Go ahead V mains, make fun of me. But regardless, I just never have fun when playing against Vindicta players. On paper, I kind of get the design- V's a high-damage, low health character, like scout from tf2. But unfortunately, once you through in the long-range component, Vindicta becomes insufferable to fight against.
She's meant to be insufferable from long range that's the entire identity of sniper characters. Every hero has an optimal position to be in and Vindicta being a sniper makes complete sense to have her optimal positioning be as far away from you as she can while still outputting damage. Though I get where you're coming from with the TF2 comparison, even if you were to compare her to her actual closest counterpart, Sniper, the two have a lot of differences. Sniper has no damage fall-off and genuinely just wants to be as far away from you as possible, while Vindicta, even with her long range weapon items, still suffers greatly from damage fall-off. This makes a mid-range of 30 - 45 meters away from an opponent the ideal distance for her to be before her damage starts becoming really crippled.
Every confrontation always begins with the enemy Vindicta throwing out flight, getting free higher ground and distance (which is incredibly powerful for a long-range class) leading to heroes made for more up-close interactions have absolutely no way to counter her. Flight's maneuverability means that the V player can just dodge most projectiles (and completely nullifies any that can't be fired mid-air, like dynamo shockwave) and they are always out of range for close-range abilities.
Vindicta being a sniper archetype and having such a powerful tool to gain both distance and invalidate sight blockers is indeed incredibly powerful for a long range class, but this kind of design pattern is very clearly followed in every other hero in the game. Bebop's neutral sucks so he gets a giant space controlling laser for an ultimate. Warden can't handle being dove so he gets to hit 4 and turn the fight. It's hard for Haze to find an angle in chaotic teamfights so she gets to lurk on the edges with near-permanent invisibility and jump in at an opportune time. Deadlock heroes that put more eggs into one basket are given tools around their blatant weaknesses to compensate. Think of it like this. Without flight, Vindicta just...kinda sucks. Her stake is only good against divers who actually need to close the distance, and she can't lob it very easily to catch someone out without higher ground giving her that extra ballistic arc range. Her crow is. Yeah. Self-explanatory. Her ultimate is also one of the few ultimates in the game that has a strict condition on its effectiveness.
But so what if she's bad without flight, she's busted because she HAS flight right? The problem is, when so much of a hero's agency is put into one ability, it also becomes a target for many opponents either through itemization or coordination. I'm sure as the game progresses, calling out Vindicta's flight cooldown or usage will be mandatory to coordinate a takedown on her as soon as she touches the ground again. People will buy knockdown or curse to keep her grounded. There are many answers to this ability, and the fact that it's so powerful and important is also a weakness in that regard.
Ok, you can counter it, but Vindicta can also just...counter your counters. How the hell is that fair? Ethereal shift shits on knockdown. Unstoppable says no to everything. Superior Duration and Cooldown turns you into a bird migrating north. All of these items cost valuable souls, and the difference between the souls that Vindicta has to spend to retain her flight pulls from a very different budget than the souls that the enemy has to spend to apply pressure to flight. For example, if a Vindicta is ahead and demands attention, any of the 6 teammates on the enemy team can decide who can fit a knockdown best into their build, while Vindicta is forced to delay her valuable damage or utility powerspikes to specifically counter that item. An item like Knockdown or Curse still retains value even if the opponent isn't fighting Vindicta specifically, and while you could argue the same for Vindicta's counter items, she can only make use of these items reactively and cannot use them to snowball an advantage state like Knockdown or Curse can. Basically, proactive items that are bought to counter certain abilities usually have more use cases than reactive items, which make them more valuable buys in most situations. Small economy shifts add up, and these small details can sometimes end up shifting teamfights.
This ends up encouraging a playstyle where vindicta players run away if they fail to kill their opponents. This ends up giving them enough time to recharge their abilities, and whoops! you just restart the whole thing over again. In TF2, you at least have the guarentee that you can change up your strategy to counter sniper by virtue of either using different cover or just changing your class. In deadlock, Vindicta can negate the concept of cover with the press of a button and if your hero's toolset isn't equipped to deal with her, you can't change that.
Assuming you're using at least half the airtime of your flight to try and kill someone, once that ends, Vindicta only has stake and her 2 measly stamina bars to run from you. If she is able to get away from other heroes that are more often than not better equipped to catch her than she is to escape them, then she should 100% get rewarded with another window of uptime to contribute some value. Roofs also exist in a lot of places in Deadlock, and of course fighting a sniper in an open area is a death sentence as much as fighting an Abrams in a 2x4 new york apartment is a death sentence. Your hero might be directly countered by Vindicta, but Deadlock still gives you avenues of counterplay. First of all being the fact that you have have 5 other teammates. Sometimes the correct play is to just not engage or interact at all, and rotating to lanes where Vindicta isn't present can let heroes that are better equipped to deal with her match her pushes or contest her objective pressure. Items are also universal to each hero. If a Vindicta is really giving you trouble, you're able to force her to react to your item purchases or be useless.
Again, I'm not a mod, I'm just steering people who want to give their feedback to the place it has the best chance of being seen. Nothing more.
