Nerf braindead dps mechanist

[Kuma.1503]

16 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

This requires quite a big rework for the spec, tho. 2 of it's trait lines are dedicated to dps currently (condition dps and power dps respectively). Just the middle row is designed for support.

Unless your suggestion is to nerf these 2 trait lines into unviability and leave them to rot, which I would call out as kitten. So the question is: what are they supposed to replace the dps traits with if mechanist shouldn't be a viable dps?

Tbh what I wanted Mech to be from the beginning was a condi support spec. Something filling a similar design space as Scourge. Engi isn't hurting for a 3rd power spec. We have Scrapper and Holo for that. 

What we did lack was a proper condi elite spec and a proper support. Let mech do those two things and do them well. 

I personally don't mind there being a power build, but I'd prefer if it was something on the level of power scourge/ power FB. Playable but not the focus of the spec. 

Sadly this would require reworks, and given Anet's track record it's more likely they'd "rework" mech by doing what you said. Nerf the power traitlines and leave them to rot. Say something along the lines of  "Mech was stepping on Holosith's toes as a power dps build so we're bringing them down". Then leave them in the gutter for months/years. 

For that reason I'd say, don't fix what isn't broken. A-AR nerfs will most likely be more than enough to tone this build down considering it's in line with other ranged specs. Just bring Holo/Scrapper up in power dps afterward since that will affect them too, and they're already outclassed by other options to begin with. 

Edit: Lol 1,696 posts. Nice.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[AliamRationem.5172]

17 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

This requires quite a big rework for the spec, tho. 2 of it's trait lines are dedicated to dps currently (condition dps and power dps respectively). Just the middle row is designed for support.

Unless your suggestion is to nerf these 2 trait lines into unviability and leave them to rot, which I would call out as kitten. So the question is: what are they supposed to replace the dps traits with if mechanist shouldn't be a viable dps?

I didn't say it shouldn't be viable.  It should be at the low end of the spectrum, however.  Scrapper has pretty much been there for its entire existence.  If it had been God tier for solo play with meta group support would anyone have complained?

[Cindaria.6379]

7 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Engi isn't hurting for a 3rd power spec.

Why? It's not only about Power or Condi, it is about the playstyle you like. If you like Mechanist, play Power-Mech, if you like Holo, play Power-Holo. Or Condi-Holo and Condi-Mech.

[Kuma.1503]

29 minutes ago, Cindaria.6379 said:

Why? It's not only about Power or Condi, it is about the playstyle you like. If you like Mechanist, play Power-Mech, if you like Holo, play Power-Holo. Or Condi-Holo and Condi-Mech.

To clarify, my position since then has changed. Before Mechanist came out my position was that it should be a condi support hybrid spec like Scourge/FB/Renegade since Engi lacked that at the time. We really didn't need a 3rd power spec. 

Now that it has come out and Anet managed to provide that and an optional power build as well, my position is "don't fix what ain't broke". I don't think it's nearly as broken as people make it out to be because people have been looking at Mech in a vacuum while throwing out tons of misinformation about it. (Such as 25k dps unbuffed, which a LOT of people just accepted at face value).

But there's also the reality that A-AR is getting nerfed. This will most likely put Rifle Mech below the standard, meaning ANET has taken the community's stance on killing off this build. But since A-AR nerfs also hit Holo and Scrapper, what I think ANET should do is simply buff Holo/Scrapper as compensation. Which will leave Rifle Mech as an easy but less than ideal choice. and Scrapper/Holo as good choices for hardcore power dps. 

I don't think this is the ideal outcome. But given the community outrage and the rampant Crab Mentality that plagues it... I don't think we'll be able to move onto productive discussions on how to make things BETTER without some sort of compromise. 

Edit: I should also clarify what the ideal reality looks like for me. The ideal reality, given that Anet is willing to put forth the time/effort into it, is to fully rework Mech into a condi support hybrid, while preserving the power build as an option with less output. Similar in output to something like power scourge. 

This would mean that Rifle Mech would remain an option, but it would be condi focused instead of power focused, possibly with a greater emphasis on the burns. This would also allow them to decouple the Mech's stat inheritence from which trait you pick and focus these traits more on which playstyle you prefer. Make the choices more fluid and less rigid. 

Essentailly, by removing the power focused line we free up more design space for them to lean fully into making this a REALLY good condi spec with plenty of variety on how you choose to play it. 

Edited July 17, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Kodama.6453]

25 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Tbh what I wanted Mech to be from the beginning was a condi support spec. Something filling a similar design space as Scourge. Engi isn't hurting for a 3rd power spec. We have Scrapper and Holo for that. 

Feel exactly the same, this was the niche I was missing for engineer the most. Also I hoped for another thematic and not being tied to an AI pet, but well, we are stuck with mechanist for the next years now.

18 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I didn't say it shouldn't be viable.  It should be at the low end of the spectrum, however.  Scrapper has pretty much been there for its entire existence.  If it had been God tier for solo play with meta group support would anyone have complained?

Fair enough, but I think some people would have complained if mechanist released with 2 trait lines dedicated to dps and all it can pull off is being at the low end of the spectrum. Would feel like the spec released with 2 dead trait lines.

Especially since many people requested a condition elite spec which can perform well while not forcing us to play Vivaldi's four seasons.

They definitely need to make holosmith outperform mechanist in dps, tho. Holosmith is all about damage, so it should be one of the top dps specs in the game.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Kodama.6453

[Jtoon.6907]

Please remove pets from Ranger and Necro classes please. 

[jpsssss.7530]

Why nerf mech when they SHOULD be uplifting every underperforming spec instead?

[Kuma.1503]

23 minutes ago, jpsssss.7530 said:

Why nerf mech when they SHOULD be uplifting every underperforming spec instead?

This. Enough breaking stuff. We don't need another Warrior situation, we need ANet to start fixing what they broke. 

[the krytan assassin.9235]

1 hour ago, jpsssss.7530 said:

Why nerf mech when they SHOULD be uplifting every underperforming spec instead?

Because most PvE content is already easy enough. Getting everyone on mechanist level makes 95% of the endgame pve content a walk in the park. 

 

Same goes for scrapper in wvw, where it also has been breaking WvW now for a good time now. Sure Guardian is needed for some stabi, but engi is the real core of the squad. It literally covers all other support and does it better then the other classes. It basically forced the entire current meta which is generally disliked by the community (and even alot of scrappers).

 

Sure some professions definitely need some buffs, but it should be alongside some hard nerfs to the current busted sides of the engi. 

 

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, jpsssss.7530 said:

Why nerf mech when they SHOULD be uplifting every underperforming spec instead?

Sure. But underperforming in relation to pve content, not in relation to overperforming specs. That's why they should nerf some things instead of buffing the others. (or in certain cases do both where needed)

Edited July 25, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[ThunderX.6591]

Remember that they have to start on Steam sometimes this year?

They need easy to access and easy to use classes CAUSE they are pointing all their efforts to end game contents like Raids, Strikes and so on........ (even on some meta events of the finals maps) and for that, you need a lot of casual players (Steam people are casual for the most, the platform is an aggregations of games in the end), and casual players don't like things too hard, that tend to get them to change game really fast.

Like sayd before, they have a lot of datas, from all things in the game (they find out some elites raid players were stopping hammer fire attunement skill 1 of the catalist around 0.5 sec for get extra dps from it, and that is one of the cause of the hammer nerf in patch 28/06) , and i think they know what is happening and what is the direction they are trying to set the game on the future path. The problem is we don't have those datas, so we can only speculate about the future and the changes in the game that are happening.

[Kuma.1503]

1 hour ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

Sure some professions definitely need some buffs, but it should be alongside some hard nerfs to the current busted sides of the engi. 

 

I've seen enough of Anet's "hard nerfs" to know where that leads. Lets put the monkey paw down and actually think though what that entails. 

Here are just a few examples of what a "Hard nerf" looks like:

Anet destroying warrior banners

Mirage losing a dodge in PvP/WvW

"Catalyst was meta defining in PvE so we chopped off its legs"

300 second cooldowns. 

CCs no longer deal damage in PvP and WvW (Rip Hammer Warrior)

Revenant hammer "reworks" (translation: gutting into the ground)

Ele staff nerfs 

Pulminary Impact being smiter's booned into the ground in PvP

Whatever the sustain PVE nerfs were. 

 

Yeeeah, enough of that. Lets not add even more problems onto the list of  things that will get trashed and forgotten for years. Instead of encouraging adding more problems into the list of problems that are never addressed, lets start actually addressing the LONG laundry list of things Anet broke and never fixed. 

Not everything needs to be as easy as rifle mech, sure, but there is so much for in improvement in every class that we should, at the very minimum, see what the game looks like when these builds are working at a level where they feel GOOD to play. THEN we can guage from there what's overperforming or not. 

I'm not just saying this because it's engineer. I'm saying this because, as a PvPer seeing 2 years of constant nerfs and watching the population plummet as a result... I'm tired of this direction. I know it doesn't lead to anywhere productive in the long run. 

Comparing some builds to others isn't as intuitive as it sounds when some have so many gaping holes bashed into them that they no longer function. Its like trying to compare an apple to a rotten banana with flies on it. Even if you chopped the apple in half and tore off its skin and slathered mayonnaise all over it, the apple would still look far superior because it's at the very least edible.  

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[the krytan assassin.9235]

4 minutes ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

and i think they know what is happening and what is the direction they are trying to set the game on the future path.

I'd say you're giving them way to much credit. If an Anet dev starts to boost weapons/specs out of personal preferences and not out of class balance there's clearly something wrong. Also the balance explanation post of juli 9 is full of inconsistencies and flat out false arguments (claiming cata was way to overtuned and dominant in the meta while simultaniously barely reaching a 2% playrate in WvW.

 

Anet is a very good game developer in alot of different aspects. But balancing classes isn't one of them.

 

[the krytan assassin.9235]

4 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I've seen enough of Anet's "hard nerfs" to know where that leads. Lets put the monkey paw down and actually think though what that entails. 

So basically you're saying because Anet done a kitten job in the past, they shouldn't nerf anything at all? Lol. I think we can all agree that Anet can do a better job at balancing their game, but some skills/traits utilities simply need to get downgraded to make it possible for other classes to compete at all. 

4 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I'm not just saying this because it's engineer. I'm saying this because, as a PvPer seeing 2 years of constant nerfs and watching the population plummet as a result...

Can't speak to much about PvP since im not that experienced in it, but i'd say it's the complete opposite in WvW. People are tired AF of broken builds that practically make all other characters inferior. Try having an entertaining roaming experience when fighting a willbender. There's literally no other class that can keep up with it's movement speed (only thief coming close) which practically makes the willbender invulnerable in roaming aslong as he doesn't overcommit. 

 

4 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Its like trying to compare an apple to a rotten banana with flies on it

I'd say it's more like comparing a normal apple to a bruised apple. A bruised apple is still fine to eat, but if you can choose between the 2 you'll always go for the normal apple. All professions can provide a roll in each gamemode, it's just not necessarily the best/optimal pick compared to the other classes which is a bit problematic, but definitely not the end of the world

[Kuma.1503]

7 hours ago, the krytan assassin.9235 said:

So basically you're saying because Anet done a kitten job in the past, they shouldn't nerf anything at all?

What I'm saying is that asking for something to be "Hard nerfed' in Gw2 is like making  wish on a monkey paw. 

There is a reason why the term "Smiter's boon" exists. Anet has a very long track record of both overnerfing, and never going back to fix the things they overnerf. That list I gave was by no means extensive. If I gave an extensive list I'd end up writing a novel. 

What I'm saying is people need to stop telling Anet to smiter's boon builds they don't like because of a selfish desire to see their favorite builds make it into the limelight. Instead, give everyone else new toys to play with by taking the time to finally go back and fix the things they broke. 

There are things in this game that have existed in a broken, dysfunctional state for years. We don't need to make that pile bigger, we need to start reducing it. 

Edited July 26, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

What I'm saying is that asking for something to be "Hard nerfed' in Gw2 is like making  wish on a monkey paw. 

There is a reason why the term "Smiter's boon" exists. Anet has a very long track record of both overnerfing, and never going back to fix the things they overnerf. That list I gave was by no means extensive. If I gave an extensive list I'd end up writing a novel. 

What I'm saying is people need to stop telling Anet to smiter's boon builds they don't like because of a selfish desire to see their favorite builds make it into the limelight. Instead, give everyone else new toys to play with by taking the time to finally go back and fix the things they broke. 

There are things in this game that have existed in a broken, dysfunctional state for years. We don't need to make that pile bigger, we need to start reducing it. 

So, don't nerf mechanist?  Just go back and fix all the stuff they never fixed and leave balance completely borked?  Great idea...

Look.  It isn't "selfish" to ask for mechanist to be nerfed.  It's dominating the meta because it's clearly overtuned.  It's that simple.  Fixing 300s cds and everything else is a great idea, too.  But it has nothing to do with the need to nerf mechanist.

[Sahne.6950]

am i missing the plot here?

is this about nerfing mechanist dps?

i thought its about the fact that something can be competetive with just holding down 1....   If anything they have to rework that kitten so thats no longer possible... it should atleast involve a rotation.

but i have to ask a serious question.... who cares? it is pve... are the mobs upset? who is upset?

you dont like the lame gameplay of mechanist? go play something else... overall this game is about personal enjoyment. play what you want and be happy that, finally those casuals can carry their own weight in fractals.

You can basicly only win...  

you reach close to the same dps when playing condiweaver?! AWESOME! that shows your a good player! Oh the mechanist does a tiny tad more dmg than me? NICE! i mean... hes a n00b and only holding down 1 button.... but this instance will be ezpz... YOU CAN ONLY WIN. Its not like they are stealing your loot cuz they do more dps 😄 

not being accepted to a group cuz they exclusively want a mechanist... succs... but that is a playermade problem.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Sahne.6950 said:

am i missing the plot here?

is this about nerfing mechanist dps?

i thought its about the fact that something can be competetive with just holding down 1....   If anything they have to rework that kitten so thats no longer possible... it should atleast involve a rotation.

but i have to ask a serious question.... who cares? it is pve... are the mobs upset? who is upset?

you dont like the lame gameplay of mechanist? go play something else... overall this game is about personal enjoyment. play what you want and be happy that, finally those casuals can carry their own weight in fractals.

You can basicly only win...  

you reach close to the same dps when playing condiweaver?! AWESOME! that shows your a good player! Oh the mechanist does a tiny tad more dmg than me? NICE! i mean... hes a n00b and only holding down 1 button.... but this instance will be ezpz... YOU CAN ONLY WIN. Its not like they are stealing your loot cuz they do more dps 😄 

not being accepted to a group cuz they exclusively want a mechanist... succs... but that is a playermade problem.

The problem is that it isn't just for "noobs".  A skilled player will also perform better on a class like mechanist not only because the rotation is easier but because it's ranged and not sensitive to interruptions.

A basic example of this is AA chain vs. non-chain AA.  If both perform equally the non-chain AA will perform significantly better in practice not just because it's easier to use but also because you don't lose DPS when mechanics get in the way.

If balance matters, more difficult rotations that have high sensitivity should perform best on benchmarks because they won't perform as well in practice, regardless of skill level.  Mechanist overperforms because it isn't following these rules (and some other classes that are undertuned aren't following them either!).

 

[ThunderX.6591]

As i posted variuos time, Mecha dominate in the Meta because is a simple and easy to use class that casual players take seeing the Robot at the start of the game (Mecha have the robot, people see the robot at the start of the game, what class casual people think about to play with these 2 info? The class with the robot, obviously).

Casual don't have 10 alt char full multiequip to change between so they take the easy class out (mecha) that can do more then 1 role, gear it (and you spend some weeks for it as a casual with not full storage materials or some thousand of gold ready to be used) and stick with it how much time they can.

Elite players hardly use Mecha, Virtuoso is a lot more powerfull and with a decent rotation too, so they choose it for the DPS one (but noone ask to nerf it if i am not wrong, even if Virtuoso is totally superior to a mecha). And datas proved it easily too.

 

And remember the part added to the explanation of Catalist nerf (Devs find out some elites raid players were stopping hammer fire attunement skill 1 of the catalist around 0.5 sec for get extra dps from it (wasn't intended), and that is one of the cause of the hammer nerf in patch 28/06) when doing end game contents (piano rotations?? no, easy to 1111 way to play the class for 45k+ dps).

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

As i posted variuos time, Mecha dominate in the Meta because is a simple and easy to use class that casual players take seeing the Robot at the start of the game (Mecha have the robot, people see the robot at the start of the game, what class casual people think about to play with these 2 info? The class with the robot, obviously).

Casual don't have 10 alt char full multiequip to change between so they take the easy class out (mecha) that can do more then 1 role, gear it (and you spend some weeks for it as a casual with not full storage materials or some thousand of gold ready to be used) and stick with it how much time they can.

Elite players hardly use Mecha, Virtuoso is a lot more powerfull and with a decent rotation too, so they choose it for the DPS one (but noone ask to nerf it if i am not wrong, even if Virtuoso is totally superior to a mecha). And datas proved it easily too.

 

And remember the part added to the explanation of Catalist nerf (Devs find out some elites raid players were stopping hammer fire attunement skill 1 of the catalist around 0.5 sec for get extra dps from it (wasn't intended), and that is one of the cause of the hammer nerf in patch 28/06) when doing end game contents (piano rotations?? no, easy to 1111 way to play the class for 45k+ dps).

First, Virtuoso has a similar benchmark to power mech and lower than condi mech.  Second,  Virtuoso is another spec that doesn't "follow the rules" by having a faceroll ranged rotation that makes it overperform.  Both specs are being used in high end play (see HT CM).

Edited July 26, 2022 by AliamRationem.5172

[Kuma.1503]

 

6 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

So, don't nerf mechanist?  Just go back and fix all the stuff they never fixed and leave balance completely borked?  Great idea...

Look.  It isn't "selfish" to ask for mechanist to be nerfed.  It's dominating the meta because it's clearly overtuned.  It's that simple.  Fixing 300s cds and everything else is a great idea, too.  But it has nothing to do with the need to nerf mechanist.

So don't delete builds that are META. We've had enough of that in PvP and it killed the community. Lets not bring that balance philosophy here. A build being good for a patch or two is not an excuse to remove it from the game by hard nerfing it. 

Furthermore, players are overexaggerating how good power mech is relative to the competition. It's easy to play, does good damage, and isn't terribly impacted by mechanics. 

If Mech was alone in doing that, then sure, perhaps it's a little too strong for how good it is. But it's not. 

Virtuoso, Soulbeast, Specter, and Scourge all do the exact same thing. They're not terribly difficult. They deal great damage from range, mechanics don't impact them much. And if you play either Specter or Scourge, you bring a non-trivial amount of bonus support on top of the RANGED dps you deal. All of these with the exception of Scourge also out dps mech, and scourge has built-in support. And Virt has the option to use mesmer utility like feedback and portals to speed up your clears. 

Before the mech bug fix the fully selfish power mech build was in line with Scourge, after the buff it's slightly ahead... Which makes sense considering Scourge is a hybrid support and mech is entirely selfish. After the A-AR nerfs in August it should fall back down again. 

If you want to actually solve this problem. Then you can try to complain every ranged build out of the meta because they trivialize mechanics too much. That will make things harder if that is what people so desperately want. Until then, Mech is not overperforming. It is in line, and actually slightly below other more optimal ranged dps classes like Virt. 

Mech is not the sole problem. It's just an easy build to hate because of HAM. One of the few supports that doesn't have to burn its entire utility bar on CD to maintain boons so it can actually use it's buttons strategically. 

 

 

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

 

So don't delete builds that are META. We've had enough of that in PvP and it killed the community. Lets not bring that balance philosophy here. A build being good for a patch or two is not an excuse to remove it from the game by hard nerfing it. 

Furthermore, players are overexaggerating how good power mech is relative to the competition. It's easy to play, does good damage, and isn't terribly impacted by mechanics. 

If Mech was alone in doing that, then sure, perhaps it's a little too strong for how good it is. But it's not. 

Virtuoso, Soulbeast, Specter, and Scourge all do the exact same thing. They're not terribly difficult. They deal great damage from range, mechanics don't impact them much. And if you play either Specter or Scourge, you bring a non-trivial amount of bonus support on top of the RANGED dps you deal. All of these with the exception of Scourge also out dps mech, and scourge has built-in support. And Virt has the option to use mesmer utility like feedback and portals to speed up your clears. 

Before the mech bug fix the fully selfish power mech build was in line with Scourge, after the buff it's slightly ahead... Which makes sense considering Scourge is a hybrid support and mech is entirely selfish. After the A-AR nerfs in August it should fall back down again. 

If you want to actually solve this problem. Then you can try to complain every ranged build out of the meta because they trivialize mechanics too much. That will make things harder if that is what people so desperately want. Until then, Mech is not overperforming. It is in line, and actually slightly below other more optimal ranged dps classes like Virt. 

Mech is not the sole problem. It's just an easy build to hate because of HAM. One of the few supports that doesn't have to burn its entire utility bar on CD to maintain boons so it can actually use it's buttons strategically. 

 

 

 

EoD ranged specs are all busted. They forgot that you can't have ranged DPS benchmark higher than melee and expect melee to be competitive.  Mech is just extra busted because it has dominant specs in every role.

[Kuma.1503]

1 minute ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

EoD ranged specs are all busted. They forgot that you can't have ranged DPS benchmark higher than melee and expect melee to be competitive.  Mech is just extra busted because it has dominant specs in every role.

Soulbeast and Scourge aren't EoD... 

And Mech doesn't give quickness. What do you mean "Every role"?

 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

They just need to tweak numbers  (base and coef) on rifle and jade golem to lower DPS if you're not "glass cannon" gear and traits (like diviner gear or vitality/concentration amulets + sanctuary runes) and then reward full berserker/viperin.

 

The +30% precision  from firearms could be lowered to 25 or 20% too.

[Kuma.1503]

11 minutes ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

They just need to tweak numbers  (base and coef) on rifle and jade golem to lower DPS if you're not "glass cannon" gear and traits (like diviner gear or vitality/concentration amulets + sanctuary runes) and then reward full berserker/viperin.

 

The +30% precision  from firearms could be lowered to 25 or 20% too.

A better solution would be moving damage away from the auto attack and onto the 2 and 5 skill since those require you to be in melee range. The DPS the build does is fine, but that will encourage them to be closer to the boss which seems to be most people's problem with it. 

I'd leave firearms alone, since nerfing that unecessarily hits Holo and Scrapper which are 100% not overperforming right now. It would also require every engi to change their gear load out AGAIN to optimize crit capping.