Condi vs Power mech?

[LucianDK.8615]

Ive been wondering what the verdict is for each, how they stack up against each other.

[Infinity.2876]

I think(I might be wrong) it depends on if you want to use mace or not

[Nate.8146]

From my experience, condi mech with pistols (or mace if you want) and grenades is for DPS, power mech with rifle is for defiance breaking. Superconductor Signet gives you a pretty strong AOE condis, whereas Force Signet (power builds) gives you even more defiance break. Combined with Reactor Shot and Sky Circus, power mechs are the indisputable champions of defiance breaking. Power builds I find are generally weaker than condi because condi mech can ramp up a lot of condis in a short period of time, dealing a huge amount of DoTs. The only time power builds shine well is if your mech has good line of sight with multiple mobs and you unleash Spark Revolver followed by the Jade Buster Cannon. That gives you a huge burst of damage; however the ranged attacks on the mech can be a hit or miss sometimes.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Nate.8146

[Dawdler.8521]

Prolly neither, boon mech

[LucianDK.8615]

1 hour ago, Nate.8146 said:

From my experience, condi mech with pistols (or mace if you want) and grenades is for DPS, power mech with rifle is for defiance breaking. Superconductor Signet gives you a pretty strong AOE condis, whereas Force Signet (power builds) gives you even more defiance break. Combined with Reactor Shot and Sky Circus, power mechs are the indisputable champions of defiance breaking. Power builds I find are generally weaker than condi because condi mech can ramp up a lot of condis in a short period of time, dealing a huge amount of DoTs. The only time power builds shine well is if your mech has good line of sight with multiple mobs and you unleash Spark Revolver followed by the Jade Buster Cannon. That gives you a huge burst of damage; however the ranged attacks on the mech can be a hit or miss sometimes.

How useful is mace in a condi build? Does it compare with pistol?

[Nate.8146]

1 hour ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

How useful is mace in a condi build? Does it compare with pistol?

It's a situational weapon. When you're going up against bosses that proc confusion multiple times per second (ex: Echovald world boss, Golem Mark III), the mace is quite powerful because you can stack up a lot of confusion and do insane burst damage during those key moments. During those fights, I activate Superconducting Signet, confusion bomb from bomb kit, slam from mace then auto-attack for ~4 seconds, then switch back to grenade kit. Once the boss triggers that special attack, the damage output is disgustingly OP, especially if someone gives you quickness to proc even more confusion during your auto attacks.

 

For everything else though, pistol/pistol is better. Engineer is still a kit based class, so you should only swap to your primary weapon when its abilities are off cooldown. With pistols, you just 3,4,2 and swap back to grenade kit since its auto-attack is superior to anything else. The whole process is like less than 2 seconds. Mace is more of a sticky weapon where you want to use its auto-attack, but that comes with a trade off (no bleeds, no poison, no burn, no vulnerability).

 

Now mace also offers boons, so it has some application if you switch your mech over to a support role. The barrier on its 3rd auto-attack means you will proc alacrity. However, from my experience the mech is already raining boons on you with long durations, so it's a bit moot.

[LucianDK.8615]

14 minutes ago, Nate.8146 said:

It's a situational weapon. When you're going up against bosses that proc confusion multiple times per second (ex: Echovald world boss, Golem Mark III), the mace is quite powerful because you can stack up a lot of confusion and do insane burst damage during those key moments. During those fights, I activate Superconducting Signet, confusion bomb from bomb kit, slam from mace then auto-attack for ~4 seconds, then switch back to grenade kit. Once the boss triggers that special attack, the damage output is disgustingly OP, especially if someone gives you quickness to proc even more confusion during your auto attacks.

 

For everything else though, pistol/pistol is better. Engineer is still a kit based class, so you should only swap to your primary weapon when its abilities are off cooldown. With pistols, you just 3,4,2 and swap back to grenade kit since its auto-attack is superior to anything else. The whole process is like less than 2 seconds. Mace is more of a sticky weapon where you want to use its auto-attack, but that comes with a trade off (no bleeds, no poison, no burn, no vulnerability).

 

Now mace also offers boons, so it has some application if you switch your mech over to a support role. The barrier on its 3rd auto-attack means you will proc alacrity. However, from my experience the mech is already raining boons on you with long durations, so it's a bit moot.

Grenade autoattack? But it has a target circle

[Infusion.7149]

Mechanist doesn't have a power modifier and lacks grenade barrage. You're most likely running condi with shift signet or some sort of boon output mechanist as a result.
It is possible to provide some might without gimping your mech since the stat conversion is from the master tier. (Mech Arms: High-Impact Drivers is adept)

[Nate.8146]

3 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Grenade autoattack? But it has a target circle

You play engineer with grenades long enough, pressing 1,1,1,1... while dodging and kiting, it becomes a subconscious auto-attack 🙂

Edited March 12, 2022 by Nate.8146

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Condi mech > power mech for the simple fact the mech can use 100% of your condition and expertise stats. Power only uses 50% of your power stats and 100% of your precision and ferocity. Power skill do have high coefficient but it is still not enough compared to condition.

 

Now does that means power mech is unplayable ? No, it is decent for OW. But if you're looking to bring DPS for the team then you either switch to condition or switch to Holosmith. 

[LucianDK.8615]

Some good words here, thank you!

[wayneericgouin.9371]

7 hours ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

Condi mech > power mech for the simple fact the mech can use 100% of your condition and expertise stats. Power only uses 50% of your power stats and 100% of your precision and ferocity. Power skill do have high coefficient but it is still not enough compared to condition.

 

Now does that means power mech is unplayable ? No, it is decent for OW. But if you're looking to bring DPS for the team then you either switch to condition or switch to Holosmith. 

I wonder how this really plays out, I noticed the bleeds it produces have a low base damage so how much better than power does it end up being? I'm not smart enough to figure it out lol

[Aravind.9610]

56 minutes ago, wayneericgouin.9371 said:

I wonder how this really plays out, I noticed the bleeds it produces have a low base damage so how much better than power does it end up being? I'm not smart enough to figure it out lol

It isn't just bleeds that mech has, its the F1-3 skills that make the condi mech work better than power.

And it isn't the mech alone that makes condi better. Keep in mind the main damage for mechanist comes from engineer with the mech doing secondary damage. Our weapons and kits just favor condi more than power. Our only power weapon right now is rifle, and the only kit that does respectable power damage with autoattack is bomb kit. Add to that the exposed debuff from breaking defiance, which makes condi damage shine much more than power and we get a condi mechanist which is just better.

Edited March 13, 2022 by Aravind.9610

[Mortime.1359]

I really love my power mech but until the jump shot bug is in the game the build is unplayable. So yeah, until they fix it it's condi mech all the way I suppose.

[Curennos.9307]

I've been preferring condi mech. There's a seraph build floating around that claims 20k bench + perma alac, almost perma 25 might plus other boons. Looks really nice.

 

Also, re: mace - the confusion is nice, as another poster mentioned, especially on fast attacking bosses. The last hit of the mace is an explosion, so it can apply bleed...sometimes (I still hate that the GM trait is 33% chance for bleed on explosion, meh, but it works alright). I never really felt I was getting much from alchemy, and the explosives traitline gives it a chance for bleed and vuln. 

 

You absolutely can run power and be fine though, you just lose out on some stuff and it's harder. Condi has an easier time doing other support stuff and has a damaging offhand in pistol - power pistol offhand is...pretty much worthless, but on a condi build the burns are 20k+.

[Delaro.2674]

20k with burning ? I Think my charakter have bugged „incendiary powder” trait. Have No buring condition after crit dmg and i cant stacking burning with this trait….

[Dawdler.8521]

5 hours ago, Curennos.9307 said:

I've been preferring condi mech. There's a seraph build floating around that claims 20k bench + perma alac, almost perma 25 might plus other boons. Looks really nice.

Would be interesting to know how the same people bench with cele on the same build otherwise. Same boon duration and healing power, something around 400 less condi damage and 30% less precision or whatever it is. In return you get 600 more power, toughness and vitality, 40%ish more crit damage and condi duration (numbers not exact, going off the top of my head).

In my mind that would come close while being considerably sturdier. But am exceedingly poor at PvEing and in particular raiding.

[Curennos.9307]

24 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Would be interesting to know how the same people bench with cele on the same build otherwise. Same boon duration and healing power, something around 400 less condi damage and 30% less precision or whatever it is. In return you get 600 more power, toughness and vitality, 40%ish more crit damage and condi duration (numbers not exact, going off the top of my head).

In my mind that would come close while being considerably sturdier. But am exceedingly poor at PvEing and in particular raiding.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/tarohg/a_healer_that_benches_at_20k_condi_heal_alac/

 

The OP actually mentioned that somewhere, I think. Their main 'tank' variant of the build takes cele + a few pieces of other stuff. 

[Desh.7028]

On 3/12/2022 at 5:38 PM, LucianDK.8615 said:

How useful is mace in a condi build? Does it compare with pistol?

 

More CC and since it's confusion based (more so than just pistol 3) performance fluctuates. There also is some survivability baked into the mace skills which pistol lack.

[aspirine.6852]

I have one condi and one power mech. They both play a bit different so having fun with both.

[Luthan.5236]

I just switched some stuff from my previous Holo - where I played a balanced build (not full zerker) - for Open World. And therefore mainly changed it to power ... in PvE. Feels nice. The wiki actually says that the stats for the mech would be capped. If he gets base 1000 power and the cap (according to Wiki) at 2250 or so ... if you get 2500 and 50 percent of that ... you would reach the cap? But I do not know about this.

I only know that mose people seem to combine it with explosives trait (condi or mecha - seen that one in both builds and went for it at first as well).

I like the mace - causing explosions a bit as well.  Getting barrier is nice as well. Also I think it combines with the mech (the one skill that is supposed to make the mech activate a skill as well but I haven't really payed attention to this). Basically enjoying how bunker-ish it feels while still doing a lot of damage without even having ot make bigger adjustments/fine-tuning and/or going full zerker. At least open world - and for my taste. Compared to other elite specs or core.

In the PvP I run condition - still using mace and traits for explosives (to get extra conditions) ... + full signets. I like it. I'm more of a "noob" thouth. (Engi main and played it a lot. But more of a casual player not trying to maximize dps and stuff. Just finding a build that is "fun" to play.)

Edit: Also the F1-F3 seem to have huge modifiers/multipler with power ... and nice cooldowns - especially when also having the trait line reducing toolbar CD. You usually don't see numbers in the 5k+ thousands on tooltips of the skills. (At least not for me. And a lot of builds get high numgers only by combining stuff and also including crit damage.)

Edited March 15, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Fwog.9387]

I would honestly be curious to see some numbers for Mace / Shield vs Rifle for a power build. I feel like the numbers may be closer than one would expect at a glance. 

In other topics. I have not seen a lot of power mech builds out there but it doesn't seem bad. It's just out shined by condi mech and support mechs. Been enjoying P/P Condi mech myself. 

[Zzik.5873]

What about diviner mechanist? With firearm and explosion?

[Infusion.7149]

1 hour ago, Makuragee.3058 said:

What about diviner mechanist? With firearm and explosion?

Worse damage than power alac but you get some barrier , more might, and fury sharing.

[Kichwas.7152]

I've been using a Power Mech build with a Mace and so far in various PUGs of content I've yet to NOT be top DPS. Usually by a wide margin.

 

My build is essentially this:

Mechanist - Power DPS - MetaBattle Guild Wars 2 Builds

But with the heal and grenade swapped out for the Mech specific heal and the Mesh 'barrier' skill. That's actually a DPS loss to swap out grenade for a defensive. But it simplifies my rotaton and the barrier lets me withstand more.

Condition might be rated superior - but I've been shocked at how powerful 'power' is. Maybe the entire elite spec is just extremely overtuned?

Edited March 20, 2022 by Kichwas.7152