Pokedranzer.4856

Raging Ricochet gives a flat +5% condi damage modifier. That's just a useful thing to have. It's not just some benchmark thing, and the requirements for just having a fire bullet are not hard to have Dazing Discharge while consuming a bullet reduces the cool down of the next pistol skill used, not the next air skill. The condi tempest rotation uses this to reduce the cooldown for water pistol 3 so that it is available after swapping to earth. Elemental explosion sucks tho and salvo can be faster .

The thing is that engi doesn't have a lot of weapons, and the ones they do have are highly specialized. For example, a power build will never want to swap to pistol/pistol from rifle and vice versa. Kits on the other hand are extremely bloated with lots of value. ANY engineer build that does not run a kit is severely nerfing itself for basically no reason. Grenade kit has insane condi damage and strong power damage. Bomb kit is engi's best auto outside of the elite spec weapon autos and fire bomb and concussion bomb are excellent power and condi skills. Elixir gun has stupid sustain and great support. Mortar kit is utility on steroids. Tool kit exists, but has engi's second block. It's all about knowing what you need for what situation. Engi doesn't need a second set of weapon sigils as kits are so good that they don't need it. And none of the good builds in pve run weapon swap sigils anyways. Engi also gets a bunch of modifiers in their traits. They get a free second bursting sigil with a malice sigil for condi builds in thermal vision. Hematic focus and high caliber are insane crit modifiers. Modified ammunition is so good that dps benches bench on 10 condis rather than all of them. Chemical rounds, serrated steel, and incendiary powder just cap condition durations for your pistol skills and bleeding and burning for basically no investment. Glass cannon, explosive temper, big boomer, and shrapnel in explosives are ridiculous dps increases. Inventions has a great support modifiers with energy amplifier. Alchemy has even better support modifiers with compounding chemicals, health insurance, purity of purpose, HGH, comeback cure. Tools has decent modifiers with excessive energy. Scrapper has applied force and object in motion. Holosmith has solar focusing lens and laser's edge. Mech has J-Drive signets. And there a lot more that I didn't mention. TL;DR Engi's kits and traits are powerful as hell and a second set of sigils will be kinda busted ngl.

Even then PPD is still almost never worth it over thermal vision if that was that case. For PPD's group dps contribution to be worth over the solo dps contribution of thermal vision, it'd need to hit 7 players who are doing strong condi dps. And there's the issue, it's a target cap of 5 and that would mean you would be put into a sub of your own. having PPD on non-full-dps players diminishes the value you give. AP, Spotter, and EA would still be more value as say, your druid will deal more damage with those buffs on compared to PPD. The cases where you have say a alacmirage and cfb in your sub with another 2 whole condi dps classes you could feasibly run PPD with a malice sigil and get quite a bit of value, but in most pugging scenarios you have a healer in your sub. Power also never takes PPD in fights where it matters because you're just playing condi too. That one speedclear of Matthias is not a good indicator for that. Fallen just didn't want swap off of holo.

You're looking at the Jade Dynamo build which is both hard to play and requires your target to stand in fire and poison fields to get that dps. The 'easy' Condi Mechanist build J-Drive does reasonable dps for what it is. It does about the same dps as sword holo at 38k dps.

How does it do this with less effort? Sure pressing the mech skills for alacrity and the like is easy... for just alacrity. The heal engi core is no easy matter. There's lots of invisible cooldowns to manage, namely Super Elixir, that do not line up with anything. Other skill need to be juggled. Med kit 5 for vigor, regen, and swiftness; egun 4 and 5 for might generation, healing, and condi cleanse; mortar kit 5 for more healing and might generation; you have to juggle shields skill and determine whether to use them for prot or use them for a CC bar that may or may not come up. There also many different situational things too. Mortar kit 2 and 3 for chills and blinds; egun 2 and 3 for cripple/swiftness and condi cleanse respectively; and a whole two free utility slots for literally all of core engi's kit. Heal mech is good at what it does because heal engi has always been really good. People are just now seeing how good it is.

When Anet decided that Ele mains don't get to have fun with their new toy.

IT LITERALLY DOESN'T? IT WAS A BUG! Edit: WTF is a bronze boss?

Heal scrapper heals more than Heal mech believe it or not. Gaining access to Bandage Self from Medkit is actually bonkers healing with medical dispersion field.

Mace was recently buffed. So it is currently very competitive with pistol right now. Here's the mace bench. It does less overall golem damage but significantly more confusion which is extremely relevant on most fights It's no longer the case.

But Mechanist ISN'T invalidating other forms of play. That means it isn't an unfair advantage. If something warped the game around it so much that any other strategy is irrelevant is when it needs to be axed immediately. There is literally no reason to nerf mechanist on the grounds that it is "overpowered" when others can still do its job at the same level. I'm personally in the camp of put everything on the same level through buffs and slight numbers reduction rather than hard nerfs to anything. People will be happy that their classes and specs got buffed and the smaller nerfs makes the people whose classes and specs got nerfed not be too butt hurt about it. Getting your builds hard nerfed feels awful. Will it be needed for overtly egregious circumstances? Yes. Mechanist is not one of those circumstances. Fun is subjective.

That's the point having permanent 25 might increases damage by A LOT. A permanent 1500 stat increase is kinda nutty.

I think people forget that the 40/39k dps bench for jade dynamo and jdrive respectively also assumes full might, fury, alacrity, and quickness on the mech as well. The reason the Lord Hizen build's mech does so much damage is that the mech gets full might, stability, and alacrity. The issue also isn't the mech here. The issue is the Juggernaut trait in firearms, That is what is enabling the full might and stab uptime for both the mech and the engi. The openworld build Lord Hizen has wouldn't be possible without it without signficant damage tradeoffs. You need 85% Boon Duration to upkeep 25 stacks of might alone. Juggernaut drops that down significantly. Edit because I just remembered this: Anet has said that Juggernaut has been a problem trait. A lot of the LI easy openworld engi builds run it too and camp flamethrower. Source on the Anet has said: (Yes, I know it is about SPvP. No that does not change that it is a problem trait in openworld as well.)

You have a gross misunderstanding of what "the meta" actually means. Contrary to popular belief, it does not mean Most Effective Tactic Available. Not even close. The meta is essentially what everyone else is doing. In Fractals, it is the most effective to run 0 healers, avoid mechanics, and kill the boss really fast. What do you see? People wanting pre-nerf Healbrand. Running a Healbrand isn't the most effective thing to do, but EVERYONE wanted one. That's what made Healbrand meta. Being effective and efficient does not equate to what everyone is doing. Further more, pre-nerf Scourge was more or less required for most groups to even clear it. Speedrunners didn't run it. They just killed the boss really fast and cc the Sorrows becuase that was what was more efficient and effective. I can list many more points as to the difference between what the most effective strategy in any game, not just GW2, and what is actually being done. What is actually being done by the majority of players is "the meta" not what the high-end elite speedclear groups say it is. All they do really is tell people what THEY found is the most effective. Will it work for the vast majority of players? No, well not all the time.