Mech haters - Do you really want harder builds to be stronger?

[Nephalem.8921]

10 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Well, you actually can't AFK because the encounter will require a player to interact with it's mechanics. If an encounter doesn't have these mechanics that require players to interact with them, it's just a glorified DPS golem anyways. That's not a build issue, that's a encounter design problem. 

Again, the game is MORE than just doing DPS. If anything, the existence of these builds reinforces the fact that the game is MORE about engaging with encounter mechanics that learning a DPS rotation. 

Difficulty comes from executing dps rotations while doing mechanics. Just doing mechanics is not that hard. Which shows in most content now. CM fractals are basically afk content now.

[Ashgar.3024]

7 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Difficulty comes from executing dps rotations while doing mechanics. Just doing mechanics is not that hard. Which shows in most content now. CM fractals are basically afk content now.

 

Yeah because of Stab. If they'd ever nerf it CMs would prolly become unpuggable lmao.

[ThunderX.6591]

1 hour ago, Lottie.5370 said:

The problem with Mech being so strong is not just because it's "easy", it's because you can literally AFK and be top DPS. Your mech does everything automatically, and you can just auto attack. You don't even need to use other skills.

 

THAT is the problem. I love that LI/easy builds exist, even if I don't use them, because I feel like it makes a lot of content more accessible to people that don't enjoy/can't do hard rotations. Mechanist just takes it too far.

Mhn, i point out one simple thing...... all LI build work as Mecha, you know that??

That mean all LI build can go "as you say" AFK and do dps....... and you love LI build existence.

But on the other end, you say that only Mecha can do it........ you literally contraddict yourself multiple times in that post.

[ThunderX.6591]

1 hour ago, TheSeraphim.7413 said:

Almost 25% of the raid playerbase jumped on the Mechanist train for no reason, Thanks for the insight. /s

If you consider that Mecha come only with EOD expansion (and that Anet sayd they double the number of people in the game), you can assume that 25% is more about the new people EOD get than old veteran players playing it. Veterans have other class to play that do more dps like Virtuoso, Harbinger, Soulbeast or the Untamed surprise top dps.

Obviously new people choose an easy class to play, (expecially if a Robot is in the window login of the game that easy point to a class in game).

They are new to the game, and considering Anet try many new ways to get people to do end game contents (raids and all with the "easy raid a week" bonus) i think is totally normal to see so many Mecha there, mean a lot of new and casual people are doing that contents (normally, you would be happy to have more people doing it, no?).

[Obtena.7952]

41 minutes ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Difficulty comes from executing dps rotations while doing mechanics. Just doing mechanics is not that hard. Which shows in most content now. CM fractals are basically afk content now.

Sure, the difficulty of an encounter is the sum of doing DPS and engaging with the encounter mechanics. That's overwhelming for alot of people. Therefore, that's why good for LI builds to be effective for those people when teaming with others. That's not a balance issue, that's about inclusion. 

Again, if some content is trivialized by LI builds, it's because the encounters are just glorified DPS golems to begin with. That's not a build problem. That's an encounter design issue. 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Syvaris Laskaris.5247]

2 minutes ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

If you consider that Mecha come only with EOD expansion (and that Anet sayd they double the number of people in the game), you can assume that 25% is more about the new people EOD get than old veteran players playing it. Veterans have other class to play that do more dps like Virtuoso, Harbinger, Soulbeast or the Untamed surprise top dps.

Obviously new people choose an easy class to play, (expecially if a Robot is in the window login of the game that easy point to a class in game).

They are new to the game, and considering Anet try many new ways to get people to do end game contents (raids and all with the "easy raid a week" bonus) i think is totally normal to see so many Mecha there, mean a lot of new and casual people are doing that contents (normally, you would be happy to have more people doing it, no?).

3 Mechs in the World first Harvest Temple CM and 4 in World Second, but I'm sure they are just new players.

[Shaogin.2679]

22 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I'm not saying people thought core engi underperforming was good. I'm saying, people have been completely ambivalent to the fact that they underperform for 2 years despite being HI. 

Now the tables have turned, and there is major outrage, to the point where people are spreading blatant misinformation and hyperbole. 

I'm saying the two reactions are not proportional. The community is not outraged enough when the opposite of the mech situation is true. When they were out dpsing us despite providing more value and and easier rotation, there forums were dead silent. Complete and utter ambivalence. It didn't effect them so why care?

Now they're being out dpsed by an easier build, and there is outrage. 

At the core of the issue, whether justified or not, people want to tear mech down so their preferred builds can rise by comparison. That inherent motivation might eventually work in getting mech nerfed, that in itself won't solve the issue where more difficult builds are being out performed by easier builds. 

Once Mech is gone and ambivalence takes over again, do you think they'll start being outraged that builds like core condi engi and weaver are still garbage and have been for years? 

My prediction, they'll celebrate because their favorite build has less competition, they're no longer being out DPS'ed by t̸̺̣͈̗̹̞̫̤̐̊h̵̛͈̼̗͉͓̰͖̯͋̍̈́̅̓̓͝ͅe̵̲̣̔͗̓̽̃̀̍͌̄̀͌̽̆͂̕ ̵̢̺̻̰̫̬͕̱̝̭̫͑ũ̶͖͊̈́̂͂͆͑͆̅̾̓͒ṅ̶̮̗͕̅̾͗͊̑̾́w̵̭̒̊̓́͑̏̓͋̇̑͝ǫ̵̺͍̗̖̭̍͆̈́́́͂̀̚̚͜r̸̺̭̦̦̟̤͍̳̪̋͒̀͑̈͊̏́̓̀͝ẗ̶̠͔͈̫̅̃h̵̺̲͙͍͌̈́̽̆̍̾͗̕ÿ̶̛̙͓́͐̊̓̇̊̊̑̄̚͠.

Well you have to considered that low-skill-high-reward builds will see more play than high-skill-low-reward builds, thus those low-skill builds will be much more visible and known to a wider audience. That would be a simple reasoning for why the reactions are vastly disproportionate. It doesn't really involve any malice towards Core Engineer or lack of caring, it is just the new Mechanist is much more public to the audience playing the game due to how prevalent it is.

Essentially, the first issue only affected Core Engineer players in the game, while the latter issue is felt by just about every competing class in the game. If there was a lack of outcry from the issue with Core Engineers, it was due to the population and vocal presence of those Core Engineers.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Shaogin.2679

[Obtena.7952]

The value of your accomplishments are not impacted by how other people play the game. 

[Lottie.5370]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Well, you actually can't AFK because the encounter will require a player to interact with it's mechanics. If an encounter doesn't have these mechanics that require players to interact with them, it's just a glorified DPS golem anyways. That's not a build issue, that's a encounter design problem. 

Again, the game is MORE than just doing DPS. If anything, the existence of these builds and their effectiveness reinforces the fact that the game is MORE about engaging with encounter mechanics that learning a DPS rotation. 

 

Way to miss every point.

 

Just because it's a DPS golem, does not mean somebody should be able to LITERALLY AFK and still be doing high DPS.

[Lottie.5370]

2 hours ago, ThunderX.6591 said:

Mhn, i point out one simple thing...... all LI build work as Mecha, you know that??

That mean all LI build can go "as you say" AFK and do dps....... and you love LI build existence.

But on the other end, you say that only Mecha can do it........ you literally contraddict yourself multiple times in that post.

 

I never said that only Mechanist could do an LI build, so you're misunderstanding me there. I just said that Mechanist takes it too far. LI builds should not be AFK builds, they should be easy to execute builds that still provide a decent level of DPS (this level of DPS should not have a higher DPS ceiling than non-LI builds).

 

LI != AFK.

[Obtena.7952]

57 minutes ago, Lottie.5370 said:

 

Way to miss every point.

 

Just because it's a DPS golem, does not mean somebody should be able to LITERALLY AFK and still be doing high DPS.

Again, if it's possible to afk, that's a problem with the encounter not the build. If you can AFK an encounter LITERALLY ... you can do it on more than just mech builds, so nerfing mech doesn't address that problem. 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[ThunderX.6591]

19 minutes ago, Lottie.5370 said:

 

I never said that only Mechanist could do an LI build, so you're misunderstanding me there. I just said that Mechanist takes it too far. LI builds should not be AFK builds, they should be easy to execute builds that still provide a decent level of DPS (this level of DPS should not have a higher DPS ceiling than non-LI builds).

 

LI != AFK.

But all LI build work as Mecha do....... my point is that; a Vindicator LI build work as a Mecha LI build, if Mecha can be AFK, so can be Vindicator........ but you try to differentiate between the 2.

Want something more like Mecha? Ranger LI build with Autopet is same as Mecha, Long bow 1 and pet autopet active is like Mecha, i see no difference, so if Mecha can be AFK, Ranger can be AFK too.

[Lottie.5370]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Again, if it's possible to afk, that's a problem with the encounter not the build. If you can AFK an encounter LITERALLY ... you can do it on more than just mech builds, so nerfing mech doesn't address that problem. 

 

Any person/build can AFK. That's not an encounter issue.

 

Being able to AFK AND do high DPS is a build issue. You obviously do not HAVE to be AFK, the point is that you CAN and nothing changes.

 

🙄

[Obtena.7952]

4 minutes ago, Lottie.5370 said:

 

Any person/build can AFK. That's not an encounter issue.

Being able to AFK AND do high DPS is a build issue. You obviously do not HAVE to be AFK, the point is that you CAN and nothing changes.

 

Let's take a step back here. What is the content you claim mechanists are AFKing on? Can other builds also AFK on that content?

Edited August 7, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Lottie.5370]

4 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Let's take a step back here. What is the content you claim mechanists are AFKing on? Can other builds also AFK on that content?

 

"let's take a step back here and talk about something unrelated to your point, so that I can keep ignoring your actual point"

 

No thanks, I'm good. You can just read my previous posts, because once again you're missing the entire point.

[Obtena.7952]

No, it's not a build issue because being able to AFK an encounter is independent of a build's DPS. Whether you can do high DPS or not on a build is irrelevant if the encounter has the mechanics to prevent AFK in the first place; In otherwords, if you can't AFK, the amount of damage you do is not a problem.

Here is the best part: you dodge the question what content these builds are AFKING ... because they aren't AFKing ANY team content that isn't just a glorified DPS golem other builds can't also AFK as well. Therefore, being able to AFK an encounter isn't a reason to change any build. It IS a reason to claim the encounter is badly designed. 

 

Edited August 7, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Sunchaser.9854]

Yeah, ignoring the fact that some of those builds have animation locks, literally remove their ability to dodge in content that can easily have one shot content if your dodge is missing... or builds that are more built to afk a golem than to have stunbreaks, teleports, usable raid dps, damage clipping on condi phase changing.. Or practical real world situations the golem ignores like a 0 boon dps build providing 0 benefits in a game where 5 people need to combine to give you those 25 might + alacity + Quickness + Healing + Fury boons -the game provides..

I'm sure if you slam 5 people who have a afk build that only dps's a golems with no dps boons, no fury, no alacity, no might, no quickness, and no dodge.. I"m SURE the magical boons will just appear out of no where right?... Wait.. No.. Only the golem gives free unlimited buffs. raid comps have to build groups that actually realistically provide boons if you smashed 7-9 vindicators / 7-9 no boons dps together? 

And with natural selection, the reason those specs aren't appearing when the raid leaders go

"Do we have any alac? Do we have any quickness?  Oh, 5-7 people brought a build unable to dodge past once or move outside of animation stunlocks on a boss with automated one shots?.. Great... Urgh, just great. Alright. Lets play with 7-9 Vindicators/No boon DPS Kick 6-7 of you so we can stack some mechanists because they can do every role while everyone else's specs get's one while also only needing fractions of apm for either one. "

I've been in similar shoes where i had a arcane mage in WoW once at a time when it did 2-3x the dps of other specs for literally pressing the same arcane blast over and over. I remember thinking "wow, i'm so skilled because my dps number is so high", but then i realized it was mostly the spec carrying the performance, and part of a balance designer's goal should be to make so that you bring the player, not the class to raid. It's less of a "Lets make everyone suck like Ele too", But more. "Lets try and make the game balanced so all 9 classes are good. instead of just catering to 7-9x of 1/9" 

Thing is, often the point of a balance designer's job is often to see things from more than one class's point of view. They're meant to balance it for all players. 

If you play a selfish dps that assumes people provide boons so you can get a slice of results. But nobody wants that spec OR when they do, they need 4 boon dps to support one boonless dps to get their raid numbers. That's a spec that performs on a golem. Not in a group comp when it's dpsing with 0% alacity, 0% quickness, 0 stacks of might, and it's lying dead in a pit since it brought no healing or removed it's only dodge and got one shot by a mechanic or had it's golem rotation drastically reduced by boss one shots / uptime / phase changing / swapping time.

For a mechanist, it's pretty easy to see golem dps as the same thing as raid dps.. because it's literally the same thing. For a mechanist. Turning a afk autoattack bench into a raid is afking or pressing 1-4 buttons without animation locks, clips. Condi clip or ramps. Power dps never has to experience 90% of their dots only doing 10% of the dps on a mob that needs to die within a single second, but need 5-15 seconds to apply their 10-15 second dots to apply damage. 

Another disparity between golem dps and raid dps. Is just because a selfish/0 boon dps class can get every boon in a golem menu. It doesn't mean raid leaders will know how to (AND) want to build 10 man comps around 0 boon players. When boons are commonly provided to 5 people, and you need 100% alacity, 100% quickness, 25 stacks of might, fury, as well as probably healing and vulnerability being quite nice.

That might mean to support 1 selfish dps. You might often need 3-4 selfless players. And that's why often boon dps is a important role. 

For instance, if you want to support a single selfish dps with golem 100% alacity / quickness/ 25 might/ vulnerability /healing boons. That means you might need 2x 50% alacitys, 1 player just for quickness, 1 player/druid for 25 stacks of might. Already that's like 4/5 slots taken, that's like 3-4 spots of selfless dps needed per 1-2 spots for boonless dps open.  And nobody is even assigned to fury/vulnerability/tanking duty. 

 OR you can stack 7-9 mechanists with a firebrand and/or druid. And use one mechanist to provide 100% alacity, mechanists or a druid to provide 100% might, and one of the same alacity mechanists could be a healer or a dps. In other words. Why figure out 5 boons if i can smash 7-9 mechanists together and even challenge mode leaders can do the same? Do you see them running vindicators?  Oh, so if you try to stack 7-9 of them, you just gotta kick out 6-8 of them and oh cherry on top, i forgot. Vindicator's bench has a quirk.. It's numbers are listed around building sized boon dps golems.. it actually LOSES 4-5k DPS if it's opponent HAS A smaller than large HITBOX(???) that isn't building sized while only having one dodge... That's like one other reason why setting a golem dps vs field dps isn't always realistic. It doesn't measure for 1 shot encounters, doesn't measure realistic spec's ability to provide the boons for a comp to form with 5 others to have same said boons, and also only can apply for 1 role vs 3-5.

So, to afk without a mechanist, you just literally have to give up

1. Boon support: (No golem dps without 100% alacity, 100% quickness, Fury, 100% 25 might, probably full stacks of vulnerability as well, etc. ) 

2. 1200 Range

3. Make the entire 4/5 group cater towards providing boon so you can play 1 selfish dps and probably kick the other vindicator out to play vindicator if you want to play multiple of them and cover boons with 5 man boons

4. Lose your ability to dodge twice for one shot mechanics in content that often has one shot mechanics to deal mediocre dps.

5. 4-5k dps on certain classes if the hitbox is wrong. -10-15 dps with a self damaging class if the low intensity is a meme build that takes self damage traits to afk 20-23k dps, Or is a build that can't dodge raid mechanics or perform it's 40k bench if the boss moves 2 feet, breaths. Rotates, or goes invincible and clears/clips all condi damage or makes you lose condition dmg on swap. Making a 10% golem advantage on paper become a -30%-40+% dps clipped on quickly killed adds/[Open world] sometimes in practice..

Sure, you can dps on the golem, but if you smash 7-9 vindicators together. They're not going to have the same results as 7-9 mechanists would.

Having more available roles improves the chance that you will be able to fill a valuable role in a group. Some specs are VERY happy to get 1 (even if it requires 10-20++ buttons) while mechanist can provide 3-5 roles (Burst dps, Might + [Jade dynamo Self quickness] 35k-37k instant power dps, , 100% Alac dps [ >= 2x 50% alac dps], Ranged DPS, Healing Alac dps, )

So basically.. "Do you really want a reward from the balance team, to put 4x more work, to achieving 50% less result into 50% less alacity, 50-75% less range, and having endgame content be challenging and balance the game, so all 9 classes are useful. Not 1/9th of the classes stacked 7-9 times with a druid or firebrand? "

Yes.. I think that's kinda the point of a balance team that had diversity as a goal.. isn't it? Cata was nerfed since 0.01% of players could stack 4-5 of them for a challenge mode. Now mechanists are being stacked to the 4-7 range in nearly all content from 10% a month ago just since they break the effort = reward curve so much, people feel pressured to abandon their level 80s just to reroll because class balance feels abandoned for the others. Good if you're a mechanist. but bad for the other 80% of classes. Some of which are way worse off than others. 

It's less of a "I want every class to be miserable and suffer like ele", more like. "If my class can only provide 1 of 3 of the roles Mechanist can provide by afking.. How come it doesn't even do that 1/3rd role better.. When i have to perform 2-4x the rotation buttons.. And it still gives 50% the result?? How is that rewarding, putting 20 button rotations with 300-400g armor just to make my spec viable, gathering harder affix.. And.. I can only provide (HALF) the alacity? 2-4x more effort. For half the reward. And who in their right mind takes 50% alacity over 100% alacity? Do you want half of a core raid buff, or 100% of one? 

Many mmorpgs want to design all their specs to shine, good balance is leaving everyone with a good usable niche, no matter HOW niche. Removing spec unique buffs to turn it into 7-9 mechanist stacks was about the opposite of diversity i was hoping for from a "class diversity patch." 😦

It's like playing a game of Rock paper scissors where Rock kills paper, Crushes Scissors, and when rock plays itself, both win 2x in a tie. What point would there to even play the other classes when rock exists? Sure, you could still argue scissors beats paper. But Rock kills everyone fine, it doesn't have any weaknesses. They removed it's own weaknesses, Nerfed scissors and paper another 20% a few times just to be sure, and then buffed rock by the Rock paper scissor's balance designer. 

What point would there be playing other classes? When one playstyle beats all other 3 for fractions of effort.. and gets buffed anyways by the 'balance' designer who admits his favorite main is rock. Is. it really "balance"?

Some players would argue a rock paper scissors game where rock always wins would be awesome, because everyone would be winners! But.. If there's no strategy, depth, or skills to aim for in a game. Won't players just get bored of playing rock over and over again..

Try playing a coinflip game where no matter what you roll. You win! That's great. Except there's literally no skill curve, there's no mind games. It's fun the first time, but the 10th and 20th? Wouldn't it become boring having a effortless game because it'd be so easy to declare yourself a 'winner' every time. Never even having any incentive to try other gameplay styles, even eventually? 

You just gotta be real here lmao. And i don't mean any ill. I'm just saying.. When it takes 4-5x more effort/friction to achieve the same results as stacking one class 4-7x.. That's a balance issue only the balance devs can design. There are 8 classes in the game that aren't mechanist. The goal of a balance team, at least imo, should be to help make every class viable, even if each has a unique niche. Or to make it so you bring the player, while having a fresh meta to spice things up while keeping the game fun. 

Balance should make every class viable. Not make one class stack replace 9 and do every job better for fractions of effort. 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Sunchaser.9854

[Atticus.7194]

On 8/4/2022 at 8:37 PM, Kuma.1503 said:

 

So for people who want Mech nerfed, ask yourself, are you so upset about it because an easy build is outperforming a harder build? Or is it because you're upset that YOUR build isn't able to be top dog on the DPS charts as often as you'd like? 

I want it nerfed because the game should have a baseline for easy and still decent and beyond that reward high skill with high damage. Mech is able to do top tier damage with borderline zero input, risk or attention and all that does is trivialize other classes and specs that have to put in much much more care and effort to achieve what mech does while auto attacking. I don't care about topping the charts I just want to not see 50% of the player population playing mechs running the same dumb mech build cause it's brainless and stupidly effective.

I also have fully geared specs for every last type of mech and have played them from CM Fractals/Strikes and into raids and I would be more than happy if they were nerfed. Don't buff anything else, don't need to blow up any meters just remove the afk automech builds and make them require some kitten effort. 

[Forgotten Legend.9281]

i want to see the Balance Philosophy article that ANET told us they would publish

[GWstinkt.6094]

7 hours ago, Sunchaser.9854 said:

while mechanist can provide 3-5 roles

Very long post but this is actually the important bit in this whole discussion.

The issue with builds like fb or mech isn't that they provide strong dps or are too easy to perform well on.

It's that these specs provide too complete of a package. There's hardly ever a situation where these two specs aren't a great pick.

We could have an entire meta of everyone just playing fb and mech and it would probably perform really well.

These specs probably just need some of their access to utility and support more restricted or removed to make more room for other specs.

[The Boz.2038]

14 hours ago, TheSeraphim.7413 said:

3 Mechs in the World first Harvest Temple CM and 4 in World Second, but I'm sure they are just new players.

That is *entirely* the fault of that CM's design. It isn't so much a "you need to be good" as it is "you need this specific combination of boons, offense, range, and mobility skills to succeed". 

[Tails.9372]

1 hour ago, GWstinkt.6094 said:

The issue with builds like fb or mech isn't that they provide strong dps or are too easy to perform well on.

It's that these specs provide too complete of a package. There's hardly ever a situation where these two specs aren't a great pick.

That's not an issue, at all. You don't play "a spec" you play a build and as long as the build in question isn't "too complete of a package" then the player still has to make concessions. The standard rifle mechanist build doesn't provide any meaningful group support and its self support is also lackluster at best, there is no "complete package" here. Support mech would have been a more valid thing to complain about but many people don't because that's less flashy and they mainly only focus on the individual numbers they see on their DPS meters instead of how something impacts the group performance as a whole. But if other professions are too limited in what they can "bring to the table" then the actual issue lies with A-Net not giving them the proper tools which is something they already said they wanted to address.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Sunchaser.9854]

Some classes literally or quite often will have weapon swaps as well as 10-30 ordered snowcrow rotations in order to meet the snowcrow benches. These include things like 10 button opener sequences, Mallyx Shortbow swaps with 10-14 ability rotation priorities including lists of where to cancel the mallyx aura to provide the 20 energy neccesary to provide boons, as well as perform the snowcrow golem rotations to achieve 32k-35k on other classes, as well as Kalia Mace/axe swaps which then add another 10-14 button closing sequence. Because you need to activate your sigils that trigger bleeding and swapping by changing your stances every 10 seconds to reset your energy, plan about the availability of energy to cast your core boons which only have 50% uptime on non mechanist classes, as well as consider each stance's interaction between viper and ritualist and celestial gear for boon uptime vs condi dps on 50% uptime and the group tradeoff vs individual. 

 

Other classes will have to consider about 30 abilities in sequences to meet the snowcrows dps portion while also being happy they can provide one boon (50% alacity and occasional 3 seconds of 20% vulnerability once every like 20 seconds. ) 

 

The mechanist laughs because they have to change a weapon set once while that's pretty much every 10 seconds for other people's rotation. So. Uh yeah. having complaint threads you need to put as much work into changing a role as other classes who are aware they're better off than 0 boon classes for 50% uptime do think it's a little silly you guys complain so much about a weapon swap is a bit iffy. 😛

 

Also my bad, the rifle build is 28k afk, the afk mace build a month ago before the auto abilities and +20% rifle buff was doing 32k afking WITHOUT mech autocast abilities. my bad. Oh, so you guys only provide all boons, also teleport, and do 5 roles most classes are happy to get 1/3rd of because they're not ele and warrior. And this is good for class balance, because it's the class you play. got it. 😛 

Why not just simplify the character creation mode, so instead of displaying 9 specs, it has a difficulty slider. Easy mode selects mechanists. Medium selects any other spec. Hard mode selects Elementalist and their specs get nerfed 10-20% every patch even when they aren't being played. 😛

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by Sunchaser.9854

[The Boz.2038]

46 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

That's not an issue, at all. You don't play "a spec" you play a build and as long as the build in question isn't "too complete of a package" then the player still has to make concessions. The standard rifle mechanist build doesn't provide any meaningful group support and its self support is also lackluster at best, there is no "complete package" here. Support mech would have been a more valid thing to complain about but many people don't because that's less flashy and they mainly only focus on the individual numbers they see on their DPS meters instead of how something impacts the group performance as a whole. But if other professions are too limited in what they can "bring to the table" then the actual issue lies with A-Net not giving them the proper tools which is something they already said they wanted to address.

No, he's right on the money.

The builds are oppressive because they tick all the boxes. There is no reason to play a pure healer if an HFB does that, plus a key boon, aegis, protection, stability. 

HAM, however, lessened the oppressive impact of the HFB, because we now have a different flavor of key boon, on a less over-loaded chassis, so more other builds can share some of the light.

[Tails.9372]

40 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

No, he's right on the money.

The builds are oppressive because they tick all the boxes. There is no reason to play a pure healer if an HFB does that, plus a key boon, aegis, protection, stability. 

It pretty much looks like you haven't even read the post you responded to. Like I said power rifle mechanist does not "tick all the boxes" and I already mentioned that the criticism would have been more valid if we focus in on various support builds. Whis however doesn't change the fact that there would have been no real issue as long as different builds are required to do different things. The rest is just balancing builds which fall into the same category against each other. No matter how much people complain, unless "one build does it all", there is no "oppression" solely because one profession / e-spec can do multiple things. The power rifle mechanist is not taking the spot of [insert support here] and vice versa.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Tails.9372