Hi, so I wanted to raise a few issues, & suggest some ideas for Mechanist, specifically concerning playing Heal Alacrity Mechanist in endgame content. I have played the class as a main for several months, and found these issues cropped up throughout endgame content. The Recent Mechanical Genius & Relic interaction changes were good in my opinion, and have made the class less frustrating to play, but I am concerned about how it competes with other strong heal supports in Raids, Strike Missions and Fractals due to some lingering gaps in its functionality.
- Heal Mechanists currently lack ideal access to a 'Heal' skill type. You will almost always want to run Medkit, which means you cannot trigger 'On heal' relics, or traits such as Reconstruction Encolusure. Normally on other Engineers with Medkit, this effect would be covered by the Toobelt Skill you gain from your Heal Skill, but this functionality is not availiable on Mechanist. It is worth noting that Mortar Kit, the Elite Skill, Does proc 'On Elite skill use' relics when opened, which evidences inconsistency in interactions for the class.
This could be solved either by A) Allowing Medkit open to count as using a heal skill or B) making Explosive Knuckle, a currently very medicore skill on support, into a 'Heal' Skill to trigger these effects. A) Could be very problematic to balance, so I suggest B) more strongly. With the Mech able to trigger the relic & trait effects, this would allow a Mechanist access to several more useful Relics and core traits.
- Heal Mechanists currently lack Flexibility in comparison to some other healers such as Firebrand. I know this is a tired point, and several other Classes also deserve this attention, but with the new weapons releasing soon the game with have larger variety and Mechanist needs to stay competitive as an option. Going back to Explosive Knuckles - this skill is very mediocre on support. My suggestion is to give it the base 6s Alacrity and Protection Application from Crisis Zone. These boons would ideally stay as 600 range, due to this Skill being slightly more difficult to use than Crisis Zone.
Crisis Zone would then be free as an on demand support skill for specific/reactionary use cases. I suggest it retains the base 6s Aegis/Stability & the Group Stunbreak, but the Stability is increased to 3 stacks for that duration, and the skill could even also gain Resistance making it a Multi Purpose on demand skill true to Engineer. These changes would make all 3 Mechanist Support Skills apply alloted boons, and a Special effect (Healing, Stunbreak, Barrier) and each would suit uses in different scenarios and have a better identity. It is worth noting here that with the upcoming Relic of Resistance changing to 'On Heal' - the only access a Heal Mechanist will have to group Resistance will be via the Relic of the Astral Ward, hence this change is currently acting as a nerf to the class flexibility. Mechanist remains extremely limited in it's group Aegis/Stability/Resistance/Resolution access, and these could use further work, perhaps in the Core Engineer Toolkit.
- Finally, minor gripes but Swiftness, Fury & 25 Might is a standard set of boons many healers have full access to, but other healers really struggle for. Mechanist is capable of them, but with limited flexibility and duration/stack build up unless you sacrifice other elements of your toolkit. A fun solution could be to make the Mech do a 600 radius application of Might, Fury and Swiftness when it is summoned, on a long cooldown to prevent resummon re-use. This would help you to build an initial buffer of these boons the same way other strong healers can, and with a cool entrance in fights!
As a final note, I am considering these changes independently of the coming addition of Shortbow to Engineer. Shortbow will not easily replace Mace/Shield on Heal Alacrity Mechanist due to the many effects loaded onto those weapons, regardless of what we saw in the previous weapon beta and any changes that are made for release. In my opinion, it is more ideal to solve these class issues without it, and design it for use in Engineer Builds that currently lack good weapon options more.
I'd love to hear other peoples suggestions, these are just personally the most frustrating issues I found from my time playing the class in PvE.
*I'm aware of bug(s)/issues concerning some Mechanists inheriting core toolbelt effects. I have tested my older pre EOD Engineer, and my newer Post EOD Engineer created just after the patch, and encounter these issues on both. My assumption is that this is an unintended effect, and hopefully a fix is being worked on.
