Power Rifle Mechanist Problem

[Fwog.9387]

20 hours ago, Raizel.8175 said:

Reasons why Rifle Mechanist is fundamentally broken/overpowered:

• fully ranged > isn't being punished for disengaging due to mechanics
• auto attack does ~24k DPS being the main damage source > isn't that much reliant on boons (Alacrity isn't really necessary for decent DPS, Quickness is what matters most and Mech skills do provide Self-Quickness) and will have consistent high DPS
• no resource management > won't have resource management interrupted by mechanics which usually leads to a sizeable DPS-loss on builds which need to manage resources

Apart from its limited DPS potential, Rifle Mech has basically no downside whatsoever. You do consistently high - or at least decent - DPS without any skill requirements apart from knowing encounter mechanics. You can simply blast away in a game where DPS doesn't really matter since the vast majority of instanced content is predominantly about mechanics. Downplaying Rifle Mechs OP'ness is shamelessly outrageous.

I am going to counter this for a second and point out that there has been a low intensity soulbeast condi build for like 3 years? Mind you... condi not power. But it has at points done 28 - 32k dps with little to no effort.
It was
1. Almost Fully ranged (minus pet skills) - not punished for disengaging.
2. It wasn't auto attack but it was just keeping skills on cooldown and it never weapon swapped. 
3. It had no resources to manage. 
4. Much like the rifle build, it could add a weapon swap and adjust for a bit more damage. But it didn't have to. 
5. The only thing rifle has over it is CC and a diverse set of kit options. Additionally mechanist has the option to play rifle in a support build and the soulbeast build as of yet cannot play support, not even with spirits because of the dumb way they implemented spirits. 

[Rhingeim.3974]

Power rifle mechanist doesn't have any problem. 

1) fully ranged? Guess some projectile reflects, and the need of stick together with your group to get boons reduce effectiveness of ranged

2) if mecha is killed - literally -1 trait line, no boons. And mecha is like to stand right in the most dangerous parts of the arenas and soak aoe. 

3) underwater means also no mecha and it's boons. 

 

Not to mention that mecha by itself is a trade for toolbelt skills, and with overall AI behavior it's boon providing can be quite unstable. 

[Fwog.9387]

I still kind of hope sometimes that anet maybe just didn't have time to finish underwater mechanist and we are gonna get a jade mech shark at some point. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

"People cry" because of a smooth LI build in OW  ? Wow, right, players shouldn't have fun or accessible spec.

 

What's the next step ? Nerf traits and sigils on weapon swap because it's too OP with raptor ?

[lorddarkflare.9186]

5 hours ago, Jaricko.6143 said:

I still kind of hope sometimes that anet maybe just didn't have time to finish underwater mechanist and we are gonna get a jade mech shark at some point. 

 

This is my hope as well. We have plenty of precedent for this.

[DarkSkysz.3521]

They nerfed it yesterday? Tried some builds that was supposed to reach 30k+, but after copy pasting those builds, I barelly got 15k.

[LunieL.1738]

39 minutes ago, DarkSkysz.3521 said:

They nerfed it yesterday? Tried some builds that was supposed to reach 30k+, but after copy pasting those builds, I barelly got 15k.

They didn't. 

Allrightie then. 

The main problem of the rifle only mechanist is that it's boring. It's quite powerfull and allowes to deal not top damage, but keep a really high damage uptime, that makes you effective, especially in activities where boss moves a lot, I see that I do more dps than most condi classes on such bosses (and usually power dps don't). But the only thing to do left is doing mechanics, no need to think over rotation, just press buttons on CD and try not to forget that you will need CC so keep 4 and f2 f3 for it, that's it. I realized that doing my everyday things got pretty easy and pretty boring. But yes, it's still fun in pvp. 

I returned to my renegade i've played just a bit, in PVE it's like a breath of fresh air. 
I don't say that it will be boring to everyone, I just understood that I need a bit more buttons 😄

Also funny thing: revenant is better warrion than warrion and renegade in particular is better archer than ranger.

[Raizel.8175]

On 7/5/2022 at 9:23 PM, Fwog.9387 said:

I am going to counter this for a second and point out that there has been a low intensity soulbeast condi build for like 3 years? Mind you... condi not power. But it has at points done 28 - 32k dps with little to no effort.
It was
1. Almost Fully ranged (minus pet skills) - not punished for disengaging.
2. It wasn't auto attack but it was just keeping skills on cooldown and it never weapon swapped. 
3. It had no resources to manage. 
4. Much like the rifle build, it could add a weapon swap and adjust for a bit more damage. But it didn't have to. 
5. The only thing rifle has over it is CC and a diverse set of kit options. Additionally mechanist has the option to play rifle in a support build and the soulbeast build as of yet cannot play support, not even with spirits because of the dumb way they implemented spirits. 

cDPS Shortbow-only Soulbeast is a lot more conditional than you may think it is. Aside from pet skills being melee, your other skills are actually fairly substantial - especially Poison Volley and Crippling Shot. That means that you actually need decent Alacrity uptime or else your DPS will suffer.

Other than that, your self-buffs (Sharpening Stone, Vulture Stance, Sic 'Em! and One Wolf Pack) are responsible for a substantial amout of damage. If you're unlucky with RNG or phasing and those self-buffs are (partially) wasted, your DPS will suffer. Positioning is also substantial to cDPS Shortbow-only Soulbeast due the traits Light on your Feet and Hunter's Tactics which lead to increased damage if attacking from behind or flanking. Lastly and especially if you take Warthog for additional CC, you need to keep Twice as Vicious up for additional damage. That means that cDPS Shortbow-only Soulbeast has literally no free CC though.

As Rifle Mechanist though, you can just blast away. I won't deny that cDPS Shortbow-only Soulbeast is also a strong build, but those 32k DPS translate far worse into actual encounters than the Rifle Mechanist benchmark does.

On 7/6/2022 at 8:12 PM, Rhingeim.3974 said:

Power rifle mechanist doesn't have any problem. 

1) fully ranged? Guess some projectile reflects, and the need of stick together with your group to get boons reduce effectiveness of ranged

2) if mecha is killed - literally -1 trait line, no boons. And mecha is like to stand right in the most dangerous parts of the arenas and soak aoe. 

3) underwater means also no mecha and it's boons. 

 

Not to mention that mecha by itself is a trade for toolbelt skills, and with overall AI behavior it's boon providing can be quite unstable. 

The "Rifle Mechanist is OP"-discussion is predominantly about instanced PvE and as such, underwater content doesn't matter - apart from Aquatic Ruins, which everybody hates -, you won't have projectile reflects - apart from Solid Ocean - and your Mech won't really die that easily in raids.

In instanced PvE, Mechanist is still utterly broken since - even if it's fairly low - the benchmark nearly translates 1:1 into actual encounters which simply isn't true for builds with actual rotations. You also seem to underestimate Rifle Mechanist in open world content. Your elite signet is a free Revive for your Mech and the mobility through Shift Signet and Rifle 5 is pretty amazing too. Your also have one free utility slot which you can use for whatever you like - not like the Rifle skills aren't already packed with a lot of utility.

[Barzah.8019]

I bet most the reason why mechanist is so popular is because of it's a stability, since the whole build doesn't force you to micromanage to every little second just to maximize it's damage outpust. Sure the whole rotation deal good amount of damage, yet so does the rifle deadeye A.K.A the official meme spec.

I think Anet manage to nail the whole build when it comes to mechanist in general (i hope we get underwater mech instead of the silly F1 but oh well). Sure balance can be adjusted but please dev DO NOT try to punished something because it lack button to push when compared to other class/builds

Edited July 18, 2022 by Barzah.8019

[Fwog.9387]

On 7/17/2022 at 10:15 PM, Barzah.8019 said:

I bet most the reason why mechanist is so popular is because of it's a stability, since the whole build doesn't force you to micromanage to every little second just to maximize it's damage outpust. Sure the whole rotation deal good amount of damage, yet so does the rifle deadeye A.K.A the official meme spec.

I think Anet manage to nail the whole build when it comes to mechanist in general (i hope we get underwater mech instead of the silly F1 but oh well). Sure balance can be adjusted but please dev DO NOT try to punished something because it lack button to push when compared to other class/builds

Oh don't worry. If you saw *that which cannot be mentioned here* which was posted to the forums, reddit ect last month. A build is not gonna be punished for lack of complexity. That is not the current design philosophy. Its apparently fine for a build with 200 APM to have the same or comparable dps to a build with 20 apm. 

[Kodama.6453]

45 minutes ago, Fwog.9387 said:

Oh don't worry. If you saw *that which cannot be mentioned here* which was posted to the forums, reddit ect last month. A build is not gonna be punished for lack of complexity. That is not the current design philosophy. Its apparently fine for a build with 200 APM to have the same or comparable dps to a build with 20 apm. 

Yeah, that's not true. They already nerfed power rifle mechanist by reducing the coefficients of the mech. Just because they don't outright kill the build doesn't mean they don't keep it in check.

They also already announced that it will get another nerf, since they will look into AAR.

[maxwelgm.4315]

Power mech is in a very good spot right now. Using rifle is actually the underwhelming option but it's an excellent training wheels for mechanics, which is very OK in my book. Anyone new to encounters like the new Strike Challenge Modes should play with a char they do NOT have to look at the skill bar at all in order to perform the mechanics. This can either be your main or some low intensity thing like power rifle, and let's be honest - if your main is Reaper you're gonna be detrimental to your team in something like Harvest Temple CM or even Aetherblade CM regardless of your ability not to look at the skill bar and focus on mechanics (accidentally lose shroud by eating a couple orbs and there goes your entire contribution to the squad DPS). 

If anything, we have a problem of other classes NOT having a training wheels rotation that is less than optimal but higher than boss thresholds that players can choose to use and raid like they do in other games - by focusing on the boss and not on the song they're supposedly to play on the piano.

[ThunderX.6591]

Maxweigm, you nailed the arguments with your post, same with Kodama.

From someone who use the class not as main, but for random pve and some fractals (alac build, instead of the normal renegade, cause i like Robot, and mecha have the robot), i can say that the class after 28/06 patch as elite spec, was nerfed, and hot fix 01/07 nerfed it even more on a general reduction instead of surgically nerfing some of it (true be told, before patch 28/06 Mecha was more powerfull, so, don't understand how people say patch 28/06 get him to be more OP, cause in that patch, apart the new 1 of the Rifle (a general weapon), and a change to Range attack Robot trait, the rest was only nerfs to the elite spec.

Now, for doing some damage, we are obligated to use AARocket trait, (and Anet say they will change it in august, so another nerf coming......) cause all the other option expecially after Hot fix 01/07 do low damage and help less in the party on the dps side.

I seriously don't know what the problem about rifle is........ is a general weapon, not the elite special one, on Holo you can even do more cause you on and off photon forge for extra damage option........

Mecha is a simple and easy to play class picked mostly by casual players who find the class nice and easy to manage, but the "nerf voices" want to nerf it because "don't have a piano key rotation"........ i find that argument really silly as a reason to nerf a class. (as dps, Mecha is in the middle of the ranks with a medium rotation that use kits, but nothing too good to be in a secure position, expecially with august incoming nerf getting near).

[Fwog.9387]

15 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Yeah, that's not true. They already nerfed power rifle mechanist by reducing the coefficients of the mech. Just because they don't outright kill the build doesn't mean they don't keep it in check.

They also already announced that it will get another nerf, since they will look into AAR.

I chalk that up to them getting torn apart on multiple websites with bad PR for 2 weeks straight. But who knows. 

[SoulBlaze.3059]

a class should not be able to do everything at once, thats what it comes down to.

[ThunderX.6591]

Original GW2 philosophy was that all classes can do all, from dps, to tanker, to healer, change gear and maybe skill and be ready to go.

After HOT come, and druid became reality, that basic philosophy changed a bit........ and today, they changes are a lot more on that basic start.

Where we are going now (to the old trinity character classes?? who know) is hard to tell, we need to wait and see what change august patch will give and what will happen in september.

 

Edited July 21, 2022 by ThunderX.6591

[Kodama.6453]

45 minutes ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

Original GW2 philosophy was that all classes can do all, from dps, to tanker, to healer, change gear and maybe skill and be ready to go.

After HOT come, and druid became reality, that basic philosophy changed a bit........ and today, they changes are a lot more on that basic start.

Where we are going now (to the old trinity character classes?? who know) is hard to tell, we need to wait and see what change august patch will give and what will happen in september.

 

These roles were heavily imbalanced in core days as well.

The reason why ranger got chosen as the dedicated healer with druid was because core ranger basically had no group healing at all. All you could do was give some regeneration (which other classes also had tons of) and a trait that makes pet commands heal in an AoE around the pet... which scales with the pet's healing power, so healing equip was completely useless for ranger.

Meanwhile you had stuff like elementalist or engineer which were pretty potent healers even with just their core.

Elite specs are trying to bring us to the point where every class can efficiently do everything. It introduced a healer spec for thief, which were also not really good as group healers before (but not as bad as core ranger). Or a condi dps spec for warrior with berserker, which were not viable as condi dps before. Vice versa, engineer was just viable as condi before, but holosmith made them viable power dps.

So the goal is still "every class should be able to fill any role". But to fill a specific role, your class might be required to run a specific elite spec.

[Atticus.7194]

On 7/19/2022 at 12:04 AM, Fwog.9387 said:

Oh don't worry. If you saw *that which cannot be mentioned here* which was posted to the forums, reddit ect last month. A build is not gonna be punished for lack of complexity. That is not the current design philosophy. Its apparently fine for a build with 200 APM to have the same or comparable dps to a build with 20 apm. 

This. I don't care if power rifle mech stays unnerfed but other infinitely more complex specs need a large buff then since there really isn't any point to playing higher APM builds when you can ez-mode it on rifle mech with auto and F1-3 and be as if not more effective than a much more complex build on another class. I get that many classes can and maybe should have an ez intro spec but it's just not fair that a falling asleep at the wheel spec is on par or better than a higher APM maximum effort build and is in fact incredibly deincentivizing to other specs that have to try much much harder to achieve what a power rifle mech effortlessly does. Higher skill should equal higher reward and that's just not the case right now with too many specs. 

 

I have every single mech spec and have played them in basically every mode from pvp to raids and even I gotta admit they either need a nerf or everything else needs a buff cause jeez these feel a bit unfair atm.

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

On 7/28/2022 at 1:55 AM, Atticus.7194 said:

I have every single mech spec and have played them in basically every mode from pvp to raids and even I gotta admit they either need a nerf or everything else needs a buff cause jeez these feel a bit unfair atm.

Mech is free kill in WvW.

[Obtena.7952]

On the fence with this because it is important to give a wide range of players a wide range of builds to be successful with. 

But in the end, I think whatever the problem is, it's not related to DPS output or how easy it is to play; we already have high DPS output builds and builds that are easy to play (and some are even BOTH). The fact is that neither of those things would matter if the bot didn't tank so effectively. That has a real impact in that it trivializes PVE content. It's CERTAINLY the case that in OW PVE, mechanist makes most encounters that are meant for multi player events trivial. 

I've seen the same thing in fractals. It can carry hard and I've also seen some players get excited about being able to solo fractals with it when they couldn't before. It's far to enabling at the floor level, to the point where you can ignore the 'group' part of 'group encounters'. IMO, that's related to the Jade bot tanking ability, and that's it. If people are ignoring the need for a group in group encounters because of game design and not player capability, then you know you have a problem on your hands as a Game Director. 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

6 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

On the fence with this because it is important to give a wide range of players a wide range of builds to be successful with. 

But in the end, I think whatever the problem is, it's not related to DPS output or how easy it is to play; we already have high DPS output builds and builds that are easy to play (and some are even BOTH). The fact is that neither of those things would matter if the bot didn't tank so effectively. That has a real impact in that it trivializes PVE content. It's CERTAINLY the case that in OW PVE, mechanist makes most encounters that are meant for multi player events trivial. 

I've seen the same thing in fractals. It can carry hard and I've also seen some players get excited about being able to solo fractals with it when they couldn't before. It's far to enabling at the floor level, to the point where you can ignore the 'group' part of 'group encounters'. IMO, that's related to the Jade bot tanking ability, and that's it. If people are ignoring the need for a group in group encounters because of game design and not player capability, then you know you have a problem on your hands as a Game Director. 

Just read through bunch of nonsense stuff. People were able to clear raids solo as well. Same as HP points, dungeons and others. Good player can do bunch of hard content solo. Casual struggle with same content whether they have clone, pet, mech or minion.

Nobody is avoiding world boss, t4 fractal, raid or strike coz they can solo it with mech.

[Luthan.5236]

I like it. And there are other professions that had easy builds before engineer got a mech - so I am fine with having it and do not want to have it nerfed completely. Though if it was only about certain boons - I would not care too much. But the rifle itself ... I want it to stay as it is. Always has been my favorite weapon. Glad it got made stronger.

Ranged mecha with a pet + movement signet can be strong - cause it can stay ranged, have a lot of mobility + being able to tank with the mech. Still: Rangers can have tanky pets as well - and do ranged damage with the bow. And they can swap to another pet faster (I think?) than we can respawn the mech ... unless we also use the elite signet. Which is mandatory in a PvP/WvW environment to not be free cannon fooder if the other spike down the mech first.

Also high damage means you are more squishy. In PvP/WvW where a lot of people complain ... there are counters. Someone mentioned the reflect already. But against ranged damage a full dps with low health/armor - also is vulnerable. Of course if all enemies are melee-only ... then bad matchmaking or not enough ranged options in their build to switch to.

In PvE it should not matter too much - the "one class has an easier to play build". There always had been easy builds/professions. Ranger has pets. Necro a "2nd health bar". Stuff like that. (The ones you recommend to new players.) Or back then the warrior as an easy combination of damage, good armor and health pool. That for general play (open world) - people in raids and stuff ... they are the minority. 😄 And they probably play whatever is best ... if it is low actions per minute or high ... should not matter to them.

Edited July 31, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, Yellow Rainbow.6142 said:

People were able to clear raids solo as well. Same as HP points, dungeons and others. Good player can do bunch of hard content solo. Casual struggle with same content whether they have clone, pet, mech or minion.

Nobody is avoiding world boss, t4 fractal, raid or strike coz they can solo it with mech.

I didn't say it was a problem if people solo group content because they are good at the game. That wasn't my point. So your post doesn't address the point I made at all. 

It IS a problem if people are soloing group content because of being enabled by game design and NOT because they are good. The fact they can't solo the group content yo ulist does not invalidate this fact. In fact, mechanist trivializes all group content to some degree, even if it's not to the point of being able to solo it; it downgrades the encounter mechanics. 

But one thing to really observe here. Anet has hard nerfed lots of especs because of how well they stack. Notice mechanist does that extremely well.

Edited July 31, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[ThunderX.6591]

Steam launch is coming, you need to get the new waves of casual player to stay in the game, and casual players like easy stuff, Mecha is easy, so my though is they created the class for that purpose, the rest isn't so important (money is the basic of businnes, right?). In any case, Mecha was nerfed a lot in normal PVE if you confront now to the start of EOD........ and before 28/06 patch, where they nerfed it (yeah, they nerfed mecha there, check better guys and girls......) noone have a problem with it (even though Mecha was more powerfull than now).

Just yestarday, i checked how bad Mecha rifle is in 98 CM fractal second boss if AARocket don't tick orbital strike for the extra damage. Was doing my classic role to kite ACID and AOE for an easy kill the boss (random group, not the "elite we kill alone the boss" kind of party) and 4 Vet phase come; I was using rifle instead of mace, so get in position, and 1111 the vet i was assigned (trying to proc AARocket fast); i was slow, totally slow, the last to end it, and didn't understand why, i was in the dps build i tested at golem, with rifle and at the right distance for proc AARocket, so why i was last to kill the vet?

At second round, i rechecked with an eye to my combat log, and yeah, i was the last to kill it, just in the nick of time before the fail explosion hit, and noticed something. i didn't proc AARocket orbital strike hit damage. As short story, if you don't proc AARocket Orbital strike damage, your damage is bad, really bad, is even worse than the damage of a Vindicator 1111 + impossible odd active only........, so, really bad. (expecially if you stay ranged and don't get boons on you like quickness and extra Might, but my vindicator kill faster the vet in the same condition..... so)

This thing proved to me without a doubt that Mecha is in a bad position, and need not a nerf, but a powerup instead on the basic damage, cause what you get at the golem (immovable waiting the proc of AARocket orbital strike) is totally different to what you get in real PVE encounter (if Orbital don't tick, your damage is bad, really bad).

[Obtena.7952]

3 hours ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

Steam launch is coming, you need to get the new waves of casual player to stay in the game, and casual players like easy stuff, Mecha is easy, so my though is they created the class for that purpose, the rest isn't so important (money is the basic of businnes, right?). In any case, Mecha was nerfed a lot in normal PVE if you confront now to the start of EOD........ and before 28/06 patch, where they nerfed it (yeah, they nerfed mecha there, check better guys and girls......) noone have a problem with it (even though Mecha was more powerfull than now).

Just yestarday, i checked how bad Mecha rifle is in 98 CM fractal second boss if AARocket don't tick orbital strike for the extra damage. Was doing my classic role to kite ACID and AOE for an easy kill the boss (random group, not the "elite we kill alone the boss" kind of party) and 4 Vet phase come; I was using rifle instead of mace, so get in position, and 1111 the vet i was assigned (trying to proc AARocket fast); i was slow, totally slow, the last to end it, and didn't understand why, i was in the dps build i tested at golem, with rifle and at the right distance for proc AARocket, so why i was last to kill the vet?

At second round, i rechecked with an eye to my combat log, and yeah, i was the last to kill it, just in the nick of time before the fail explosion hit, and noticed something. i didn't proc AARocket orbital strike hit damage. As short story, if you don't proc AARocket Orbital strike damage, your damage is bad, really bad, is even worse than the damage of a Vindicator 1111 + impossible odd active only........, so, really bad. (expecially if you stay ranged and don't get boons on you like quickness and extra Might, but my vindicator kill faster the vet in the same condition..... so)

This thing proved to me without a doubt that Mecha is in a bad position, and need not a nerf, but a powerup instead on the basic damage, cause what you get at the golem (immovable waiting the proc of AARocket orbital strike) is totally different to what you get in real PVE encounter (if Orbital don't tick, your damage is bad, really bad).

This experience in no way justifies a DPS boost. If you want more DPS as a mechanist, you simply need to use a mace or change your build because it's not a problem that different weapons don't have the same top DPS.

Ironically, the mace is also really good at allowing you and the bot to tank the target and gives the team alacrity as well so there should be absolutely NO complaints about mechanist DPS here. I mean, somehow you think you can look at DPS in a bubble and ignore the other things the spec does to justify it needing an increase ... that makes no sense. 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Obtena.7952