Nerfing the Power Mechanist? Here's A Practical Reason Not Too.

[anbujackson.9564]

9 hours ago, Yellow Rainbow.6142 said:

Sounds like you are just afraid that casual people who don't have open world leggy armor option might just get their armor from raid playing casually.

Give casual open world pve leggy armor or give them Mech.

Wow ok, might as well have even more dead end game after all.

Since you didnt catch my point I try again:

Many of the mech players are getting carried by the design. Put them on any other spec and they do notably worse damage. Why? Because they either never get to learn to the game properly (like new players ditching their first character to jump on the mech train) or they forget how to play because they are not using anything else anymore.

If casual players can only get into raids with mech then its their own fault. There are raid training groups in lfg for wing 1-4 DAILY. You dont need this overtuned spec for it. If you cant deal damage without it, then thats a you problem. Dont expect the rest of the community to watch this mess silently.

[Suyheuti.1732]

6 hours ago, Lynx.9058 said:

"the proper nerf it deserves"

Thinking that a spec "Deserves" a nerf, like it has somehow personally wronged you, doesn't exactly make your position look any better here.

You're like a kid wanting to take away someone else's toy because it's got more features than yours.

First of all, you dont have any idea about what I have. (I'm not jealous about I can make in couple mins.) Let me tell you, I actively play with 2 characters, 1-mesmer (main), 2-engineer. I was playing with condi holosmith because it was the only viable condi option of engineer before eod release. Do you know how hard to play with condi holosmith? Shouldnt it be rewarded because of its complexity? 

Secondly, I dont even play with condi virtuoso because of the same reason. Preparing it takes my 2 mins, because I have full legendary set armor, weapon, rune. 

LI builds shouldnt be top line of benchmark charts. They shouldnt even be there. 

Conclusion; Power Holosmith should be the top power damage, because it is the hardest and melee power build in engineer specs. (In real scenarios, it suffers at phase changes and ranged option unlike mech) 2nd should be Power Scrapper, because it is easier to play than Holo and brings tons of utility to party. I wont say 3rd, you know what is. 

[cat.8975]

On 9/21/2022 at 7:42 AM, samsar.9152 said:

I'm really not into to play "piano play" rotation builds. 

There are plenty of low-intensity builds out there, Mech just happens to be the strongest of them at the moment. Even after shaving off ~10% of its damage, it'll still outperform most of them.

Mech is insanely overtuned at the moment, so the upcoming patch is going to knock it down a little. It'll still be strong. You'll be fine.

[cat.8975]

19 hours ago, Lynx.9058 said:

So you'd rather exclude entire elite specs from being able to participate in a large amount of content just to sate your piano-build ego?

Are you forgetting about the support builds? Alac Mech and HAM will still be very good builds.

This nonsense hate for "piano builds" comes off as very entitled as well, fwiw. It's not as if every other build in the game requires high APM to perform at a decent level. There are loads of builds that can reach 25-35k dps with significantly less effort than is required to reach their benchmark numbers (something something 80/20 rule).

I get the feeling some of you will never be happy unless you're able to keep up w/ the "sweaty gamers" with nothing but idle gameplay.

[cat.8975]

10 hours ago, Yellow Rainbow.6142 said:

Sounds like you are just afraid that casual people who don't have open world leggy armor option might just get their armor from raid playing casually.

Give casual open world pve leggy armor or give them Mech.

Friendly reminder that Emboldened exists now. With "100% additional health, 50% increased damage, and 50% increased healing output," damage output becomes pretty irrelevant, and newer players now have a great gateway to normal raids because they can safely learn the encounters (while still earning rewards). Succeeding raid encounters in this game is almost entirely reliant on beating the mechanic checks, not the enrage timers. There are only a handful of fights that become kinda iffy if the damage is truly too low (Gorseval no updraft, Xera, Dhuum, Twin Largos), but you can still gain quite a few LI each week even if you skip those ones.

[cat.8975]

7 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Don't mind the condi scourge in the corner doing the exact same thing while providing support. He gets to do 35k dps because Reasons™

While I agree that cScg may still be a little too strong, the effort-to-output ratio is drastically different compared to pMech. Apples and oranges and all.

[Kuma.1503]

5 hours ago, cat.8975 said:

While I agree that cScg may still be a little too strong, the effort-to-output ratio is drastically different compared to pMech. Apples and oranges and all.

How? 

Scourge and Mech are both:

• Ranged
• Easy to play
• Able to deal damage while disabled
• Able to hit (near) benchmark numbers in real encounters

Scourges additional difficulty comes from managing sand shades and knowing which buttons to prioritize. And it will want to be within at least 600 range of the boss to land Harrowing Wave. They don't weapon swap unless they need breakbar. 

Mech's additional difficulty comes from managing the bot (flashback to Jade Mechs who punch the orb on Construct), utilizing weapon swap during the rotation, knowing which buttons to prioritize, and staying as close to the boss as possible to gain max value out of Blunderbuss. 

I'd argue Mechanist is more difficult to play when actually going for the benchmark (meaning you stay in melee range), so it doesn't make sense that the benchmark should be lower while also providing less utility. 

Well played Scourge is harder to play than LI/AFK Mech, but it already outperforms both, so that's a non-issue. 

 

 

 

Edited September 24, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[zeyeti.8347]

nerfing the mech is not gonna bother the most of you doing pve open world stuff , instead of killing a trash mob in 1 secs , you will kill it in 1.1 secs , the nerf here is for endgame content , if you run raids and cm strikes you gonna see mech mechs mechs everywhere , and thats not normal . And for what i heared it's the mecha bot who's gonna get the nerf , loosing 50% ferocity from your own char stats , it might sound big , but the mech is literally part of 33% of your damage , so it will not lower your dps so much.

And for people who say mechanist is hard because you have to manage your bot ??? you have a magic button who send it to the air and an afk mode for it , just think of the trouble necro minions master or ele with elementals have then , no command at all those summons just do what they want .

The whole point is , it's not normal such an easy build can deal as much damage (even more) as a build who need a perfect rotation , like bladesworn , holosmith or weaver , and for those who think i lie > https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity And thats an issue ! If mechanist stays like that , class diversity in endgame is gone , like it is atm.

Edited September 24, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[zeyeti.8347]

39 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

utilizing weapon swap during the rotation

You mean kits i think . 

[anbujackson.9564]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

How? 

Scourge and Mech are both:

• Ranged
• Easy to play
• Able to deal damage while disabled
• Able to hit (near) benchmark numbers in real encounters

Scourges additional difficulty comes from managing sand shades and knowing which buttons to prioritize. And it will want to be within at least 600 range of the boss to land Harrowing Wave. They don't weapon swap unless they need breakbar. 

Mech's additional difficulty comes from managing the bot (flashback to Jade Mechs who punch the orb on Construct), utilizing weapon swap during the rotation, knowing which buttons to prioritize, and staying as close to the boss as possible to gain max value out of Blunderbuss. 

I'd argue Mechanist is more difficult to play when actually going for the benchmark (meaning you stay in melee range), so it doesn't make sense that the benchmark should be lower while also providing less utility. 

Well played Scourge is harder to play than LI/AFK Mech, but it already outperforms both, so that's a non-issue. 

 

 

 

Fair points. My two cents:

You would be surprised how bad players on scourge can be. The difference is arguably bigger than on mech, simply because you have to press a lot more buttons on scourge and you need to finish your AA-chain (very hard it seems). And then there is the thing of your own conditions (and yes people struggle with that, no matter if its cleansing from another source or additional conditions from an encounter). Plaguelands is melee too btw but I am not going to argue on this front further because the CD is kind of high.

And about mech... I can hardly call mech managing difficult. The only difficult thing is not to randomly attack the boss at the start of the encounter because people put them in their target and their own settings do the rest (a.k.a. mech attacks). What weapon swap though? You use a kit in grenades IF you run them. For most its just better to camp rifle because they remain in the kit for too long so its a dps loss for them. Any class has priorities for skills, thats not an argument for mech difficulty. Funny enough, if you put your F skills on autoattack, there is hardly anything left to worry about. You prioritze rifle2 and grenade 2 I guess? The rest off CD. They should put fixed ranges on blunderbuss though, that I can agree with.

Also anyone going for benchmark numbers will stay in melee range. You need to get those boons to do benchmark numbers/ignore mechanics, which are used in the zerg. You wont get them in range (mech sustains itself better with its own boons).

 

Despite my rambling I agree though. Scourge and virtuoso are the next line when it comes to easy numbers (while being ranged) and op utility on top.

 

[zeyeti.8347]

Sorry to bother everyone with that , but one think i can see now , is that most players who want mech to stay like that are not endgame enjoyers , may sound like a spy but the most of you dont even use a kp.me account (no offense here , everyone play the game at his own level , no worries) and people complaining about mech (like me) use it and i see pretty kitten high Leg. insights and Ufe , so guys understand that we endgame enjoyers are tired to see only mechs team (in pugs and in a lot of statics) having something so easy to play , while you have other specs with less hp , less armor and stuck to melee underperform (and i talk about real content , not the raid training golem , everyone is op on the raid golem training) while you have an afk pew pew near you melting everything easily and make arcdps bug , is not normal at all .

In the better world , but thats an utopia , anet should separate instanced content endgame and open world/story mode , like they did for pvp and wvw , that sound crazy i know.

And for the balance part just look at the mech role , he overperform in every role , as dps , as healer , as support (one of the best alac/dps with great alac uptime , like no other spec has) and look at the others , just tell me whats the advantage to take a druid or a htemp when you have a healmech , thats obvious . And for those not convinced i will be happy to discuss whats makes one and another more powerfull/efficient than the other. 28k (33 with 1,2 button press) afk on the dps pew pew , and 25 might , fury , alac and 2500-3200 barrier 100% of the time support part ... afk too , tested , thats an abberation !

[Hashberry.4510]

11 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

guys understand that we endgame enjoyers are tired to see only mechs team (in pugs and in a lot of statics) having something so easy to play , while you have other specs with less hp , less armor and stuck to melee underperform (and i talk about real content

These issues are related to domination of the pug scene. I think you are supposed to form your own group to handle this, no?

[reddie.5861]

ye i like mechanist now, i normally dont pve much. but nowadays ima head to dragons end map put my self 2 hours of deffensive and offensive buffs which shares to mech. then i port where ever i want and i go full nuts for 2 hours.

i turn on my auto target i press down the juicy nr1 and W i hold down right mouse aswell and off i go nothing is gonna stop me from that point on im beyond insane! veterans elites champions nothing stops me from holding down W and 1 😄

[zeyeti.8347]

19 hours ago, Hashberry.4510 said:

These issues are related to domination of the pug scene. I think you are supposed to form your own group to handle this, no?

Ofc , and what do you want me to do ? say no mechs , so i can force player to not play what they want and see my lfg  empty for hours  ? i say healalac , dps , or alacdps , and guess what comes : 1,2,3 mechs , we tried a dhuum cm run , and failed a lot of times , then we got a full team of mechs , just a scourge , 7mechs and 2 scrapper for quick, and made it , because mech can safely put out tons of dps while doing mechanics , have  a tp (wich is also a freaking op passiv) try that when you play a bladesworn or a weaver. 

The solution was to put the other e-specs to the same level to mech , but anet choosed to nerf it in the future so... it's the easy solution , but still a solution. Why do you think 33% of the player choose to play mech in endgame content , because it's op as healer , as support and as dps .

I know it's never easy to have something  and then get it taken away , i played catalyst before the pacth , so i know the feeling of your class getting ripped apart to bits , being completely useless now , what should i do ? play it again as dps , do a sweathy rotation while also looking at mechanics , and seeing a mech afk dealing more damage than me ...

No way , i am the kind of player who only look at efficiency and like performance , so i am stuck playing mech , cause i dont want to be uneffective. With all the hours i played endgame i've only seen a couple of times people cutting trough the dps meter of the mech , 80% of the time a mech player is above , and when you see a weaver player doing his best ,trying to beat it and then next boss coming back as mech , you know there is a problem.

What ?  I am an elitist scum ? so i dont have the right to talk about balance ? I think i have a good knowledge of the game  , i have 12500 hours active and beated almost all endgame content , i tried every class of the game in every version possible , how does it come i always choose mech ? you will never see me talk about pvp or wvw because i dont know a thing about those modes , i know my place ! But for pve stuff i can safely say i know more than a lot of you , no offense there everybody can make his point , but people who never touched engame content are arguably less suited , cause they lack understanding of other class or dont know a content who take all your energy to beat and all the knowledge you can have and mastering your class tools , and mech atm has a lot of tools , almost all , just need a a quickness share and there we go , the game is recalled mech wars or guild mech .

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Ashen.2907]

The OP says, "here's a practical reason not to (nerf power mech)," but then provides no such reason.

LI Rev can do damage in the same range as the OP describes for his mech. Other class LI builds can also manage these numbers. Some may be closer to the bottom end of the range the OP describes rather than the top, but still in the range he describes.

Note that the OP is specifically speaking of solo play, completely ignoring the impact of the current iteration of power mech on other players/group environments. 

LI builds are a thing, and have been all along. Some are better than others. Some are more LI than others. But there have long been builds for those who need the benefits of LI. The issue here is not the presence of LI builds, players have been using them in their various forms for a decade. The issue is one particular such build being overtuned to the point that it is having an outsized impact on the game as a whole.

Edited September 26, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Lynx.9058]

Y'know, everyone complaining about mechanist needs to see some comments from the other side.  These are taken from reddit comments:
 

Quote

"having played an engie since the beginning, I still find it a challenge. The mech build is the best of all of them but it is still tough. Autoattacks do not cut it, I have to resort to Bomb kit 1 for the best dps. 3400 dps I can crawl thru carefully to get to areas. I wish I could do the 14k dps auto that some streamers claim to be able to do. I think it's sometimes just smoke and mirrors to look good. I just wish my mesmer could do 3400 dps, they would be fun sorta"

 

Quote

"With the Xyonon build in all Exotics, with no food or utility and no outside buffs, but subtituting a Rifle for the Mace/Shield, I am mostly doing 2.2-2.6k DPS autoattacking with the mech helping. I had spikes of almost 8k on some fights when the crit gods favored me, or if I could align foes to take advantage of piercing. I ran around in PoF picking fights that had caused me trouble on other characters and generally they were really easy. Then I tried to solo a Bounty and that went hilariously badly. I will need to try harder and "git gud" before I can manage those."

I get the feeling that streamers and posters with an agenda are viewing top-geared mechanist builds as the standard, when that's clearly not the case.  When you have some posters running rampant crying that "Mechanist autoattack is doing 36k DPS!", while the vast majority of actual players aren't even getting half of that while obviously working in more than just AA spam, it creates a false narrative, and these people scream the loudest on the forums in order to get their way, where the devs and reps see this as valid feedback.

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease", as the old saying goes, doesn't really apply when the wheel isn't squeaking nearly as much as the neighbor is claiming.

[Ashen.2907]

7 minutes ago, Lynx.9058 said:

Y'know, everyone complaining about mechanist needs to see some comments from the other side.  These are taken from reddit comments:
 

 

I get the feeling that streamers and posters with an agenda are viewing top-geared mechanist builds as the standard, when that's clearly not the case.  When you have some posters running rampant crying that "Mechanist autoattack is doing 36k DPS!", while the vast majority of actual players aren't even getting half of that while obviously working in more than just AA spam, it creates a false narrative, and these people scream the loudest on the forums in order to get their way, where the devs and reps see this as valid feedback.

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease", as the old saying goes, doesn't really apply when the wheel isn't squeaking nearly as much as the neighbor is claiming.

I do not believe those posts. Unless you purposefully mess up the build it is not possible for a reasonably traited rifle power mech in exotic dps gear to do 2.6k to 3.4k dps.

If the person chooses to purposefully gear their character to not be dps focused, as one of those you quoted implied they were doing, then sure they will not manage numbers appropriate for a dps build. I mean, I could outfit my Virtuoso in minstrel's gear and post my abysmal dps numbers, but that would not be relevant commentary on Virtuoso as a dps class.

Edited September 27, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[AliamRationem.5172]

9 minutes ago, Lynx.9058 said:

Y'know, everyone complaining about mechanist needs to see some comments from the other side.  These are taken from reddit comments:
 

 

I get the feeling that streamers and posters with an agenda are viewing top-geared mechanist builds as the standard, when that's clearly not the case.  When you have some posters running rampant crying that "Mechanist autoattack is doing 36k DPS!", while the vast majority of actual players aren't even getting half of that while obviously working in more than just AA spam, it creates a false narrative, and these people scream the loudest on the forums in order to get their way, where the devs and reps see this as valid feedback.

"The squeaky wheel gets the grease", as the old saying goes, doesn't really apply when the wheel isn't squeaking nearly as much as the neighbor is claiming.

My minstrel specter isn't hitting benchmark for some reason.  Please don't nerf specter!

[draxynnic.3719]

Okay, now I'm curious.

Rifle mechanist, standard traits, full row of signets (not the condition signet), with mostly berserker exotic gear, no food or utility, no sigils, and random runes thrown together without any thought for synergy. Autoattack only, mech skills are set to autocast, but once I open fire, then switch back to the forum and don't do anything to interact with the mech's skill use even if the autocast isn't using them optimally.

Gets ~9k DPS from long range with no boons or conditions apart from those the mech produces themselves.

Gets ~10.5k DPS from point blank range (firearm traits benefit from being within 450 units)

That's with what I'd consider to be a fairly typical low-end gearset for someone who's unlocked the specialisation in the first place, and "gameplay" where the game wasn't even the active window. If people aren't hitting those sorts of numbers, it isn't a "git gud" issue, it's a gear issue.

Out of curiosity, I tried a point blank run with all boons and conditions, and had a sustained DPS of around 22k. So when running around alone without support, you can expect to do roughly half what you would in the same gear under raid conditions. 

Now, if you're measuring during a bounty or something, and the bounty has mechanics that you have to deal with, higher armour than the training golem, and other factors that might reduce DPS, then you might not get these numbers. However, outside of mechanics that specifically hurt ranged and/or projectile builds, the rifle metanist is probably still better off than most if not all other power builds when it comes to dealing with mechanics. 

[Zawn.9647]

I think you got it wrong. They won't going to kill the spec. It's just that a Low Intensity build like that should not be TOP DPS on raids/fractals most of the time. It should be viable, yes. But not crush most other builds by just pressing 1 button 🙂

The changes will probably just net a ~10% dps loss which is fine i guess

[Lynx.9058]

1 hour ago, Zawn.9647 said:

I think you got it wrong. They won't going to kill the spec. It's just that a Low Intensity build like that should not be TOP DPS on raids/fractals most of the time. It should be viable, yes. But not crush most other builds by just pressing 1 button 🙂

The changes will probably just net a ~10% dps loss which is fine i guess

That's the thing, people that are getting "top" dps in raids/fractals with mech aren't just sitting there autoattacking and doing nothing else.  They're still using a rotation (even if it is somewhat simpler than what another class might have to do), they're still having to swap to bomb/grenade kit to maximize DPS, they're still having to get up close to benefit from firearms' damage boosts from point blank range which means they're still having to deal with mechanics.

But none of that is mentioned by those posting here with an agenda.  They simply go "Metanist is getting 41k DPS with nothing but autoattack in our raids!" and that's simply not true.

 

Edited September 27, 2022 by Lynx.9058

[draxynnic.3719]

52 minutes ago, Lynx.9058 said:

That's the thing, people that are getting "top" dps in raids/fractals with mech aren't just sitting there autoattacking and doing nothing else.  They're still using a rotation (even if it is somewhat simpler than what another class might have to do), they're still having to swap to bomb/grenade kit to maximize DPS, they're still having to get up close to benefit from firearms' damage boosts from point blank range which means they're still having to deal with mechanics.

But none of that is mentioned by those posting here with an agenda.  They simply go "Metanist is getting 41k DPS with nothing but autoattack in our raids!" and that's simply not true.

 

Nobody's saying that. People are pointing out that the power metanist rotation, which basically consists of using damage skills on cooldown and mostly functional at range, is much easier to maintain in the face of mechanics, and thus do better in practice than builds that have higher benchmarks on paper but where the rotation is complex enough that most people can't perform it correctly in practice.

The period post-EoD-release has really been highlighting the problem with balancing based on benchmarks. As it turns out, a 38k benchmark that actually achieves 90% of its potential most of the time is actually better than a build that benches at 41k but where most people can only achieve ~70% of that in practice.

[soul.9651]

31 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Nobody's saying that. People are pointing out that the power metanist rotation, which basically consists of using damage skills on cooldown and mostly functional at range, is much easier to maintain in the face of mechanics, and thus do better in practice than builds that have higher benchmarks on paper but where the rotation is complex enough that most people can't perform it correctly in practice.

The period post-EoD-release has really been highlighting the problem with balancing based on benchmarks. As it turns out, a 38k benchmark that actually achieves 90% of its potential most of the time is actually better than a build that benches at 41k but where most people can only achieve ~70% of that in practice.

Yeah and i would like to see how many people can reach that pdeadeye bench in practice. People just ignore how much dps mech can maintain in real encounter for free without getting punished and hide behind benchmark numbers "hey but p mech on golem isnt even on top". Meanwhile pdeadeye can look a truly op build if you look at golem numbers but in reality the rotation is super punishing, its single target dps with no cleave and you are at melee range meanwhile pmech get everything on the opposite side. And also just beeing ranged dps should mean a significant lower dps not just on mech (scourge, virtuoso and any other ranged spec) considering how many advantages you get just by beeing ranged, at least if current pve content is going in the direction where ranged dps are more favored looking at strike cms.

Edited September 27, 2022 by soul.9651

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 hour ago, Lynx.9058 said:

That's the thing, people that are getting "top" dps in raids/fractals with mech aren't just sitting there autoattacking and doing nothing else.  They're still using a rotation (even if it is somewhat simpler than what another class might have to do), they're still having to swap to bomb/grenade kit to maximize DPS, they're still having to get up close to benefit from firearms' damage boosts from point blank range which means they're still having to deal with mechanics.

But none of that is mentioned by those posting here with an agenda.  They simply go "Metanist is getting 41k DPS with nothing but autoattack in our raids!" and that's simply not true.

 

The issue is that mechanist is ranged with the majority of its damage consisting of passive effects and auto-attacks.  Its rotation is not susceptible to interruption due to mechanics.  It's fine to have an easier spec that is not so sensitive to mechanics, but it needs to be balanced appropriately relative to specs that have these limitations.  Currently that isn't the case.

 

[Raim.6123]

Well of course you don't want it nerfed. But the way you described it sounds like you enjoy being nigh unkillable, bring tons of utility, and have very high almost zero effort DPS. But thats unhealthy for the game.