Overedge.2435

While doing some more exploring of the Isle of Reflection during our first night of Fight Club, we discovered a few more locations on the Isle of Reflection itself that also seemed to be missing navmeshing, and we experienced the same "no valid path" errors there, and decided to map them out to add to this post. Here is an image of the locations we found on our first major run-through, and we'll continue to search for more. For the buildings indicated, it's the rooftops specifically where the errors occur. https://imgur.com/a/Cpkyosq

Before the competitive split in February 2020, VnUm members spent almost as much time in the guild hall dueling each other as they spent causing chaos on the borderlands. Without access to WvW stats that habit has fallen to the wayside, but the recent update to the guild hall that lets you choose your character's stat rules has really revitalized things for us. So, to celebrate, we have decided to open guild membership to players from all servers for the purpose of a guild hall-based Fight Club! The idea is to foster a community of duel lovers and provide a group of like-minded people who sometimes just like to beat up their friends, as well as an environment for letting that happen. On top of regular dueling, we've also been playing with ideas for fun events, such as one team of skyscale flyers chasing a team of skiff pilots to try and blow them out of the water before they get to the other end of the bay. If you or anyone you know are interested, please feel free to join our Discord at AMCBZXgpQ4 Membership in the guild is not necessarily required since you can access the guild hall by being in a party with someone who's in the guild and on the map, but if you'd like easy access to the hall at any time then we're happy to get an invite out to you!

The recent update to guild halls that allow you to change your character's stats to those from different game modes has really revitalized the excitement of a lot of the members of my guild, as most of them are duelers/roamers at heart. Before the February 2020 competitive split we spent a ton of time dueling in the guild hall, and not being able to access WvW balance there had become a real bummer. So I celebrated the update by going into the guild hall and going a little crazy with the decorating. I crafted a ton of those holographic racing platforms to build more fighting areas with, but while testing things out, we discovered that any skills that pathfind -- such as Shadowstep and Blink -- do not work on the platforms. I'm guessing that the pieces aren't navmeshed properly, because anything that uses AI, like illusions and pets and minis, also don't function properly. Additionally, with the Holographic Track pieces (the glowing green ones), some abilities (like certain wells and necro marks) are invisible when placed on the platforms. Would it be possible for ANet to go in and add navmeshing to decoration pieces? Some classes are far more affected than others. We've started putting together a Fight Club based in our guild hall (open to players from all servers, though we're on NA so EU likely can't access it) so we'd love to be able to do some really interesting things with the terrain. I have no doubt that it would be a huge undertaking, but if enough people and guilds were interested in taking advantage of the guild hall updates, maybe it will be worth it. Here's an extensive but likely not-quite-exhaustive list of affected skills. If anyone else decides to test this and finds more, please contribute to the thread. Guardian Crashing Courage - "No valid path to target" Symbol of Blades - "No valid path to target" Advancing Strike - "No valid path to target," but will still hit if enemy is within range, there's just no teleport Flash Combo - "No valid path to target," but will still hit if enemy is within range, there's just no teleport Judge's Intervention - "No valid path to target" Mighty Blow - "No valid path to target" Merciful Intervention - "No valid path to target" Mesmer Illusions cannot move Blink - "No valid path to target" Jaunt - "No valid path to target" Illusionary Leap - "No valid path to target," but still creates the clone although you can't swap places Phase Retreat - "No valid path to target," you basically teleport in place Blade Leap - "No valid path to target" for the teleport, but the leap works Axes of Symmetry - "No valid path to target," but teleport doesn't work and your movement is only a scoot forward Illusionary Ambush - "No valid path to target," you basically teleport in place Mirage Advance - "No valid path to target" Necromancer Minions cannot move Summon Flesh Worm - "No valid path to target," you can't even place the worm Sand Swell - "No valid path to target" Revenant Phase Traversal - "No valid path to target" Darkrazor's Daring - "No valid path to target" Razorclaw's Rage - "No valid path to target" Icerazor's Ire - "No valid path to target" Breakrazor's Bastion - "No valid path to target" Soulcleave's Summit - "No valid path to target" Elementalist Lightning Flash - "No valid path to target" Polaric Leap - "No valid path to target" Thief Steal - "No valid path to target" All Spectre Wells - "No valid path to target" Shadowstep - "No valid path to target" Infiltrator's Strike - "No valid path to target" Infiltrator's Arrow - "No valid path to target" Infiltrator's Signet - "No valid path to target" Shadow Shot - "No valid path to target" Endless Night - "No valid path to target" but the attack still fires Death's Retreat - "No valid path to target" Shadow Swap - "No valid path to target" Shadow Gust - "No valid path to target" Shadow Flare - "No valid path to target" Engineer Jade Mech cannot move Shift Signet - "No valid path to target" Ranger Pets cannot move Unnatural Traversal - "No valid path to target" Smoke Assault - "No valid path to target" Phase Pounce (merged Soulbeast) - "No valid path to target" and "Obstructed" Phase Pounce (Untamed unleashed) - No error, but pet doesn't move Neurotoxin Burst - "No valid path to target" Warrior Flicker Step - "No valid path to target"

ANet's lack of any interest in engi is just spotlighted with how the shortbow is just one skill/mechanic they copied three times across the rest of the weapon, instead of making anything about any of the weapon skills unique the way every other weapon in the game is.

There are enough support weapons added with this update/beta, and engineer already has access to decent support options already. What we need, and what several classes' shortbows specialize in, is ready access to conditions. Even the world's best engi piano player can't put out the condition damage a dual pistol guardian now can just by headbutting their keyboard once. I say keep the shortbow but entirely rework it into a condition and CC weapon.

I agree with most of this, but I don't think they hate engineer. They hate mesmer. They just don't care about engineer. So what's worse: hate or apathy?

In today's update, the cooldown for Epilogue: Unbroken Lines was increased from 25s to 30s. This is another example of many of the recent balance changes reducing access to stability, which is the only defense against the oppressive amounts of CC currently plaguing the game mode. Other examples include the cooldown increase on scrapper's defense field from 25s to 35s on October 4, and the increased cooldown and lowered ammunition count of firebrand's Mantra of Liberation on that same day. I know that ANet has talked about spreading stability around to other classes, but thus far that hasn't happened nearly as much as it's needed in order to pull people off the meta classes. Make other classes more appealing, rather than making the meta stab classes less appealing, because it's just making the game mode less and less fun. The amount of CC and insufficient defense against it is turning it into a game mode where there's too many instances of losing because your ability to play is taken away from you.

Hi guys, watched the whole stream. Lots of good and interesting stuff in there, but I have one major critique: there's a lot of nerfs to stability availability in competitive modes, and in my opinion there is already not enough stability to deal with the amount of CC spam you run into there. There are a lot of instances where one side of a fight is completely shut down and can't respond, leading to a situation where you literally can't even play the game because the CC prevents you from doing so. This is a frustrating balance direction, and I know that you have the intention of adding more stability to other classes, but please try and do so before you start taking any more away. Since some abilities will now affect defiance bars in PvE, maybe expand that and gives all players in competitive modes a small defiance bar. Maybe there can be an effect like when a thief is revealed after attacking from stealth, where you're immune to additional CC after being hit by one or after using an active stunbreak. We need something.

I actually had a similar thought to this a while back that I brought up to my guild as a fun "wouldn't this be cool?" topic of discussion. Make it an entire WvW event centered around EotM. At the end of the event, EotM crashes down on one of the Alpine Bordlerlands, essentially creating a new map and at the same time replacing one instance of a doubled-up map, while also giving an excuse to remove the too-easily-exploitable push-off-all-the-bridges opportunities in EotM that I think would probably end up not being fun. (CC bombs aren't fun, guys) I think most people use EotM for the arena anyway, that can stay floating around to keep being used that way.

My two cents: As a mediscrapper main, I agree with the changes after the redaction of the gyro changes. I too felt that the gyros' ability to move with the scrapper was a wonderfully unique way of flavoring the ability type. Combining that with all of the cooldown increases resulted in not only less overall cleansing, but some of the existing cleansing was made that much more difficult to use effectively. Combining all of the originally planned nerfs together took everything too far in the opposite direction -- mediscrapper is meta right now, but the goal should be bringing it down to the level of other supports, not gutting it so that you just end up completely replacing it with another class that becomes the new meta. Purge Gyro was incredibly strong, because it was easy to use, highly effective, and had an admittedly short cooldown. Increasing the cooldown was the right move, because it encourages us to use our other cleanses more actively and save the big moving cleanse from Purge Gyro for when it's really needed. This was a good change. Sneak Gyro is also strong, honestly too strong, and while I agree that it needs to be nerfed I feel like it got hit with the "too far in the other direction" approach as well. Reducing the duration of each pulse is fine. Reducing the number of total pulses is fine. But doing both has taken the skill from 9s of stealth down to 3s, making it literally only a third as effective as it was. At this point, why not remove Sneak Gyro completely (could/should also remove stealth from competitive entirely, but that's a whole other argument) and replace it with a different effect? I doubt a lot of groups are going to keep using it because, like mentioned above, instead of it being reduced to a more balanced state, it feels gutted and unusable, and will just be completely replaced by something else that will eventually be considered too strong. I also like the change to Defense Field. Making it ground-targeted opens up some interesting new placement strategies that I look forward to trying out. I don't think increasing the cooldown was the right idea however, because of how important the stability it provides is. Maybe leave the cooldown as it was and decrease the bubble's duration instead? We need more stability in WvW, not less, because the sheer amount of CC bombs from zergs is oppressive and not fun. Anything that allows groups to literally remove another group's ability to even play is just not fun design. Finally, I would like to extend my thanks to the ANet team for keeping your eyes and ears open and listening to the community. I know you guys can't even sneeze without half of the player base throwing a fit about it, but your willingness to listen and reconsider things really means a lot. The WvW community has gone a long time feeling unheard, so it's very nice to be acknowledged like this. Keep up the good work!

My guild is made up primarily of WvW players. We used to use the guild hall all the time, back before the February 2020 competitive split -- it was a great place to practice duels and help each other train without the worry of a rando in Armistice Bastion interrupting and ignoring your requests to back off. But now, the guild hall is a map governed by PvE rules, and as far as I know it's the only instance in the game where you are able to fight another player using PvE rules. That makes it less enjoyable to practice duels, group fights, and bombs, because it isn't representative of the actual gameplay we'd be using it in. Is there a way to update the guild hall arena so that it can be toggled over to WvW and/or PvP rules, like maybe a new NPC standing nearby? I would even be fine with the arena becoming its own instance-within-an-instance, like the Lion's Arch Aerodrome and the golem you can get to in there. Otherwise, the arena feels kind of...pointless. And that's a shame, because I love the guild hall. I'd love more excuses for people to go check out my top-notch decorating.

I actually made a post last week on this subject, and I suggested that after using a stunbreak, you have an effect (similar to how you are revealed for a couple seconds after breaking stealth) that makes you immune to CC for a couple seconds. That way your stunbreak isn't wasted because you used it after the first CC of the ten-CC-chain instead of the last one.

Or, tone down AOE CC so that fights aren't won by which side is bigger and therefore able to just W1 over a smaller group of stunned players. Winning by keeping others from being able to act is a bad philosophy for gaming.

Maybe Stability itself could be changed from a boon into an either-you-have-it-or-you-don't effect. That could be the post-stunbreak effect I mentioned in my original post, plus classes would have additional ways to apply it to themselves for short periods (like the current stab-giving abilities). That also prevents your stability from getting stripped or corrupted (which is another problem when trying to defend against CC, since multiple other effects remove it as well).

This post is solely from a WvW standpoint and doesn't take into account PvE or PvP any more than balance changes to those modes take WvW into account. There are many facets of WvW's recent balance patches that significantly benefit numbers over skill, such as the heavy preference towards boonballing, but this post is specific towards CC and Stability. The simple math is that larger groups have more CC and more Stability, meaning that they will simply face-tank and overpower a smaller group's Stability while effortlessly shrugging off the smaller group's CC, before simply rolling over them with no resistance. Meanwhile, the smaller group has little choice but to sit there and watch themselves be rolled over because their ability to play has literally been taken away from them. I feel this, and any style of gaming that revolves around taking away another person's ability to play, is in poor taste and shouldn't be encouraged, or at least shouldn't be as easy as it is. I propose that CC and Stability should be looked at for a potential rebalance. Stability is far too important of a boon for how restricted the access to it is in many cases. I mean yes, every class has some access, but most cannot realistically apply enough of it to withstand most CC bombs. If you break down attack types into strike, condi, and CC, Stability is the sole defense against CC, and needs to be as accessible as toughness and vitality are in order to mitigate incoming attacks. Sidenote: though it isn't exactly the same, access to Resistance also needs to be increased. Aside from simply adding Stability sources to all classes, I propose a new effect, similar to the way that when you break Stealth you are unable to re-stealth for a few seconds (via automatic application of Revealed). This effect would trigger when you use a stun break, and basically make it to where you are unable to be affected by CCs for X amount of time after using a stun break ability. This rewards using a defensive ability actively and drastically reduces the chance of "wasting it" in the middle of a big CC bomb where you'll just be immediately hit by another CC after breaking the first one. Another option, but one that would probably be far less popular, could be giving all player characters a small defiance bar. The strength of this bar could be tied into the Armor stat (determined by a mixture of toughness and vitality), and even the largest possible bar would only protect against like two, maybe three CCs. But, it would still allow players an opportunity to react instead of being immediately and permanently rendered helpless. I also feel that the amount of AOE CCs should be reduced, but I'm less interested in nerfing things that are potentially too strong than I am in bringing weaker abilities up to match the current power levels. Again, this is being proposed mainly as a way to get away from the ability of a larger group of players literally removing the ability of a smaller group of players to play the game by keeping them stunlocked. There are other aspects of WvW that also exponentially benefit larger groups to the detriment of people who don't like that style of gameplay, but that can wait for another post. I'm interested in what others think in regards to this. I know that a lot of zerg players probably don't see as much of an issue with it, but my perspective is from that of a havoc player and occasional roamer who doesn't really enjoy zerg gameplay. I think that changes like these could actually make zerg vs zerg more exciting as well, since the two zergs would get to do more direct fighting.

Since I'm primarily a WvW player, I view the class through a different lens a lot of the time. For example, the mech is all but useless in WvW in my opinion. If you're a roamer who only ever fights 1-2 people then it's fine, but you're far more likely to be steamrolled by a zerg that rolls over your mech and burns it down in a second and a half (and then they burn it again before it even finishes its crash down from bringing it back with the elite signet). It sustains itself much better in the more controlled PvP competitive mode, and it's godly in PvE (which, as a cooperative mode, doesn't negatively affect other players by being stronger in the same way) As for the rifle, the multi-hit auto attack feels good. It feels really good. And the multi-hit isn't really that big a deal, because engi already has numerous multi-hit auto attacks, like the flamethrower and grenades -- it part of the class's feel. However, it is far too strong for a competitive game mode. I've run rifle power scrapper as my main roaming build for years, but I'm not running it now because it just feels cheesy. Since this is a rifle thread I won't bring up my criticisms on some of the changes to trait ranges, specifically Aim-Assisted Rocket and its synergy with flamethrower now that it procs in flamethrower's range...

https://imgur.com/a/zlc7G57 Does anyone else have this graphical glitch in the bathhouse in Isle of Reflections, ie the southeastern building? It seems like the water doesn't render properly, and there appears to be a smear of mud hanging in the air just inside the entrance. I've checked with others in my guild and it appears the same to them, so I wanted to see if anyone else has noticed it too. Unless I'm just foolish and this requires some sort of guild development we haven't done yet? Sidenote, and probably something for another thread: would anyone else be interested in being able to choose WvW stats/balancing for the guild hall arena? I know that Armistice Bastion is an option, but most dueling practice there ends up spoiled by randos who refuse to leave you alone. EDIT: So it turns out that our workshop (not bathhouse) isn't fully upgraded and I made this post before learning everything I needed to. Please disregard.

Has there been any talk of adding superior rune sets for the new specs? I know they aren't generally the most-used runes, but I've always had fun with a few of them. As an engi main I'm specifically interested in the effects that a Rune of the Harbinger set could have on my elixirs. My gyro scrapper is quite happy with his Runes of the Chronomancer after all.

In the case of ranger, a wounded pet can be swapped or merged in order to keep a pet on the field. Even if a non-soulbeast gets both pets down, the ranger still has the benefit of three traitlines that all still provide benefit to the ranger. In the case of mechanist, the player themselves gain nothing from the mechanist traitline -- if the mech isn't on the field, then you're left with something even worse than core engi, because you have only two effective traitlines and no toolbelt. I just...don't understand this. I took my mechanist into WvW for one night, and on multiple occasions watched my mech get burned down in seconds, only to pop my elite to recall it and have it burned again, even before it could take action. In 1v1s, any class with even a modicum of mobility could kite both me and my mech while whittling away at it, and when it was gone, my mech-less mechanist was helpless. The mech is too easy to kill even before this nerf. If someone struggles with killing the mech, they have larger problems than an enemy mechanist. There are viable builds for scrapper, holo, and even core engi. Mechanist is half a class attached to a broken AI.

Oh yeah, I've been joking about them making everyone a Scrapper since they started revealing the new specs. Catalyst gets a hammer and gyro, Untamed gets a tanky hammer, and everyone gets the Jade gyro buddy bot. Can't blame them, really. Scrapper is best!

Please delete. I realized after posting that it was off-topic.

Posting because I'm having the same issue. At first I thought it might have been because of ArcDPS but I've since deactivated it. You can click the little arrow to open the menu showing the fishing pole and skiff, but mousing over the icon (not even clicking it) immediately brings up a crash report. I've submitted several reports as they've happened (as I've experimented to try and determine the exact trigger). It might be of note that it occurs on two of my computers: both of which are at different addresses and use different ISPs. At first it was just an inconvenience, https://imgur.com/a/MvYpd6f ------------------------ POSSIBLE SOLUTION: By default, J is the hotkey for your mastery ability, but I had deactivated that hotkey because I used J for something else. After rekeying it so that J was the mastery button, it started working. Kudos to my buddy Jeg.6082 for the solution.

Like in my previous post after the first beta, I've tried not to read too much of others' feedback before typing this post, in an attempt to not color my own thoughts and opinions. Ultimately, after the fourth beta, I feel like Mechanist is different from before, but not necessarily better. Please keep in mind that my thoughts come from the viewpoint of someone who primarily plays WvW these days. My short-and-sweet summary of the Mechanist is thus: The tradeoff for the mech is too much, in no small part due to how poor the pet system in Guild Wars 2 is -- that's meant as a fair assessment, not a snide insult: even your own beta previews had bugs, so you are aware of it. I understand that the original idea was the have a powerful pet, and the weaker engineer was the tradeoff. But because of the zerg mentality that has been promoted in WvW with every single balance patch, this pet is doomed to failure. Core rangers can swap to their other pet if their pet is killed. Soulbeasts can merge with a dead pet to revive it. Mechanist is put on a long cooldown unless they pop their ultimate, but the mech will just quickly die again right after. The breakbar means nothing when the standard engagement starts with a field of red circles filled with CC. In smaller encounters it's fine, but havoc is all but dead because what can a group of 5-10 do against the blobs of 30+ that dominate the maps? I've seen some posts where people suggest the mech is used as an exo-suit, similar to a necromancer shroud, as opposed to a pet. At first I was dismissive of this, but I feel that overall, changing to something like this would be a much better choice than a pet. In the Mechanist reveal, the comment was made that the developers would love to see a five-signet build. However, our attack skills are balanced around having kits (much like our utility skills are balanced around having the toolbelt, but that's another issue entirely). I constantly see people complain about how overpowered the grenade kit is, and you know what? As someone who runs it, I 100% agree -- it's basically our only option for a power build because everything else is weak in comparison. As a serious question, does anyone in the development team play engineer? I feel that many of the decisions made for the Mechanist were very tone-deaf in regards to balance. The effect from Mech Core: J-Drive that states "Signet skills gain improved passive effects and continue to grant their passive bonuses while recharging" needs to be moved to a minor trait and available to all Mechanists regardless of major traits. Consider it a fair trade for losing our entire toolbelt. The aerial bombardment from J-Drive should become an ammo skill located somewhere on the toolbelt area when the mech is away, and should be ground-targeted. The automatic firing is nice but makes it impossible to escape combat. As a side-note, I can begrudgingly accept the loss of most of the toolbelt if other factors are altered to make the payoff equal to the cost. However, at least the healing skill's toolbelt ability, especially with the Med Kit, needs to remain available. F1 - healing toolbelt, F2-F3-F4 - mech skills, F5 - summon/dismiss mech, F6-F7 attack target/return to me. Continuing on the above suggestion to make stronger signets more readily available in exchange for losing our class mechanic toolbelt, I suggest allowing Mechanist to have a normal weapon swap. You were able to remove weapon swap from the Warrior/Bladesworn, after all. This gives us more options to encourage not relying on a weapon kit, and also helps towards making up for lost attacks from the missing toolbelt. On that note, tying the mech's rocket punch to mace 3 was a terrible idea. I don't have a solution for you, but that was definitely not it. The mech must be usable underwater. I know underwater isn't a huge focus, but as a standard reminder that needs to be reiterated over and over again: Without the mech, the Mechanist is half a class. Only two effective traitlines, no toolbelt, and no weapon swap. Remember what I said earlier about the cost of the tradeoff not being worth the payoff? Compare a ranger without a pet to a Mechanist without one: no significant loss to the ranger's power and still plenty of synergy from three full traitlines. Explosives is primarily a power-focused tree. Why does the Mechanist condi traitline synergize with Explosives? This is another example of what makes me feel like there aren't any/many engineer players on the development team, or at least not ones that play competitively. Sure, Firearms and Explosives are gonna be used in open world together, but it's difficult to fit both on a competitive build if you want to, you know, live. While some matchups are better than others, any class with a bit of mobility and kiting ability is going to shred it. Neither the mech nor the Mechanist can keep up with a longbow ranger, who can simply whittle away at the mech (and again after it's resummoned), and then do the same to the Mechanist. I tried fighting a dune roller and couldn't touch him, both myself and my pet were simply too slow, whereas my scrapper would have torn it apart. I'm sure I'll think of more, which I'll add via edits later. I honestly don't really have anything positive to say about the Mechanist -- it's plagued with too many issues, both from balance and from system limitations. Ultimately: The Mechanist isn't worth the cost of admission. Signets can be powerful, but don't fully make up for the loss of both toolbelt abilities and the loss of weapon kits required in order to slot them. The mace is underwhelming and is basically necessary in order to take advantage of all of the mech's abilities. The Mechanist's heavily pet-focused traits leave the player's character too weak when the pet is not available, making it easy for high-mobility and high-power enemies to neuter the Mechanist by focusing the pet down first. I feel that the vision the development team has for the Mechanist cannot be realized within the confines of Guild Wars 2.

I haven't read the entirety of this thread so I may touch upon some things that have already been pointed out, but I didn't want my opinion colored by what others have said. My thoughts and suggestions are through the lens of someone who is primarily a WvW player; my PvE has been fairly limited these days and I do no PvP. I can summarize many of my issues with this statement: In an effort to balance the class around the mech, I feel that too many sacrifices were made. I'll admit that my first instinct upon seeing the Mechanist reveal was that it would be full of problems, in no small part due to the way Guild Wars 2's pet A.I. works -- in fact, the ranger's pet mechanic is what has primarily kept me from investing more time into that class. This instinct was proven mostly true, especially with the loss of the button-mapped "come to me" feature. We desperately need to be able to recall the pet to our location. I consider the Mechanist's support tree completely useless because the mech can't be trusted to be where you need it. It's good when it works, but I need something more reliable. While I don't think the breakbar is a bad idea considering the overabundance of CC-bombs and the emphasis on zerg play over small group play in WvW, the loss to the mech's HP in WvW hurts. On multiple occasions I watched my mech's health bar disappear in under a second, followed by my own health bar -- and then I respawn and still have to wait 90s for the mech to come off cooldown. I think the mech's cooldown should be completely reset upon player death, at least when porting back to a waypoint after being double-downed. I can foresee abuse if someone is resurrected from death on the field, but is there a way to detect that and not reset cooldown when that happens? The loss of the toolbelt, at least when the mech is stowed, is inexcusable. All of the engineer's utilities are balanced around the toolbelt as well. If the toolbelt is gone, then all other utilities need a buff of some sort, either to increase their effectiveness or reduce their cooldown. Many of the engineer's utilities are "watered down" compared to other classes, to try and fit the jack-of-all-trades approach. Don't water them down even more. Move the summon mech to F5 where our other elite abilities are. The Mechanist's power tree is fine. My biggest issue is the signet effect attached to J-Drive: Signet skills gain improved passive effects and continue to grant their passive bonuses while recharging. Signet Effectiveness Increased: 20%. This should be part of the Minor Grandmaster so that all Mechanists get access to it, especially since we don't have our toolbelt. The condi tree confuses me. Jade Dynamo states Mech attack skills have a chance to cause explosions. Your mech inherits on-hit bonuses from the Explosives specialization line. But the Explosives line is primarily tied to power builds, and Firearms has most of our condi stuff (yes there is a bit of condi added through Explosives, but it's more incidental than focused). Our condi has always been bad, but even a devoted condi Mechanist is watered down by having to take power traits for synergy. For the best condi output, we have almost no choice but to go Explosives-Firearms-Mechanist, which means little to no sustain since we won't have room for Alchemy, and (again) we've lost a ton of self-support from losing toolbelt. Running Med Kit means we have no personal heal. The loss of the toolbelt took away like 2/3 of our stunbreaks. And why, WHY does the Force Signet, the Mechanist's stun break, have a cast time!? I think mace is fine. It's a little bit boring and feels just like the holosmith's sword -- one auto attack chain, one leap attack, one ranged attack -- but our weapon options are so abysmal that anything is better than nothing. I was hoping to get main- and off-hand mace, sort of like how Spellbreaker got daggers in both hands.

While running around in WvW, I'm keeping the mech stowed so I can engage with Crash Down. However, the mech is automatically summoned when I get off my Warclaw, preventing me from keeping it stowed.