Xialoh.7261 Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 (edited) Mechanist Guardian Thief Ranger So basically I'm newly returning to the game after ~4 years. Never did much when I did play but I do have 2 80s (Mesmer/Elementalist). I'm about to play through all the story starting from Living World S1, and I've found that I can manage mostly anything as Staff / Axe+Torch Mirage (packs with vets, champions, etc.). Literally a breeze, as everyone knows I suppose. Tempest works too and I enjoy it, but it takes much more effort and there's a real risk of dying to large groups, where Mirage just ports around until everything is dead. But, I have this level 80 boost occupying one of my shared inventory slots, and I figure I might want to try out something new (also this single dodge in WvW thing for Mesmer is bugging me). I've been eyeing Mechanist since I started back here, but I can't imagine it's as effective as Mirage. Is it? Like would it struggle with large groups or anything? If not, are any of the other 3 professions on the list as strong (or stronger) than Mirage for open world/story soloing? I intend to really invest in whatever character I pick here and use it to get a lot done for a long while. I'm kind of at a standstill, because I don't want to start anymore progression/map completion until I solidify this choice... Excluded Necro/Revenant/Warrior because I hate the theme of Necro, don't care too much for the theme of Rev either, and Warrior is generally uninteresting to me in all games. Edited May 23, 2022 by Xialoh.7261 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stx.4857 Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 As strong? I don't think so. Mechanist and Ranger (soulbeast & untamed) both have very strong Solo Condition builds that can handle the toughest mobs in the game, but I don't think any of them can match the dps output of a condi mirage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xialoh.7261 Posted May 23, 2022 Author Share Posted May 23, 2022 (edited) 16 minutes ago, Stx.4857 said: As strong? I don't think so. Mechanist and Ranger (soulbeast & untamed) both have very strong Solo Condition builds that can handle the toughest mobs in the game, but I don't think any of them can match the dps output of a condi mirage. Well my biggest concern is more survivability than big DPS output. Mirage doesn't seem super durable, but I can just prevent things from touching me 80% of the time. If I switch off this class to do all this solo content, I basically just want to be sure that what I switch to is very good at surviving anything I throw at it (within reason). Not to say I want it to be slow at killing, but it doesn't have to be the fastest thing out there. "Good enough to win" is fine. So I suppose it's just that I'm not sure anything else can achieve what a Mirage does with clone and dodge spam? Mostly thinking of when I walk into a pack of like 10 enemies with mixed in elites and such in Domain of Kourna (I've done some skipping to acquire mounts..). I did this on my Elementalist and died in about 10 seconds. Mirage I just kept killing them for about 3 minutes while they respawned until I got bored. + I'm trying to determine if anything on this list would fare better than Ele did in that sort of situation. Edited May 23, 2022 by Xialoh.7261 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stx.4857 Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 Being able to immune damage 80% of the time is pretty kitten durable lol, but I think I know what you mean. In that case, mechanist and untamed are very durable due to having pets that hold aggro for you. I play Celestial mechanist and trailblazer untamed and nothing kills me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Boz.2038 Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 5 hours ago, Xialoh.7261 said: Mechanist Guardian Thief Ranger Mechanist is very tanky, very durable, has a built-in tank to steal aggro and do CC, outputs a lot of DPS, and is comfortable to play. Guardian can be made with excellent sustain and damage output in any e-spec, with lots of "can't touch me" effects. Thief can have a lot of evades, especially if Daredevil, but is otherwise made of glass clad in paper. Unforgiving of mistakes. Ranger is somewhat okay in the OW sustain department, but nothing overly powerful. 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xialoh.7261 Posted May 23, 2022 Author Share Posted May 23, 2022 (edited) Well, I'm about sold on Mechanist now. I did decide to give Ranger another look, and it looks better/more fun than I thought it would be. It does seem that it's not quite on the level of Mechanist or Guardian though, and I like the Giant robot more than the pets conceptually. I'll probably make a Ranger somewhere down the line still. That said, I am left wondering about Guardian now. Almost certainly going to toss that boost to the Engineer, but I have heard that Anet shows something like obvious favoritism towards Guardian. Nerf immunity just might be more appealing than anything else.. I do have level 60 boost scrolls and 20+ tomes of knowledge anyway, so I can get two 80s, but only one gets the free Celestial stuff. Edited May 23, 2022 by Xialoh.7261 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Boz.2038 Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 Guardian does work better with celestial. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xialoh.7261 Posted May 23, 2022 Author Share Posted May 23, 2022 4 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said: Guardian does work better with celestial. I was afraid of that. Given that I don't currently have easy access to Celestial and I've been seeing very strong Mechanist builds for Celestial gear as well, that means I'm going to have to choose. Off to do a day of Guardian research. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Boz.2038 Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 Mech is far better served with more polarized stats. Berserker, harrier, viper, for power, heal, and condi DPS. Celestial works with everything, but not to the same extent. Guardian *really* makes it work. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorem.8104 Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 (edited) 40 minutes ago, Xialoh.7261 said: Well, I'm about sold on Mechanist now. I did decide to give Ranger another look, and it looks better/more fun than I thought it would be. It does seem that it's not quite on the level of Mechanist or Guardian though, and I like the Giant robot more than the pets conceptually. I'll probably make a Ranger somewhere down the line still. That said, I am left wondering about Guardian now. Almost certainly going to toss that boost to the Engineer, but I have heard that Anet shows something like obvious favoritism towards Guardian. Nerf immunity just might be more appealing than anything else.. I do have level 60 boost scrolls and 20+ tomes of knowledge anyway, so I can get two 80s, but only one gets the free Celestial stuff. I have a lot of fun on my Soulbeast in Trailblazer Dual daggers/shortbow. Extremely tanky. Even in full exotics I could out tank, out heal, out dps and out cc my Warrior which is in full asc with infusions. I used Hizen's Mechanist build - its extremely good too but does need cele gear to work. (though honestly, if you want to play Mechanist, you are usually in Cele gear for most builds I've seen). But, if you can pull it off, best spec I've seen in EoD for open world. You can play it like Hizen or just like however, The mech is very nice and forgiving. He has done a WB condi open world spec too if you want to check that out. Edited May 23, 2022 by Gorem.8104 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xialoh.7261 Posted May 23, 2022 Author Share Posted May 23, 2022 (edited) Not clear on the Celestial thing here, as I am seeing a conflicting opinion. I will say that I can't afford those desirable stat sets like Viper's or Berserker's either way right now. I could drop some cash and gear up I suppose, but I'd rather do that when I need 250g later on to get a Griffon. I have been watching vids on Guardian, and kitten if it doesn't look almost as fun as Mirage at times (Lord Hizen Willbender in particular). It's got one thing going against it, and that's the fact that I like absolutely none of the Heavy Armor sets in this game. Not one. Not unless the wiki's list of armor with pictures is incomplete, anyway. I can use outfits, but that's pretty limiting, and it seems most things are usually off the shop until the end of the year and go away in March for some reason. At the same time it feels weird to ignore this powerful and fun looking profession over fashion, essentially. I do like the Medium armor sets, so still kinda leaning Mechanist. Had hoped to make a decision in time for HP trains today, but I guess I'll end up choosing by tomorrow now. Edited May 23, 2022 by Xialoh.7261 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Boz.2038 Posted May 23, 2022 Share Posted May 23, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Xialoh.7261 said: I will say that I can't afford those desirable stat sets like Viper's or Berserker's either way right now. Viper's is costly, but an entire zerker stat set is like 3-4g on the TP, depending on weight. For medium, search for "Nika's" on the TP. For heavy, "Devona's". If you have a choice of exactly one free Celestial, which is normally a very expensive stat set, get it for the guardian. Does far more with it than an engineer. Even endgame meta for a few builds. Edited May 23, 2022 by The Boz.2038 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xialoh.7261 Posted May 24, 2022 Author Share Posted May 24, 2022 (edited) 3 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said: Viper's is costly, but an entire zerker stat set is like 3-4g on the TP, depending on weight. For medium, search for "Nika's" on the TP. For heavy, "Devona's". If you have a choice of exactly one free Celestial, which is normally a very expensive stat set, get it for the guardian. Does far more with it than an engineer. Even endgame meta for a few builds. I am essentially persuaded at this point, been watching videos and I really like Guardian. I'm also definitely seeing Celestial gear pop up in a lot of build vids for Guardian, sometimes with the same runes. This doesn't change that there's some builds for Mechanist that really want that Celestial gear, but I take your point that it's frequently and best utilized by Guardian apparently. Unfortunately I still hate all of its armor looks, and this single point has put the brakes on this operation. Can't really get advice on this problem - I'm just going to either have to accept playing 100% of the time with outfits, or refuse to and write off heavy armor professions in this game entirely. For the time being, I'm going to continue things as Mirage while I let these ideas roll around in my head. Edited May 24, 2022 by Xialoh.7261 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stx.4857 Posted May 25, 2022 Share Posted May 25, 2022 You can get ascended rings, back, accessories, and amulet from living world season 3 maps very easily. You can make those celestial. You can also get celestial acended trinkets from the laurel vendor. For armor... I would farm verdant brink for bladed armor which you can make celestial. Weapons are going to cost you, but you can get an ascended weapon for your guardian by doing the knight of the thorn side quests post heart of thorns main story. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xialoh.7261 Posted May 25, 2022 Author Share Posted May 25, 2022 1 hour ago, Stx.4857 said: You can get ascended rings, back, accessories, and amulet from living world season 3 maps very easily. You can make those celestial. You can also get celestial acended trinkets from the laurel vendor. For armor... I would farm verdant brink for bladed armor which you can make celestial. Weapons are going to cost you, but you can get an ascended weapon for your guardian by doing the knight of the thorn side quests post heart of thorns main story. I have been thinking I'm going to have to just try both Guardian and Engineer, so this might be the way to go. After my post yesterday I went and did some testing to conclude that I can make exactly 1 look that I like with heavy armor. It's not really enough, but it'll have to do. But...then I started reading about how there's a major balance patch happening a little over a month from now, which leaves me wanting to just wait. Waiting nearly 40 days to see where the great nerf hammer falls (other than on Ele) isn't exactly appealing though, since Mirage isn't able to hold my attention so much with these other possibilities sitting there. Grinding for that second set of armor really seems like the only thing to do, much as I'd rather get it right the first time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puck.3697 Posted May 25, 2022 Share Posted May 25, 2022 my mother took mechanist with a Power build from Guildjen website and has turned away from all her other characters nowadays in all honesty. i havent tried it personally, but she says its very easy to clear content solo everything and outputs alot of DPS. seems to run some form of a rifle build, wouldnt know it off the top of my head though but im pretty certain she got the build from Guildjen. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuks.8241 Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 I have a viper condi mechanist that is as tanky as other builds that are actually build for tanking. I basically just use my spvp dueler bunker build in OW with condi dps viper gear. After I've seen how strong it is I didnt even bother to optimize it for OW. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaholic.3875 Posted June 12, 2022 Share Posted June 12, 2022 Dang it, I just made the pvp set for medium armor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASP.8093 Posted June 12, 2022 Share Posted June 12, 2022 (edited) On 5/22/2022 at 9:57 PM, Xialoh.7261 said: Mechanist I took Celestial Flamethrower Mechanist with J-Drive and Sanctuary Runes out for a spin and managed to solo every HoT boss I tried without breaking a sweat, including the infamous Mushroom Queen. It's a pretty consistent 9k DPS solo with perma-Stablity and constant self-healing. On top of those high defenses, you have a big robot tanking for you, you can heal the robot, and you can just res the robot real quick if it dies. Feels good against trash mobs, too (some sturdy solo builds don't because their ramp-up is much worse), because you've got decent strike damage, and Flamethrower 2 and Pistol 4 both put out a ton of area burning super fast. CC output is very respectable, too. And, finally, permanent +30% movement speed and a 1200-range shadow step on a 20 second cooldown are both very good for your sanity in Open World, imo. Playing basically this exact build with some tiny changes for personal preference (if you feel like you're not getting much value out of Purity of Purpose you can make yourself even tankier with Iron Blooded): http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?PejAoqlxy6YuMYWMWySuRdA-zxIY1ohvMSIBKtAc+AEuG41AifLA-e All in all it's by far the most forgiving solo build I've ever tried, with very few ways to make mistakes and lots of ways to correct them. Do note that you will absolutely suck underwater, though. Edited June 12, 2022 by ASP.8093 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alkaholic.3875 Posted June 13, 2022 Share Posted June 13, 2022 Guess I didn't waste my legendary armor then... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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