't that brilliant, the hit-drag was toned down sharply and Vella was given the ability to link this combo it a much faster version of Typhoon slash with only half of the SP cost by using the command LR R(hold), essentially making this combo her damaging when the 125SP is used.
A nice little added bonus that was also introduced in the revamp is that Vella is able to link her final smashes after the Typhoon Slash part of the combo for additional damage at the cost of nothing but the usual stamina.
2-Smash + Gusty Blade
This. Right here. Vella's highest DPS without using counters or SP comes from the LLRR Gusty Blade combo. We'll talk about why it's so great, but first, clarification.
The 3 hits in the first Circle AOE smash are what I'm going to be referring to at the 2nd smash. the jumping part of the combo is what's known at Gusty Blade.
Now, onto the reasons this combo kicks butt.
Including every possible hit, this combo hits for a total of 7-8 times, giving level 3 Blade heart in time it takes you to do this combo twice. Building this buff up increases smash attack damage and greatly increases the damage of your Cross-Cuts.
The range is pretty damn good, to say the least. The first smash in the sequence hits three times in a full circle AOE that is off-set slightly to Vella's right side. The jumping part of the combo covers a good amount of distance and hits in another circle AOE, this one being perfectly centered around the impact point.
The jumping portion hits twice when positioned correctly against raid bosses. This means double the damage, double the SP gain and an extra hit counted towards your Blade heart buff. Some raid bosses that can consistently be double hit include Havan and Pantheum. Dragons in a knocked down state can also be double-hit like this when aiming at a certain part of their neck. There are lots of different ways of doing it and it works in strange ways. Give it a go and see what you can do to take advantage of this.[/LIST]
The full Gusty Blade combo's recovery can be cancelled with a normal attack, meaning that it's possible to easily and quickly loop LLRR for consistent DPS.
It's possible to build up vast amounts of SP when spamming this combo against bosses. That SP can then be used for Slashing high so that you can continue the spam and make even more SP back. An endless circle of awesomeness.
The raw damage may not be the best, but it's very fast and thus wins out against all of the other basic L and R combos (That don't use SP)
Although the jump uses 16 stamina, it can be used even if Vella's stamina is below that number when you're at that part of the combo.
3-Smash AKA Wannabe Moon-Splitter
Slow, weak and should never be used. There is absolutely no situation in the entire game here you will want to use this move. There isn't even a skill to boost it's already low damage. No special effects of any kind either.
A waste of time. Avoid like the plague.
4-Smash + Menacing Gale + Deadly Storm
Although LLRR gives better movement, damage and build SP faster, these smashes still have some use in general mobbing due to being single large hits instead of a larger amount of weaker hits since there's no chance of a previous hit knocking opponents down and away causing the rest of the combo to miss.First of all, I want to clarify a few things about this chain of smashes.
[LIST]The first smash of the three has no name (I'll be referring to it from now at as the 4th smash), no skill to boost it's damage/KD and it's the weakest in the chain.[/LIST]
[LIST]The second smash is called Menacing Gale and has a skill that you can rank up to further increase it's damage/KD.[/LIST]
[LIST]The third and final smash is called Deadly Storm and is the strongest in the chain. This too has a skill that can be ranked up. On a side note, this smash also costs 0 stamina to use[/LIST]
Being blunt, the only reason I ever use this from normal attacks is if I'm not concentrating and accidentally use Vella's third normal. In that circumstance, it's better to just carry on and use this full combo than to use Vella's 3rd smash or simply stop to restart.
Dodge --> 2nd Smash
Although this extension from the dodge does the same damage as doing it from the usual LLRR, it's a little different, and I'm going to go over those differences here.First of all, I want to say that looping the combo from the dodge does less over-all damage than doing it from LLRR. Not only this, but looping this combo builds Blade Heart much slower because of the fewer hits compared to LLRR.
Now, onto the differences
[LIST]The smashes are slightly faster when performed from the dodge as compared to the normal attacks, although this difference is rather small[/LIST]
[LIST]Most likely due to the increased speed, the hit-box of the first three swings in the combo suffers considerably. This results in only 2/3 of the hits being consistent at higher speeds, especially true if you have Slashing High active.[/LIST]
Skill Ranking Priorities
This is a topic which I see come up a lot. Even now, with absolutely insane amount of AP thrown at everyone, people are still obsessed with making sure they make sure they use it 100% effectively from the very beginning. If you're one of those people, keep reading. If not, #yoloswag2015 go nuts.
Crucial skills for Gameplay
Things that Twin sword Vella simply cannot function without. Certain skills only gain damage when they're ranked, but these gain functionality and will drastically improve gameplay, instead of just changing a few damage numbers here and there. Rank these to where specified before moving onto anything else.
Weapon & Armor Masteries
Priority = 5/5 Increase before needed to avoid disappointmentThe last thing you want to do is leave yourself behind for your level. ALWAYS make sure you have enough AP to rank these skills when the time comes to move up to the next level of weapon and/or armor, as being behind can limit your stat potential and leave you incredibly frustrated as you try and earn the AP back to get to where you need to be.
Cross Cut
Priority = 5/5 Rank D ASAP to unlock Double Cross
Don't go leaving yourself in the dark when it comes skills as well. Prerequisite skills are very important to get as soon as possible.
Slipaway
Priority = 5/5 Rank D ASAP to unlock BacklashSame as above. Rank this up and collect your new skill as soon as you can.
Storm Step
Priority = 5/5 [I]Max out[/I]Your dodge will be one of your most important survival tools throughout the game. Especially helpful if you're unsure of boss patterns and don't feel ready to Cross Cut yet.
Slashing High
Priority = 5/5 Max outTwin Sword Vella's biggest issue aside from bugs is her stamina usage. Ranking this takes away that problem and grants her a hefty chunk of speed. The sooner you don't have to worry about stamina, the sooner you can start enjoying Vella the way she's meant to be played.
Battle Respiration
Priority = 5/5 Rank AThis skill gives big increases to stamina restoration rate up to rank A. Without it, expect slow and painful stamina recovery, and no one wants that, do they?
Tips & Tricks
Overcoming Vella's dodge bugs
As many Twin Sword Vella's will know, Vella's dodge has a ton of bugs which can cause it to just simply not work. Some of these are caused by auto-sprinting in the XE version of the game, small coding errors which aren't fully understood yet and just pure and simply, lag, both of the frames and connection variety.
As a Twin Sword Vella Main, I had to come up with a way to minimize how often my dodge would completely fail, and I believe I have come up with a solution.
When Vella's dodge is used during the recovery of certain attacks, it will never bug and fail
This means that if you are able to control Vella well enough to end up in the recovery of a certain attack before you have to dodge, that dodge will nearly always work and the bug has been thwarted!
The most reliable way I have found of using this is to dodge either
Dodge by cancelling the second normal attack in her LL attack string at any time - The most reliable
Dodge right after using her first normal L attack - Good for when you only have a split second
Dodge after the third attack of the LLL string - great for when need to delay an extra second but don't have the time for LLR
Dodge whilst in the recovery of the final hit from her LLRR smash (the dodge RR smash works too) - Not as reliable, but if you don't have time to L or LL and dodge, it's worth a shot
This method also works in reverse, as there are attacks where the dodge will just pure and simply refuse to work the majority of the time when in the recovery of sed attacks.
Cross-Cut Chaining
I already have a video prepared for this one. Titan Style! But rest assured, more boss specific techniques will come later on. I plan on fully covering raid bosses like Glas, the dragons, Keaghan, Iset, Havan and more!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0WUAl9E5JzU
Video Description
Since Vella is now able to go directly back into Cross-Stance after a Cross-Cut or Double Cross, as well as the changes to how those attacks use her Blade Heart buff, a whole new world of possibilities has opened up.
In what I'm calling Cross-Cut Chaining, Vella can use Cross-Cut, then immediately go back into Cross-Stance and again Cross-Cut whilst still in the path of an enemy or boss's attack hit-box, finally finishing off with a double cross.
Using this technique often involves aiming your first Cross-Cut precisely so that Vella is kept in the range of the enemies hit-box. As seen above, the first Cross-Cut again Titan's double-stomp attack must be directed towards the space he'll end after the first of the two attacks so that you are ready to Cross-Cut the second stomp.
What makes this technique so damaging, is that Cross-Cut has a great damage output, being around 50% stronger than double cross. When Sword's Will is activated, Cross-Cut Chaining can be utilized to bring your enemies into a world of pain.
The Jump Glitch AKA Jet Jump
Twin Sword Vella is well known for having the fastest movement in the game that can be done at any time requires nothing more than a little stamina.
To use and abuse this little glitch, you must time a jump whilst in the middle of Vella's running smash. If done correctly, Vella will zoom forward a fair distance whilst in the air. This can be repeated as often as you like at a rather quick until you eventually run out of stamina.
What makes mastering the Jet Jump so important is that you can easily use it for map specific things such as reaching the levers in Bark quickly or quickly getting to a Ballista point in Lakiora. Anything from dashing to the back of a Kraken boat to help with latchers and revive to reaching an annoying Elchulus that won't stop using his flying attacks.
It's extremely flexible, so play around with it and find your own ways of using this. Just remember to watch your stamina! Have fun practicing, guys and girls.
Cross-Cut Directioning
Since the Twin Sword Vella revamp, it is now possible to choose to direction of our first Cross-Cut instead of it aiming at the direction of the hitbox that causes it to activate. Using this, we can now control Vella with much greater ease.
The primary use of this function is make your counters more accurate. For example, when Cross-Cutting Pantheum's 3-hit scythe combo, it's very possible that, if Cross-Cut is aimed right at him, that he may then move too far away once we've passed through him for Double-Cross to hit as Pantheum will we out of range by then. Instead, Vella is now able to aim closer to where Pantheum will end up whilst still hitting him (Cross-Cut has a large hit-box) so that Double-Cross has a much higher chance of being in range.
The second use of this attack is to use our ability to control Cross-Cut to put ourselves directly into our opponents next attack hit-box. By doing this, we are then able to go back into Cross-Stance and thus chain multiple Cross-Cuts together.
I'll use Titan as an example for both of these techniques
Titan double stomp attack is very easy to Cross-Cut, but passing directly through him will cause Double-Cross to be out of range most of the time. We know that Titan's second stomp will be more-of-less right in front of him, so when Cross-Cutting the 1st stomp, we are able to aim backwards to where Titan's Second stomp will hit to ensure that Double-Cross will be completely accurate
This is where things get fancy. Instead of using Double-Cross after successfully countering the first stomp and directing yourself towards where Titan will end up, it is entirely possible to go back into Cross Stance and then Cross-Cut & Double-Cross the second hit of the attack. Chaining counters this way, what I'm calling the Triple/Quad-Cross, yields high amounts of damage and, although it can use up a lot of stamina, builds SP very quickly.
Optimal Control Settings
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/SvjuDMF.jpg[/IMG]
These are my current side options and what I recommend if you want to get the most out of your Vella. 'Always Auto-Aim Secondary Weapons' is only there to abuse bugs, so if that isn't your thing, keep it turned off.
Note that the control options on the left are entirely up to what you find most comfortable, but I'll be going through mine later on since I know some people will want to know.
Attack in Direction of Camera - Aah, this little option. I must greatly stress that if you wish to become the best Vindictus player you can be, turn this off as soon as possible. This option massive limits the control you have over your character and will inhibit your performance in both dungeons and raids.
For those who say otherwise, may I remind you that you can achieve the exact same effects of having this on by simply turning this off and holding your forward movement key. Doing this allows you to imagine you have it on as nothing will change but you will still have control of your character for when the situation calls for it.
Auto Aim - I'm a big fan of this option as it does allow a certain degree of laziness and can get rid of some of the random factor. For those who don't know, Auto Aim only works if you completely release all movement keys. Any attempt at manually aiming completely overrides this option, therefore I always recommend having this on for those situations where your camera is somewhat or completely out of line and there's a massive chance of you missing your attack if you blindly aim.
If you've ever tried to use one of the above skills when standing still, you'll notice that Vella goes into a animation for 2 seconds that cannot be cancelled, essentially leaving you complete vulnerable until it ends.
However, there's a way to get around this. If the skills are used when Vella is moving, Vella goes into a different animation that can be easily cancelled with any attack, her dodge or even Cross Stance. Using this trick enables you to apply buffs to yourself and your team instantaneously without ever putting yourself in danger.
-Note. There is currently a glitch where Vella will sometimes just stop and stand still if a buff skill is used whilst running by using the Z key. I HIGHLY recommend that each of the skills be placed on your skillbar to avoid this bug.
Question: After the most recent patch, how do you get the Berserker skill? I'm currently level 49 and it still hasn't appeared. I know its part of a quest for Lann but I haven't received anything with Vella.
EDIT - So, long story, I reopened my old guild and became an official Vindi streamer to forward my knowledge and help people through it. I have zero time remaining anymore so it look like this old guide is going to get forgotten. I just simply don't have the free time to work on it right now whilst so many other things are taking priority. Apologies, and good luck