The actual balance of Mechanist

[Endaris.1452]

Realistically speaking, any damage variant of mechanist needs a trade-off for the innate damage the mech is contributing. Kind of how pets are nerfed on druid.

One possible approach would be to simply add that trade-off to the major master traits. If you choose the one for power damage, your own stats get reduced accordingly by a lower percentage while the mech is present to balance out the damage. Either that or straight up nerfing the inheritance % and/or the mech's weapon strength.

While I personally think Anet overbuffed the Rifle AA and just changing the animation and adding an Explosion to the skill was plenty enough, the main problem is ultimately the mech being too oppressive as a pet while being able to ignore mechanics in PvE as the standard pet perk.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

3 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Now THIS is an example of relevant discussion here. Agree on the the "OP'ed but not by much' on the rifle auto. My own testing confirms what you found as well. 

Here is the thing that I think so few people have actually sat and thought about. What gets nerfed is decided by what the actual problem is, determined by usage of the two main mechanist versions. In otherwords, we have two versions of mechanist that may be over represented in endgame or not ... the solution to address the possible endgame over-representations is different for each mechanist version.

The egregious part is that people have assumed that no matter what version is over-represented, the solution is to nerf DPS. The absurd part of that solution is nerfing DPS is an ineffective solution because DPS isn't the reason people take EITHER version of mechanist.

So sure ... Anet nerf DPS 3-4 K ... and whether that is done on the rifle OR the mech ... it won't matter because you will STILL see lots of mechs represented in endgame content. 

 

It always amazes me how people will speak on things that they don't actually know.  The reason why I went and checked the DPS is because I realized that I didn't know.  I hear so many numbers that sound so unbelievable that I had to check myself.

In a relative scale it is quite strong at the moment, because of the big nerfs that power builds received.  On the absolute scale, 26k from auto attacking is how much damage the old Auto-Attack Rev did before June.  I had been running around the overworld with a damage equivalent build for years, yet nobody complained that it was too strong.  In theory, there's nothing wrong with having equivalent DPS with different amounts of effort, so long as that effort translates into benefits via other means.  Versatility, durability, multi-tasking, volume of abilities, etc.

That compensation is necessary, though.  What has so many people ticked off is something called... Social Equivalency Exchange?  I can't remember the exact name.  Basically, in order for a person in some kind of relationship to be satisfied, they have to believe that the amount of effort and results that they're putting into a relationship must be roughly equivalent to all of their partners.  The studies were done on romantic relationships, but generally it works out in other ones as well.  You can even see this in monkeys, too.  A player has to feel rewarded for their efforts fairly, valued in their contribution, and also be true to themselves in the whole exchange.  The safety, engagement distances, ease of use, and high performance of the mechanist is causing everyone else to lose value, which is what leads to so many dissatisfied players.  This is very much a real problem, because telling people not to care and to get over it will just lead to them quitting the game.  

Edited August 31, 2022 by Blood Red Arachnid.2493
rewarded

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

It always amazes me how people will speak on things that they don't actually know.  The reason why I went and checked the DPS is because I realized that I didn't know.  I hear so many numbers that sound so unbelievable that I had to check myself.

In a relative scale it is quite strong at the moment, because of the big nerfs that power builds received.  On the absolute scale, 26k from auto attacking is how much damage the old Auto-Attack Rev did before June.  I had been running around the overworld with a damage equivalent build for years, yet nobody complained that it was too strong.  In theory, there's nothing wrong with having equivalent DPS with different amounts of effort, so long as that effort translates into benefits via other means.  Versatility, durability, multi-tasking, volume of abilities, etc.

That compensation is necessary, though.  What has so many people ticked off is something called... Social Equivalency Exchange?  I can't remember the exact name.  Basically, in order for a person in some kind of relationship to be satisfied, they have to believe that the amount of effort and results that they're putting into a relationship must be roughly equivalent to all of their partners.  The studies were done on romantic relationships, but generally it works out in other ones as well.  You can even see this in monkeys, too.  A player has to feel for their efforts fairly, valued in their contribution, and also be true to themselves in the whole exchange.  The safety, engagement distances, ease of use, and high performance of the mechanist is causing everyone else to lose value, which is what leads to so many dissatisfied players.  This is very much a real problem, because telling people not to care and to get over it will just lead to them quitting the game.  

It's questionable if this Social Equivalency is applicable to a socialist system like we have in a co-operative MMO. Whatever the 'input' to that system, being APM or DPS, everyone on a successful team always gets the equivalent amount of random loot. It's actually to everyone's BENEFIT that some people play easy classes to increase the chance of being successful in that encounter. 

The fact is that MMO's are traditionally by definition, rather FAIR in group content; you win you get things, you lose you don't. There is no discrimination there. The problem is when people extend this concept of 'fairness' to an individual in a team because as much as anyone wants to argue against it ... that individual contributes to the success. Whether that contribution is DPS or by extention, APM, or how small/big it is, a person in a successful team will still get the reward as everyone else. So in the BEST INTEREST of the team, people should be encouraged to play what they are comfortable with, not what other people dictate they should be playing. 

TLDR ... if the resulting rewards considered individual effort, THEN we would have a problem with power rifle mech ... but in GW2, rewards don't care how many buttons a person presses and the players that do care ... should care LESS and focus on their own enjoyment. 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Tails.9372]

56 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Whatever the 'input' to that system, being APM or DPS, everyone on a successful team always gets the equivalent amount of random loot.

The issue here seems to come from that various people seem to have a completely opposite view on what counts as "contribution" and what counts as "pay-off". Some people almost seem to look at the gameplay of their class as some kind of chore they want to be rewarded with by doing high DPS while others look at their DPS more as the contribution and the gameplay itself as the rewarding experience (along with the loot but that goes for everyone who cares about it). Now the later group generally doesn't really care about how everyone else contributes as long as they do while the former one very much does.

[Obtena.7952]

18 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

The issue here seems to come from that various people seem to have a completely opposite view on what counts as "contribution" and what counts as "pay-off". Some people almost seem to look at the gameplay of their class as some kind of chore they want to be rewarded with by doing high DPS while others look at their DPS more as the contribution and the gameplay itself as the rewarding experience (along with the loot but that goes for everyone who cares about it). Now the later group generally doesn't really care about how everyone else contributes as long as they do while the former one very much does.

and that's where we recognize this is a player perception issue and that's not something Anet needs to fix by pandering to those people. The fact is that if the 'chore' people care so much about how other people impact their group play ... they can just exclude those people from their teams and accept that the pool of people they are willing to play with will be MUCH smaller. There is a cost to making choices in playing how you want in this game. Seems some people just don't want to deal with that reality by suggesting other people's choices be removed so they don't have to deal with it. 

Edited August 31, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

It's questionable if this Social Equivalency is applicable to a socialist system like we have in a co-operative MMO. Whatever the 'input' to that system, being APM or DPS, everyone on a successful team always gets the equivalent amount of random loot. It's actually to everyone's BENEFIT that some people play easy classes to increase the chance of being successful in that encounter. 

The fact is that MMO's are traditionally by definition, rather FAIR in group content; you win you get things, you lose you don't. There is no discrimination there. The problem is when people extend this concept of 'fairness' to an individual in a team because as much as anyone wants to argue against it ... that individual contributes to the success. Whether that contribution is DPS or by extention, APM, or how small/big it is, a person in a successful team will still get the reward as everyone else. So in the BEST INTEREST of the team, people should be encouraged to play what they are comfortable with, not what other people dictate they should be playing. 

TLDR ... if the resulting rewards considered individual effort, THEN we would have a problem with power rifle mech ... but in GW2, rewards don't care how many buttons a person presses and the players that do care ... should care LESS and focus on their own enjoyment. 

This game isn't a socialist system.  People still have dignity, and more importantly time is always finite.  In the small squad the rewards are roughly the same, but in the game at large they are vastly different.  Even when completing the same exact content, those done within a shorter time allotment have received a greater reward via more free time.  Thus, if a player running a different profession does worse overall than Mechanist because they take greater risks and put in more effort for lower performance, this is a very direct and personal detriment to that player.  This is true whether it is in a group or when wandering the overworld solo.  This time is so valuable that others will exert social pressures against everybody else just to preserve it.  A "group" getting the rewards does not change that a player still wants to be rewarded for their efforts fairly, valued in their contribution, and true to themselves.

The fact is that this is all self-evident.  The multitudes of people complaining about Mechwars2 is solid proof that social equivalency is at play in this game.  There is very little else needed to shoulder my claim.  

[Obtena.7952]

58 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

This game isn't a socialist system.  People still have dignity, and more importantly time is always finite.  In the small squad the rewards are roughly the same, but in the game at large they are vastly different.  Even when completing the same exact content, those done within a shorter time allotment have received a greater reward via more free time.  Thus, if a player running a different profession does worse overall than Mechanist because they take greater risks and put in more effort for lower performance, this is a very direct and personal detriment to that player.  This is true whether it is in a group or when wandering the overworld solo.  This time is so valuable that others will exert social pressures against everybody else just to preserve it.  A "group" getting the rewards does not change that a player still wants to be rewarded for their efforts fairly, valued in their contribution, and true to themselves.

The fact is that this is all self-evident.  The multitudes of people complaining about Mechwars2 is solid proof that social equivalency is at play in this game.  There is very little else needed to shoulder my claim.  

Well hold on ... the impact of what other people play on some people's dignity is hardly an argument to change mech here. I mean, I don't buy it because even though this particular case is extreme, we have ALWAYS had build that vary in DPS for the effort needed to achieve it. In otherwords, the dignity wasn't an issue before when we had builds that didn't conform to a strict effort/output ratio, so it's not just going to start now. 

As for the finite time point you make. I find that contradictory. If time is a concern for the people in a team, they should simply make the team or adjust how they play accordingly. No change to mechanist is required for that to work for them. The weird part is that if I was concerned about time, it seems like stacking mechs is actually a good strategy between good timing use  and low risk to succeed. Yet somehow, I see people arguing it has a NEGATIVE effect on their time sensitivities. That just doesn't make sense. 

Again, whether social equivalency is at play isn't really the issue. The issue is if the game has a sustainable business model with builds like this in the game. If what opponents of LI mech is true about the majority of usage being LI power rifle users, then I think it's obvious that LOTS of people like what these LI builds have to offer and the game could be sustainable by expanding LI builds with similar output to power rifle mech. 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Voyant.1327]

7 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

There "real issue" in that regard is that some people simply don't like what this spec is supposed to be.

All Jade Tech Must Die. 💚💣💛💣

[GWstinkt.6094]

Y'all are missing my original point. This post was about performance in actual content.

This is hard to measure and I don't think we have exact numbers here, but one possible metric would be to look at the average amount of damage done by each spec across all major PvE game modes.

I reckon that currently, mechanist along with a few other builds has a decently higher average DPS than others.

Not because other specs cannot reach this DPS, but because builds like Mechanist or Scourge can perform incredibly well in in any fight and any encounter, pretty much no matter how much the biss moves, if there are multiple phases and pretty independently of different boss mechanics.

This builds are comparable to others on paper, but in reality they perform significantly better for most players and groups.

My point was that these specs should be balanced according to their actual performance in game, so that they are always good but never amazing. Meanwhile more complex builds that are more susceptible to things going wrong are not always good, they are often mediocre. But when pulled off well they should sting, not just as good as builds that can perform on the same level way more reliably.

The ease of use only plays a minor role here. If untamed could actually achieve 43k dps in every fight if just played competently, it would be pretty busted. In reality though, these numbers can only ever be achieved in short stretches and over longer, actual encounters the performance of untamed becomes maybe even less than average.

This is why I believe reliable builds should have their max dps lowered a bit. They will still perform great and will still be very viable, because for many players in many encounters, they will still be a top choice when it comes to performance.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

4 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Well hold on ... the impact of what other people play on some people's dignity is hardly an argument to change mech here. I mean, I don't buy it because even though this particular case is extreme, we have ALWAYS had build that vary in DPS for the effort needed to achieve it. In otherwords, the dignity wasn't an issue before when we had builds that didn't conform to a strict effort/output ratio, so it's not just going to start now. 

As for the finite time point you make. I find that contradictory. If time is a concern for the people in a team, they should simply make the team or adjust how they play accordingly. No change to mechanist is required for that to work for them. The weird part is that if I was concerned about time, it seems like stacking mechs is actually a good strategy between good timing use  and low risk to succeed. Yet somehow, I see people arguing it has a NEGATIVE effect on their time sensitivities. That just doesn't make sense. 

Again, whether social equivalency is at play isn't really the issue. The issue is if the game has a sustainable business model with builds like this in the game. If what opponents of LI mech is true about the majority of usage being LI power rifle users, then I think it's obvious that LOTS of people like what these LI builds have to offer and the game could be sustainable by expanding LI builds with similar output to power rifle mech. 

 

 

But it was an issue.  It always has been an issue.  I remember it being an issue all the way back when the meta was 4 warriors and 1 mesmer for Citadel of Flames.  Up until the unnamed dev decided to defenestrate the relationship between difficulty and reward, Anet's consistent balance model was that higher effort would lead to higher rewards.  It's why the Guardian was initially designed with the lowest HP pool, but with so many active defenses and abilities.  This reason is also why condi deadeye was nerfed so quickly after its release.  It is very much so an argument to change the Mechanist here, for a simple reason: player satisfaction.

I'm aware that the argument for keeping Mechanist the way it is currently has largely been "There's nothing wrong with it."  I am also aware that this is not an argument.  It is an appeal to apathy, which clearly does nothing to sate the desires of those who very clearly see something wrong with it.  If there's nothing wrong with completely divorcing effort from output, then there is equally nothing wrong with marrying effort and output.  After all, the absence of any sort of causal, mechanical, or psychological difference between the two would mean that there isn't an issue with favoring the players who do want them married.  Anyone who is indifferent is going to remain indifferent either way, but to anyone with a sense of cosmic justice it doesn't make sense to have effort and output not match.  This sense of cosmic justice is quite strong, which has lead to all of the complaints we've seen on the forums over the past few months.

I can explain the time confusion here: your scope is too narrow, and you're coming at this from a relativistic point of view.  "Changing how you play" means taking the time to create a new character, level the new character, gear up the new character (ascended + infusions) train with the new character, and then you have to hope that you'll eventually come to like the aesthetics and playstyle of that character.  Clearly, that is not a satisfactory method for the players, and it requires quite a lot of time to accomplish anyway.  This isn't just about teams, either.  Time is always ticking, for individuals, everywhere.  The social pressure doesn't come from thin air.  It comes from the very real performance differences between the professions, and these differences do not go away no matter how many like-minded people come together and pretend real hard.  Likewise, the social pressure goes both ways, for people joining your team as well as you joining another.  The only people you'll get are the players who not only hate the mech meta, but actively hate it so much that they haven't begrudgingly rolled over, but not enough that they'd quit the entire game over it. 

I will say this again: people want to be rewarded for their efforts fairly, valued in their contribution, AND true to themselves.  People will pick and play professions for reasons other than doing DPS.  This does not mean they are fine with their profession being feeble, frail, and hated by everyone else.  The social equivalency factor isn't just between players.  It is between Arenanet and their customers.  When they see a glowing, edgy looking necromancer in the advertisement, new players do not want to be ostracized for their choice.  Having good balance that makes sense is important for getting customers, and keeping customers.  The argument that mechs everywhere mean it is well liked is survivorship bias.  

[draxynnic.3719]

10 hours ago, Endaris.1452 said:

Realistically speaking, any damage variant of mechanist needs a trade-off for the innate damage the mech is contributing. Kind of how pets are nerfed on druid.

One possible approach would be to simply add that trade-off to the major master traits. If you choose the one for power damage, your own stats get reduced accordingly by a lower percentage while the mech is present to balance out the damage. Either that or straight up nerfing the inheritance % and/or the mech's weapon strength.

While I personally think Anet overbuffed the Rifle AA and just changing the animation and adding an Explosion to the skill was plenty enough, the main problem is ultimately the mech being too oppressive as a pet while being able to ignore mechanics in PvE as the standard pet perk.

The tradeoff is supposed to be what you're giving up to get the mech in the first place. For a power DPS role, for instance, the tradeoff is that you're giving up toolbelt skills and possibly a holoforge and other skills from another elite specialisation.

Part of the problem, however, may be that rifle autoattack being so strong may be favouring mechanist over, say, holosmith. This is because a strong autoattack essentially devalues every other ability you have with a casting time, since the benefit you get from using that ability over simply autoattacking is less. A holosmith, which is an elite specialisation that is mostly based around giving you more things that you do yourself, is therefore less able to benefit from a strong autoattack than mechanists where most of the elite specialisation features are performed by the mech and do not interrupt the player's autoattack.

At the moment, power holosmith is benching similar to, but below, power mechanist. This is despite power holosmith being melee, having a more complex rotation, having to avoid overheating, and generally having so much more that can go wrong than power mechanist.

As I commented previously, whether the answer is to pare down mechanist or to buff up the other things depends on how difficult you think the game should be. However, there is a distinct perception at the moment that if you want to perform well with power damage you should bring a power mechanist, since it pretty reliably does more damage than the majority of other builds that are around. Especially when you consider that the strikes are oriented towards making occasional use of ranged attacks more important than we've been used to them being.

[Obtena.7952]

5 hours ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

But it was an issue.  It always has been an issue.  I remember it being an issue all the way back when the meta was 4 warriors and 1 mesmer for Citadel of Flames.  Up until the unnamed dev decided to defenestrate the relationship between difficulty and reward, Anet's consistent balance model was that higher effort would lead to higher rewards.  It's why the Guardian was initially designed with the lowest HP pool, but with so many active defenses and abilities.  This reason is also why condi deadeye was nerfed so quickly after its release.  It is very much so an argument to change the Mechanist here, for a simple reason: player satisfaction.

I'm aware that the argument for keeping Mechanist the way it is currently has largely been "There's nothing wrong with it."  I am also aware that this is not an argument.  It is an appeal to apathy, which clearly does nothing to sate the desires of those who very clearly see something wrong with it.  If there's nothing wrong with completely divorcing effort from output, then there is equally nothing wrong with marrying effort and output.  After all, the absence of any sort of causal, mechanical, or psychological difference between the two would mean that there isn't an issue with favoring the players who do want them married.  Anyone who is indifferent is going to remain indifferent either way, but to anyone with a sense of cosmic justice it doesn't make sense to have effort and output not match.  This sense of cosmic justice is quite strong, which has lead to all of the complaints we've seen on the forums over the past few months.

I can explain the time confusion here: your scope is too narrow, and you're coming at this from a relativistic point of view.  "Changing how you play" means taking the time to create a new character, level the new character, gear up the new character (ascended + infusions) train with the new character, and then you have to hope that you'll eventually come to like the aesthetics and playstyle of that character.  Clearly, that is not a satisfactory method for the players, and it requires quite a lot of time to accomplish anyway.  This isn't just about teams, either.  Time is always ticking, for individuals, everywhere.  The social pressure doesn't come from thin air.  It comes from the very real performance differences between the professions, and these differences do not go away no matter how many like-minded people come together and pretend real hard.  Likewise, the social pressure goes both ways, for people joining your team as well as you joining another.  The only people you'll get are the players who not only hate the mech meta, but actively hate it so much that they haven't begrudgingly rolled over, but not enough that they'd quit the entire game over it. 

I will say this again: people want to be rewarded for their efforts fairly, valued in their contribution, AND true to themselves.  People will pick and play professions for reasons other than doing DPS.  This does not mean they are fine with their profession being feeble, frail, and hated by everyone else.  The social equivalency factor isn't just between players.  It is between Arenanet and their customers.  When they see a glowing, edgy looking necromancer in the advertisement, new players do not want to be ostracized for their choice.  Having good balance that makes sense is important for getting customers, and keeping customers.  The argument that mechs everywhere mean it is well liked is survivorship bias.  

For me, the bottomline is that the game is designed to allow a wide range of players with different capability to play how they want and be successful. People calling for the nerf of LI mechanist because their own value is diminished by its very existence is a significant violation of how the game is intended to work and a projection of their insecurities of their own value; those players need to get over themselves HARD.

Again, the existence of LI mechanist does not impact a player if they are sensitive to time constraints or restrictions.  It's completely unreasonable for people to request Anet create a nice, smooth path to optimize their time use by nerfing other people's choices just so they don't have to deal with things they don't like. 

True, people want to be awarded for their efforts fairly. It's a nice sentiment but at the individual level, it's simply not well defined or realistic; we have always had a large variation in effort for a given output and at some level, if the game is to be inclusive, it does accommodate low capability players with builds like this.

This isn't a science experiment where Anet upholds some game design rules because of social equivalence for a handful of sensitive players that take offense to how other people can play the game. If there was one trait I would say a gamer needs to play GW2 ... it's TOLERANCE. 

Edited September 1, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Karagee.6830]

16 hours ago, Endaris.1452 said:

Realistically speaking, any damage variant of mechanist needs a trade-off for the innate damage the mech is contributing. Kind of how pets are nerfed on druid.

One possible approach would be to simply add that trade-off to the major master traits. If you choose the one for power damage, your own stats get reduced accordingly by a lower percentage while the mech is present to balance out the damage. Either that or straight up nerfing the inheritance % and/or the mech's weapon strength.

While I personally think Anet overbuffed the Rifle AA and just changing the animation and adding an Explosion to the skill was plenty enough, the main problem is ultimately the mech being too oppressive as a pet while being able to ignore mechanics in PvE as the standard pet perk.

How about forcing -20% damage traits here and there a-la Catalyst. That'll work.

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

For me, the bottomline is that the game is designed to allow a wide range of players with different capability to play how they want and be successful. People calling for the nerf of LI mechanist because their own value is diminished by its very existence is a significant violation of how the game is intended to work and a projection of their insecurities of their own value; those players need to get over themselves HARD.

Again, the existence of LI mechanist does not impact a player if they are sensitive to time constraints or restrictions.  It's completely unreasonable for people to request Anet create a nice, smooth path to optimize their time use by nerfing other people's choices just so they don't have to deal with things they don't like. 

True, people want to be awarded for their efforts fairly. It's a nice sentiment but at the individual level, it's simply not well defined or realistic; we have always had a large variation in effort for a given output and at some level, if the game is to be inclusive, it does accommodate low capability players with builds like this.

This isn't a science experiment where Anet upholds some game design rules because of social equivalence for a handful of sensitive players that take offense to how other people can play the game. If there was one trait I would say a gamer needs to play GW2 ... it's TOLERANCE. 

I don't think anybody's begrudging the LI players having options.

The real problem is that for years, builds have been balanced according to what they can achieve in optimal situations. Power rifle is a 36k benchmark where the rotation is basically "use your damage skills on recharge", and even if you forget to do that you can still be in the mid-20s just by autoattacking alongside your mech. At range. With the recent update, there are now about half a dozen power builds that bench higher, but they tend to be loaded with conditionals ("cannot move if they want to get their top damage skills off" is a common one) and have more complex rotations, and they all likely have potential to fall well below 20k if your rotation gets messed up somehow.

Which does mean that people feel pressured to go into mechanist, even if they would rather play something else, because it's about as idiotproof as a GW2 build can be. Commanders aren't going to be concerned about the quality of players rolling up on mechanist because a bad mechanist is still likely to outperform most players on other builds in actual encounters, even if the other build might eke out a little more in optimal conditions.

Now, the solution to this really depends on what ArenaNet is trying to achieve, but ultimately, all professions need to have builds that can realistically achieve the results that power mech does, in the hands of the typical player who seriously attempts that content. This could be by taking mechanist down a bit. Or it could be by beefing up the alternatives. Or, if this is a matter of really embracing the LI spirit, actively seeking to give EVERY profession an LI build that achieves similar performance (which is closer than people might think, but reliable 20k DPS is still considered to be fairly good for non-mechanist LI builds). However, there's a distinct issue when it's a common observation for squads to be more than half mechanists. Just being regarded as BIS for alacrity only accounts for about 20% of a squad, after all.

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I don't think anybody's begrudging the LI players having options.

The real problem is that for years, builds have been balanced according to what they can achieve in optimal situations. Power rifle is a 36k benchmark where the rotation is basically "use your damage skills on recharge", and even if you forget to do that you can still be in the mid-20s just by autoattacking alongside your mech. At range. With the recent update, there are now about half a dozen power builds that bench higher, but they tend to be loaded with conditionals ("cannot move if they want to get their top damage skills off" is a common one) and have more complex rotations, and they all likely have potential to fall well below 20k if your rotation gets messed up somehow.

Which does mean that people feel pressured to go into mechanist, even if they would rather play something else, because it's about as idiotproof as a GW2 build can be. Commanders aren't going to be concerned about the quality of players rolling up on mechanist because a bad mechanist is still likely to outperform most players on other builds in actual encounters, even if the other build might eke out a little more in optimal conditions.

Now, the solution to this really depends on what ArenaNet is trying to achieve, but ultimately, all professions need to have builds that can realistically achieve the results that power mech does, in the hands of the typical player who seriously attempts that content. This could be by taking mechanist down a bit. Or it could be by beefing up the alternatives. Or, if this is a matter of really embracing the LI spirit, actively seeking to give EVERY profession an LI build that achieves similar performance (which is closer than people might think, but reliable 20k DPS is still considered to be fairly good for non-mechanist LI builds). However, there's a distinct issue when it's a common observation for squads to be more than half mechanists. Just being regarded as BIS for alacrity only accounts for about 20% of a squad, after all.

I agree with you here. There is pressure to play it, but team leads wanting specific builds for their teams isn't new, so it's not a reason to change power rifle mech. It is a reason for people to respect how teams are built and the requirements the people making them have. That's where people using their choices comes in; nerfing build options is no substitute for simply using the choices we already have. 

We need more of what power rifle mechanist offers on other classes. If this is a direction that is intended, Anet would be smart to add at least another 2-3 builds on other classes that accomplish the same things. The obvious choices to me are where AI is featured on pets, minions and maybe spirit weapons. 

Edited September 1, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Hashberry.4510]

These are all issues created by the need to perform in the pug system. We are frequently reminded that if we don’t like that pressure, just form your own group. Seems fair enough.

[Zunki.3916]

On 9/1/2022 at 2:56 PM, Karagee.6830 said:

How about forcing -20% damage traits here and there a-la Catalyst. That'll work.

Full stop right there, please don't give cata class idendity to other specs, all they have left at this point 😁

Edited September 5, 2022 by Zunki.3916

[Nimon.7840]

On 8/31/2022 at 2:23 PM, GWstinkt.6094 said:

There's nothing wrong with simpler, lower intensity classes. I think it's great there are viable options for anyone who doesn't want to or isn't able to play complex builds. I just think that currently, in real encounters, Mechanist simply over performs because it's output is very independent of the player and encounter.

 

I agree, I'd even say, that it's important that low intensity builds exist.

But: they shouldn't do the same dps as other full played builds.

And mech pushes this even further, it can achieve around 30k by just autoattacking with a 1200 range weapon, while specs like dragonhunter or reaper are full melee, need to keep watch for their "burst window" while also having to do very unpleasant animation cancels and basically play a perfect rotation to achieve that 30k number.

 

Reduce mech afk rotation to 24k dps, give it some more on the active gameplay in order to reach like 32-34k dps and mech would still be very strong and would have absolutely enough dmg to clear all content, even if you go afk mode.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Nimon.7840

[Deepcuts.9740]

Where were posts like this when Engineer was bottom of the barrel trash DPS? 

I'll tell you: nowhere.

The reason: envy.

 

I've met plenty Rangers, Warriors, Thiefs and Guardians that out DPS me on my Mechanist pew pew in raids, fractals and metas.

Some of them by quite a lot.

 

Long story short: if you have the right gear, push the right buttons and you are not a cheap no-food/util/potions kind of player, you can match and even surpass a Mechanist DPS wise.

 

These kind of players always wanting some classes nerfed just because they cannot play their own favorite class as they should, imho, they need more love in their lives.

[Nimon.7840]

21 minutes ago, Deepcuts.9740 said:

Where were posts like this when Engineer was bottom of the barrel trash DPS? 

I'll tell you: nowhere.

The reason: envy.

 

I've met plenty Rangers, Warriors, Thiefs and Guardians that out DPS me on my Mechanist pew pew in raids, fractals and metas.

Some of them by quite a lot.

 

Long story short: if you have the right gear, push the right buttons and you are not a cheap no-food/util/potions kind of player, you can match and even surpass a Mechanist DPS wise.

 

These kind of players always wanting some classes nerfed just because they cannot play their own favorite class as they should, imho, they need more love in their lives.

 

That's not it. 

So players that try really hard to play their perfect rotation do more barely more dps than afk mech?

Sorry but mech is currently one of the most overperforming builds.

 

If raid/strike groups consist of 50 to 80% mechs in puggroups something is clearly wrong with that specialisation.

If this was only the case in speedclear guilds, I wouldn't say that that was the case. For example:

Dps Catalyst and dps Chrono used to be the strongest specs to play in speedclear content. Why did noone play them in pugs? Because they were only strong in the hands of good players, and only if all other players of the group played the same spec.

So only a very small amount of players played those builds 

And yet they still got nerfed.

 

And you expect Anet to not nerf mech, that almost performs in an equal level? That literally everybody plays?

 

Currently there's 11 builds, that deal more damage than mechanist - on a golem that doesn't move with much more conditional builds.

What do I mean by that? 

For example: bladesworn-pure melee: requires to stand still to charge the big hitting skill. If the boss moves out of range, you loose a major portion of your damage.

Harbinger: even though it's ranged, you still want to be in melee range, else you a lot of damage, while that build also uses it's heal skill to increase its dps.

Condi-untamed, highest benchmark: maybe one of the hardest builds ever to play. Miss a cc and your whole rotation starts to break away, resulting in heavy dps loss.

 

Meanwhile mechanist: basically pure ranged (yes I know that rifle has some skills that deal their dmg in melee range): gets passive healing from the heal signet, but could also just bring aed to completely ignore some mechanics, or medkit to help sustain the group. While having a 1200 range instant teleport in their kit.

 

 

 

[Karagee.6830]

1 hour ago, Deepcuts.9740 said:

Where were posts like this when Engineer was bottom of the barrel trash DPS? 

I'll tell you: nowhere.

The reason: envy.

 

I've met plenty Rangers, Warriors, Thiefs and Guardians that out DPS me on my Mechanist pew pew in raids, fractals and metas.

Some of them by quite a lot.

 

Long story short: if you have the right gear, push the right buttons and you are not a cheap no-food/util/potions kind of player, you can match and even surpass a Mechanist DPS wise.

 

These kind of players always wanting some classes nerfed just because they cannot play their own favorite class as they should, imho, they need more love in their lives.

You don't understand the issue and that's ok. Devs don't have to be the same way.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

2 hours ago, Deepcuts.9740 said:

I've met plenty Rangers, Warriors, Thiefs and Guardians that out DPS me on my Mechanist pew pew in raids, fractals and metas.

Some of them by quite a lot.

I dont think the engie dps is overpowered right now, if anything i'd say that holo &scrapper could use a lillbit extra dps.  I do think however that mechanist's is generally overperforming in PvE atm.  First of all in my opinion the mechanist's damage distribution should be focused more on skill usage and less on auto attack. Also there are 0 limiting dps factors. They have easy to reach CC, no dps drop off vs moving targets, short casting time AA, fast moving projectiles, no traits with high upkeep effort, 1200 range AA. Due to its class design (which is pretty hard to change) i'd therefore suggest to have its max dps in the ballpark of ~35k dps. 

Holosmith however does have a harder skill rotation and some limiting factors that can result in dps loss vs boss encounters. Therefore holosmith should be able to reach 39-40k dps in optimal rotation in my opinion. 

[The Boz.2038]

I hope this realization of "not even 10th in benchmark but among best in game performance and most popular right now" reveals something to the devs, and they finally decide to buff elementalist useability.

[Karagee.6830]

People cry because of mechanist nerfs, mechanist goes from 26% representation to 32%+.  You see the disconnection from reality here?

Mechanist has 232% representation compared the second most represented specialisation (which is firebrand and has dropped from the previous patch possibly to another engi specialisation: scrapper).

Edited September 9, 2022 by Karagee.6830

[Obtena.7952]

5 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

 

That's not it. 

So players that try really hard to play their perfect rotation do more barely more dps than afk mech?

 

This should be the moment tryhards realize that the game was never designed around needing to be top 1% to be successful. Everyone gets the same loot, no matter how 'hard' you play it. That's intended. That's how the game is accessible to more players than the traditional MMO's.

The game was simply never designed to adhere to these MMO traditions. The AFK mech does not diminish any other players attempts to try really hard and accomplish something. There is no competitive aspect here, except the one people invent and impose on themselves. 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Obtena.7952