mechanist feedback from Anet

[LucianDK.8615]

Engineer - Mechanist

During Beta 3, we received excellent feedback regarding the Mechanist. We saw the community excited for the mech itself, a promising alacrity support build, and a way to play a 'supported' Condi Engineer build, but you also helped us identify key locations that need additional polish and improvement. Not everything is 100% complete here; we’ll especially still be working on some of the awkward aspects of the mech’s Crash Down summoning in the open world, to get it more consistent and functional for End of Dragons.

Key pieces of feedback that we identified were:

1) Lack of easy-to-use pet controls, like Core Ranger has.

Specific changes made in response to this feedback: We're adding an 'Attack My Target' button with a keybind, as well as adding a key binding to 'Return to Me'. By default, these are bound to F6 and F7, but you can rebind them to anything you like using the new key binding options for Profession Skill 6 and 7.

2) The Mech Command skills (F1, F2, F3) can feel unreliable, as the Mech often queues them behind something else it is trying to do.

Specific changes made in response to this feedback: We've removed the two 'auto' skills the Mech would cast on its own, Rocket Punch and Jade Siphon, as Mech Command skills would queue behind them and be delayed.
Rocket Punch is now activated when you use Mace 3 (Prototype Rocket Fist), and the mech will use its Rocket Punch on the same target as your Prototype Rocket Fist.
Now the Mech Command skills can freely interrupt the Mech's basic attacks and one-another, causing them to be much more reliable when activated.

3) Too much power is loaded into the Mech, instead of the Engineer player. This can be unbalancing in PvP, and if the mech is defeated and on cooldown, lead to feeling like you're playing half a specialization. It's also difficult to consistently get boons on the Mech, leading to wildly varying power in PvE.

Specific changes made in response to this feedback: This is a big one, with a lot of related changes! 
We're adjusting the Mech's base attributes (before it inherits a percentage of yours) down from our 'level 80 monster' base of 1376 to our 'player' base of 1000, matching your own.
To resolve a related problem, it'll no longer have any Precision or inherit that attribute from you by default. This is because on a level 80 character, Precision up to 1000 points has no effect, and only precision values above 1000 will increase critical chance. If the Mech has a base Precision and inherits a percentage of yours (which must include your base 1000), it ends up with a mismatching Critical Hit Chance. We are instead adjusting the trait "Mech Frame: Variable Mass Distributor" to copy 100% of your Precision attribute to the Mech, so that you can use that trait to cause its critical hit chance to match your own, allowing you to consistently build for crit-capping.

By taking away some of these base attribute values from the Mech, it gave us the freedom to increase the power of other parts of the Mechanist's kit, especially the Mace and Signet skills.

4) Related to #3: Boons on the Mech are an immense amount of potential power, but it is difficult to reliably get boons on it when playing in a group.

Specific changes made in response to this feedback: A full list of changes will be found below, but a key highlight is that the Mech now also inherits Signet passive bonuses where appropriate, and Shift Signet's passive now automatically copies all boons applied to you to your Mech, with the same duration, which will make your Mech function much stronger and more consistently along you in group content. To make this work sensibly and fairly, the Mech no longer inherits a percent of the attributes on its master that are caused by Might. In other words, it only benefits from Might on itself, not from Might on you.

5) The Mech can die suddenly in some content, leaving you with a long 'penalty' cooldown.

Specific changes made in response to this feedback: We'll be keeping an eye on this. Right now, we agree that a 100 second cooldown is too long- we're lowering it to 50 seconds.
There's other aspects to this too, though, which we wanted to address by adding tools to make it harder for the Mech to suddenly die in the first place. It'll now also gain the passive benefit of the Barrier Signet skill when you have it, giving it some additional damage reduction, and we've redesigned the third minor trait, 'Energy Siphoning', to be a defensive proc that will prevent sudden bursts of damage from unexpectedly downing the mech.

That trait is now 'Exigency Protocols'. As a passive bonus, it increases the power of all Regeneration boons you apply by 20%. (And Mace 2 now applies Regeneration in addition to Vigor, so you can make easy use of this.)
And as a conditional proc, when the Mech drops below 50% health, it'll gain Regeneration and a strong buff that reduces all incoming damage by 50% for 5 seconds. Although this effect has a cooldown before it can proc again, we are hoping these changes will both help your Mech survive burst damage and give you easy-to-use methods to keep it healed.

We are aware of specific mechanics in certain content (such as Vale Guardian's green circles) that are affecting pets and are treating these as individual bugs in those encounters to fix in future updates. We do not intend for any current encounter mechanic to disproportionately impact your ability to use pets.

Full List of Mechanist Changes:

Gameplay Changes

• The maximum recharge of the Crash Down skill to summon your Mech has been decreased from 100 seconds to 50 seconds.
• The Mech will now automatically re-appear much sooner after dismounting.
• Base Power, Vitality, and Toughness attributes on the Mech have been reduced from 1374 at Level 80 to 1000, matching player base values.
• The Mech now has a base Precision attribute of 0, and a base Critical Chance of 5%. It no longer inherits 25% of the master's Precision by default.
• The trait Mech Frame: Variable Mass Distributor no longer increases the percentage of Power inherited by the Mech. Instead, it causes the Mech to inherit 100% of your Precision and Ferocity attribute values.
• The Mech no longer 'double dips' on Might by inheriting a percentage of the Power and Condition Damage granted to you by Might boons.

Skill and Trait Adjustments

Mace:

• Mace Strike: Damage coefficient increased from 0.6 to 0.8.
• Mace Smash: Damage coefficient increased from 0.6 to 0.8. Now applies one stack of confusion for 5s.
• Barrier Blast: Damage coefficient increased from 1.0 to 1.4. Confusion duration reduced from 6s to 5s. Cast time increased by approximately 0.2 seconds.
• Energizing Slam: Conditions applied to enemies changed to 3 stacks of Vulnerability and Confusion with a 5s duration. Boons applied to allies changed to 3s of Vigor and Regeneration to allies in the area.
• Rocket Fist Prototype: Is now an Explosion. Now when you cast this skill, your Mech will cast Rocket Punch at your target. Rocket Fist Prototype and Rocket Punch now each apply 5s burning and a 0.5s stun. This is more effective for reducing enemy Defiance Bars than the previous single 1s stun.

Signets:

• Force Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  No longer breaks stuns. Passive Power attribute bonus changed to a 10% increase to outgoing strike damage. The passive bonus now also applies to your Mech.
• Superconducting Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  Activated skill now additionally causes 3s burning per hit. Passive Condition Damage attribute bonus changed to a 10% increase to outgoing condition damage. The passive bonus now also applies to your Mech.
• Barrier Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  The passive bonus now also applies to your Mech.
• Shift Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  Is now instant cast. Now breaks stuns when cast. Now removes two conditions from both you and your mech when cast. Additional passive effect added: All boons applied to you are also applied to your Mech. Move speed passive now also applies to your Mech.
• Overclock Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated. Player activation of this signet is now instant. Burning per hit on the activated skill Jade Buster Cannon increased from 2s to 5s base duration. Strike damage dealt by this skill increased by 50%. The Mech now rotates its torso much faster while aiming this skill to track targets.

Mech Commands:

• Crisis Zone: Now can be used while the mech is stunned and will break stuns on all targets in range when activated. Now also removes conditions from allies in range. Number of conditions removed decreased from 5 to 3. Range increased to 600. Regeneration removed and replaced with Stability.
• Discharge Array: Now strikes up to three enemies per pulse. Now additionally applies 1 stack of Burning with a 3s duration on hit.

Traits:

• Mech Arms: Single Edged Cutters: Bleeding duration on hit reduced from 6s to 3s.
• Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits: Alacrity duration on barrier application reduced from 1s to 0.75s.
• Mech Fighter: This minor trait now causes your Mech to inherit 100% of your Vitality and Toughness by itself, rather than this effect being split between this trait and the third minor trait.
• Energy Siphoning: This minor trait has been removed and replaced with "Exigency Protocols", which increases the power of all Regeneration boons you apply by 20%, and when your Mech takes damage while below 50% health, it will gain Regeneration and a 50% reduction to incoming damage for 5 seconds. (60s cooldown)
• Barrier Engine: Radius increased from 360 to 600.

Bug Fixes

• Rename Pet: The Mech's name is now saved properly. (Sorry, still no numbers or punctuation allowed. That's a difficult problem because the 'rules' are shared with other pets and are part of the functioning to prevent profanity in names. We're still looking into it.)
• Mech Commands: The F1 and F3 buttons now properly display remaining cooldown duration numbers.
• Mech Command - Crisis Zone: The mech will no longer try to get into melee range of an enemy to activate this skill.
• Mech Command - Barrier Burst: Corrected the PvE tooltip to display that the Might base duration is 15 seconds, not the displayed 10 seconds.
• Mace - Barrier Blast: Fixed a bug causing this skill to not properly apply barrier to allies in the area.
• High Impact Drivers: Fixed a bug causing applied might to have unlimited duration in when PvP and WvW.
• Leashing behavior range now matches that of Ranger pets.
• Shift Signet will now more reliably teleport the Mech to your location.
• Fixed a bug related to the trait Static Discharge and Mech Command skills.

 

 

 

Some seriously lovely improvements. Especially the pet controls, and Anet greatly improved the mace and signets.

Edited November 25, 2021 by LucianDK.8615

[Kodama.6453]

8 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Full List of Mechanist Changes:

Gameplay Changes

• The maximum recharge of the Crash Down skill to summon your Mech has been decreased from 100 seconds to 50 seconds.
• The Mech will now automatically re-appear much sooner after dismounting.
• Base Power, Vitality, and Toughness attributes on the Mech have been reduced from 1374 at Level 80 to 1000, matching player base values.
• The Mech now has a base Precision attribute of 0, and a base Critical Chance of 5%. It no longer inherits 25% of the master's Precision by default.
• The trait Mech Frame: Variable Mass Distributor no longer increases the percentage of Power inherited by the Mech. Instead, it causes the Mech to inherit 100% of your Precision and Ferocity attribute values.
• The Mech no longer 'double dips' on Might by inheriting a percentage of the Power and Condition Damage granted to you by Might boons.

Skill and Trait Adjustments

Mace:

• Mace Strike: Damage coefficient increased from 0.6 to 0.8.
• Mace Smash: Damage coefficient increased from 0.6 to 0.8. Now applies one stack of confusion for 5s.
• Barrier Blast: Damage coefficient increased from 1.0 to 1.4. Confusion duration reduced from 6s to 5s. Cast time increased by approximately 0.2 seconds.
• Energizing Slam: Conditions applied to enemies changed to 3 stacks of Vulnerability and Confusion with a 5s duration. Boons applied to allies changed to 3s of Vigor and Regeneration to allies in the area.
• Rocket Fist Prototype: Is now an Explosion. Now when you cast this skill, your Mech will cast Rocket Punch at your target. Rocket Fist Prototype and Rocket Punch now each apply 5s burning and a 0.5s stun. This is more effective for reducing enemy Defiance Bars than the previous single 1s stun.

Signets:

• Force Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  No longer breaks stuns. Passive Power attribute bonus changed to a 10% increase to outgoing strike damage. The passive bonus now also applies to your Mech.
• Superconducting Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  Activated skill now additionally causes 3s burning per hit. Passive Condition Damage attribute bonus changed to a 10% increase to outgoing condition damage. The passive bonus now also applies to your Mech.
• Barrier Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  The passive bonus now also applies to your Mech.
• Shift Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  Is now instant cast. Now breaks stuns when cast. Now removes two conditions from both you and your mech when cast. Additional passive effect added: All boons applied to you are also applied to your Mech. Move speed passive now also applies to your Mech.
• Overclock Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated. Player activation of this signet is now instant. Burning per hit on the activated skill Jade Buster Cannon increased from 2s to 5s base duration. Strike damage dealt by this skill increased by 50%. The Mech now rotates its torso much faster while aiming this skill to track targets.

Mech Commands:

• Crisis Zone: Now can be used while the mech is stunned and will break stuns on all targets in range when activated. Now also removes conditions from allies in range. Number of conditions removed decreased from 5 to 3. Range increased to 600. Regeneration removed and replaced with Stability.
• Discharge Array: Now strikes up to three enemies per pulse. Now additionally applies 1 stack of Burning with a 3s duration on hit.

Traits:

• Mech Arms: Single Edged Cutters: Bleeding duration on hit reduced from 6s to 3s.
• Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits: Alacrity duration on barrier application reduced from 1s to 0.75s.
• Mech Fighter: This minor trait now causes your Mech to inherit 100% of your Vitality and Toughness by itself, rather than this effect being split between this trait and the third minor trait.
• Energy Siphoning: This minor trait has been removed and replaced with "Exigency Protocols", which increases the power of all Regeneration boons you apply by 20%, and when your Mech takes damage while below 50% health, it will gain Regeneration and a 50% reduction to incoming damage for 5 seconds. (60s cooldown)
• Barrier Engine: Radius increased from 360 to 600.

Bug Fixes

• Rename Pet: The Mech's name is now saved properly. (Sorry, still no numbers or punctuation allowed. That's a difficult problem because the 'rules' are shared with other pets and are part of the functioning to prevent profanity in names. We're still looking into it.)
• Mech Commands: The F1 and F3 buttons now properly display remaining cooldown duration numbers.
• Mech Command - Crisis Zone: The mech will no longer try to get into melee range of an enemy to activate this skill.
• Mech Command - Barrier Burst: Corrected the PvE tooltip to display that the Might base duration is 15 seconds, not the displayed 10 seconds.
• Mace - Barrier Blast: Fixed a bug causing this skill to not properly apply barrier to allies in the area.
• High Impact Drivers: Fixed a bug causing applied might to have unlimited duration in when PvP and WvW.
• Leashing behavior range now matches that of Ranger pets.
• Shift Signet will now more reliably teleport the Mech to your location.
• Fixed a bug related to the trait Static Discharge and Mech Command skills.

 

 

Some seriously lovely improvements. Especially the pet controls, and Anet greatly improved the mace and signets.

Not a single word about the mech becoming usable under water, tho.

Anet: let's design an expansion with a heavy water theme with fishing, skiffs and all this stuff!

Also anet: let's make the engineer elite spec absolutely unusable when coming even remotely close to a single drop of water!

Edited November 24, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[Infusion.7149]

Removal of auto-use skills was a step in the right direction and so was the cooldown reduction on crash down.

Quote

We've removed the two 'auto' skills the Mech would cast on its own, Rocket Punch and Jade Siphon, as Mech Command skills would queue behind them and be delayed.

The maximum recharge of the Crash Down skill to summon your Mech has been decreased from 100 seconds to 50 seconds.

It still appears there is too much emphasis on confusion. I don't believe this would be a strong spec to run on Twin Largos (the condi mech is still melee) or Soulless Horror so in theory it would be a fractal condi meta spec so bleeding/burning is still better.

Luckily Superconducting signet now has burning added to it, but I'll leave it to the people that are running 4 kits to do the benchmarking. I don't know if it would be preferred over 3 kits or 4 kits (likely 3 kits due to using Overclock Signet for realistic purposes).

Still going to be missing toolbelt skills so no changes on that front.

[Aravind.9610]

So now what? Mech inherits only 25% of the power stat from us and also has its base power reduced to 1000? HUGE nerf right there to ALL builds. The power damage on mech was what was doing most of its damage on all 3 types of mech builds whether power or condi or support.

2 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

The trait Mech Frame: Variable Mass Distributor no longer increases the percentage of Power inherited by the Mech. Instead, it causes the Mech to inherit 100% of your Precision and Ferocity attribute values.

Instead of the new minor trait we should have gotten a minor trait that automatically copies all boons on us to mech. That should be baseline instead of us having to waste a skill slot for a pretty useless signet in pve.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Aravind.9610

[Matoro.9708]

Yeah, a few good changes, but it's gonna be a long road. Hopefully not like the dead end of turrets.

[Nate.8146]

I'm fine with the changes. If there's one thing I would like addressed though, it's the removal of that dirty respawn cooldown. I don't like pet builds being punished so harshly when there are better alternatives to balance the game. Ranger can at least swap to another pet and I feel Mechanist deserves similar treatment. Warframe IMO handled it really well when they introduced Vulpaphyla companions into their game. On death, they devolve back into a larval form that hovers above you for 30 seconds, after which it will respawn back as a normal companion. During that time, the larval form will provide defensive or offensive bonuses for you. I can see a similar system for the mech. When it's down for repairs, it could launch an indestructible support drone at your side that provides you with similar limited defensive or offensive capabilities (configurable via your selected traits) while the main mech is down for repairs. At least as a user of that spec I would feel like I'm still getting value even during its repair state. Right now, it's straight up punishment. A slap on the wrist as if it's my fault the mech died and now I have to spend 1 minute in the penalty box.

[ThrakathNar.4537]

6 hours ago, Aravind.9610 said:

So now what? Mech inherits only 25% of the power stat from us and also has its base power reduced to 1000? HUGE nerf right there to ALL builds. The power damage on mech was what was doing most of its damage on all 3 types of mech builds whether power or condi or support.

Instead of the new minor trait we should have gotten a minor trait that automatically copies all boons on us to mech. That should be baseline instead of us having to waste a skill slot for a pretty useless signet in pve.

The stat changes are the most baffling part about this, because if I'm reading this correctly, unless you explicitly take the trait that buffs mech precision, your mech is hard capped at 5% crit chance, which just isn't fair, because it doesn't give you any trait options if you want your mech to crit ever. You have to take that trait.

 

I just don't get why you explicitly need to trait to inherit percentage bonuses at all. If it was flat numbers then it would be different, but as it is - you should be deciding your mech's stats when you choose your own stats, you shouldn't then be forced to make sure the mech inherits the correct stats that you've already chosen instead of just 0%.

[Aravind.9610]

3 hours ago, ThrakathNar.4537 said:

The stat changes are the most baffling part about this, because if I'm reading this correctly, unless you explicitly take the trait that buffs mech precision, your mech is hard capped at 5% crit chance, which just isn't fair, because it doesn't give you any trait options if you want your mech to crit ever. You have to take that trait.

 

I just don't get why you explicitly need to trait to inherit percentage bonuses at all. If it was flat numbers then it would be different, but as it is - you should be deciding your mech's stats when you choose your own stats, you shouldn't then be forced to make sure the mech inherits the correct stats that you've already chosen instead of just 0%.

Yeah it is better if we inherit 100% the stats we are using. If we are using viper's gear mech should inherit 100% of the power/condition damage/precision/expertise stats all round rather than just some of them.

[Kodama.6453]

11 minutes ago, Aravind.9610 said:

Yeah it is better if we inherit 100% the stats we are using. If we are using viper's gear mech should inherit 100% of the power/condition damage/precision/expertise stats all round rather than just some of them.

The funniest thing about that is now that we can't even make a decision to increase the power of our mech. Mech always gets just 25% of our power stat, can't trait that up in any way anymore.

Power mechanist will feel so bad to play with this change, just unbelievable.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Kodama.6453

[Aravind.9610]

10 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

The funniest thing about that is now that we can't even make a decision to increase the power of our mech. Mech always gets just 25% of our power stat, can't trait that up in any way anymore.

Power mechanist will feel so bad to play with this change, just unbelievable.

Not just power mech, but ALL mechs will feel bad to play. They all gained damage from the power trait, even condi and support mechs. The majority of their damage was from their normal attacks which were good (not great but good). Now the base power of condi mech is reduced to 1000 AND the condi mech only has 5% crit chance instead of what we had before. Now we are stuck with a worse version of condi holosmith with nearly the same playstyle and far less damage and CC.

They also nerfed the bleeding duration on mech autoattack which is again bad, since mech doesn't gain passive condi duration bonuses from our traits or runes like nightmare runes. So essentially we get stuck with a mech doing like 5 seconds of bleeding at best with autoattack which is much worse than what we had.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Aravind.9610

[Kodama.6453]

3 minutes ago, Aravind.9610 said:

Not just power mech, but ALL mechs will feel bad to play. They all gained damage from the power trait, even condi and support mechs. Now the base power of condi mech is reduced to 1000 AND the condi mech only has 5% crit chance instead of what we had before.

They also nerfed the bleeding duration on mech autoattack which is again bad, since mech doesn't gain passive condi duration bonuses from our traits or runes like nightmare runes. So essentially we get stuck with a mech doing like 5 seconds of bleeding at best with autoattack which is much worse than what we had.

It's like they are actively trying to make mechanist feel kitten to play, sadly.

[Aravind.9610]

1 minute ago, Kodama.6453 said:

It's like they are actively trying to make mechanist feel kitten to play, sadly.

Well at least we aren't alone in our nerfs. Pretty much all the elite specs were nerfed except Vindicator. I am guessing they are now going for the underpowered versions of elite specs before deciding finally on the balance for launch.

[Kodama.6453]

Just now, Aravind.9610 said:

Well at least we aren't alone in our nerfs. Pretty much all the elite specs were nerfed except Vindicator. I am guessing they are now going for the underpowered versions of elite specs before deciding finally on the balance for launch.

Untamed also is just improved across the board. They even completely removed every trade off of that spec, untamed now gets all their stuff completely for free.

[Aravind.9610]

Just now, Kodama.6453 said:

Untamed also is just improved across the board. They even completely removed every trade off of that spec, untamed now gets all their stuff completely for free.

Not surprising since untamed was doing less damage than Alac Renegade on what was supposed to be a pure dps build. We will see how much our classes have been buffed/nerfed during the beta. I just feel as if mechanist was completely nerfed without gaining anything useful.

[azarhal.3086]

18 minutes ago, Aravind.9610 said:

Not just power mech, but ALL mechs will feel bad to play. They all gained damage from the power trait, even condi and support mechs. The majority of their damage was from their normal attacks which were good (not great but good). Now the base power of condi mech is reduced to 1000 AND the condi mech only has 5% crit chance instead of what we had before. Now we are stuck with a worse version of condi holosmith with nearly the same playstyle and far less damage and CC.

They also nerfed the bleeding duration on mech autoattack which is again bad, since mech doesn't gain passive condi duration bonuses from our traits or runes like nightmare runes. So essentially we get stuck with a mech doing like 5 seconds of bleeding at best with autoattack which is much worse than what we had.

I was expecting it with all the people complaining Mechanist was OP because they were managing to solo some Champions and clearing trash mobs as if other classes/builds couldn't do it faster than the Mechanist already...

Power Mechanist was already a bottom tier DPS build and they basically removed any power DPS from the Mech. 🙄

[Obtena.7952]

13 hours ago, Aravind.9610 said:

So now what? Mech inherits only 25% of the power stat from us and also has its base power reduced to 1000? HUGE nerf right there to ALL builds. The power damage on mech was what was doing most of its damage on all 3 types of mech builds whether power or condi or support.

Instead of the new minor trait we should have gotten a minor trait that automatically copies all boons on us to mech. That should be baseline instead of us having to waste a skill slot for a pretty useless signet in pve.

Well, the changes themselves make sense and are inline with the feedback players gave. Yup, that was bound to result in a lower Direct DPS for the Golem. 

Overall, the changes make Mechanist more inline with expected gameplay and improve mech interaction. Very welcome changes. 

Edited November 25, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Fueki.4753]

Put the Stunbreak back on Force Signet.

It fits better there and Shift Signet does too much already.

[Djemo.7153]

Are they for real?

 

Unless I'm reading something wrong, they didn't change/update the core problem with the Mech here, still lacking the ability to order the golem who they should attack when your F1-F3 skills are on cooldown. And still not having the "come back" command tied to one of the Fx buttons for people who actually use the "mouse camera", really?

 

You create an entire spec around a pet and you cannot even command the thing right and proper? I was actually hype for this spec, now it feels like I should just forget about its existence...

[azarhal.3086]

25 minutes ago, Djemo.7153 said:

Are they for real?

 

Unless I'm reading something wrong, they didn't change/update the core problem with the Mech here, still lacking the ability to order the golem who they should attack when your F1-F3 skills are on cooldown. And still not having the "come back" command tied to one of the Fx buttons for people who actually use the "mouse camera", really?

 

You create an entire spec around a pet and you cannot even command the thing right and proper? I was actually hype for this spec, now it feels like I should just forget about its existence...

They are adding the "attack my target" and "return to me" as F6/F7 by default (can be remapped). The OP didn't copy the intro paragraphs that mentioned that change.

[Infusion.7149]

2 hours ago, Djemo.7153 said:

Are they for real?

 

Unless I'm reading something wrong, they didn't change/update the core problem with the Mech here, still lacking the ability to order the golem who they should attack when your F1-F3 skills are on cooldown. And still not having the "come back" command tied to one of the Fx buttons for people who actually use the "mouse camera", really?

 

You create an entire spec around a pet and you cannot even command the thing right and proper? I was actually hype for this spec, now it feels like I should just forget about its existence...

Specific changes made in response to this feedback: We're adding an 'Attack My Target' button with a keybind, as well as adding a key binding to 'Return to Me'. By default, these are bound to F6 and F7, but you can rebind them to anything you like using the new key binding options for Profession Skill 6 and 7.

Specific mention of controls being added.

[LucianDK.8615]

2 hours ago, azarhal.3086 said:

They are adding the "attack my target" and "return to me" as F6/F7 by default (can be remapped). The OP didn't copy the intro paragraphs that mentioned that change.

*facepalms* Edited the OP to include everything. Seriously my bad!

[Alchimist.4738]

Those are some nice changes, I'm still worried a little bit that the player looses too much from the specialization, most of the traits still don't interact with the player, and once the mech is down you still don't have access to your toolbelt and your mechanist trait line is mostly useless.

[RobinotX.1604]

7 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Well, the changes themselves make sense and are inline with the feedback players gave. Yup, that was bound to result in a lower Direct DPS for the Golem. 

Overall, the changes make Mechanist more inline with expected gameplay and improve mech interaction. Very welcome changes. 

Agreed.

I think the chances are fair overall especially with the other buffs the mechanist got. I am curious what it will be on Tuesday :). Excited!

[Neva Eilhart.5347]

On 11/25/2021 at 12:06 AM, LucianDK.8615 said:

Shift Signet: Now plays a visual effect of the signet icon above the player when activated.  Is now instant cast. Now breaks stuns when cast. Now removes two conditions from both you and your mech when cast. Additional passive effect added: All boons applied to you are also applied to your Mech. Move speed passive now also applies to your Mech.

 

This is so awesome and strong, I don't know if I should be happy about it for making the class even more fluid or to be worried about it because it sounds like the kind of fancy toys that will be taken away from me by the time launch comes.

[Cisii.8317]

The mace 3 change is not good. It should stay at 1 second stun and this also means that rocket punch is unavailable for rifle.