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Mechanist Feedback Thread


Fire Attunement.9835

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mech is fun.

mechanist needs weapon swap.

customization via education would be fun. 

 

jade is your basic minion. 

learn how to summon a golem based on asura technology.

learn how to summon a golem based on watchnight technology.

learn how to summon a golem based on charr technology.

learn how to summon a golem based on fire legion technology. 

 

change the color of the projectiles based on the summon.

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So to me the Mechanist is just not fun to play. After playing a bit I understood that all it is is someone with a mace that can summon a mechanical companion. And this is because the Jade Mech got all the love.

 

Try to picture the Holosmith without a toolbelt and instead of a Photon Forge you get a hologram that can use all the Photon Forge skills and all of the utility skills and you are stuck with only a sword and the ability to summon a hologram. Not fun right? Well that’s the Mechanist.

 

You, the devs, poured all of your hard work into making the Jade Mech interesting instead of also making the Mechanist interesting. I don’t want play a class where it just feel there’s nothing more to it then it’s weapon while watching my new big cool toy using all of the new cool skills (utility skills). It just makes the Mechanist feel like a side character while the Jade Mech is the hero.

 

So here’s my suggestion. Let us not just have it as a mechanical companion but also be able to become one with the Jade Mech (seeing how it’s to small to be able to ride it like a golem). This way our character, the Mechanist, can have access to all of the Jade Mech’s skills and also be able to use the utility skills while the mech is up. This would make the Mechanist more then just “someone with a mace that can summon a mechanical companion”.

 

And let us dye the Jade Mech. That way the Jade Mech would feel more personal.

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Barrier signet feels to much like bulawark gyro did at hot launch where you would activate it and it would run off and wig out till it ended effectively wasting the skill... I suggest centering it on the engineer regardless and just make it gain the larger bubble if your golem is active don't center it on the golem.

 

The high impact drive is currently bugged and the might is perma stacking to 25 that needs a fix.

 

Support builds feel good on it but the lack of a few of the key toolbelts are noticeable but at the same time I feel like it plays more as a boon support instead of a healer so it feels fine.

 

The mace I love it and the only issue I have is the animation for no.3 feeling really strange because it's so fast and looks kinda odd I sould suggest using a different animation for the 3rd strike as it just looks strange doing a light speed uppercut with it. If you slow down the animation/attack it would need a number buff accordingly though it would hurt support builds as the alacrity relys on the barrier from the 3rd hit.

 

Signet of force cast time feels out of place as a stun break. By the time you react to the stun and hit the button and the cast is over the stun is usually finished as well so it fully wastes the skill. I would suggest reducing the cast time to 1/4 a second or removing it and just making it a cc/stun break with something like gives might to you and allies when used instead of damage.

The lack of a "attack" command means you have to either attack the target yourself or use a ability that may or may not be on cooldown. This make it kinda hard to control in combat. This issue isn't unique to the machinist it's a issue for the untamed as well. We have a come to me command but no attack.

The rest of my things are all just small nit picks these are my main issues.

 

Edited by Dakiaris.2798
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So my first impressions;

The lose of toolbelt feels just as bad as I expected, your extremely limited in your build crafting with what little you have to choose from.
In special it feels bad that there is no condi removal or stunbreaks linked to mech commands. 
The way traits are setup that the mech inherit specific stats from us based on trait we pick feels as bad as I feared and limit build crafting again

Been doing some sPvP to begin with and;

Condition dmg row sucks, the auto attack from mech in melee is bad and the mech commands does not deal enough condition dmg to kill anything with condi removal in their build.
Midrow 1 is bugged, the might it stacks is permanent in sPvP so you and pet end up with 25 stacks.
bot row 1, the one that makes it ranged is waaaay overtuned dmgwise. People running no toughness amulets are getting critted for 2x4k from auto attack.
The rest of the mech skills I wanna play around with for some more before commenting on them.

Mace is all over the place; is it support? Condi? Power? It does all 3 but kinda bad.
 

#1 auto attack is just bad. Give it better condition application or none at all,. bizare the first attack deals no conditions
#2 feels okay, the range is a bit to short to be truly usefull. I'd say 600 range instead of 410 which is just odd
#3 Needs way more burning to be worth it for condition dmg, atleast 3 stacks. The stun is solid but the projectile is slow kitten and eat LoS like nothing I have seen before. Feels bad.

Edit; also it being better with power so far, means we are again stuck with Shield.....

 

The horrible part;

The AI on the mech is the worst I have yet seen in this game;
- It zooms around randomly
- It will sometimes stand still and keep shooting at a target that's LoS and not try to move into a position where it can hit

- In melee mode it can't keep up with any moving target when trying to do auto attacks

- It suffers from all the same kite issues as the ranger pets

- we MUST have a button to make the pet attack a target, when it does like 75% of our dmg it feels HORRIBLE not being able to focus the target. I know you can make it attack a target with mech commands, but your done for if those are on CD and in sPvP the target can change in seconds. 

- Likewise it stinks that I can't hotkey return to me and have to press it manual? Why??

- it will randomly attack enemies. 

 

All in all my first impression with it in PvP is the same when I saw the reveal; I hate it. 
it's allready a mechanical AND balance mess, which were exactly as feared and they are gonna have a super tough time fixing that

 

Will need to play more with Signets before I comment, but it's odd Force Signet, a stunbreak, have a casttime*

 

Edited by Amadeus.5687
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I've done some limited testing in PVE.

#1: The power DPS in (nearly) full berserkers is around 6k for the mech alone.

#2: The condition DPS in (nearly) full vipers is around 7k for the mech alone.

#3: The 2/2/2 build is capable of sustaining permanent alacrity, vigor, and 10 stacks of might with just 6% boon duration.

The good news is, the mechanist has a potential role.  If the mech can stay alive in fractals/raids, it will make for a decent alacrity bot.  I tried using half Diviners, and it could sustain 20 might.

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2 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I've done some limited testing in PVE.

#1: The power DPS in (nearly) full berserkers is around 6k for the mech alone.

#2: The condition DPS in (nearly) full vipers is around 7k for the mech alone.

#3: The 2/2/2 build is capable of sustaining permanent alacrity, vigor, and 10 stacks of might with just 6% boon duration.

The good news is, the mechanist has a potential role.  If the mech can stay alive in fractals/raids, it will make for a decent alacrity bot.  I tried using half Diviners, and it could sustain 20 might.

Well mine kept on dying to a normal Kingpin vet in sirenslanding. And not slowyly dying, it gets destroyed in seconds.

Tried 3 kingpin events of them now, all the same, dies really quick.. 

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Re: confusion
Firstly I would have to say confusion on the mace is probably a bad idea. In fractals where 5 man alacrity would actually be taken, confusion doesn't do its extra damage against exposed breakbars. Without this change I can see myself even running Aim Assisted Rocket with pistols and grenade kit on condi builds rather than than deal with the near non-existent payoff on explosive temper with a mace.

There's also no payoff from confusion instead of Bleeding or Burning so I'd rather have bleeding instead of confusion as there's only several places confusion is massively stronger (Soulless Horror, Twin Largos ... you won't run this on Cairn CM most likely). If a confusion trait is added that allows it to at least match bleeding/poison in efficacy it would be beneficial if the confusion isn't outright replaced by bleeding.

Traits
Regardless, the traits themselves could be given passives for when the mech is away. This is something seen on J-Drive. For example if I am running a condi DPS mech (the likely use case if not a boon support) then I would want some sort of condition output from Jade Dynamo while it is away.

Mech itself
The mech seems to be doing more damage than expected, when I tested a viper build in the training area with no boons I was getting about 4K DPS just with the autoattack of the mech. Other people on discretize claim that the mech does 10K DPS, which is quite a bit of damage coming from an AI "pet".

The blurb for Energy Siphoning trait is extremely long when it doesn't do anything. Why not just merge the 100% onto Mech Fighter?

I don't like the random CC placed on Rocket Punch. The Siege Golem version never had hard CC put on its autoattack, why on the mech. All CC should be controlled by the user. I'd swap this onto Explosive Knuckle or other skills.

There isn't a great way to reposition the mech, I would like to see either an F5 key similar to ground target or simply a flag similar to GW1.

Will toolkit also repair mechs on EoD launch?

Tradeoffs
Many people complain about it being unusable as a spec with Med Kit. Maybe move all F skills one spot to the right , have the mech be F5 and then keep F1 from toolbelt. The tradeoff would be mech for F2-F5.

Will add more as I test.

Edited by Infusion.7149
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18 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I've done some limited testing in PVE.

#1: The power DPS in (nearly) full berserkers is around 6k for the mech alone.

#2: The condition DPS in (nearly) full vipers is around 7k for the mech alone.

#3: The 2/2/2 build is capable of sustaining permanent alacrity, vigor, and 10 stacks of might with just 6% boon duration.

The good news is, the mechanist has a potential role.  If the mech can stay alive in fractals/raids, it will make for a decent alacrity bot.  I tried using half Diviners, and it could sustain 20 might.

I came to the sameresults in my brief testing. If anything, Mechanist might be viable as a support/alacrity bot in high-level PvE content. In all other regards, it's pretty subpar; not impressive sustained dmg in PvE, too squishy for WvW, and its inherent AI flaws makes it laughably unreliable in PvP.  

Edited by ejax.5170
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Another thing came to mind while playing. 

Weapon swap would feel really good on Mechanist!

There really isn't much you can for the 100 seconds that your mech is dead, You've only got 10 skills to work with and no toolbelt skills, but imagine if you gave Mechanist weapon swap. 

You would be able to swap from Mace/Shield to Pistol/Pistol, making a complete condi weapon set. 

This would still maintain the trade-off with core engi since you lose toolbelt (and an entire traitline when mech is dead) but you gain a weapon swap. 

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If I use Overclock Signet to fire Jade Canon, and then press any other mech ability, Jade Cannon gets interrupted and the other mech ability never comes out. This is a huge problem. Make the pet effected by the same ability queuing system as everything else.

Why confusion on the Mace? Confusion has zero real synergy with engineer traits making it worse than Pistol, which is already terrible, in every case. At least Pistol has bleed synergies, like Hematic Focus and Serrated Steel.  The animation on Mace 3 feels bad. Mace 2 not doing a condition feels bad. I don't think this weapon can hold it own as a condi weapon. 

 On the topic of trait synergies, if you're going to go with Tools as having some synergy with the golem, then you're going to need more than just Mechanized Deployment. Three seconds off golem skills as the only thing that effects it will never justify using Tools over Explosives and Firearms. You need to do more. 

Relatedly, Why didn't you choose Inventions over Tools? Way more thematic, I think. There is ample opportunity to do like a golem + turrent + Pistol chilled out condi build, but you'd have to completely rework Inventions and/or Tools. If you aren't going to add golem synergies to other trait lines, then it's clearly just 'Rent-A-Ranger' the specialization. Which is bad.

Likewise, why push boon support on Mechanist? It's cool that it can do alacrity and such, but then (again!) what is even the point of Scrapper? 

Like others have said, the traits only affecting the golem are poorly thought out. They ignore player agency to do a souped up AI pet on a class that isn't even about AI pets, and the whole thing feels clunky and ill -conceived. All of the minor traits that are like "You pet gets % of your stats" should really just be things that effect you, while the major traits effect the golem attacks. Or vice versa, where you get to pick from things that effect you, and the golem gets static buffs. Instead you've chosen the worst of both worlds, where I am unaffected and have no choices beyond "kill things with raw damage or kill things with dot damage."

Edited by nucklepuckk.1805
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Currently the green visual effects caused by the Mechanist's skills and Jade Mech are both really bright even when visual effects are set to low. Especially the Mech rocket punch and mace projectile. It'd be nice if having visual effects set to low made all these visuals much more transparent and less bright, especially for the sake of players that are photosensitive and prone to migraines.

 

Completely losing your toolbelt doesn't feel very good. It'd be nice if access to the toolbelt was regained while the Mech is not around, with the Mech summon/dismiss replacing your elite toolbelt skill. This would also open up more possibilities for builds and rotations if deliberating calling the Mech off to regain access to the toolbelt was viable. If it's a balancing issue, toolbelt skills could be given a longer cooldown while playing Mechanist.

 

The mace needs some more boon application to make Mechanist more competitively viable as a support healer. Giving some group fury to the final mace auto attack or something would especially help as fury is something Mechanist can't upkeep much currently without using boon turrets, which are boring.

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No idea why mech have to be like normal pet? This game pets problem is horrible ai. Pets are too slow, die too fast, skills have too long cast time and they always stop while attacking. In this kind of spec pet should be your main weapon. Idea should be that you control pet that hunt enemy whole time while you try to keep your character alive and kite enemy.  

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I think the mace works as a support weapon, but it actually pales compared to Pistol for condi (which is even sadder). The reason for that is Confusion. The only way Confusion remotely close to decent condi damage is if you're running viper, with rune of perplexity (the only way to buff confusion damage on most classes). Meanwhile, Pistol does far more poison and bleed damage, and does it faster.

Confusion has been gutted to the point most mesmers run Torment builds rather than confusion ones. Confusion damage is too low and even used against players cannot compete with Burning or Bleed. If mace is to be viewed as a viable alternative for melee condi : Increase the stacks of confusion, have it last longer, or simply buff Confusion back altogether.

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Unlike other elite profession that had trait overhauls Mechanist got royally glossed over and has near 0 synergy with it's own core traits as they largely demand toolbelt skills/kits. Would like to see this changed just like traits that mentioned adrenaline for warrior were.

Edited by TexZero.7910
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Powerful and boring. You can instantly feel the power creep, but you can also notice the lose of control right away. 
It really feels like I have to invest a complete elite specialization just to get a Ranger with way fewer pets.

Sorry I'm not being very constructive with the criticism, I just hoped for ANYTHING but more AI stuff for my main class. So sad.
 

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4 minutes ago, Naxos.2503 said:

I think the mace works as a support weapon, but it actually pales compared to Pistol for condi (which is even sadder). The reason for that is Confusion. The only way Confusion remotely close to decent condi damage is if you're running viper, with rune of perplexity (the only way to buff confusion damage on most classes). Meanwhile, Pistol does far more poison and bleed damage, and does it faster.

Confusion has been gutted to the point most mesmers run Torment builds rather than confusion ones. Confusion damage is too low and even used against players cannot compete with Burning or Bleed. If mace is to be viewed as a viable alternative for melee condi : Increase the stacks of confusion, have it last longer, or simply buff Confusion back altogether.

Tbh i dont think its the issue of the confusion on mace, which comes only from auto attack. Its more an issue that the other 2 skills do no good condis.
I mean i dont want a buff to the auto attack, I want a buff of the other 2 skills. Sure auto attack could get maybe a bit more. Like 2 seconds of bleeding per hit with the auto attack, but I would rather buff mace 2 and 3.
Something like 5 bleeding stacks for 7 or 8 seconds on skill 2.
And 1-2 additional burn stacks on skill 3.

And give both skill 2 and 3 explosion tag.

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1 minute ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Tbh i dont think its the issue of the confusion on mace, which comes only from auto attack. Its more an issue that the other 2 skills do no good condis.
I mean i dont want a buff to the auto attack, I want a buff of the other 2 skills. Sure auto attack could get maybe a bit more. Like 2 seconds of bleeding per hit with the auto attack, but I would rather buff mace 2 and 3.
Something like 5 bleeding stacks for 7 or 8 seconds on skill 2.
And 1-2 additional burn stacks on skill 3.

And give both skill 2 and 3 explosion tag.

Indeed, I think giving Explosion to it would atleast help the condi bit, atleast through Shrapnel you get a -useful- condi then 😄

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