Spamming 1

[Mell.4873]

Looking through the threads on Engineer, I think the main complaint about mechanist (besides the obscene damage numbers) is simply the fact that using any other weapon skills in your rotation lowers you DPS.

This problem has actually plagued Engineer right from the start, almost all Weapon skills outside of a few kits are lower damage than the Auto-attack.
Everything Engineer does is back to front, most Weapons skills and utilities skills subtract from your damage rather than adding to it. Spamming 1 and some toolbelt skills is how you achieve 80% of your DPS. A perfect example is why people take the Rifle Turret and it is not for the Turret, rather the toolbelt skill has no cast time and a low cooldown so it adds to your damage.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Jerus.4350]

What 1 skill is higher damage than most of our other damage skills? 

 

Looking at my skills on Scrapper right now.  F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 are all used for damage, Hammer 2, and 5 are used (3 and 4 are defensive).  Grenade kit is my first utility and I use skills 2, 4, and 5.  Then I have Shredder Gyro and Throw Mine as my other Utilities, both used on cooldown.  Finally Mortar Kit for my Elite which I use the 2 and 4 skill sporadically to fill in gaps.

 

On Power Mech I use the F1, F2, and F3 off cooldown.  Then every weapon skill is a DPS increase over the auto and for utilities it's just grenade kit that does damage. Elite is typically the Signet which is used off cooldown.  You press every damaging skill other than Grenade 1 and 3 for this build as a DPS increase.

 

Holo ECSU with Shield, I'm using every skill other than Sword 3, Shield 4/5, Grenade 1 and 3, and Holoforge 2 and 5.

 

Maybe I'm missing something but for the builds I'm running the only skills not worth using for DPS are the ones that should be lower as they aren't meant for damage.  Are there skills you're thinking of specifically?

[Mell.4873]

8 hours ago, Jerus.4350 said:

What 1 skill is higher damage than most of our other damage skills? 

 

Looking at my skills on Scrapper right now.  F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 are all used for damage, Hammer 2, and 5 are used (3 and 4 are defensive).  Grenade kit is my first utility and I use skills 2, 4, and 5.  Then I have Shredder Gyro and Throw Mine as my other Utilities, both used on cooldown.  Finally Mortar Kit for my Elite which I use the 2 and 4 skill sporadically to fill in gaps.

 

On Power Mech I use the F1, F2, and F3 off cooldown.  Then every weapon skill is a DPS increase over the auto and for utilities it's just grenade kit that does damage. Elite is typically the Signet which is used off cooldown.  You press every damaging skill other than Grenade 1 and 3 for this build as a DPS increase.

 

Holo ECSU with Shield, I'm using every skill other than Sword 3, Shield 4/5, Grenade 1 and 3, and Holoforge 2 and 5.

 

Maybe I'm missing something but for the builds I'm running the only skills not worth using for DPS are the ones that should be lower as they aren't meant for damage.  Are there skills you're thinking of specifically?

It does depend on the build, and most of the high dps rotations do include damage increases with other skills (condition builds mostly) 

Its really just an Engineer problem, most other classes have there highest dps skills primary on other weapons skills. I mean take Ranger for example most of its damage comes from its 2 and 5 weapon skills. 

Hammer is probably the one power exceptions since it does have a combo but it's not the much more damage than auto-attacking. Flamethrower is probably the worse power offender since nothing comes close to the auto-attack. 

Edited August 30, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Cyninja.2954]

The issue with mech is not the kits, which did see use in the past on other engi builds.

 

It stems from:

1. engineer was designed with tool-belt skills in mind. These got removed for mech and the gained skills had to somewhat compensate for this loss. Net result: less skills on a class which was designed with more skills in mind

2. mechs skill type is signets, which are inherently passive and promote a more passive play-style. Pair this with point 1 and you get some of the strongest signets in the game (even outperforming other identical skills on other classes). Again net result: less skills and actions used

3. it's a pet class, which inherently shares some power with it's pet. Pets usually mean automation especially in the limited environment that GW2 gives control over them (now with auto cast to boot). Net result: more automated power

4. finally the rework on rifle pushed the engineers auto attack damage to be on par with other classes (without even making all rifle skills necessary for good damage output), making it's kits nearly useless or not a large benefit to use (unless absolutely min-maxing and even there it's a minuscule increase at best in a golem situation). Net result once again: more automation and less skills used.

5. a huge amount of utility added on top, which is nearly fully automated thanks to points 1-4

 

Add all of these 5 points together, and you get where the issues with mech come from. It's automation in many different areas which causes issues, not just 1 paired with a huge amount of utility (in part from core engi, functioning similar to guardian here which also has very desirable core skills, in part backed into the new spec).

 

Possible strait forward solutions without a full class rework:

1. reduce auto attack damage of engi weapons, could be backed into the mechanist trait 1. Increase damage on engi weapon skills which require interaction (anything but skill 1 basically)

2. reduce mech output when skills are on autocast to reward a more active game play. Some where along the lines of 20% should be fine leaving players who want to autocast keep using autocast.

3. reevaluate how mechanist provides boons (this can be similar to auto cast versus player casting, put a boon duration malus on there if on auto). While at it, reevaluate if this amount of boons are necessary on this elite specialization

4. re-balancing the mech and its life might be tricky in PvE, this is a tougher one because hitting the sweet-spot between an immortal pet and never there pet is difficult. Meanwhile mech is very over-reliant on the pet overall

 

The goal is not to nerf mechanist overall output, but instead shift it more towards where other classes are at between 0 interaction and actually pressing buttons. There are enough LI builds which require minimum interaction and mech would be fine in that space.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Stalima.5490]

Have you ever considered that the problem is not mechanists but rather the stat allocation on certain gear, giving stat sets like berserker or viper was guaranteed to inevitably cause broken builds as they are 100% damage oriented as opposed to having a maximum stat allocation of 70% or so for dps stats, it becomes an extremely difficult thing to balance because of this as any slight change will cause a massive swing in one direction or the other.

[Ashgar.3024]

I can't think of an Engi build where using your skills is a DPS loss lol.

[Infusion.7149]

The mech should have been always more defensive rather than DPS based. Mechanist should have remained the barrier+alac and condi spec, scrapper should have remained the premier "healer" (since quickness affects med kit) and quickness spec, holo should be the high risk (overheat risk) high burst power spec.

What we have now is completely ludicrous in that the highest damage on engineer  is attained with a power build on a ranged weapon which inherently raises scholar uptime. Something has to change on mech itself since the rifle isn't inherently broken even if over-performing: if it were over-performing massively the power holo would not use sword which has heat tier benefits. I suspect most of the irregularity has to do with aim assisted rocket interactions with the ranged mech as well as shift signet.

If the game were balanced properly even if you disregard other classes it ought to be Jade dynamo 3 kit+ condi mech > power ECSU holo with sword or rifle PBM (grenade kit / bomb kit + Forge) > power scrapper with hammer (no quickness) ~ power mech with bomb kit and all offensive traits (mace has barrier, bomb kit doesn't) which is on par with a 2 weapon class > J Drive condi mech > power mech with rifle  J-Drive. The reason for this is condi is designed to be higher sustained DPS especially if it doesn't have a high damage condition making the bulk of the damage (i.e. burning stacks with a damage modifier or stacked torment with a massive damage modifier). Bleeding makes up around a third of condi mech DPS currently and mace is melee.

What I don't feel is a problem is mech survivability on DPS mechs. Unlike rangers/druid you only have one "pet" and unless there are traits that make up for when the mech is away, that is a severe downside while not using J-Drive. If survivability is reduced then the cooldown on crash down has to be reevaluated.

[Ashgar.3024]

13 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

What I don't feel is a problem is mech survivability on DPS mechs. Unlike rangers/druid you only have one "pet" and unless there are traits that make up for when the mech is away, that is a severe downside while not using J-Drive. If survivability is reduced then the cooldown on crash down has to be reevaluated.

 

I think that aspect of the class is currently in a good state. Pet Management is supposed to be part of it and while you can't pet swap like on Ranger, OC Signet exists.

 

Keeping your Mec alive is about the only thing that separates good and bad Mecanists atm.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

True. here is rifle auto attack only log https://dps.report/g7Gc-20220904-234225_golem

[Ghos.1326]

3 hours ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

I can't think of an Engi build where using your skills is a DPS loss lol.

My power Flamethrower scrapper build. using skill 2, 3, 4, or 5 is a significant DPS loss. In one breadth, adding damage to skills 2 and 4 would be nice, but then it gets to one question: will buffing those skills make it overpowered? pre-hot FT 2 could hit 7k on a 6s cd on multiple targets. FT 4 shouldn't be a wall of fire, rather a circle of fire, but then if you do that (which they should) and buff it, we run the risk of it being too much damage. But, digressing, my power FT build is a prime example of a build that using anything in the FT kit besides its auto attack would result in massive dps losses.

[Kuma.1503]

11 hours ago, Ashgar.3024 said:

 

I think that aspect of the class is currently in a good state. Pet Management is supposed to be part of it and while you can't pet swap like on Ranger, OC Signet exists.

 

Keeping your Mec alive is about the only thing that separates good and bad Mecanists atm.

You can also spot a good mech if they're playing 3-4 kit condi and still pulling good numbers. 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Mell.4873]

On 9/5/2022 at 8:14 AM, Ashgar.3024 said:

I can't think of an Engi build where using your skills is a DPS loss lol.

Power Flamethrower is what what I meant mostly but all kits suffer from having the skill 1 being the large majority of your damage where some builds ask you spam 1 after you apply the conditions needed to get your extra 2% damage from Modified Ammunition.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Myror.7521]

Just in pvp seeing the thing that made mechanist strong isnt the rifle buff alone. Its the fact that your able to put out over 3k dmg per second just by pressing the one button meanwhile others max dmg hit is just 3k  (3k is rifle and bit 1 spam)

[zeyeti.8347]

In pve the rifle isnt as broken as ppl think , it's the mech who is broken , playing full power dps with the good traits allow your mech to bench +- 12k/ damage , doesnt that remind you of a certain ranger pet , hint : same face as the stranger thing monster 😛

[prototypedragon.1406]

It's still quite odd though one would figure that warrior would be notorious for spamming 1🤔