I’ve been a VIM user for a few years and I’m also using the IdeaVim plugin in IntelliJ. The following configuration and features helped me a lot.

• You can configure the same keymappings that you have in your regular VIM in the ~/.ideavimrc file.
• Setting idearefactormode to keep makes the behavior of refactorings such as renamings more deterministic.
• In a dialog hitting <Esc> won’t work since it closes the dialog, but if your cursor is caught in selection mode, pressing Ctrl+] works without moving your hands off the home row.
• The GitHub repository provides helpful guidance on configuration and which features are supported.
• The ideajoin mode is a nice feature that can “smart-join” strings, control structures, and others.

This is how ideajoin works, when joining with Shift+J:

You can find my .ideavimrc config file in my Dotfiles on GitHub.