Enraged by the mechanist

[Arkham Creed.7358]

29 minutes ago, Bealis.6023 said:

No need to get unhappy I would think.😉 Mechanist is focused solely just on that one "pet". Well see during and after the beta, but right now it seems Mechanist will get boring soon - imagine traveling with that hunk for hours. On the other hand Untamed has much more room for the devs to improve it. If we look at the traits, it will get much easier to change them. If they wanted to make Mechanist more fun, they would literally need to redo whole spec, which most likely wont happen.

I disagree about it getting boring. For one because you can always just swap a few traits around and suddenly have a different golem. Heck it will even LOOK different due to the skills you give it visually changing it's equipped weapon system. On the other hand rangers can freely swap their pets...but they have no customization, all have set skills that we have no control over, and most of them are bugged and unusable anyway. 

I see the mechanist v ranger situation much the way I view revenant v everything else. Yeah it SEEMS that the class with the most "options" for your sidekick would be the most versatile and fun.  But after a few short months getting to know the actual handful of options and the smaller number of viable ones you start to seriously miss being able to customize your loadout. Seriously I recently swore off revenant and deleted it because I realized that I would legitimately trade every single one of it's legends, happily, for just one handful of generic skills I could freely slot however I wanted. In the same way I can already tell I would grin like an over caffeinated toddler and toss literally every single one of my pets in a blender if it meant I could get that damned golem on my ranger. Customization beats prefab. Period. It doesn't matter how many prefabs they give you, customization always wins. 

Think about it, would you rather have an ascended piece of armor with predefined stats, or an exotic piece of armor that let you pick ANY combination of ANY three stats you want, including prefixes that don't currently exist? One might be technically better on paper, but it's just as limited. The other, while something like 5% weaker, has the legitimate potential to be ANYTHING YOU WANT. 

[Bealis.6023]

48 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

I disagree about it getting boring. For one because you can always just swap a few traits around and suddenly have a different golem. Heck it will even LOOK different due to the skills you give it visually changing it's equipped weapon system. On the other hand rangers can freely swap their pets...but they have no customization, all have set skills that we have no control over, and most of them are bugged and unusable anyway. 

I see the mechanist v ranger situation much the way I view revenant v everything else. Yeah it SEEMS that the class with the most "options" for your sidekick would be the most versatile and fun.  But after a few short months getting to know the actual handful of options and the smaller number of viable ones you start to seriously miss being able to customize your loadout. Seriously I recently swore off revenant and deleted it because I realized that I would legitimately trade every single one of it's legends, happily, for just one handful of generic skills I could freely slot however I wanted. In the same way I can already tell I would grin like an over caffeinated toddler and toss literally every single one of my pets in a blender if it meant I could get that damned golem on my ranger. Customization beats prefab. Period. It doesn't matter how many prefabs they give you, customization always wins. 

Think about it, would you rather have an ascended piece of armor with predefined stats, or an exotic piece of armor that let you pick ANY combination of ANY three stats you want, including prefixes that don't currently exist? One might be technically better on paper, but it's just as limited. The other, while something like 5% weaker, has the legitimate potential to be ANYTHING YOU WANT. 

I see we both want more variation but in a different form, which I guess is the beauty of it.

Thing what I like about a quantity of pets, as we see now, that it brings fruits in Untamed when we can actualy use their skills in prof. tab. If we count all skills that they have, it is alot and even when many of them would suck in practical combat, they can be always improved upon, and the spec grows.  Its just an example of that devs can work on existing things and try to improve it, so there is always a potential in the proffesion. When you look at the Mechanist from the design perspective, the mech is surely highly customizable and can occupy any role, BUT the design=trait line. You have variation in that one mech, not your character as a whole. But I guess we will really see when people play for longer periods of time 😉

Edited October 24, 2021 by Bealis.6023

[Arkham Creed.7358]

1 minute ago, Bealis.6023 said:

I see we both want more variation but in a different form, which I guess is the beauty of it.

Thing what I like about a quantity of pets, as we see now, that it brings fruits in Untamed when we can actualy use their skills in prof. tab. If we count all skills that they have, it is alot and even when many of them would sucks in practical combat, they can be always improved upon, and the spec grows.  Its just an example that devs can work on existing things and try to improve it, so there is always a potential in the proffesion. When you look at the Mechanist from the design perspective, the mech is surely highly customizable and can occupy any role, BUT the design=trait line. You have variation in that one mech, not your character as a whole. But I guess we will really see when people play for longer periods of time 😉

I see your stance, and while it is true we'll probably never see the addition of any other mech skills, I'd disagree that it won't get updates...indirectly. If they add another gear prefix to the game; mech gets that. If they add more sigils or runes with on-strike/kill/crit effects; mech gets that (I assume; lots of "conjures" benefit from those things as it is; I used to run revenant dwarf stance just to use the hammers to spam AoE bleed via Sigils of Earth, and my ranger using Sigils of Earth combo with Runes of the Mad King was a bleed machine regardless of his elite skill). 

As to the ranger, first and foremost I feel like the pet system in general needs a major pass to compete. Not only are their bug and AI fixes that need to happen, I maintain that the new three-skill UI system needs to be baseline. I'd also say that the beastmaster trait line needs a rework as well. It's all subjective, but I personally don't care of End of Dragons adds nine dozen brand new pets if A; none of their stats synergize with my preferred playstyle, B; their traits continue to be useless, C; our command skills continue to be wasted slots if and when are pets are dead, and D; I don't actually get any say whatsoever in when said pet does something useful. 

[Bunny.9834]

They spent all the time with the Mechanist and forgot all the other classes. lol. 

[Bealis.6023]

28 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

As to the ranger, first and foremost I feel like the pet system in general needs a major pass to compete. Not only are their bug and AI fixes that need to happen, I maintain that the new three-skill UI system needs to be baseline. I'd also say that the beastmaster trait line needs a rework as well. It's all subjective, but I personally don't care of End of Dragons adds nine dozen brand new pets if A; none of their stats synergize with my preferred playstyle, B; their traits continue to be useless, C; our command skills continue to be wasted slots if and when are pets are dead, and D; I don't actually get any say whatsoever in when said pet does something useful. 

You are right on the fact that the AI is not really perfect. But imagine now when the fixes/improvements are done. You have pets vs one mech, which apparently uses same AI. That would be my point 🙂

P.S If the Mechanist wont get more mechs, I actualy havent thought about that, but it could be a waste for just one elite spec 🤔

Edited October 24, 2021 by Bealis.6023

[Arkham Creed.7358]

1 minute ago, DragonSlayer.1087 said:

They spent all the time with the Mechanist and forgot all the other classes. lol. 

Honestly it kind of seems like it. Most of the other elite specs (unpopular opinion: I think the catalyst is great, but does need a bit of work) seem comparatively half-baked. Good ideas, but so unrefined/unfinished you'd think this was an alpha, not a beta. 

[Arkham Creed.7358]

1 minute ago, Bealis.6023 said:

You are right on the fact that the AI is not really perfect. But iamgine now when the fix/improvements are done. You have pets vs one mech, which apparently uses same AI. That would be my point 🙂

IF they get done. Even during the livestream AI bugs just got shrugged off and handwaved with a joke. I could be wrong, hope I am, but that really made it seem like AI improvements aren't a priority. And Arena Net has a habit of quietly shelving things they don't want to fix. Remember the backpacks that were part of engineer kits they said they removed temporarily and would reimplement as mystic forge skins for primary backpacks? Or how about the personality dialog system? Did you know that originally Rangers had an elite skill that let them summon BOTH their pets at once? Do you remember that Largos exist? Are you aware that it is actually GW cannon that our characters eventually become evil and send robots back in time to attack Tyria? 

[Bealis.6023]

10 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

Are you aware that it is actually GW cannon that our characters eventually become evil and send robots back in time to attack Tyria? 

Is it true?😶 Now I kinda get it why your enraged by a Mechanist😂

Edited October 24, 2021 by Bealis.6023

[Arkham Creed.7358]

8 minutes ago, Bealis.6023 said:

Is it true?😶 Now I kinda get it why your enraged by a Mechanist😂

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Steam_creature

"One possible point of origin for the steam creatures was interdimensional, coming from a potential alternate future reality created by the Infinity Ball. In this suggested alternate future, one of the asura contenders for the 1325 AE Snaff Prize went on to form an organization known as the Conclave, declaring themselves the Grand High Sovereign of Tyria and creating the steam creatures to make that vision a reality. Little else is known about this potential reality, except that the alternate version of Shodd held the title "Grand Vice Admiral", and that both the High Sovereign and the Vice Admiral had taken to the field in what they called the Battle of Divinity's Reach."

Granted that this is just one of three possible paths in the asura personal story. However since the "cannon" story follows the commander starting primarily at Claw Island, and the commander can be of any race from any background, we have to do a kind of "Schrodinger's backstory" thing wherein every possible variation of the commander's origin are all equally valid. 

[Kodama.6453]

10 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I addressed that, even if you edited out the part of my post where I did.

 

There's a total of nine different combinations there. Rangers will have 56 terrestrial pets with EoD. Now, rangers don't have the ability to trade out one skill for another while keeping everything else mostly the same like mechanist can (apart from changing F2 by choosing a different animal from the same family), but rangers currently have more families of pets, on land at least (and underwater combat has been pretty much forgotten apart from that revenant rework for quite some time) then the total number of combinations that mechanist has. Granted, that's more of a sense of picking from a menu rather than customising, but it still represents more choice overall.

Meanwhile, 7/9 mechanist traits basically cease to exist whenever the golem is off the field, which could be for over a minute at a time.

There are actually 27 different combinations.

111, 112, 113, 121, 122, 123, 131, 132, 133, 211, 212, 213, 221, 222, 223, 231, 232, 233, 311, 312, 313, 321, 322, 323, 331, 332, 333

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Kodama.6453 said:

There are actually 27 different combinations.

111, 112, 113, 121, 122, 123, 131, 132, 133, 211, 212, 213, 221, 222, 223, 231, 232, 233, 311, 312, 313, 321, 322, 323, 331, 332, 333

I said as much myself in a followup post.

 

2 hours ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

I see your stance, and while it is true we'll probably never see the addition of any other mech skills, I'd disagree that it won't get updates...indirectly. If they add another gear prefix to the game; mech gets that. If they add more sigils or runes with on-strike/kill/crit effects; mech gets that (I assume; lots of "conjures" benefit from those things as it is; I used to run revenant dwarf stance just to use the hammers to spam AoE bleed via Sigils of Earth, and my ranger using Sigils of Earth combo with Runes of the Mad King was a bleed machine regardless of his elite skill). 

As to the ranger, first and foremost I feel like the pet system in general needs a major pass to compete. Not only are their bug and AI fixes that need to happen, I maintain that the new three-skill UI system needs to be baseline. I'd also say that the beastmaster trait line needs a rework as well. It's all subjective, but I personally don't care of End of Dragons adds nine dozen brand new pets if A; none of their stats synergize with my preferred playstyle, B; their traits continue to be useless, C; our command skills continue to be wasted slots if and when are pets are dead, and D; I don't actually get any say whatsoever in when said pet does something useful. 

A: You'd have to be pretty picky to have that many pets to choose from and none of them match your playstyle. There are still only a limited number of configurations, after all. Ranger also has the potential advantage that the pet's attributes don't have to mirror the ranger's. 

B&C: These issues are, if anything, amplified with mechanist. Any core engineer utility that was balanced on the basis of having a strong toolbelt skill? Not viable on mechanist. Ever. Mechanist traits? Mostly useless as soon as the golem is no longer there, which could be over a minute at a time.

😧 Untamed has the same pet control UI as mechanist does, so this option is available to you. Hopefully it'll be added to ranger in general as well, but it would be more productive to ask for that directly.

 

Honestly, to me, mechanist feels like the most unfinished, mostly because of the traits. Two of the traits have effects that persist (or only appear) when the mech is away. The others only affect the mech, and their effect on the mech doesn't seem to be any stronger than the more versatile traits. Feels like the other traits are SUPPOSED to have effects that persist or appear when the mech is dismissed, but they haven't had the time to implement them yet.

[InspectorCaracal.2970]

On 10/23/2021 at 8:58 PM, anduriell.6280 said:

ranger is limited by the combination the pets offer which is usually very unidimensional: you can not get a pet which offer aoe support and at the same time ranged dps for example.

Bit of a tangent, but: oddly enough, my suggestion of having Primal skills at least partly defined by pet archetype rather than the same for all pets was generally disliked with the argument of the archetypes "mis-matching" the base pet, but it sounds like that's exactly the kind of mix-and-matching you want. So I guess I'm not the only one who would like that aspect of the idea.

[anduriell.6280]

1 hour ago, Inventrix.3158 said:

Bit of a tangent, but: oddly enough, my suggestion of having Primal skills at least partly defined by pet archetype rather than the same for all pets was generally disliked with the argument of the archetypes "mis-matching" the base pet, but it sounds like that's exactly the kind of mix-and-matching you want. So I guess I'm not the only one who would like that aspect of the idea.

No need to make things more complicated, i preffer not to have any unleash skills linked to pets, it was pretty limiting in soulbeast. 

Just need to be working for both types of pets melee and ranged and to accomplish that it just need the F1 and F2 AoEs to be arround the targets instead the pet. 

It makes no sense to put a bristleback in the middel of combat when it has a range of 1200 for example. 

It does makes even less sense to have ranged pets with melee autoattacks like Anet devs have been doing lately with pets like the iboga. 

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by anduriell.6280

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Lol you rangers are silly.

If you had to give up half of what mechanist gives up for his golem you wouldn't touch your own profession.
Heavens forbid (and they won't) that golem dies..

1. nothing to swap to. You're officially without profession mechanic for x amount of time.

2. Also with only two traitlines because elite one is all about the golem and nothing else. No golem, no benefits.

3. Dead or alive you're coming with....erm wait wrong line. Dead or alive all your core utility skills are gutted without their belt counterparts

[Yazkin.6179]

3 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Lol you rangers are silly.

If you had to give up half of what mechanist gives up for his golem you wouldn't touch your own profession.
Heavens forbid (and they won't) that golem dies..

1. nothing to swap to. You're officially without profession mechanic for x amount of time.

2. Also with only two traitlines because elite one is all about the golem and nothing else. No golem, no benefits.

3. Dead or alive you're coming with....erm wait wrong line. Dead or alive all your core utility skills are gutted without their belt counterparts

We know the mechanist gives up an entire class function and has lots of downsides, we can agree to that. It's just that the mechanist trait line, utility, and stats shown are what the beastmaster trait line and our pets should have gotten just as a core ranger. 

 

Seeing a specialization overtake what an entire profession is supposed to be is upsetting. 

[LucianDK.8615]

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Looking in the engi forum, theres nothing but QQ about the mechanist. Expecting  a scrapper 2.0 that requires years to get a good redesign.

Also, the mech is not a permanent pet as far I understood it.

Edited October 25, 2021 by LucianDK.8615

[Levetty.1279]

3 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Lol you rangers are silly.

If you had to give up half of what mechanist gives up for his golem you wouldn't touch your own profession.

We already do give up half of what other classes get on core to get the pet in the first place.

26 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Looking in the engi forum, theres nothing but QQ about the mechanist.

Doesn't surprise me, for some reason they got the pet focused elite spec instead of Ranger.

[Arkham Creed.7358]

5 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Lol you rangers are silly.

If you had to give up half of what mechanist gives up for his golem you wouldn't touch your own profession.
Heavens forbid (and they won't) that golem dies..

1. nothing to swap to. You're officially without profession mechanic for x amount of time.

2. Also with only two traitlines because elite one is all about the golem and nothing else. No golem, no benefits.

3. Dead or alive you're coming with....erm wait wrong line. Dead or alive all your core utility skills are gutted without their belt counterparts

Firstly I'd like to hereby request that you engineer mains stop with your misinformation based whining. You keep saying the traits don't do anything without the golem, but that is objectively and demonstrably untrue. kitten near all of them have a player based function IN ADDITION to the golem skills and bonuses. You are straight up, 100% LYING right now. And I bet you know that, but it doesn't make for as enjoyable QQ. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now that said, and I know this isn't how long time engineer mains play, but I never cared about the tool belt. I mained engineer for about six to eight months shortly after launch (when I realized trying to main thief was a mistake because I didn't realize it was so dependent on "MMO fake-Stealth") and I never could invest in the tool belt. At no point did I prioritize a skill because of it's tool belt function, and all my builds were viable, even powerful, as I nearly completely ignored the thing's existence. I STILL largely ignore it when I play engineer and it doesn't hurt me in the least. 

That's because, unpopular opinion, the tool belt isn't actually that powerful. I've always been a quality over quantity type of guy (hence why the golem appeals to me more than an entire menagerie of pets) and adding five more kind of crappy skills on top of five halfway decent skills never stuck me as worth paying attention to. The tool belt was a gimmick that I'd use occasionally if the skills I was forced to take had momentary use. But I never, ever, at any point, even considered thinking about maybe toying with the possibility of making it the centerpiece of my build. Again I completed all the content in the game at that time no problem. 

The tool belt has never been that valuable. It just hasn't. And in my personal subjective opinion I'm fine with dropping it like a bad habit in favor of what could be objectively the best persistent pet in the game is a more than fair trade. And in case you were wondering; ranger pets die too. A lot. And Soul Beast can't swap, so don't even bring that up. Now, guess what happens to our profession mechanic, command skill type, and beastmastery traits when the pet is dead. Oh, and do you want to know the cool down when our pets die? There isn't one! It stays dead until you exit combat! I would kill to have my pet revive itself after just a measly hundred seconds. 

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

1 hour ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

Firstly I'd like to hereby request that you engineer mains stop with your misinformation based whining. You keep saying the traits don't do anything without the golem, but that is objectively and demonstrably untrue. kitten near all of them have a player based function IN ADDITION to the golem skills and bonuses. You are straight up, 100% LYING right now. And I bet you know that, but it doesn't make for as enjoyable QQ. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now that said, and I know this isn't how long time engineer mains play, but I never cared about the tool belt. I mained engineer for about six to eight months shortly after launch (when I realized trying to main thief was a mistake because I didn't realize it was so dependent on "MMO fake-Stealth") and I never could invest in the tool belt. At no point did I prioritize a skill because of it's tool belt function, and all my builds were viable, even powerful, as I nearly completely ignored the thing's existence. I STILL largely ignore it when I play engineer and it doesn't hurt me in the least. 

That's because, unpopular opinion, the tool belt isn't actually that powerful. I've always been a quality over quantity type of guy (hence why the golem appeals to me more than an entire menagerie of pets) and adding five more kind of crappy skills on top of five halfway decent skills never stuck me as worth paying attention to. The tool belt was a gimmick that I'd use occasionally if the skills I was forced to take had momentary use. But I never, ever, at any point, even considered thinking about maybe toying with the possibility of making it the centerpiece of my build. Again I completed all the content in the game at that time no problem. 

The tool belt has never been that valuable. It just hasn't. And in my personal subjective opinion I'm fine with dropping it like a bad habit in favor of what could be objectively the best persistent pet in the game is a more than fair trade. And in case you were wondering; ranger pets die too. A lot. And Soul Beast can't swap, so don't even bring that up. Now, guess what happens to our profession mechanic, command skill type, and beastmastery traits when the pet is dead. Oh, and do you want to know the cool down when our pets die? There isn't one! It stays dead until you exit combat! I would kill to have my pet revive itself after just a measly hundred seconds. 

Necro main actually.
I keep saying that mechanist traits don't do anything without the mech cause it's true.
Ah wait, my bad. The adept minor lets you use mace, that's not tied to golem. And there's one (and that's it) grandmaster that provides occasional bombardment when mech is away. So ok, my bad...

As for toolbelt i found it very valuable as pvp scrapper. Elixirs toss skills are very solid, gyros also get great abilites there. And med kit users will surely disagree with you on low impact of belt skills.

Ranger pet die too? Cry me a river. You got two pets not one, and a swap to prevent them dying. Soulbeasts can just merge the pet into themselves and on separation it'll pop out with full health.
To add insult to injury pet stats are not related to ranger stats. You can be full glass and still have an obscenely tanky bear running with you. Possibly with high dps pet on swap so you can max your dps when not in dire need of tank..

Meanwhile the golem is based off engi's own stats, so squishy engi = squishy golem. Tanky engi = tanky golem but it's dps output will most likely suck...
 

Edited October 25, 2021 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Arkham Creed.7358]

14 minutes ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Necro main actually.
I keep saying that mechanist traits don't do anything without the mech cause it's true.
Ah wait, my bad. The adept minor lets you use mace, that's not tied to golem. And there's one (and that's it) grandmaster that provides occasional bombardment when mech is away. So ok, my bad...

As for toolbelt i found it very valuable as pvp scrapper. Elixirs toss skills are very solid, gyros also get great abilites there. And med kit users will surely disagree with you on low impact of belt skills.

Ranger pet die too? Cry me a river. You got two pets not one, and a swap to prevent them dying. Soulbeasts can just merge the pet into themselves and on separation it'll pop out with full health.
Too add insult to injury pet stats are not related to ranger stats. You can be full glass and still have an obscenely tanky bear running with you. Possibly with high dps pet on swap so you can max your dps when not in dire need of tank..

Meanwhile the golem is based off engi's own stats, so squishy engi = squishy golem. Tanky engi = tanky golem but it's dps output will most likely suck...
 

I stand by everything I've said thus far. But since it seems to be the go-to whining, let me tell you a little something about the Med Kit; you can actually equip it. It's not just a tool belt skill. So here is an absolutely insane and off the wall idea that is so ridiculous it's probably not worth mentioning. But maybe, if you like using med kit, you like being a healer. That's what it's for; healing the party. So...now hear me out...drop down a tanky DPS golem, EQUIP the med kit, and glue yourself to it's butt like a TF2 Medic leashed to a Heavy. 

There, I just solved TWO problems; you still get arguably MORE use out of the med kit, and unless you really suck your golem isn't going to die. 

Edited October 25, 2021 by Arkham Creed.7358

[draxynnic.3719]

Okay, let's be realistic about how much customisability the mechanist golem has:

 

In practice, the golems come in three "families", since the master trait decides what attributes it has. If you want the mech to be good at condition damage, you have to take Conductive Alloys so it has good condition damage stats. It's not clear what the 'baseline' attributes are without the traits, but if the interaction of the minor traits with Toughness and Vitality are any indication, it appears to be less than 50%. Similarly, if you want the golem to be supportive, you need to be running Channeling Circuits in order to provide the attributes to back that up, while if you want the golem to be a source of power damage, it's Variable Mass Distributor.

 

The whole "inherit the engineer's attributes" mechanic really only does two things. First, it means that the engineer has to match what the golem is doing: if you want the golem to do condi damage, YOU have to do condi damage as well. Second, since toughness and vitality are always shared, it does mean that you can adjust where the golem fits on the glass-tank spectrum. However, again, you can only do so by also influencing where YOU fit. You can't, say, run full glass yourself while having a tanky pet that can draw aggro for you. Either both you and the golem are tanky, or both glass.

 

Now, let's look at those individual "families".

 

If you've got Conductive Alloys for condition damage, you pretty much need to be running Single-Edged Cutters to get sustained condition application. If you run Jade Dynamo and Shrapnel, you could possibly get away with using High Impact Drivers to mix in a bit of might application at the cost of less condition application (although I'm sceptical that you'd get anything out of it that compensates for the loss of bleeds). Jade Cannons probably isn't viable, though, because the active ability of Conductive Alloys is melee so on top of combining power and condition damage when you only have condition damage attributes, you'd also be creating a golem that's primarily ranged but has a special ability that's melee-oriented. Since Discharge Array has a 30s cooldown, though, we could give it the benefit of the doubt and say it can work as long as you have Jade Dynamo and Shrapnel, and you'd just keep Discharge Array in reserve in case the enemy closes, but even then you're probably giving up on too many bleeds for it to really be viable. On the flipside, if you keep Single-Edged Cutters, you're not as locked to Jade Dynamo and Shrapnel. Theoretically speaking, under this circumstance, either of the other grandmasters can work: Barrier Engine makes it a pure melee with a little more durability than it would otherwise have due to barrier, while J-Drive on condi stats is essentially making your golem a little bit weaker in exchange for supercharging signets, which might be a decent trade to make.

 

So that means there are four configurations that seem to be viable in the condi "family": 1-1-1, 1-1-2, and 1-1-3. Most are probably just going to go 1-1-1, though, maybe 1-1-3 if they really want to make a lot of use of signets.

 

Now, let's consider the Channeling Circuits family, based around supportive stats. High Impact Drivers is the obvious winner here. You might also take Jade Cannons if ranged attacks are more important to you than a bit of extra Might (but getting the golem to be in the right spot to provide support if it's not simply joining the melee stack might be challenging),  and I guess it's possible that Single-Edged Cutters would be useful for just a little extra damage if the group is already Might-stacked and you want to keep the golem in melee? That's pretty niche, but I could see it happening in instanced group PvE. Looking at the grandmasters, Barrier Engine will supercharge your barrier application and therefore your alacrity application. If you're alacrity-capped without it (haven't done the numbers to see if that's possible, let's assume for the sake of argument it is), you might consider getting J-Drive for the improved signets (particularly Rectifier and Barrier, which benefit from support stats) or Jade Dynamo for a bit of extra damage (and vulnerability plus a bit of self-sustain through Big Boomer if you're running Explosives). 

 

So, technically speaking, none of the combinations can be dismissed offhand, but let's look at the situations where you'd use each. Single-Edged Cutters are something I can only see being used in high-end PvE, or maybe WvW, where Might can be assumed to be capped anyway. In these circumstances, I think it's pretty safe to assume that the group will want the mechanist generating as much Alacrity and Barrier as possible and they'll probably already have the boss Vulnerability-capped, so they'd be expected to run 1-2-2. Situations where you actually want "ranged golem with support effects around the golem" are probably pretty niche, particularly since a support-oriented mechanist (keeping mind that the mechanist also needs to be running support attributes for the golem to have good support attributes) is probably going to be running mace/shield. The majority are probably going to run 2-2-2, with a handful running 2-2-1 with Explosives or 2-2-3 for signets, and some running 1-2-2 in high-end grouped content.

 

Finally, we have Variable Mass Distributor, the power DPS "family". Jade Cannons are the obvious choice, and if you want it in melee, you'd probably take High-Impact Drivers so it can feed itself with a little extra Might. Similar to the support family, if you want the golem in melee and you already expect to be Might-capped you might go with Single-Edged Cutters, but I expect that situation to be limited to organised group content. Grandmaster choice is fairly open: Jade Dynamo with Explosives would work well for power and provide a bit of sustain through Big Boomer, and J-Drive is obviously intended to be used with power. Barrier Engine is a bit of a weird one: in theory you could combine it with a melee build for a bit of extra party support and durability, but in terms of the golem itself, I think you'd want to use the Jade Dynamo/Big Boomer combination for extra durability on the golem, and if you really wanted to support a party with barrier, you'd probably want to go all-in and run Channeling Circuits for alacrity and stronger barriers. (It's worth noting here that, unlike the Channeling Circuits family, there's nothing pushing the Variable Mass Distributor family into being a melee build unless you want it to be.)

 

So the majority of power golems are probably going to be running 2-3-1, 2-3-3, 3-3-1, or 3-3-3. You might see the odd 1-3-1 or 1-3-3 in group situations where Might is already capped.

 

So, to summarise:

 

There are 27 combinations on paper, but only about half appear to be really practical. Furthermore, in all cases but the condi DPS family (and possibly even then), the choice between the blades and the punchy arms is basically "is the group going to be might-capped or not?" - which mirrors the complaints being made about ranger pets that some are only minor differences that don't really make a significant difference to how the pet plays. In practice, most players are probably just going to go across the row, with High-Impact Drivers and Jade Dynamo sneaking into off-row builds occasionally (the latter due to Explosives synergies, the former because Might will contribute to a melee power DPS configuration if you want the golem in melee). The general trend is that the choice of the middle trait pretty much determines which of the other traits are viable.

 

Now, to address some of the misinformation that's been thrown around:

 

5 hours ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

Firstly I'd like to hereby request that you engineer mains stop with your misinformation based whining. You keep saying the traits don't do anything without the golem, but that is objectively and demonstrably untrue. kitten near all of them have a player based function IN ADDITION to the golem skills and bonuses. You are straight up, 100% LYING right now. And I bet you know that, but it doesn't make for as enjoyable QQ. 

Only if three out of nine count as "kitten near". The minor adept gives access to mace and signets. Channeling Circuits adds alacrity to barrier application. J-Drive boosts signets and provides the orbital bombardment effect when the mech is off the field.

 

According to the current information we have, the other 6 traits do literally nothing when the golem is off the field. If you have any information to the contrary, please supply it.

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Now that said, and I know this isn't how long time engineer mains play, but I never cared about the tool belt. I mained engineer for about six to eight months shortly after launch (when I realized trying to main thief was a mistake because I didn't realize it was so dependent on "MMO fake-Stealth") and I never could invest in the tool belt. At no point did I prioritize a skill because of it's tool belt function, and all my builds were viable, even powerful, as I nearly completely ignored the thing's existence. I STILL largely ignore it when I play engineer and it doesn't hurt me in the least. 

That's because, unpopular opinion, the tool belt isn't actually that powerful. I've always been a quality over quantity type of guy (hence why the golem appeals to me more than an entire menagerie of pets) and adding five more kind of crappy skills on top of five halfway decent skills never stuck me as worth paying attention to. The tool belt was a gimmick that I'd use occasionally if the skills I was forced to take had momentary use. But I never, ever, at any point, even considered thinking about maybe toying with the possibility of making it the centerpiece of my build. Again I completed all the content in the game at that time no problem. 

Fully unpacking this would take more time than I really have right now, but mostly, you're showing your own inexperience here. Sure, there are some builds where the toolbelt isn't that important, and maybe you've stumbled onto one of those. But even then, just ignoring four skills can't be efficient play.

 

To give a few examples, though:

 

Med Kit really needs Bandage Self to have any viable self-healing at all.

 

Most kits have their toolbelt skill as an important part of their rotation and/or utility.

 

Toss Elixir B is the main source of stability for core engineer unless you're running Juggernaut.

 

Toss Elixir R is a fast-res (probably not useful in PvE, but often worthwhile in PvP when it also comes packaged with a self-condi-cleanse).

 

Toss Elixir S is stealth access.

 

Tossing elixirs in general is where a lot of nonscrapper engineer support options come from in general.

 

Surprise Shot is the reason Rifle Turret gets taken at all.

 

Healing Mist (Elixir Gun) and Superspeed (Slick Shoes) are stunbreaks, which allow engineer to have stunbreaks without committing to Elixir U or S, both of which have longer recharges.

 

Which is not to say that you can't have engineer builds that can afford not to have the toolbelt, but it's not something that can be swept under the table by saying "I don't use toolbelt anyway" or "it's never been valuable" when more advanced engineer players DO use it and recognise its value.

 

There is some validity in saying that rangers gave up the opportunity to have another profession mechanic in exchange for the pet, but on the other hand, rangers have weapon swap and a lot more choice in weapons. 

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The tool belt has never been that valuable. It just hasn't. And in my personal subjective opinion I'm fine with dropping it like a bad habit in favor of what could be objectively the best persistent pet in the game is a more than fair trade. And in case you were wondering; ranger pets die too. A lot. And Soul Beast can't swap, so don't even bring that up. Now, guess what happens to our profession mechanic, command skill type, and beastmastery traits when the pet is dead. Oh, and do you want to know the cool down when our pets die? There isn't one! It stays dead until you exit combat! I would kill to have my pet revive itself after just a measly hundred seconds. 

Oh, come on.

 

Worst case scenario, you're never more than 60 seconds away from being able to press a button that gives you your pet back. That's if you're not running Beastmastery (so you haven't invested heavily into having the pet), you have one pet die, and then the other dies immediately on swapping. 

 

Sure, if you never touch that button, your pet will keep limping around as a non-combatant until you exit combat, but by that argument, mechanist will NEVER have their golem out if they don't touch that button. Might as well argue that every profession sucks if you don't press buttons. Maybe next time someone's complaining about firebrand not having enough of a tradeoff, I'll try responding by pointing out that firebrand is actually a pretty sucky elite specialisation if you never use tomes and see how well that flies.

 

4 hours ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

I stand by everything I've said thus far. But since it seems to be the go-to whining, let me tell you a little something about the Med Kit; you can actually equip it. It's not just a tool belt skill. So here is an absolutely insane and off the wall idea that is so ridiculous it's probably not worth mentioning. But maybe, if you like using med kit, you like being a healer. That's what it's for; healing the party. So...now hear me out...drop down a tanky DPS golem, EQUIP the med kit, and glue yourself to it's butt like a TF2 Medic leashed to a Heavy. 

There, I just solved TWO problems; you still get arguably MORE use out of the med kit, and unless you really suck your golem isn't going to die. 

If you're glued to the butt of the golem, you're pretty much taking any damage the golem does. You have less health than the golem, and you don't have the big self-heal that most professions take for granted because that's Bandage Self, the toolbelt skill that you've lost. It's likely that, like ranger pets disappearing when the ranger is defeated, the golem will also leave when the mechanist is defeated. So the golem WILL die. When YOU do, because this healer can't effectively heal itself, because it's lost its self-heal.

 

Besides, while we haven't seen the healing coefficient for Rectifier Signet yet, I'm pretty sure that Rectifier Signet actually provides more healing than Med-Blaster does, since it's balanced for just healing you and your golem rather than healing up to five allies. And that actually gives you a spike heal if you need it (and if you're running J-Drive, the spike heal doesn't actually stop the sustained heal from happening).

 

But even if we were to ignore both of those... ever actually supported using Med Kit? It's probably the heal setup most reliant on Healing Power in the game to actually output healing worth considering (example: Med-Blaster's healing is doubled just by having 500 healing power), basically because the balance team assumed that you just wouldn't use a skill that sacrifices all damage for healing unless you were committing to healing, so it doesn't matter that the baseline healing values before Healing Power are virtually nothing.

 

So, if you want the golem to be tanky, you need to be running Toughness and Vitality. If you want the med kit to actually do anything, you need to be running Healing Power. So we're basically forcing the mechanist to run Minstrel's here. Maybe you can find some setup using Toughness, Vitality, Healing Power, and a bit of damage instead of Concentration, but it'd be token at best. I guess that could be useful if the party/squad is willing to have you as a dedicated healer/support that will splash healing over other players as well as the golem while the golem provides barrier and alacrity... as long as you never have to self-heal in a hurry (because that's Bandage Self, the toolbelt skill) and the party is happy with having either an AI golem or a healer with virtually no self-healing capacity as the 'tank'.

 

I really don't see this as a "solution" to either problem. It's kinda like saying that a ranger can have a pet that never dies by going druid and focusing their entire build on keeping the pet alive. Sure, the pet's probably not going to die, but it's probably not going to do a lot either (although probably still more than the golem will, because even with the druid tradeoff, it still has 80% of the damage output of a non-druid pet, while our hypothetical tanky golem with a healing mechanist would have basically no offensive stats). And it certainly doesn't do squat to solve the problem of medkit losing its self-heal.

Edited October 26, 2021 by draxynnic.3719

[Arkham Creed.7358]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The whole "inherit the engineer's attributes" mechanic really only does two things. First, it means that the engineer has to match what the golem is doing: if you want the golem to do condi damage, YOU have to do condi damage as well. Second, since toughness and vitality are always shared, it does mean that you can adjust where the golem fits on the glass-tank spectrum. However, again, you can only do so by also influencing where YOU fit. You can't, say, run full glass yourself while having a tanky pet that can draw aggro for you. Either both you and the golem are tanky, or both glass.

Of everything you've said, and I could say much about it, this was the standout part that I wanted to address. The elephant in the room, super secret open knowledge NOBODY talks about is...that's true for rangers too. 

It was confirmed years ago by the developers that the ranger was specifically designed and balanced with the pet in mind. The pet, not your build, makes up roughly a third of your overall DPS, our defense is designed with the assumption of the pet taking aggro for us, and as it can be a source of support, that's LESS support we ourselves are capable of at our peak. If you DON'T specifically take a pet that does what you do, you're hurting yourself. If you're full power DPS, you are automatically handicapping your damage output if you bring anything other than a power DPS pet. The same is true of condition, support, and tank builds. 

Our pet isn't a pet, it isn't an NPC we can tinker with to compliment our playstyle; it is a part of us. It's numbers are our numbers. The soul beast just made that dynamic overt for the people who didn't get it beforehand. A ranger who doesn't bring a pet that does the exact same thing they are built to do is a weak ranger. As a guy who likes hybrid builds I genuinely wish what you were saying was the case, but it's not. I can min/max myself for condi damage and refine those numbers as high as possible, pick all the right weapons, the right skills, runes and sigils and gear and consumables...and still fall short to something like a necromancer if my pet isn't helping. 

That's the real reason we get so upset about needing an AI rework. We know that our pets not contributing hurts our performance. But, because of "it's not me, it's you" egotism we want to believe that handicap is limited to the pet's AI, and not also so many rangers simply picking the wrong pet for their build because they THINK they can support their glass cannon longbow build with a bear, refusing to acknowledge that the tankiest tank pet that ever tanked is still going to die as soon as it pulls aggro, and that bringing it in the first place took a significant chunk out of their DPS. 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Arkham Creed.7358