Mechanist Feedback Thread

[Dracomet.3648]

Despite my complaints about weird issue with Med Kit, I think I like it a lot at least for open world.

 

I just went through HoT content and I am very impressed it could tank a lot of the HoT stuff which hit like a ton of bricks and not die, even with armor set to mostly zerk stuff. My Holo would struggle to survive since I would be out of dodges…. Best part is even whn you get CC’d, the mech can still counter CC them. I see this as a very fun and amazing open world spec.

 

Everytime you glide and land the mech flies up and crashes on a nearby enemy. Very fun to abuse near hills or stairs and stuff, not sure if intended but it is a thing there.

 

Never tried WvW or PvP but I don’t think I would ever play Mechanist over Scrapper in WvW. Couple of times my mech was “lost” and I couldn’t find it. This will surely be a problem in WvW even if it doesn’t die.

 

Finally, I have an issue with command skills being used even if no enemy is there. A waste and th mech should be smart enough to cancel a skill if the enemy dies.

[Okhu.7948]

5 minutes ago, covahlam.6391 said:

Agree with all of this but will add that the mech persists too long after the mechanist dies. It's BS to take 4k+ damage from the mech's ranged attacks after I've killed my opponent.

*Laughs in Ranger Traps and Dragonhunter Traps*

[covahlam.6391]

4 minutes ago, Okhu.7948 said:

*Laughs in Ranger Traps and Dragonhunter Traps*

Ok, I think it can be argued that traps should despawn on death, but also, traps don't track your movements.

[bethekey.8314]

Reiterating what others have said, and adding my own thoughts:

• Certain skills on the mech (e.g. spark revolver) have a high power damage to cooldown ratio that I would consider toning down
•  I believe the mech was made so strong due to its high cost when down (i.e. core engineer without toolbelt and only 2 traitlines), so reducing the cost of mech death should offset toning down of power damage. Essentially, more mech uptime / less tradeoff should come with lower damage
•  Mechanist feels largely power focused, just like scrapper (no barrier from condi) and holosmith (sword is power, power modifiers etc). I would improve the conditions on mace / the mech to allow more build flexibility.
•  Loss of toolbelt unnecessarily simplifies the build diversity of Mechanist and literally breaks much of Engineer's core design. Many Engineer skills by themselves (i.e. without a toolbelt) are objectively worse than other classes' counterparts. When the toolbelt ability is particularly strong, its loss feels terrible. The loss of the toolbelt for cases like  Medkit make the design feel less like a choice and more like a bug or constraint of the UI.  Finding a way to add back toolbelt would be nice, even in a limited capacity. As others have noted, the mech summon/dismiss would be better placed on F5 to match past elites. This would free up at least one toolbelt spot in theory.
•  Improve pet AI. The mech seems to have no trouble shooting into walls, randomly wanders, its behavior can't be controlled through keybinds etc.
•  Allow clear mech visual customization, not just changing out jade arms with traits. It would go a long way toward keeping track of your mech in combat (especially with multiple mechs in an area) and satisfy the fashion warriors.
• What is the point of the teleport signet? Most of the value of teleports comes from their use as instant casts paired with other powerful abilities (e.g. mesmer shatters, guardian burst). The cast time, limited range, and bugs make this useless outside of niche situations.
•  Fix turrets. Their immobility and low health means they should be more powerful than minions and elementals

Edited October 27, 2021 by bethekey.8314

[Hard Nova.1960]

Going to say this and I know I will get a lot of people mad at me, but this build is horrible.  This is a build for someone who does not play the game.  I take my beta characters to Siren's Landing, near the entrance area, because it is generally quiet, I can play around and the mobs dont die in one hit.  I can also get some areas where you pull a couple mobs at the same time.  My beta ranger had to work hard, no matter what pet I used.  My pet died on several occasions.  Fine, I was not trying hard, only a quick intro at this point.  On the other hand, the engineer summoned the Mech, pointed at a target and ... pointed at the next one... pointed at the next one.  I didnt even attack with my character, just point F1, point F2, point F3.  I never attacked, never personally did damage.  My Mech cleaned the entire beach line for 10 minutes and was never below half health.  You may as well summon a director's chair for the engineer to sit on while the Mech does the fighting.  IMO, this build is for people who have no clue how to play, dont want to invest in any learning curve or mechanics, and wants to play point-and-click mobile games.  Way overpowered, way oversized, and compared to the other new specs coming out, can see this one was totally the favorite with the devs.

[Lae.2948]

After many hours of testing, dueling and roaming I'd like to leave a few comments about the Mechanist in its current state from a WvW/Roamer/Havoc/Dueler POV

The general philosophy behind the Mechanist plays quite well, and it is most importantly fun. 
There are however some CRITICAL game-play/functionality problems which seriously affect it's viability beyond being a meme: 

1) Why don't we have an "Attack Target Action Button"?
This is the most important/critical problem for the Mechanist -- notwithstanding the the ranger. We have an entire trait line, that offers absolutely no damage or utility to the player itself, rather it augments the damage of the Mech. Part of the equation is being able to control the positioning of your Mech, and -- god forbid -- where your mech auto attack damage is going. 
Without this, it is not uncommon for the Mech to attack the wrong target, walk off into a random direction or just outright die. 
This is not new technology for you Anet, core rangers already have this; massive oversight. 

2) Why are we unable to key-bind "Return to me" function?
This is self-explanatory. Positioning and everything in competitive game-modes; DO YOU EXPECT US TO CLICK?

3) Break-bar has no place in competitive game modes -- if it remains, it needs to be significantly increased:
The break-bar is being shredded, and the golem is more often than not either dead or stunned in WvW, even in small-scale encounters (3v3 etc). 
Cripple, chill and AoE CC are very prevalent in competitive game modes, and passive conditions are eating away at the break bars unbelievably quick (<3-5 seconds), followed up by a 5 second unbreakable stun. 
I'd prefer the mech to not be stunned all the time, and to rather reward my opponent for interrupting important skills. 
I suspect the middle ground solution here will be to increase the break-bar strength significantly, as without a break bar I suspect the Mech will be stunned majority of the time either way; more testing required in hopefully Beta 4. 

4) Why does it immobilise you when you cast crash-down?
This has killed me more times than I'd like to admit -- mobility is everything, and this feels really clunky. We already have the coding/technology to cast whilst we run as evidenced with supply crate. This is a very easy QoL fix that ought to be actioned. 

5) 80 Seconds cooldown on crash-down is too punishing. 
I think we have already established our mech is dead or stunned half the time, and the cooldown is insane. 
Consider a 50 second cooldown. I think this would allow considerable downtime having respect to the recall function [recharge increase per 1% of depleted health] , but not feel awful. 

6) Synergy with tool-kit to repair mech on auto attack chain, similar to turrets. 
This would be a nice addition to support the Mech and would open up build diversity via having a kit which acts as a weapon swap, and vicariously be able to take advantage of weapon swap sigils. 

7) Superconducting Conduit Signet & discharge array are weak and too similar, and radius is too small -- potential for a flame-thrower rework?? 
I can't imagine a situation where this would offers any utility on a moving target outside of PvE in its current form.
Perhaps consider reworking discharge array into a Jade Flame Thrower, allowing for an active, ranged burn skill, which would synergize nicely with both Mace, Pistol & the rest of the Engi Kit. 

8 ) Elite Jade buster cannon is weak, and the animation under-sells the range of it:
This skill was sold as a challenging decision to make due to it being able to re-summon your Mech. In its current state, you could never justice using the signet for damage because -- quite simply put -- it doesn't feel impactful. All of the mech active skills doing 2x as much dmg as this skill in one hit, rather than a 3.5 second channel. 
Increase the damage, or rework the skill (REFER BELOW). 

9) Crash-down/summon needs to be an F5 skill, in line with Holo-form, unleashed, beastmode:
As the title states, this would standardise the position of important skills/summoning abilities. 
As a side-note, it may offer an opportunity to MOVE "Jade Buster Cannon" from the signet elite, to an F4 skill, and to rework overclocking signet with another cool mechanic/choice, SOLVING THE DESIRE FOR THE RETURN OF TOOL KIT SKILLS. 
This would be a nice QoL change whilst not consuming much dev time. 

10) Loss of toolbelt limits stunbreak options significantly AND Mechanist is forced to take a kit to trigger weapon swap sigils (some of the strongest in the game). 
Allowing Mechanist to weapon swap would alleviate this problem. 

Access to a reliable, frequent stunbreak is really important in competitive game-modes.
Mechanist currently has access to 4 stunbreaks, down from 6 with our other specialisations. 
You have to take at least 1-2 stunbreaks for competitive roaming builds, depending on the class, traits and access to stability. 
Mechanist is however significantly limited however, because if we want to take advantage of some of the strongest sigils in the game (cleansing/energy/hydromancy), we need to take a kit, further limiting our ability to take a stunbreak. 
Therefore, if engineer was able to swap weapons, it would allow for more freedom utility choices.

11) Customizing the skin of the mech; Custom names removed after death of mech: 
This is not a gameplay issue, but it could offer an interesting opportunity to make some $$ on the gem-store, whilst giving players an opportunity for a unique identity. 

Thanks for reading, 
Lae

Edited October 30, 2021 by UndefinedLime.2063

[Matoro.9708]

So many good ideas being repeated in this thread. I hope they stick.

[Benkorah.6048]

Engineer is one of my 2 most played classes.  I primarily PvE, and enjoy support roles.  I tested with Diviner's, Viper's, Seraph, and celestial in the special forces training area and in the Gendarran Fields DRM (1 player, no challenges active).

 

The Good:

1. The mech is pretty cool, and fits the class fantasy well.

2. Engie builds have historically been fairly complex, so it's nice to have an option that's a bit simpler to play.

3. The new support options seem especially nice, easily providing 100% alacrity, and potentially providing 100% might, fury, or protection if you build for them.

4. Although I can't speak for the exact balancing, an explosives condi build seemed to do respectable damage while being simpler to play than some previous iterations of condi-engineer.

 

The Bad:

1. The pet is often a bit derpy, and tends to lag behind, making it slow to enter combat.  A notification which tells the player why the pet is refusing to use its skill at any given moment might help ("mech is stunned", "mech can't figure out how to get in range", etc)

2.  The engineer doesn't have access to a self-heal when taking the med kit (I'll also miss all the stun breaks and blast finishers on the toolbelt, but that heal is the biggest game changer).

3.  I hear talk that certain other classes can provide alacrity and/or might to 10 players.  As long as 10 player boons are a thing, 5-player boon support are unlikely to be welcomed into 10-player content.  I can't speak to whether it's better to buff one, or nerf the other, but the mechanic should be more consistent.

4.  Here's the big one... the player has very little agency over whether the pet dies, but is punished severely if it does, since most of the spec is tied to the mech, and the cooldown is quite long.  Although mine didn't die at any point in testing, it did get to about half health, and I was hardly doing the most difficult content.

 

Suggestion:

The engineer gains stacks of "Nerd Rage" every second in combat when the mech is not active.  At 10 stacks, the engineer gains access to the "Rant" ability, which provides a nominal amount of confusion to nearby enemies, in addition to effects which are determined by the mech's loadout, essentially providing the same boons and conditions as the mech, but to a lesser degree.  I could also see Nerd rage having negative tradeoffs (like providing boons to allies, but weakness, blindess, cripple to self).

Alternatively, just provide some passive benefits to the engineer in each trait, and allow access to most toolbelt skills while the mech is inactive.

[Arkham Creed.7358]

Because I've seen a few people talking about gear stats, I run my engineer with celestial, and thus tried out a celestial mech. It was a BEAST. I don't know exactly how anything scales under the hood, and spent most of the time with the jade cannons, core shot, and mortar skills because I wanted it to stay at range and abuse explosives myself, so it was a good freebie buff for the mech. This thing was absurdly strong and put every ranger pet I've ever used to shame. Tanky, high burst damage, the F1 did massive power damage, the conditions being spammed by explosions melted anything that managed to survive the initial onslaught, and those times I quickly swapped it to support mode it was putting out tons of barrier. I honestly don't understand why people have been claiming it's weak; I'm certain nerfs will be coming before buffs.  

[killforbeers.7534]

5 minutes ago, Arkham Creed.7358 said:

Because I've seen a few people talking about gear stats, I run my engineer with celestial, and thus tried out a celestial mech. It was a BEAST. I don't know exactly how anything scales under the hood, and spent most of the time with the jade cannons, core shot, and mortar skills because I wanted it to stay at range and abuse explosives myself, so it was a good freebie buff for the mech. This thing was absurdly strong and put every ranger pet I've ever used to shame. Tanky, high burst damage, the F1 did massive power damage, the conditions being spammed by explosions melted anything that managed to survive the initial onslaught, and those times I quickly swapped it to support mode it was putting out tons of barrier. I honestly don't understand why people have been claiming it's weak; I'm certain nerfs will be coming before buffs.  

 

I have not yet tried Celestial specs I will try it today - Thank you.

[Djemo.7153]

Another thing to add, I don't know if this is supposed to be a bug or by design but all of the "aura skills" make the Golem chase after an enemy target and only once they are near a target do they activate their skills.

 

This is frustrating on that F2 Condition Aura thing, but it is even worse of the F2 Barrier Aura and F3 Hunker Down and give everyone boons aura. I specifically picked the ranged hands for the golem so he would at least stay still some and I could use his abilities, but when I tell him to start channeling the barrier on me and allies around me he runs to the nearest enemy and then starts channeling the barrier infront of them showing off his tricks...

All of these "pulsing" auras should be instant casts on the Golem itself, not tied to something you are targeting. And this is not just relating to the barrier, if I want to use the Confusion/Condition barrier I don't want the kitten thing running after something and dying, when it could be running through everything giving them all debuffs as it is closing in on its target.

[Xenash.1245]

1 hour ago, YaminoNakani.7083 said:

Three major changes need to happen to the mechanist for competitive modes at least.

1st: The ranged auto attack needs to go. It hits far too hard in combination with being too hard to shutdown/kill to warrant this level of damage. I've seen may players duel the mech alone and lose.

2nd: The breakbar needs to go. I'd rather the golem naturally pulse stability every 3 seconds like juggernaut and the three elite skill transformations than to greatly reduce counterplay against this mech.

3rd. The mech needs to be automatically respawned when the player respawns. Locking someone out of their profession skills after death is not good.

 

Other than obvious bugs and glitches associate with it, I think its cool.

If the ranged auto attack went, would the mech ever hit anyone again in pvp?

[inci.3705]

[WvW roaming PoV]

 

Mechanist is too passive and reliant on the mech. There are no incentives for the engineer to actually do anything because:

1.  The mech does good power damage
2. You lose a lot of sustain without the toolbelts available (less stunbreaks, less boons from elixirs, less vigor from Tools, less cleanse) and a virtually useless trait line. As a result, you tend to chose utilities purely for survival and hope the mech will do most of the killing. There's not really much point going nades or flamethrower when you're losing so much sustain or movement by doing so.

In a fight with multiple mechs, it is very hard to find which one is yours. If you don't add player customization, then at least add different standard models such as:

1. Red glow for enemy mechs
2. Blue glow for allied mechs
3. Green for you own mech

Visuals in general need to be toned DOWN and especially for:

1. Barrier signet
2. Superconducting Signet

If you want the mechs to NOT be permanent, we need incentives. Currently, you ALWAYS want the mech to be summoned because:

1. You have no toolbelt when its not out
2. You lose a massive amount of damage when the mech is not out
3. 99% of the Mechanist trait line only works when the mech is out

Some possible fixes:

1. Add an Overcharge mechanic (just like turrets, hmmmm???)
2. Add benefits for summoning/desummoning the mech (boons, unique buffs, more customizable effects like a Flame Blast on take-off/landing, etc)
3. Make the mech an ammo mechanic
4. Remove the root from the summon

The mech AI itself is not great. With that being said, some people may want automatic control (and I certainly see myself being lazy and letting the computer doing all the work). As such, I propose having an in-game setting for swapping between AI management and completely manual pet management (movement, target, skill usage, etc).

 

Condition Mechanist is also not that viable mainly because:

1. Mace barely does any condition damage (pistol is way better because of the consistent bleeds, quick blind + confusion, and poison stacking)
2. Mech barely does condition damage on the autos
3. Discharge Array and Superconducting Signet are too easy to kite out of
4. Jade Mortar is really slow (maybe make this a ground-target AoE so its easier to set up combos)

The mace is fun but needs some improvements:

1. Needs more conditions (#2 needs bleeding or poison, #3 needs more burns)
2. #2 and #3 need to be Explosives
3. We need better mobility (either add swiftness to #2, add a cripple, or extend the max leap range)
4. #3 is a tad too slow. I'd rather it be single target and fast over multi-target and AoE (which I never seem to manage trigger anyway).

The mech needs more interactions with core engineer:

1. Support skills should turn into elixirs
2. Explosives should be moved to the bottom power traits
3. Firearms needs to work with the mech

 

Miscellaneous:

1. Barrier signet is too close to old Bulwark Gyro for my liking. I'd rather it place the block in one spot rather than moving.
2. Crash Down should be a Blast Finisher
3. Force Signet should be a Blast Finisher
4. Superconducting Signet doesn't look like a lightning field (poison or ethereal field would be cool)

Edited October 28, 2021 by dvomd.4307

[Deggial.7123]

After 11 F years, i can finally say, the engineer has arrived to its well deserved place. A giant mech supported with dual pistol in hand. The most secret dreams awaited for the ranger. Its a mechanist, the better. Back in the years even got a novel proposal with this exact scenario. The mace with shield is a good augment, with inventions and fire arms. Bahhh. 

Forget about Tool kits. (imho a madeup excuse for some squise uniqueness.) All you need is a big gross mech, with some nice adjustable skills. 
The one and only negative is the unchangable weapons during fight. <-  Reconsider it. A locked three bar needs more overpower. (mech, primary, utility).

[FalsePromises.6398]

I've already made one reply on this, but I then remembered a good handful of things I forgot to mention, so I wanted to list them out here.

1. Mace auto third strike skill is a little janky... it has a weirdly timed animation where the mace strikes halfway through the cast, but then there's also an aftercast like it's supposed to hit at the end of the animation. It makes the first two strikes look normal and the third strike weirdly fast with a long aftercast. Could probably use some adjustment to not look worse than oldschool thief shortbow autos with quickness.
2. Mace skills in general should be toned up damage-wise... I can accept 2 skill being a dedicated power/support skill (which still is weak on the power side) but only one stack of burn on 3 is a little disappointing, and condi mace autos are deceptively weak (about 66% of nade autos). I think dispersing the confusion to each hit evenly and then adding a bonus burn/explosion on the third strike would be a great fix that could dethrone nades for autoattacks on condi and give condi mechanist a little more separate identity from condi core engineer. It would also somewhat reduce concerns about explosive temper uptime losses while using mace autos if the third strike were to trigger an explosion.  
3. A lot of the field-oriented skills on golem commands should be instant cast instead of trying to move to target while doing so. This includes middle column's top and middle skills and grandmaster's middle trait area buff skill. On that note, middle column top F2 is a little clunky in its animation and cast time (it has a weirdly long aftercast) and, if interrupted by another command, it goes on full cooldown instead of interrupt cooldown. 
4. The ranged golem autoattacks and sky circus command skills are rather weak damage-wise: ranged autoattacks + command are outdps'd by blade arm autoattacks and its command, and jade mortar outperforms sky circus in all departments (even as a more reliable on-demand CC). 
5. Getting off of a mount and trying to do something will summon your golem and sometimes randomly interrupt your skills. I don't think that's intended. 

Again, digging the spec, it just needs a little or a lot of polish before it's a fully rounded and functional elite spec like the existing ones. I can respect that it's hard to code a whole kitten new pet AI which is probably more intricate than ranger pets. Excited that it's only upward from here. 

[santenal.1054]

Mechanist has only 4 (active) stunbreaker options

Core Engineer has 6 (active) stunbreaker options

Scrapper has 7 (active) stunbreaker options

Holosmith has 7 (active) stunbreaker options

Similar story for condition cleanses
 
Similar story for general defensive utilities

Surely you can see the problem, the removal of Toolbelt causes? 

Edited October 28, 2021 by santenal.1054

[Matham.2106]

Really liking the Mechanist and while I only played a bit of them this class is exactly what I've wanted for Ranger since the release of the game. Having a customizable pet that has their own good attacks while also allowing you to command their main abilities is great.

 

The main criticism I have of it though is that the entire trait line is just about buffing the Jade Golem without buffing the engineer. It is kind of weird to have to rely so hard on the AI to do most of your damage, maybe shift some of this power to the engineer? Like maybe instead of the golem gets 100% of your condition damage the engineer get a 15% increase to their condition damage and then the golem get 75% of the engineer's condition damage (I have no idea how these numbers work out) so the golem doesn't get stronger but the Engineer does a bigger chunk of the damage?

 

Other than that I don't feel encouraged to take the mace most of the time. None of the traits improve the mace or confusion so other than to apply barrier for alacrity is it actually better than using pistol main hand? There are traits to improve pistol conditions and the bleeding condition but nothing for the confusion condition so won't the pistol always deal less damage? Not to mention, the mace 2 skill doesn't deal any condition damage so would you really use it for anything other than to close distance with your target? You could also probably argue that since the pistol is ranged it is safer so you don't even need the barrier. I'm not sure where anything could be added though since the traits are already full of good effects.

 

I didn't play any PvP with the Mechanist but from watching streams of people playing as and against the Mechanist it looks/feels like the golem is what is killing people and not the engineer. I guess this falls under "the Golem feels like it is your main DPS" criticism. I think the break bar should stay on the golem though since it is such a big part of the class if it was being effected by every CC effect that hits it the Mechanist would be unusable in PvP.

 

[Dracomet.3648]

Suggestion

I have a very simple fix for Mechanist lack of toolbelt/punishing dead Mech:

 

Remove the cooldown on dead Mech summon entirely.

 

Change it so that Mech will regenerate health slowly when out of combat. 100s cooldown translates to 1% per second which I personally think is still too low. Make this 2% per second.

 

Add a requirement such that the Mech can only be summoned if it has health of 30% or higher. This means we keep the punishment of losing your mech, similar to Holo overheat, which correct me if I’m wrong, is about 15 seconds. It sucks, yes, but it is punishment for losing your mech just like effing up your holo rotation would.

 

Lastly, give Mechanist the F5 toolbelt skills. We have got two elite specs where the engie loses their F5. Mechanist should at least keep the F5, but lose their F1-F4. With this change, I would split the revive Mech signet function from the Elite Signet into the toolbelt that instantly heals it to max health, or if mech is dead, instantly resummons it with 60% health back

[Nero.7369]

TLDR:

• Add an offhand mace for more variety
• Add a Toolbelt F5 where we could choose any Toolbelt skill that belongs to an equiped Utility Skill, so with med kit we could pick Heal Self for example.
• Add Toolbelt skills F1-F3 for when the mech isn't with us. Those are the usuall mech skills but the mech will appear like a invul phantasm and execute it and then disappears again.
  • Destorying our mech will be still rewarded this way
• Add condi cleanse, stability and stunbreak options
• Other Heal Skills should effect the mech as well, so we are not forced to use the signet heal
• Split traits and mechs loadout, give us an pet menu like a ranger has where could adjust the loadout
• Create Traits that also have an effect when the mech isn't with us
• Relying on the mechs positioning is bad
• Mech responsiveness is really bad
• Too much relying on the mech
• I like that you tried to give us something completly new, i just hate that we got another bad try at ki
• Dye channels for the mech please, Other skins would be cool as well but this was never a thing so i dont expect it
• maybe at the option that we can weapon swap, as long as we dont have more then 1 kit
   

Wall of text incoming, on all my thoughts in details:

Weapon:

• I love that you chose a mace for us ❤️
• Seems like you are trying to make an allround weapon with a bit of, power, condi and support, something nice and usually done by kits.
• Weapon variety is still bad, we are once more down to pistol/shield in offhand
• Suggestion: Add an offhand mace as well
• I don't really feel an impatct on fights with the mace, only the additional cc, but that is kinda short
• Add an explosion skill fact to the weapon please
• Auto Attack Chain:
  • Confusion on mace aa is bad because
  • Paired with a shield you are cc and prevents skillusage
  • The duration on the autoattack is a joke in wvw
  •  Suggestions:
    •  Replace with poison or burning
    •  Increase duration in competitive
    •  Add a condition to the first skill of the chain
• Energizing Slam
  • Power component is okay for a hybrid weapon
  • Jump animation feels slow compared to running
  • AoE Boon is okay
  • Suggesions:
    • Increase range to 600
    • Add a few stacks of a damaging condition, or maybe a boon corrupt, imo Jade fitts some sort of corruption really well
• Rocket Fist Prototype
  • Maybe a bit boring
  • Slow flytime
  • Suggestions:
    • Increase Range to 900
    • Increase flying speed
    • Increase burning stacks
    • Add a support/utility effect to match the other skills for an allround weapon

Utility Skills (Signets):

• I'm usually not a fan of signets, tho you have made some interesting one here with cool effects overall
• Rectifier Signet (Heal)
  • Good Healing in it's active and passive components
  • Suggestion: Could remove some conditions on activation
• Other Heal Skills shoud effect our mech as well, else we are down to take the Signet
• Shift Signet
  • Wuhuhuu!!! A Teleport and I love it for that
  • The movementspeed bonus is okayish i guess
  • Animation feels slow, many teleports don't even have one
  • Also good because with this we can avoid the pathing issues of the mech, but thats mainly because pathing is just really bad
  • Cooldown feels a bit high for just a teleport in competitive
  • Suggestions:
    • Reduce animation to 1/4 sec
    • Don't interupt our Mechs Skill please
    • (This could be a stunbreak like many others are, but i guess its okay that it isnt)
• Force Signet
  • Great utility with stunbreak and also applying cc
  • Same issue as Blast Gyro on scrapper, we get a melee weapon but the cc skills kicks those away
  • Passive is good for power builds as well
  • Good choice that the effect is at our location and at the location of the mech
  • Suggestion: maybe replace the knockback with a stun
• Super Conduction Signet
  • It's bad that it's only at one position
  • For power build Force Signet is a stunbreak, for conditions builds this could be one as well
  • I could alternatively also imagine a condition cleanse onto this one
• Barrier Signet
  • Dunno this didn't got me, kinda felt useless without healing power
  • Suggestions:
    • Add AoE Stunbreak and Stability for the party at our location and increase it's cd
• Overclock Signet:
  • The active skill doesn't hit moving targets
  • I am not a fan over all of the aiming, this feels just like a way worse Prime Light Bean
  • The passive is only good when you take many signets
  • Suggestions:
    • At least fix the aiming, better change the active to something more impactful, worthy an elite skill
    • Passives recharge reduction could effect all skills at a lesser rate than now, maybe 15%

Toolbelt (general):

• This is really really really ... really bad
• Removing the access to our usually toolbelt skills denies us acces to many important things like and the other skills don't offer options for it
  • Burst
  • Condi remove
  • Stunbreaks
  • Stability
• With Med Kit we don't got a Self Heal
• We often can't pick many typicalls Utility Skills because we have to take at least one kit
• Suggestions:
  • Add an F5 Slot where we can chose one of our regular toolbelt skills (only of our equipped)
  • This solves the Med Kit Issue
  • This allows us to gain access to a single hardly needed and desired toolbelt skill
  • When we don't have a mech add F1, F2, F3 of our mech skills, that maybe even will be executed by our mech that shortly spawns like phantasms does. maybe those are a little bit weaker then

The Traits:

• It feels bad and not really "highly customizable" that traits define the mechs loadout, there is no good mix and match
• Nearly all traits completly evolve only around the mech and are rendered useless if the mech isn't available
• A few notes to existing Trait effects
  • Mech Core: J Drive currently feels good due to the influence on Signets
  • Mech Core: Barrier Engine, the effect should apply to alles around us and around the mech, to avoid positioning issues with the mech
  • Mech Core: Jade Dynamo, the inheritance of explosives on the condition line makes no sense imo, explosives are power based
  • Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits, okay for applying alacrity to the party, could be 2 sec tho
  • Mech Arms: High-Impact Drivers, the might could be applied around us as well
• Suggestions
  • Split the Loadout from the Traits
  • Rework Most Traits so that we also have gains without the mech

The Mech (General):

• As mentioned above it feels bad that the loadout is definied by the traits
• The responsiveness is really really really bad, sometimes i spammed F1 for more then 5 seconds before the execution started
• We dont have good control over the mech, and have the same issues as untamed: we need "Attack this target" and "Return to me" as keybindings as well
• Effects around our Mech are really bad, because we dont't have good control over its positioning
• The overall power Damage in competitive is probably to high
• The CC Bar is a good thing, still broken easily in fights with many people and a 5 Sec Stun feels like a huge penalty
• The mech has to make up for our second weapon kit and i think it eventually keeps up to that task
• Every Mech looks just the same (yes i know a bit different loadout, but not even close to "highly customizable")
• Mech is not avaibale underwater!!!! The whole spec is around our mech and we cant use it there -.-
• Pathing is as bad as on ranger.. specially when jumping down small cliffs .. nothing new tho, maybe i had to high hopes you would adjust issues like that when introducing more ai
• To often dead, spec feels bad when mech is dead. Kinda insta dies in mid to large battles in wvw
• More Condition cleanse on the mech are needed, maybe also some we dont have to care about
• Suggestions:
  • Add loadout menu, similar to a pet select where we can select inherited stats and loadout
  • We proably will never see different models/skins, but maybe you could at least add dye channels to the pet menu 🙂
  • Fix responsiveness and control issues
  • Reduce "Crash Down" cooldown to drastically, at least to 60 sec for competitive, probably more like 30-40sec
  • Increase lifepool in wvw

The Mech (Loadout):

• Condition Line
  • Doesn't work out for me, to few application of conditions overall
  • Rolling Smash
    • Doesn't feel impactful for that high cd
  • Discharge Array
    • The Confusion duration is a joke in competitve and thereby kinda useless
    • Hard to his because we can't control the positioning of the mech and the mech won't try to stay nearby enemies. Specially when you try to mix it with the ranged power attack loadout
    • Suggestions:
      • Increase duration in competitive
      • The field should appear at the target
  • Jade Mortar
    • Doesn't feel impactful at all
• Support Line
  • Okay for PvE Alac spam
  • Explosive Knucke
    • Dunno, dont feel it, kinda boring
  • Crisis Zone
    • Hard to hit your allies because of the mech positioning
    • Good Supportive skill
    • Suggestionss:
      • The effectshould  occur at our and at the mechs position
      • Cleanse conditions of everyone
    • Barrier Burst
      • Hard to hit your allies because of the mech positioning
      • Suggestions:
        • The effect should  occur at our and at the mechs position
• Power Line  
  • Does the job I guess, because of the high autoattack mainly
  • Spark Revolver
    •  I guess it's fine, the damage is also okay with the high autoattack damage currently
    • I think it should feel more bursty tho when autoattack damage is reduced, and this should be our main burst skill
  • Core Reactor Short
    • Kinda always misses moving targets
    • Suggestion: This should track the target
  • Sky Circus
    • Dunno does to much at the same time probably
    • The Stun is hard to hit due to mech placement
    • The evade is only good when you actually perma watch your mech and use it on certain key situations, but mech reaction is to slow so this is never really a well timed evade
    • The attack itself doesnt really have an impact
    • Idea:
      • It could be a usefull tool to keep it alive if this skill has like 20 sec cd and will bring our mech in some hover mode with 5 sec evade, where it can't get attacked but will work as usual

Other thoughts:

• Rework on Toolkit, so this effects and repairs our Mech as well with every skill use. This kit need a general overhaul tho
• Medical Dispersion Field could always heal our mech additionally to the ppl around us, maybe it could survive in wvw zergs then
• With jade involved i hoped to find boon corruption here and there
• Well after the gyro ki disaster and turret ki i really thought we would be spared from more ai, seems like i was wrong. the typical issues still exist. Overall i like the theme and background tho. Bodymods or poisons could have been also an interesting base for an engi theme
• DPS Rotation in PvE is still pain
• Maybe to allow us to weapon swap would make it interesting. tho kits should be limited then to a single one
• Kinda bad Burst options
• we still lack a good condi e-spec
• The mech is absolutely overtuned in open world pve

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by NeroBoron.7285

[Matoro.9708]

Kinetic Battery would makes more sense (to me) building up on the mech, not the player. The F1-3 abilities are its own, and the quickness in this current iteration of mechanist is honestly better off on the mech. If we got toolbelt skills back, though...

[SnowMochi.7602]

1. The pet bar needs at least two more buttons, the first being a generic attack button. One shouldn't have to waste any of the three special attacks just to assign a new target. The next button should be a second behavior toggle for either aggressive (targeting whichever is nearest), or assist behavior (my target only).  To elaborate, we are giving up one third of our capability to have this mech out. It essentially becomes the primary means of interacting, via combat, with the game environment.  If this is by design, then we need a more nuanced control over the pet. 

 

2. The footspeed of the mech is severely lacking. Without even getting into competitive use, it is far too easily kited even by AI (PvE) enemies.  To illustrate:  I was in Bloodstone Fen trying to complete a timed event that required us to eliminate running targets in order to make the champion vulnerable. The running targets weren't using any dodges, run speed enhancements, or teleports, and yet they easily outstripped my mech, wasting the mech's attacks, regardless of whether the mech was attuned to melee or ranged attack. This problem was further compounded, as it seems that for nearly every attack, the mech has to plant first. It feels as though nothing has been done to improve upon the glaring flaws that  have been hitherto present in Ranger pet AI. This needs to change before it goes live in February 2022.

 

3. There needs to be an option to change the color of the majority of the mech. Leave the jade accents for the gems at the joints and whatever trim you want, but the larger areas of the body should have a recolor option. It's simply too "loud" on the screen. If you don't want to give us the option to recolor, then give the majority of the body parts a more generic, darker, metallic color similar to those found on the regular golems already found in the game. It's supposed to be Jade Tech, not jade through and through.  After only half an hour of playing this, watching the graphics was a strain on the eyes. It needs to better blend in with a crowd, especially since other players will be adding their animations to the fight AND having to look at all this as well.

 

4. Resummoning time needs to be cut by 1/3 to 1/2. Locking reduction of resummoning behind the Tools trait line seems excessively punitive. We were led to believe that the trade-off for using the mech was the loss of our toolbelt. Now it seems the mech's interface is being treated as a toolbelt. So, which is it? The problem with this is that beyond whatever reductions given by the Tools line, there's no synergy. It's one of the weakest lines, even with the dubious benefit of the triggering of Static Discharge when executing mech commands. Whatever benefit is gained from taking the Tools line comes at the loss of essentially half or more of our own capability through taking the other, more combat-oriented trait lines.

Anyway, these are my observations thus far. 

P.S.  Just an observation but the Engineer forums tend to be quiet and have relatively few posters compared to the forums of other classes. Now, we a sudden influx of "engineers" demanding for the Golem to be nerfed. :::roll eyes:::  If the Golem's killing power is nerfed, then the new elite spec is worthless, and therefore not fun for those whose mains are Engineers. We give up too much in terms of trait lines to field it already, so please don't nerf my Golem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by SnowMochi.7602
Addendum

[Khalisto.5780]

remove the defiance bar from mech and nerf its damage from 40-60%, the actual player doesn't have to do anything

[Coolster.2536]

1. I would like a keybind for "Return to me". In PvP fights, and even during Meta events, I loose track of the mech, and it's annoying to have to click the button, doubly so because I use action cam 99% of the time.
2. Having pet commands for a "Stay" (Sit here until I run too far away) and an "Attack target" would be welcomed. I'd like for my mech to engage combat first so it takes aggro, and I'd also like for it to stay at range so it can consistently proc Aim-Assited Rocket
3. I like that the Mech Arms change based on your traits, but I was a let down when I saw that the Mech Frame and Mech Core didn't also change based on which trait you took.
4. Echoing what someone else said earlier, build craft is a little limited with the master-tier traits. For example, I wanted to make a ranged condi mech, using Mech Arms: Jade Cannons over Mech Arms: Single-Edge Cutters. The problem though, is that the condi trait, Mech Frame: Conductive Alloys is melee. This makes the mech charge into melee range to use it, which means it can't proc the extra explosions from Aim-Assisted Rocket and I have to recall it back out of melee range. With that build, the F2 ability is detrimental and I can't use it. Now, Core Reactor Shot is ranged and is also an explosion, but the trait is power, which isn't useful for a condi build. There ought to be a better way to choose if your Mech is power, condi, or support while also being able to choose if the mech is melee or range.
5. A little disappointed there isn't much synergy with Turrets. I wanted to use Rocket Turret with the Mech for insane AoE Explosions, but it didn't feel all that good, and the rest of Inventions didn't have any synergy (aside from the minor trait where Protection clears conditions)
6. The traits could interact with the Mechanist better. Only 2 traits (Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits and Mech Core: J-Drive) affect the Mechanist themself and none of the minor traits affect you also. It also feels bad that you have 2 Minor Traits (Mech Fighter and Energy Siphoning) that do similar effects. Mech Fighter should just grant the Mech 150% of your Vitality and Toughness, then Energy Siphoning does something else. Maybe it could give the Mech any Boons that are applied to the Mechanist (except for Boons that the Mech applies, so Boon uptime on the Mech doesn't get crazy)
7. It feels bad that you can't see the cooldowns on the Mech Commands (F1-F3)
8. I was disappointed that Kinetic Battery doesn't apply to the Mech. It makes it feel especially bad because you have 3 Tool-Kit powers instead of the usual 5. It'd be nice if we kept the Elite Tool-Kit, since 1) F5 isn't being used by Mechanist, and 2) both Scrapper and Holosmith traded the Elite Toolkit for Function Gyro and Photon Forge
9. Mech Commands don't seem to queue. If I press F2 then immediately press F3, F2 interrupts itself and goes on cooldown.
10. 100s cooldown on Crash Down is much too long. 60 or 75s would be better, but really the mech should just be stunned for like 10-15s if it dies then heal to half or full. The Mechanist, as-is, is kitten without it's mech.
11. The Mech's breakbar plays well in PvE (though not many enemies deal tons of CC) though the 5-second stun in PvP is a little punishing. A 3-second stun might be better, though I'm not sure if Mechanist should be viable in PvP in the first place since most of your damage is on an AI pet.
12. Mace is nice. Seems mostly like a power support weapon. It goes well with Tools where you get increased damage while you have vigor and I like all the CC you get when used with Shield, however Energizing Slam is kinda weird how it's leap is 410 Range, while other similar leaps, like Radiant Arc and Flame Uprising, are 450 range. It'd also be nice if it had more condi damage so it'd pair well with a Condi Support build.
13. Signets are alright. Mostly ended up using the Heal and Elite Signets with either the Power or Condi one depending on build. Shift signet might be nice if it wasn't bugged. However, the signets where their actives are based on the mech are hard to use since the mech tries to follow a target (and I switch between random targets a lot), so if you use the actives of Superconducting Signet or Barrier Signet, the mech might not be using it where you want it used. I suggest having the active act on both the player and the mech (like with Power Signet) but don't have them overlap like Scourge Sand Shades.

 

Overall, I like the spec and I like how impactful it's skills are. The Mech deals a ton of damage and tanks really well. The traits could use more synergy with other trait lines, especially Alchemy or Inventions. I'd like it if Kinetic Battery gave your Mech quickness and superspeed. The traits could also give the player more tools and could stand to be a little less reliant on the Mech.

 

Excited to play it in End of Dragons with Golemancer Runes and Summon 7-Series Golem for maximum golem shenanigans!

Edited October 27, 2021 by Coolster.2536
Forget to add feedback for Signets

[Dajo.4380]

Disclaimer: wall of text ahead.

 

Here is my feedback, as a main Engi player since release.

My Focus is on PvE (Open World/Instanced Content), only occasionally dabbling in PvP or WvW.

 

The Mech and the toolbelt

First off: I think the Mech is a great idea. While I am not a huge fan of pet/minion builds in general, a customizable one is in line with the tinkerer mentality of engineers.

Direct control over (some of) it’s skills makes the gameplay more engaging and reactive rather than passive. The drawback is obviously heavy reliance on the Mech staying active/alive. Loosing toolbelt skills while it’s there is probably necessary for the keybinding. But Engi is currently balanced around these skills a lot, and taking them away opens a huge gap in the usefulness of utility skills. This will be hard, if not impossible, to balance.

One way I can think of would be to include the toolbelt functionality of the active utility skills into the pet commands. Put the Mech call on F5 like on the other e-specs and add new toolbelt/command skills which are fitting to the corresponding utility skills. Might even be as simple as adding a waterspray/regen field around the Mech. It doesn´t need extremely fancy new animations, if it makes the class actually playable (= viable in all game modes). Existing animations/commands can be used for the signet toolbelt alterations, in heavy tuned down versions

This way the Mech will be truly customizable. And it opens up new ways of build diversity.

Optionally, add some utility to the existing commands. Some way to break stun/condi cleanse/give stability (reliably!) not only to the Mech. Currently unusable vital toolbelt skills, like the self-heal on medkit, would have to be fixed as well.

Quality of Life Improvements

Recall on an extra small button beside the rest (does ranger still have the “hide pet” option?), to not fat-finger it, and the “move there” command others mentioned on F5 would just be a bonus. A “pet panel” like on ranger would be nice (with a Mech coloring option), but also to check the current stats of the Mech (e.g. with the current 50% precision inheritance the crit chance is not really easy to determine).
On a side-note: the “move there” command would be also great for the Untamed as a designated pet-master.

Response to the F1234-keystroke if any other skill is queued by the player character is a technical issue on itself.

 

Possible alterations to the traitline

In case of the above mentioned “toolbelt-commands” some way of enhancing the desired playstyle. Adept traits are great as they are, adding just minor changes to the Mech autoattack.

In that case, the stat inheritance on the master tier would not be too bad, even though I would like to see them moved to the grandmaster minor trait. One has already to gear the character correctly in order to fulfill a role, but also the Mech cannot inherit bonus stats like boon duration, condition duration and damage modifiers.

Some passive Mech-buff on the minor master trait is just there for flavor. How about Mech movement speed in combat? (just 10% or so, to escape easily with buffs, but also for it to be a little more threatening and more reliable against moving targets without the signet).

To the master traits: as mentioned above, having moved the forced “inheritance” choices to an automatic stat sharing on minor grandmaster, this frees up the space for some fun Mech customization choices. Some ideas in line with the current existing choices:
Condi spec: discharge as an automated skill, maybe some condition modifier for possible class tweaking
Support spec:  alacrity on barrier application for Mech and player, as it is. Jade syphon as an automated Mech skill
Power spec: the existing “spark revolver” skill as an automated Mech skill. Additionally some way to mitigate the weakness to reflects. It´s a pet after all. A vital one. (And Engi is currently fine enough on power based damage specs).

Grandmaster trait alterations:
None, other than removing the activated pet abilities from there.

Major point of my rant about the traitline: “inheritance” needs to be automated to a degree, else it extremely limits playstyles/trait combinations.

 

Signets:

In general fine as they are, apart from the it-does-all-at-once mentality. See again the split to toolbelt.
The ultimate feels a little weak on activation, but I guess the unblockable part makes up for that.

 

Mace:

Confusion in it’s current state (PvE) is entirely useless, but I think this is appropriately considered in the power coefficients.

The barrier/alacrity combination on auto attack feels a little clunky for someone who is used to kit-swapping without attack-chains. But there are enough ways to make up for it (barrier from signet/Mech skills as of now). The barrier application from mace could scale a little better with healing power, especially since it prevents other active means of party healing in the meantime. And the current state of “Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits” suggests some Alac/Healer build is intended.

 

 

TL;DR: Please find a way to compensate/substitute the loss of toolbelt skills. And fix pet-related issues like movement commands. Some pet UI would be great too. Sharing stats with trait choices feels just limiting.

 

Edited October 28, 2021 by Dajo.4380
Post formatting and tldr

[Dark Red Killian.3946]

A suggestion for toolbelt skills I have is this. Make the corresponding Mech command inherit certain aspects of the toolbelt skill. For example, bomb kit when the mech skill is pressed could launch the foe also, inheriting that from big ol bomb. Or, med kit, the F1 mech skill could also self heal. That way, you don’t totally do away with the mech skills. Maybe call mech could be F5 and you have F1 being traited based on your heal, and F2-4 could be based on your toolbelt/traits. When mech is away, you could still use your toolbelt skills.