Mechanist condi DPS viability in Fractals?

[Horus.8304]

I have no LW access so my main gold and gearing farms is fractal. I had a Scourge but that took a bit of an ugly hit and now I'm thinking of making an alt. Originally I was going for a FB but HFB is still too requested and I honestly have no interest in healing or having people ask "can't you just use HFB instead". Mechanist I liked simply for the design but wanted to know what everyone thinks of its DPS output in a Fractal. Especially when compared to FB and Scourge condis.

 

This is not a "elite rotation/top tier max numbers" type of deal. This is "you, a normal players, feelings on how good of a DPS the Mechanist is for fractals." 

[Jerus.4350]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PekAoqlxy0YwMXWKOWL5xaA-zRRYVRQYGN8nRHKiQkAydaSxZF-e

 

Surprisingly good, just chuck nades and shoot your guns, activate signets whenever and keep mech commands on cooldown.

 

 

 

[Horus.8304]

1 hour ago, Jerus.4350 said:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PekAoqlxy0YwMXWKOWL5xaA-zRRYVRQYGN8nRHKiQkAydaSxZF-e

 

Surprisingly good, just chuck nades and shoot your guns, activate signets whenever and keep mech commands on cooldown.

 

 

 

 

Is it limited to full ranged or can I pop the mace and shield then replace grenades for bomb kit?

[Jerus.4350]

Bomb kit as a sole kit is more of a power based kit.  I'd say the same with Mace though someone might make a Perplexity confusions build, I know I'm going to test that out in the future.  Shield is also a huge DPS loss.  So overall I'd say you'd be swapping off most of your condi making those changes. 

 

As far as being "ranged", it's still played up in melee to maximize Blowtorch and stay with the group for boons.

 

If you, or anyone is curious about rotation, a simple start is just to hit pistol 432 into grenade 2, then superconducting signet, grenade 4/5, toss some nades until Shrapnel is up toss that and then 1 more nade, drop the kit and start over, this time tossing grenades instead of signet and nade 4/5.   Then keep all your mech commands on cooldown, prioritizing Rolling Smash (1), Sky Circus (3), and then Discharge Array (2), and you can hit Elite signet as well, the pet survives fine in most spots, no need to save it usually.  Also, I like to hit Mech commands while Pistol 2 is going off, longer cast time is a little reprieve in button pressing.

 

As for mace builds, I hope someone figures something out because I just like it, plus the barrier for group is nice.

 

 

 

 

[Horus.8304]

Also really dig the mace weapon, which is why I was hoping to make something more specialized into it. Sooner or later someone will figure it out. I'm going to run that rotation of yours though, thanks very much.

[Infusion.7149]

Scourge still does good DPS in fractals as 90% of the damage output is condi and the cleave on shades is untouched. You can't epidemic and have 25 stacks of every condition on 5 targets but 5 stacks of burn/bleed/poison/torment/etc. is still strong.

As far as condi mechanist I would look at CnD Lunar's build last beta.
 

Gameplay in launch time (strike spoilers):
 

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[Hector.9035]

Im having a blast with it. Im using this same build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PekAoqlxy0YwMXWKOWL5xaA-zRRYVRQYGN8nRHKiQkAydaSxZF-e but using flamethrower kit instead of grenade one (since it gives a lot of burn stacks and grenades are only for power builds) and the mechanist elite skill, that big green death ray.

It is tanky as hell, since mecha gets almost all the focus and you can reposition yourself easily, and has a ton of condi dmg.

[Horus.8304]

7 hours ago, Hector.9035 said:

Im having a blast with it. Im using this same build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PekAoqlxy0YwMXWKOWL5xaA-zRRYVRQYGN8nRHKiQkAydaSxZF-e but using flamethrower kit instead of grenade one (since it gives a lot of burn stacks and grenades are only for power builds) and the mechanist elite skill, that big green death ray.

It is tanky as hell, since mecha gets almost all the focus and you can reposition yourself easily, and has a ton of condi dmg.

 

I built one and use Grenades and Flamethrower. Grenades just to stack bleading and trigger max explosive temper stacks then switch to flamethrower and AOE everything down. Definitely has been a whole lot of fun.

[Nephalem.8921]

11 hours ago, Hector.9035 said:

Im having a blast with it. Im using this same build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PekAoqlxy0YwMXWKOWL5xaA-zRRYVRQYGN8nRHKiQkAydaSxZF-e but using flamethrower kit instead of grenade one (since it gives a lot of burn stacks and grenades are only for power builds) and the mechanist elite skill, that big green death ray.

It is tanky as hell, since mecha gets almost all the focus and you can reposition yourself easily, and has a ton of condi dmg.

grenades have the best condi aa. you cant replace them unless you aa on pistol or ft which are both very bad. ft is not worth it on condi builds anymore. bomb kit and condi signet are fairly close with bomb kit being lightly stronger while signet is braindead. you really have to take grenades. shrapnel and aa are too strong.

[Jerus.4350]

10 hours ago, Hector.9035 said:

Im having a blast with it. Im using this same build http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PekAoqlxy0YwMXWKOWL5xaA-zRRYVRQYGN8nRHKiQkAydaSxZF-e but using flamethrower kit instead of grenade one (since it gives a lot of burn stacks and grenades are only for power builds) and the mechanist elite skill, that big green death ray.

It is tanky as hell, since mecha gets almost all the focus and you can reposition yourself easily, and has a ton of condi dmg.

I wouldn't call Grenades a power build option considering just tossing them yields 22+ stacks of bleeding when traited. 

 

Doing just some quick testing because it did have me curious. 

 

No outside boons/conditions (IE no prep from training room):

Grenade Kit: 14k

FT Kit: 11.5k

 

"Group setup" with Boons (no profession specific stuff though) and normal conditions including max vuln on Golem:

Grenade Kit: 26k

FT Kit: 25k!

 

Really not bad, and not as big of a difference as I thought. I think the FT option went way up with the "group setup" because Vulnerability is nothing to ignore, and with alacrity you're big skills are back up much faster, so less Auto attacks. 

 

With FT Auto being it's worst aspect, made me wonder about pulling Mace into things, but I haven't figured things out yet.  Without boons I was able to get higher DPS than what I got with FT Primary (12.5k with Mace included), but then once boons are on I was only hitting 22-23k, clunky rotation and less auto attack time really hurt.

 

Anyways, had me curious, thought I'd share my results.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Anet is currently looking at the holy 3 (aka Firebrand Scourge and Renegade). We dont know what will happens to them in a near (or far away) futur.

 

However condi Mechanist is arguably the best condi spec engineer currently has and it deal some nice damage. I think it will work just fine. I still think you should focus on burn rather than confusion despite Mechanist offering a lot of confusion. Burn remains very strong and consistent (plus firearms trait does give you improved burning duration) whereas confusion relies on the boss attack so if the boss attacks a lot, it may outDPS burn but if it doesnt, you're wasting damage.

[VPX.1325]

Condi mech is quite viable and can be an easy rotation with double pistols and grenades only, my personal benchmark it's around 29k at golem and little less on fractal 100CM; there is much better dps out there but if you don't have a great internet connection or simply don't wanna get a carpal tunnel syndrome, it's fine.

Power mech has been nerfed too much, mechanical genius out of range loss of attributes makes mech arms jade cannons practically unusable since the mech AI is a nightmare and you end up using the single edge cutter tratis that in power it's dps loss, but with it you lose less dps than micromanaging a lobotomized mech that doesn't attack while moving.

The nerfs on rifle didn't help neither.

An extremely easy solution to round better the mech dps could be increasing slightly the % in signet effectiveness of mech core J-drive, from 20%, to 22 max 25%, making it, together with signets a more interesting choice and sacrifice over jade dynamo.