[Rifle auto attack speed bugged or stealth nerfed (includes numbers for comparison)]

43 minutes ago, Lysico.4906 said:

I am glad it was nerfed.  Was way op’ed and you knew it was coming 

Umm but it wasn’t.  The entire power mech build was OP for sure but it was NOT rifle auto that was doing that.  The Aim-assist Rocket change was the driving force of the buff providing somewhere around 5k dps from that trait alone!  The trait it replaced was worth like 1k.  
 

I don’t dislike the mech (pet) auto being toned down in response, but the rifle auto should be reverted.  It wasn’t that good, coming in well behind bomb autos still, but finally above grenade autos which is a huge breaking point allowing the rifle auto to actually be worth using (though I think it should be closer to mortar).  This is no longer the case and now we just go back to grenade/bomb/mortar AA if we want to use rifle for it’s other skills.

[Do you like playing with Engineering Kits?]

4 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

multiple kits rather just undermines the point in kits since you just swap out, use one button then swap out which is weird and like not having kits anyway as opposed to just an additional utility button.

How?  Why would I use a hammer, an adjustable wrench, AND a screwdriver when I'm just trying to remove a screw?  Kits are a set of utilities for us to use, by having kits we get 5 (6 with toolbelt) options instead of 1.  Doesn't mean I should be using every option every time I need 1 of them.

 

Coro said it very well above.  Kits are about having on demand options to deal with situations.  Most of the time I'm using bombs for the damage, but that blind field is just amazing when you can negate the damage of an entire pack of enemies.  Every skill does have uses.

 

I do agree with your other points though and personally 2-3 kits is generally where I like it.  4 gets to be a bit much, and 5 is just silly (but I have a build with it >.<).

 

[Starting with mech heal / alac - looking for advice after playing fractals, strikes and dungeons]

1) You can solo heal a lot of content, some will be more rough, like Boneskinner, you're for sure going to need people pulling/blocking adds on that.

2) 10man content has a lot of larger enemies with bigger hitboxes, it's not uncommon to have your mech end up on the opposite side of the boss out of range and not giving you barrier/boons.  That may be what you're ran into, gotta keep an eye on the green guy.  In general, yes you have plenty of extra Alacrity. 

 

Also, I don't think Force Signet is worth it on Heal Mech, Shift on the other hand is pretty amazing. But, you're pretty free to use those utility slots as you see fit.

[can't keep perma alac]

The test room is bugged.  Use the reset stored configuration button after applying your boons at the console, that should fix it.

[Mechanist is currently destroying the game. Please consider adjusting it ASAP.]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Once soulbeast gets alac it will be able to provode alac, good dps, spirits, spotter, and stance share. 

 

It can also precast at Mistlock unlike Mechanist (Don't know why mech skills don't reset. Bug?)

 

 

Just 2 things to comment on.

 

First, Spirits are going to be changing to get the Alacrity, so I don't think it's fair to imply that spirits will still be a strength for rangers while accounting for Alacrity separately.  And, we have no idea how it will all work, so like if they end up needing 100% boon duration and 3 utility slots to upkeep Alac, SLB probably won't be a great pick, but if it needs 20% boon duration and 1 or 2 utility slots, it might be a great pick for Power Alac.

 

And then, I don't think Mech skills not resetting is a bug, just an unfortunate gap in design.  The Mistlock resets all of the player's skills, the mech commands are not our skills, they are the Mech's skills and we can't force the Mech to use the mistlock and reset them.  So it's working as intended, it just kinda sucks for us.

[Mechanist is currently destroying the game. Please consider adjusting it ASAP.]

Screw that thumbnail, it’s clickbait nonsense.  That build does 28k on the golem if you watch the video, granted it’d be like 32k with buffs on the pet.  Please don’t buy into and spread the clickbait lie.  The 38k is from the SH fight in the video which takes massive confusion damage. 
 

All that said, yeah jdrive build is broken.  I hope they just hit superconducting signet/mace and let the 3 kit jade dynamo build be competitive with the other 40k+ condi builds which there are quite a few of.

[Mechanist Questions not going by Meta]

Right now the server you are on will determine what team you’re on.  The alliance system is going to change it so you can register as a guild or just play by yourself and alliances will be created out of those guilds and solo players and what alliance you are assigned to will be your team.

 

Basically it will at the very least shake things up, and maybe open up options to better control overpopulated and underpopulated teams and the problems caused by the imbalances.

[Mechanist Questions not going by Meta]

If you’re looking for solo roaming, I’m not very good qualified.  4-5 years ago sure, but just started playing again a few months back and I hav not done too much of that.  For group play look for support scrapper on metabattle or YouTube.  Wish I could help more but I’m kinda waiting for the alliance stuff before getting back into WVW.

[Mechanist Questions not going by Meta]

Marauder is the power dps with extra health gear. Pistols are a condi primary weapon. So if you go pistols you’ll want to make sure your gear and traits support that.  Trailblazer and celestial are good gear sets for higher surviveability condi builds.  For the marauder gear you’ll want to focus more on power weapons (rifle or mace) and make sure your traits support that.   
 

i could suggest builds but sounds like you’re having fun creating your own.  Just remember to look at the skills you’re using and if their mainly condition damage applications focus on condition duration and condition damage to support the skills.  Likewise if the skills are power damage focused get your crit chance, power, and ferocity are as high as you can get them.  Crit chance also helps condi in that there are traits that apply condis on crits.

[Do engineers have anything to show for losing access to the 2nd set of sigils when in combat?]

We can trigger "on Swap" sigils without being stuck in a weapon set we might not want to be in (can just trigger and drop a kit to get the sigil effect). 

And, we also don't have to buy 4 sigils, that's a plus!

 

But, yeah it's a minor issue IMO, we can't slot a Bloodlust sigil on a weapon swap we don't really use in combat or stuff like that, but we have access to potentially 35 skills at once where most professions are at 15-20 (if you count secondary weapon), hard to complain about our weird design.

[Medkit scrapper might be one of the worst builds since... EARLY POF SCOURGE]

8 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

I'm just curious about why people come up with those kinds of numbers when they could just say "delete this build"

They need to act like they gave it some thought and it isn’t just a salty rant.

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Also completely ignoring defense field on low cd that is an absolutely massive part of making boonblobs have easy perma stability and immunity to projectiles. The actual condi cleanse is trivial in comparison to a situation where most the players in a cloud are simply unable to touch the enemy in the first place.

Cause Guardian and Revenant don’t have any projectile defense…

[20k DPS 1 button Rotation Mechanist]

16 hours ago, Sena.2761 said:

 

See that's so weird to me because as a Guardian kinda main I guess, I love Engies more.

Healmech and QB is everything I want in a comp and I trust myself as a QB a lot since I still have fantastic damage (which is great, as the fatal flaw of queuing as HB is having to rely upon PuG DPS.) and can patch up the few weaknesses Healmech have, mainly Stability, Reflects, CC, and grouping up adds. I literally queue for Healmechs for my fractals now since I consider the comp superior to the old one.

 

If anyone is out of a job it's Alacren, but at least now they're free to ditch RR, go full condi, and embrace being a Torment monster.

Very well said, and I totally agree, the hMech +qFB combo is amazing.  I'm glad you mentioned Stability though, because I see a lot of people claiming hMech has "perma stability" which is just silly because that's not how stability works (anymore).  1 CC blocked every 25s, that's what it really is, and if you time it right you can utilize Aegis as well for potentially 2 CCs dealt with every 25s.   I look at how well a guardian can trivialize fights like the Chaos Fractal boss and hMech just can't come anywhere close to that.  I'll keep my party alive on that fight no problem, but they're still going to have to dodge/deal with the daze.

[Boon Duration / Concentration goals for Quick Scrapper + Alac Mech?]

Just now, ASP.8093 said:

Thanks, Jerus, this is really helpful!

Does the Strength rune bonus apply to Might granted by the mech?

See above, I was typing that while you posted

[Boon Duration / Concentration goals for Quick Scrapper + Alac Mech?]

I do want to correct one thing.  You CAN run with Berserker+Scholar gear on pAlac Mech.  It's just that the snowcrows build is designed around the idea that you'll be in the healer-less group with most likely a healMech covering the other.  That would leave you without a major might provider in your group unless you took something like a Phalanx Strength Warrior, or Fire Tempest, both being a much larger damage potential loss than the pAlac Mech taking strength runes.  If that situation doesn't match your play, well then it's not very applicable and maybe Scholar is a good option for you.  With the nerf to 10 man boons might is harder to come by and something worth considering.

 

Also, when you choose the inheritance line of traits (second majors), it's a bit funky.  For Condi it actually just takes your Condi Damage and your Condi Duration and uses those on the Mech, so like Might on the Mech doesn't increase the Mech's Condi Damage since it's using YOUR Condi Damage, but it does increase the Mech's power.  Then on the Support line it takes YOUR Healing Power and Boon Duration, so +Boon duration Runes do help it when that trait is selected (likewise with Condi Duration and that trait). It will not inherit 50% from those things without those traits, only your stats themselves.  Then apparently the "Power" (actually Precision/Fero) line is all messed up and your Mech does not inherit precision, or not in a way that makes sense , I didn't do the testing myself, just passing on the information.

[Boon Duration / Concentration goals for Quick Scrapper + Alac Mech?]

1) A little tough to answer because Alacrity plays a big role in that calculation.  The Snowcrows build for instance is based on having 100% alacrity uptime and then gives a little wiggle room so you can prioritize your damage rotation without having to hit every gyro exactly off cooldown.  So that's where the 32% comes from.   For DT builds, they typically factor in Fractal Potion IIRC, so they get free stats that throw things off.   In the end you need something like 60% boon duration to upkeep without Alacrity.

If you want to get the exact number you just need to figure out the base uptime for each skill, add them together and then see what % addition is needed to hit 100%, so say Healing Gyro provides 5s of Quickness (2X 2.5s) and is on a 20s cooldown with a 1/2s cast time, so 5s/20.5s = 24.4% uptime. 

Overall, I'd just say try and hit the 32% then swap to boon duration food/utilities and maybe a second hammer with Concentration Sigil (though if you're making a second hammer, maybe just make it Diviner?) for when you don't have alacrity.

2) You need 50% boon duration for your Mech to upkeep Alacrity for you (just pulsing barrier from trait + Crisis Zone and Barrier Burst).  You can play a little lower than that if you're using Mace auto's plenty (why you'll see Snowcrows suggestions for Power Alac at 45% boon duration) but things get inconsistent thanks to the 1s ICD on the Barrier-> Alac trait.   Might you'll need much higher to maintain 25 stacks fully which is why you see the Strength Rune suggestion.

 

Overall using the same gear on both is going to leave one pretty non-optimal.  However if you build Power Holo and Power Alac Mech, then between the two you have all the gear for qScrapper 😁

[Is Barrier Wanted?]

9 hours ago, Jalad Lantana.3027 said:

How does taking Soothing Detonation make a difference when taking Mech removes toolbelt F1-F5 skills?

I will try your suggested changes out, thanks.

How do I tell if it is working? Are there benchmarks for healing and alac?  What am I looking for?

 

 

First, I want to say, I forgot to swap the healing skill to Med Kit, Med kit is a must for healing (well actually you can get away with Healing Turret in a lot of places, but Med Kit is just SO much healing for your group and some good boons).

Excusion already hit on it, but yeah, Mech command skills count as toolbelt skills and will proc Soothing Detonation. 

Experimental Turrets is also a valid option for that line of traits, but it's more situational so I didn't hit on it.  Traited turrets will pop up a short term delayed projectile bubble which can be handy, and then it makes each turret pulse it's own boon.  With the build I posted you're only at 50% boon duration (34% on the one you have right now) so you won't have full fury/protection/might uptime, you could take Rifle, Thumper, or Flame Turret to help cover those boons.

 

As far as knowing if it's working, it's not so cut and dry like DPS.  All healing in any RPG game has a soft cap in that you can't heal someone who's already at full health, so heal parses are really more for checking low performance than anything else. If I only have say 1k healing out on a failed Boneskinner, I'm screwing something up because I'm usually at 4k+.  And, sometimes 4k is enough, other times I've hit 8k+ which just means we did a much better job avoiding damage in the 4k one and I didn't really do much differently. 

Then also teammates dying, isn't really always accurate because a lot of deaths are things you can't save them from.  I like to think of damage intake as Jabs, Uppercuts, and Haymakers, we should be easily healing through the jabs, and uppercuts are the things that almost kills people but not fully and we need to respond with quickly healing everyone back up so they're ready for the next hit.  Then Haymakers are the one-shot mechanics that each person in the team needs to learn to avoid themselves.  So if people are dying to the haymakers but surviving the jabs/uppercuts just fine, then you're doing your job. 

I'd also look at boon uptime, that's the secondary to the healing role now, every healer is expected to bring some major boon support in the forms of Might, Protection, Fury, Vigor and then now Quickness(Firebrand/Scrapper) or Alacrity(Mech/Vindicator?).  Alacrity on this build should be pretty easy, the mech will automatically push out like 1/3 uptime, and then between Crisis Zone (F2) and Barrier Burst (F3) you'll get the rest you need at 50% boon duration.  Mace, Barrier Signet, and Barrier Burst are all pretty inconsistent on how much Alacrity they give due to the 1second internal cooldown on the Alacrity trait and a conflict with the Mech's pulsing barrier(and therefor Alacrity), so it's a bit tougher to calculate, but in either case 50% boon duration, the mech's pulses and mech command skills used off cooldown will cover Alacrity and your Mace/Barrier Signet is just padding on top.  The other boons you'll struggle with a little bit at only 50% boon duration, but like I said above, you have options with traited turrets.

 

This Video does a good job giving some tips for new Engi healers:

 

Medkit 2 and 4 are not part of the "rotation" and best saved for when they're actually needed.  They don't say they're part of the rotation but in the video they do use them in the demonstration, so I thought it was worth clarifying.

Also the Snowcrows website has some good tips on it's build page even if you're not going to be wearing the same gear right now.  I'd check out both the Scrapper and Mechanist heal pages in case one includes some Engi heal tips the other doesn't.

And, yes, I type too much, sorry

[Is Barrier Wanted?]

So, yeah, Barrier is great, it keeps scholar buff up better than healing, and we always have healing options we can fall back on. 

Overall your build looks very hybrid and not optimized.  It's mostly healer build gear/traits, but without the healing utilities, and then focusing on Confusion but without condi damage.  Mechanist can do a lot of different things, but it's best to focus things a bit. 

Normally I'd suggest Magi over Clerics, just in case you decided to raid, but for anything else, clerics works fine.  For the heal/support build of course Harrier is in general the best choice but that's much more expensive and more something to work towards.  What you're lacking gear wise for converting this into a heal/support build is boon duration which you can get cheaply by swapping to Rebirth Runes (10s each right now).  Then Force Sigil just isn't going to be doing much for you with your low offensive stats, swap that to Transference ideally.  Then it's just swapping traits and utilities with Elixir Gun (for 5 skill which is a healing field) and Mortar Kit (again 5 skill is a healing field) and you have a solid heal/support build. 

You end up with this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?Pe0Ak6plxy8YtMXWKeyTXRVA-zRIYvSGTB+QqQEUtCIdJgd/ABtAUyZxvhN-e

Shift Signet and Barrier Signet can change as needed, like Thumper Turret (give it a few seconds to do the second thump) or Personal Battering Ram for CC.  

You won't be keeping boons up as well as the meta build, but you'll be able to heal and alac just fine with still very high protection/fury/might uptime.

 

There are some heal/support/condi hybrid builds out there, but that's more Cele/Seraph gear and focusing on burning from Bomb/FT kits and pistol.

[Mechanist Bug Thread]

58 minutes ago, Mil.3562 said:

Sorry if i wasn't clear about this. I meant the Mech just totally disappeared after I landed. And I have to wait for a few seconds before it could be recalled back. And also I tried support build. The barrier tick on the tooltip shows 1018 per tick but in combat the ticking is only 826. I wonder if this is a glitch too. Thanks for the reply.

I think they forgot to update the tooltip when they nerfed Barrier Burst down to the same barrier as our other sources.  It looks like the tooltip is still scaling it on healing power at a higher level than the others where it's actually putting out the same as Barrier Signet, Mace, and the traited pulsing barrier from the mech.

[Scrapper Impact Savant 15% to 5% nerf]

2 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I just don't understand why they think Scrapper is a healing/cleansing proffession. 

 

I thought that was just in regards to the WvW changes?  God, I hope they don't think that's the role Scrapper plays outside of WvW because that's very much not the case.  Heal Scrapper is a thing, but it's far from being a great option.  I'm pretty sure, like you said, most of us are/were playing scrapper as a bruiser/quickness provider and yeah, this nerf hit hard in a lot of content. 

 

I'd bet on the Impact Savant change not being something they actually thought about and more just something caught up in a spreadsheet change where they took any Damage = Sustain trait and knocked them all down to ~5%.  I honestly wish they would have just changed Torment Runes and ignored the rest. I really can't think of any of these changes that I agree with in regards to traits, especially considering what EoD specs came out with.

 

And, I will add, that in solo settings, I'd call Impact Savant basically a net-zero trait at this point, I just don't do enough DPS to have the lost HP be really worth the barrier.  It's still a gain I think, but it's probably not one I'd choose if it were a major trait.  On Heal Scrapper, it's just a straight negative because I'll never be doing enough DPS to offset the HP loss (so if Scrapper is supposed to be a healer... LOL).  Impact Savant is only really good when I have the boons to do some good DPS, and in those scenarios, I just don't need it...

[20k DPS 1 button Rotation Mechanist]

1 minute ago, MrForz.1953 said:

Well that's a possible theory, but Jesus you do hate guardians that much it's borderline unhealthy.

Get stuck playing one in wvw long enough… 😅

[Engineer is the most well balanced class at the moment for PVE]

7 hours ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Virtuoso only really provides DPS, and they wanted mesmers to have a good pdps option. Chrono isn't that great with DPS post-nerfs, and virtuoso can't do everything... unlike mechanist.

Same with harbringer- necro did not have a boon support spec, only a barrier healer spec (which, granted, does amazing condi as well, but its not like core necro has no condi dps options or anything). Necro got something to round itself out, and it's strong, but as far as I am aware not dominating anything.

 

Mechanist, on the other hand, has everything I hate about firebrands going for it. Way too much boon coverage with good DPS options as well (the harriers stat boon healer can do 8k DPS... far from normal for your average healer). It needs an axe for one of it's options, and I'm not so sure it needs a healer option, with scrapper being there...

My comment on Virtuoso was more towards the Condi build that has both incredible DPS and sustain.  IMO I think the DPS should be cut back a good bit and the sustain remain on that build (with the idea Mirage = cDPS, pVirt = pDPS, and cVirt = easy mode cDPS).  But overall my point was more about Power Creep in general and that all these 40k+ bench builds (mechanist included) should probably be shaved down to high 30k's to match previous builds so we're not just incrementally pushing DPS higher and higher every expansion.

 

I don't disagree that Heal mechanist is another Firebrand, that's why I think it's "ok" and "not ok" at the same time.  It's "fine" if FB is going to stay as is, it's not if we care about power creep and are going to address these overly compressed heal roles.  

 

As Crackmonster hit on, addressing hMech's defensive capabilities, it's going to take some major reworks.  Whoever thought adding barrier to Engi was a good idea obviously didn't know just how much healing potential core Engi has. All of the Barrier could be removed and hMech would still likely keep it's current spot in gameplay, things just wouldn't be as easy.  But, then they need to rework the Mechanist Mace, Barrier Signet, and 2 traits.  That's probably the direction I'd go if I were looking to bring the defensive capabilities down.  If this were to happen I'd very much like my heal skill back on Medkit so I could utilize those traits and have some burst healing for myself.

 

As far as hScrapper, it's honestly just a crappy HB with superspeed (which makes it amazing in WvW).  If hScrapper was THE heal build for Engi I'd like some reworks there, at least the suicidal element of Bulwark Gyro would be nice so I could bring even a small amount of Stability without either losing quickness uptime or committing suicide.   That would still leave us with minimal stability, minimal might, basically no fury, minimal projectile defense, and just not up to snuff compared to other heal options in organized PVE thanks to the condensed roles we're all used to now.  Raw healing only means so much, if you can keep your group topped off with 3k healing/sec then having 6k healing/sec is basically useless, there's a reason hScrapper wasn't popular.

[Underwater Mechanist?]

5 hours ago, Jaricko.6143 said:

 

I think anet just didn't get around to it. I am sure they will fix it in a year when they get around to it in that busy schedule of fixing long cats and giving people free turtles. 

Yeah, my assumption is that there were bugs with the mech underwater that they couldn’t fix in time, so they slapped on what we got.  They of course won’t admit they ran out of time and pushed forward an unfinished product, so that’s why we haven’t seen any kind of responses on the topic.  I don’t blame them, screwed if you do, screwed if you don’t situation.  I do hope they plan to update it eventually, but for now I’d rather they work on untamed honestly.

[Might be an unpopular opinion on mechanist]

2 hours ago, ThrakathNar.4537 said:

 

Also - dismissing competitive like you did is not a good mindset to have about this game. ANet recently called WvW a "cornerstone gamemode": dismissing everything but PvE isn't something the studio is doing, so it's not something we should do as players.

Let’s not use the word “doing” when they’ve still not implemented the alliance system after 4 years…

 

I’m just salty that I come back after years and WvW basically hasn’t changed at all.

[Mechanist Feels Like A More Powerful Power Scrapper]

I wouldn't call it more powerful, just different, but I do see what you mean.  Support boons, barrier generation but for a group, and a lot of power is in the Mech which takes pressure off of you.  Quickness Scrapper though has group Superspeed and Quickness, it's FAST.  Different but similar.  And, RP wise, I kind of love it, because what is a Scrapper vs Mechanist, someone who focuses more on fast results instead of organized precision and look at Superspeed/Quickness vs Alacrity (faster repetition) and a single more powerful piece of tech instead of multiple little bots.   Very similar, but filling different roles.

[Engineer is the most well balanced class at the moment for PVE]

2 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

Didn't I see a video about auto attacking for 20k+ dps? I guess if that is where the game is supposed to be heading... its balanced.

And there is one of a Mirage doing 28k...

20k isn't really that impressive on a training room golem while you're buffed to that level.  It's really more a demonstration of what those buffs, gear, and debuffs do for DPS.  Remember top dps rotations are doing closer to 40k.