sigmundf.7523

Strictly speaking for instanced PVE contents. Specific builds / professions are always be meta, since they are already proven to be effective in tackling most of instanced PVE Contents without much problem hence they become meta. Both damage type are viable, but you almost want to play a profession that able to build into either damage type AND perform well in both builds. Also, if you find / talk / ask someone that playing "power renegade", like you said, just ignore it and treat it as someone playing off-meta build. Those kind of build only works outside the realm of high-end instanced PVE contents. If you are a dps player then these professions are solid choices for both damage type ; Virtuoso (Condi / Power) Scourge and Harbinger (Condi), Reaper (Power) Mechanist (Condi / Power), Holosmith (Power) Renegade (Condi), Vindicator / Herald (Power) Weaver (Condi / Power), Catalyst (Power) Soulbeast and Untamed (Power / Condi) Bladesworn and Spellbreaker (Power), Berserker (Condi) Willbender / Firebrand (Condi) However, I recommend Virtuoso / Necro / Engi. They have fairy moderate skill ceiling to be played and general players able to achieve good result in instanced PVE contents, and also they are generally welcomed or even wanted for T4 Fractal CM since they are able to boonstrip enemy if there is No Pain No Gain instability.

It exists, on Virtu and Engi

Yes there are, beside the one you mentioned in the title, there are : Power Holosmith Power / Condi Weaver Power / Condi Mechanist Condi Spectre Condi Scourge Condi Firebrand / Willbender Beside being a pure dps spec, some of them are also able to bring strong utility that able to help your group in doing high-end instanced content, and highly sought in T4 Fractals (CM/non-cm). Power Holo , Power Virt, and Condi Scourge able to boonstrip enemies without dps loss. Power Mechanist also able to boonstrip with very minimum dps loss. They are solid pick for every high-end instanced PVE contents.

Isn't this exactly what has been happening in the past few balance patches ? But instead some random dudes, its someone that works in ANET.

T4 fractals and strike missions (non-cm). Things that you need to keep in mind in general in playing hFB or qFB : 1) High Quickness and might uptime. 2) Keeping the heals, as hFB 3) Support / Defensive boons such as stability and aegis, and some condi cleanse

DPS role ; Power or Condi Virtuoso, Power or Condition Mechanist, Condition Scourge, Power or Condition Weaver, Condition Specter, Power Catalyst and Power Soulbeast. Most of them are mobile and only few skills lock them in place, also most of them have capability to do damage from range. Support role ; Heal Alacrity Mechanist, Heal Firebrand, Alacrity Renegade, Alacrity Specter, Alacrity Mirage. They are quite mobile, but requires proper positioning to maintain boons / heal / supports for the team. There are various websites that will give you more insight in those classes and as well as other popular classes, such as snowcrows, metabattle, hardstuck, etc. Visit them for better and detailed information for the classes your wish to play.

For me, for the amount of resources that I need to spend ; Buying PoF expansion, buying LW4, in-game resources, and time, Skyscale is really disappointing. I expect Skyscale to be the best aerial mount, a superior version of griffon. But to me, Skyscale become nothing more than a vertical ladder that is better than Springer in most cases, a better horizontal ladder than Raptor, and a height-gain tool for Griffon. I do enjoy the questline and I have no problem in the requirement, however I just wish Skyscale to be a helicopter that can just hover up and down without worrying about the flight bar being empty.

I just simply don't understand why there is any need to have 100% alac uptime for fighting trashmobs that easily die.

I kinda want to make it short in delivering my opinion regarding this. First, I want to address your point regarding WoW and "hunter" class that has 2 pets (beastmaster spec). I don't know about your experience in WoW or which expansion did you play, but I have alot of experience in legion expac and shadowland expac. I clear most of heroic raids in legion and some mythic difficulty in early legion raids, doing consistent +15 up to 18 mythic plus keys in legion. In shadowland, I focus mainly on mythic plus, with achieving Shadowland Key Stone Master on each seasons, and hitting 3k rating raider IO for m+. I can assure you that your general perception of "hunter" being easier than the rest of class in WoW is not 100% accurate, at least not in recent expac. Most of classes in WoW are not that complicated to play, strictly in basic to medium-end level of PVE environment, but surely is challenging to master in higher-end difficultly environment such as mythic raids or +20 or more mythic plus keys . Second, there is an important game design philosophy that should be understand first, especially when comparing GW2 with other MMO, in this case is WoW. It is about progression, especially gear progression. WoW have high vertical gear progression, and the method of climbing those vertical progression creates competition. Guilds or public groups will do elimination process in various methods, be it with gear level/item level or with rating system to judge a player's worth in term of skills. The probability of failing in clearing the content and not able to reap the maximum reward is high when you invite someone that don't have the same skill ceiling as your groups, or playing an underperforming class. In GW2, although there is a vertical gear progression, it is not as high as WoW as it stops at Ascended gears, and the method of climbing it doesn't create competition in the same level and strictness of WoW. Players can get Ascended gears from alot of sources ; be it meta events, crafting, buying from npc with certain currency, achievements, fractals, pvp, wvw, strikes, or raids. And it stops there, there is no gear that is more powerful that Ascended gears in term of character's power. Third, how does this gear progression related to mechanist at all ? It is because the competition in term of gearing progression in GW2 have zero to none. If there is so low or no competition at all, balancing profession / e-spec will be done at the whims of devs, at the devs feeling about e-spec identity, at feeling of players that expressed in feedback thread. It objectively doesn't matter back then when power mech was very popular, and it will be also objectively will not matter now when it gets nerfed. As long as the mechanist or ANY other profession is still in the "viable" range, and being an adequate players, you will still able to get ascended gears, you will still able to join most PVE contents. Lastly, strictly for PVE contents, from what I see in this mechanist fiasco, its not just about the easy "braindead 1111 spam afk full range" gameplay. But rather on how other elite spec / profession deliver their damage or heals or boons. Mechanist, no doubt, is the simplest and easiest spec in the way of delivering its damage, boons or support. Their utility skills are meant to be utility, can be used reactively, and very flexible. Compared it to other professions, they don't have the level of reactivity and flexibility that mechanist have. Reworking other professions to shorten the gap of flexibility and reactivity with mechanist should be the main issue that addressed, rather than fixated solely on tweaking mechanist numbers.

If you are a PVE players that do instanced content in higher level such as CM modes, then your choice is only to play the most effective profession for the role you are comfortable with. It can be mechanist, it can be virtuoso, it can be bladesworn, can be herald, can be firebrand, pick your posion. But the baseline for picking which profession, is how they perform in high level instanced PVE content. No compromise here, only meta-professions. However, if you are casual PVE players that just want to do some T4 / strike / raids , then every professions are viable. Doesn't matter what benchmark told, just be a competent player in your desired role and you are good to go. 1) Power rifle mechanist has mediocre CC. Mainly because you use ALL your damaging skills on cooldown, that includes overcharged shot (rifle 4) and mobility skill (jumpshot / rifle 5). You don't save your overcharged shot / jumpshot for their utility, you use them on your DPS rotation. 2) You never switch Grenade with Throw Mine, unless you are the only one that can boonstrip. 3) Not a single DPS class role is recommended to switch their optimal utility skills set for more CC. DPS role job is to do dps optimally, never cripple yourself by switching utility skills for CC, unless your squad forces you to.

Strictly speaking for PVE contents ; You will never get an adequate answer beside "overperforming". Mech still playable, even after the recent nerfs. As long as you are adequate enough, nobody will reject / kick you just being a power dps rifle mech. And just like when power dps rifle mech was "overperforming" , nobody will reject you for joining PVE group for playing non power dps rifle mech. Its just too unfortunate that ANET keep choosing the easiest solution for balancing dps mech, tinkering with numbers. For instance, ANET can just add more than "having a mech" as the entire e-spec mechanic. They can add more mechanic to the e-spec like add an "energy bar / battery charges" , that built up when you use your weapon skills, and those energy bar will be the resource for using mech skills. Rifle and pistol give less energy bar generation charges, while mace have higher energy bar generation charges. Shift the source of dps more into the mech rather than the engi itself, but the engi has to be active in order to powering up the mech. Or make the engineer to actually ride the mech. The mech will have a certain amount of passive "battery / energy" generation. When the bar is full, the engi wants to ride the mech and use all of the mech skills. While the bar isnt full, the mech is only a passive turret that does auto attack. Make mace the primary weapon that generates the most "battery/energy" charges generation, while rifle and pistol give less. With that, not only mechanist will be more active and carefully played since having the mech dead means you have 0 value, there will be less reason to nerf dps mech. But I guess its too much work, and also the problem of mech fiasco isn't just about dps numbers, but overall combat system that even though it is unique and different than most of MMORPGs with their holy trinity, it also creating problems that require unique solution for it to be effective, not just tinkering on how much does X ability deal damage. Like for example, on how an e-spec / profession delivering its damage in a real situation, not in training golem where there is no hazard and the need of reactive gameplay such as ; saving cc skillls to deal breakbar damage not for dps rotation, using mobility skills for mobility not for dps rotation, and to a certain extent using healing skill to heal not to reset your certain ability for dps rotation. Simply making A spec deal less damage than B spec because A spec requires less effort to be played in dealing damage than B thus making spec A is much more popular than B spec is not balance, its a forced-meta shifting based on popularity. And ANET should learn in the meantime on why spec A become popular before keep nerfing it, try to understand and make changes to spec B, so spec B is also desired to be played on, at least near the same scale, of spec A was played before. Remember, just because spec A does 5k more dps than spec B, doesn't mean spec B will be alienated and declined by every single PVE groups out there. Players don't care which spec you are playing, how much dps you deal above the acceptable numbers, as long as you are a competent player that know how to play, what to do, and don't dragging down your group, nobody will care.

Guys, ANET is a corporation that sells GW2 as a product to make profit. We (players) are the costumers that consume the product (playing GW2). So if you guys (consumers) dissatisfied with the current state of the game (the product), stop playing it and supporting it. You guys only able to actually make change with your wallet. None of your feedback here is going to be listened. A corporation won't listen to their costumer feedback until the costumer stop consuming the product. ANET "devs" team isn't a developer team that developing game, they developing a product to be sold, through any means necessary. So when their development goes sideway with consumer's expectation, just stop consuming the product. Speak with your wallet, that is the fastest and easiest way for them to listen to us.

This is 100% correct outside of GW2 most PVE contents, or even GW2 as mmo. Its easy to see that if you compare GW2 "endgame" PVE contents with another popular mmo such as WoW endgame PVE contents. The major difference is that in WoW (tl;dr), if you are playing underperformed class / spec, it is more likely for you to be rejected by public groups when trying to progress your character for endgame contents. In GW2 however, most of people won't care which spec you are playing as long as you do your role properly and able to clear the contents. There is no sense of competitiveness for profession or e-spec for general / bite-size PVE contents in GW2, and players can always progress their character's power / gear progression without doing higher difficulty PVE contents (T4 Fractals, strikes, raids) via crafting, open world meta, or achievements. Gear progression is the objective goal here. Feeling pressured to play an overperforming e-spec / profession to be competitive is not the ultimate problem. They feel pressured, not by the other players, not by the game, but by themselves, at least in general PVE contents. However, when someone choose to do higher difficulty contents (CM modes in T4 fractal, raids, strikes), it is bound to exist a formula / strategy to clear the contents comfortably with certain party composition. For example, we always meet the undisputed Firebrand in such party, since it can be healer / quickness dps / condi dps, and doing excellent job for those roles. Even as dps, Firebrand able to support the party with powerful defensive boon such as aegis and stability. With such strong profession + e-spec archetype, Firebrand become popular e-spec for instanced PVE contents, especially in fractals. So when a T4 Fractal (CM or not) asking for HFB, a player that enjoy the role of support or healer are forced to play heal firebrand instead of other profession, even if they don't like it or enjoy it. And if another popular healer, Heal Alac Mechanist, already in the party, Quickness DPS Firebrand is the most favored pick. Most of T4 Fractal CM choose quickness firebrand over the other quickness spec, but for general T4 any quickness support is acceptable. And regarding the dps spec, I have not yet meet any group that forbid anything beside mechanist in T4 Frac CM, even back when power dps was doing 37k benchmark dps. There might certainly one or two, but it wasn't the norm. Virtuoso was and still popular pick, even favored for NPNG with Scourge as another alternative. Specter, Soulbeast, Bladesworn, Condi Firebrand, are still solid pick. Whether players like it or not, feeling pressured or by choice, they are forced to fulfill those roles with those e-spec, because most pugs demand those e-spec especially in support roles, and those e-spec are already proven to be effective in such party composition. It might be the same case with raid or strikes CM mode, where certain profession outshine the other, not only in terms of dps, but also in terms of utility and support that it provides. However I can't say for certain since I don't have much experience on that field. So far, that is the extend of "competitiveness" in GW2 PVE contents. To say that feeling pressured to play overperforming spec to be competitive is the ultimate problem is simply incorrect. The level of competitiveness exists only in higher difficulty contents, where gears aren't the problem as players already expected to use full ascended gears + runes + sigils, have sufficient agony resistance, knowing how to play their profession / e-spec, have enough knowledge about the game or encounter mechanic.

I apologize, my previous statement about 24k dps is incorrect since it seems I missed something, either condition on golems, or food, or utility. However, this is the numbers that I able to pull with only autoattack and mech auto cast. No infusion, full berserker, scholar, sigil of force + air, food + utility (power, precision)., all boons + all condi on golem. Inside 450 range https://imgur.com/GwW9Gqo , 25,6k dps Outside 450 range https://imgur.com/8BVNST2 , 24,6k dps Beside that, why range is an issue again ? Since both profession are always want to be in melee range to deal optimal DPS. Also, the most obvious thing, neither mechanist or virtouso is only auto-attacking when doing dps. There's that, now let me address some issues here. First and foremost, I don't acknowledge power dps mechanist or any power dps for overperforming in real scenarios, outside higher difficulty instanced content such as CM (T4 fractals, Strikes, or raids) or a speedrun group. GW2 has close to 0 sense of competitiveness in term of player's power progression, which is an objective goal. What I mean by this, is that player are not forced or does not have to compete with other players in doing and clearing PVE contents in order to gain power, such as gears. Players are able to earn their highest power gears, which is ascended gears, from various PVE contents with various barrier of entry. Starting from the lowest barrier of entry which is crafting, to open world meta, to fractals (T1 to T4), to strikes and raids. Compared to other mmos, particularly a famous one which is WoW, player's gear progression in GW2 does not affected by specific profession / elite spec performances in PVE content. For example in WoW PVE contents, your gear progression mainly comes from raids and mythic dungeons, and those content tuned differently compared to GW2. Public groups will favor certain class and spec, and will reject you if you are playing an underperforming class / spec. If you are rejected, then there is no way you can progress your gear further. However in GW2, whether you are playing a flavor of the month profession, or other profession that the community deemed to be "bad" or underperform, you are able to progress your gears. Even then, outside CM, the difficulty ceiling for fractals, strikes, and raids, are not that high. As long as you are competent enough in your roles, you and your group will be able to clear those contents and get the rewards. I haven't seen a single public groups that do bite-size PVE contents, only accepting mechanist as power dps role (even before the nerfs). Whether power dps mechanist is pulling high dps numbers with easy rotation / gameplay or not, there is almost 0 consequences that will negatively affect other players to achieve their objective in PVE contents. That is why I do not acknowledge power dps mechanist (or any other spec) being "overperforming", whether before, now, or in the future. It has no effect on me whether power dps mechanist is number 1 dps or not. I still able to clear PVE contents with whichever profession and roles I want to play. I just need to do my roles properly and get my rewards. However, it will be a different story with higher difficulty contents such as CM modes, because there will be more variables to take into account in clearing the contents. Yes, I only referencing the latest guide because why shouldn't I ? Why should I try to find the author of the guides from the sites I mentioned before ? The guide is there, its concise and comprehensive.

I forgot to add , with all boons included. You can test it by yourself if you don't believe it, all condition on golem, autocast mech, all boons on yourself, full berserker gear, scholar rune, sigil of force + air, power and ferocity food + utility, without any +5 power infusion, basically the general power dps mech on most build guide sites. In which universe? The currently we are at, since the number is only on a training golem. 1) I did read a mesmer guide, a power virtuoso build and rotation guide from snowcrow site. It doesn't tell me to take phantasmal defender whatsoever. Its also the same at Metabattle, discretize, and hardstuck site. All of the guide taking phantasmal disenchanter. So I'm affraid I don't know what are you talking about. 2) Your concern (if i can say) about main hand sword auto is directly related with boons on target. As I stated in first point, snowcrow site, and the rest guide recommend to take phantasmal disenchanter AND using greatsword instead of sword + focus. With the recent GS buff, using greatsword + dagger MH / sword OH, is the optimal setup for dps. And when someone choose to play DPS role with power virtuoso, it is their responsibility to deliver the most optimal DPS output in a content where DPS matters. Sword as main hand in power virtouoso is not only suboptimal, its also become completely irrelevant in relation with boons on enemy and mesmer's sword autos. Phantasm disenchanter not only helps power virtuoso to stock blades (as other phantasm skills do), it also help stripping boons from priority target. Only NPNG instability that is matter, more than vengeance (at least in T4 CM). However, your statement about Phantasmal Defender is better than Phantasmal Disenchanter might be true where there are constant boons on multiple enemies that are priority targets, like 5 legendary or champion enemy with boons that need to be cleaved in order to complete the encounter. But then it becomes a completely different issue since its about cleave damage, not about boon removal. Even in HT CM where such condition can be encountered, albeit not legendary enemies and not always 5 targets, I haven't seen any virtuoso taking phastamal defender. 3) Why the matter of range is a thing again ? Both power dps mechanist, and power dps virtuoso WANTS to dps at melee range. And don't pretend that power mechanist is also not losing dps if not in 450 range.

No. 100% false. Only inexperienced groups that won't allow ANY power build to run 100CM, or a speed run group. The main reason on why condi dps is preferable than power dps is to comfortably and easily push water phase into the next phase. But that doesn't mean ANY power dps isn't allowed. With NPNG (no pain, no gain) , power virtuoso / power mechanist / power alac mechanist are solid choice to take with for 100CM. No, this is not fact. Its your assumption. Rifle holosmith simply doesn't work as good as sword holosmith in PVE. Holosmith with sword on main-hand have better synergy with heat gauge and overall better dps. 1) Neither rifle mechanist does 28k dps on only autoattack. Its only at 23-24k at golem, point-blank range, auto cast mech, and all condition on golem (which is not realistic). Both power virtuoso and power rifle mechanist always want to deal damage on melee range. Its not only for trait (both profession) but also for projectile flight-time, grenades flight time, rifle 2 and 5. 2) Its irrelevant for you to bring about scholar uptime since both mechanist and virtuoso are capable to do deal damage without locked in animation / place, able to deal damage at range, and about have the same heal amount with their healing skills. There is nothing that mechanist have, to have advantage over virtuoso for scholar uptime. Of course you can argue that mechanist that have passive 262 heal / second via rectifier signet, but only a bad dps player that decide to not use the signet for heal to maintain scholar uptime. And beside, scholar uptime only relevant in instanced group content and most of time there will be a healer in this type of group, so why scholar uptime become a problem ? 3) This is the most baffling statement "if it is nerfed too hard there will be very little reason to run it over another power spec unless you can make use of the boon rips (which drop your DPS)". Power Virtuoso ALWAYS take phantasmal disenchanter. Its part of its dps rotation, has 5 boonstrip, and on 20 second cooldown (which is 100% boonstrip uptime for NPNG). Basically, power virtuoso has a built-in boonstrip.

Sooooo anyway, when will power mechanist rifle gets buff again ?