Mechanist is dividing the Community

[Mell.4873]

3 minutes ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

I've seen few Untamed during my daily T4 fractal do insane damage which makes me wonder 2 things:

1- Does that player really knows how to play the game, or more specifically its class and the mechanic ? (I'm actually sure that's the case)

2-  Does the majority of the player actually suck ?  (I'm sure that's also a reason)

 

Majority of players use cookie cutter builds which most of the time have rotations that are unrealistic. I mean Untamed is a the perfect example, the ability to weave (and not interrupt) Axe 2 while also essentially precasting both stun utilities to time the proc of Fervent Force so Axe 2 comes of cooldown at the right time is very difficult.

I think most people underestimate there own ability to create builds, I mean not everything on Snowcrow is truly Meta. Until recently they never included allies so pretty much anytime before that it was a hidden secret that Soulbeast and Thief mostly had 5k+ higher benchmarks.

[EvilZombie.6801]

I play trapper condi ranger i out dps my mech thus i dont know why you people cry so much 

[anbujackson.9564]

7 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

well how does the warriors 1200 range rifle have less uptime than the mechanists? I mean if anything, the warrior does more damage at range since it doesn't lose damage from distance.

Am I blind or are you seriously saying that warrior on range does more damage with rifle than mech?

You know how bad this weapon is? This is just ridicoulus now. You ever saw any form of warrior in PvE , especially endgame, running around like that? Just stop.

[Stalima.5490]

29 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Am I blind or are you seriously saying that warrior on range does more damage with rifle than mech?

You know how bad this weapon is? This is just ridicoulus now. You ever saw any form of warrior in PvE , especially endgame, running around like that? Just stop.

well of course i haven't because they are usually already finished by the time everyone else has even started.

[Malus.2184]

On 10/8/2022 at 12:14 AM, Asum.4960 said:

If Rifle Power Mechanist qualifies as rotation to you, then we simply have a very different understanding of the word. 

Mech operates on a extremely simple priority list of buttons to press off-cooldown (or not, you'll still do fine - and half the buttons the game can already automate for you anyway).

 

I'm well aware how Mechanist works - but in my opinion reducing every spec in the game down to entirely passive damage modifiers and passively off auto attack triggering Traits (and a passive automated Pet) might as well be the death of GW2 greatest strength - it's combat system. 

Why even have a Trait system, weapon or even utility skills at that point.

 

There is a time and place for LI builds, but using Mechanist as baseline for how they should perform or let alone as guide post on how to change existing- and design future other specs imo shows an incredibly disregard to the game and it's systems.

 

You're thinking in absolutes. This is a rigid approach doomed to failure. Things can be changed to accomodate for people having automated triggers. Ironically having no passive triggers kills the versatility of the Utility Skill system since you're required to have a Skill that counts as X in order for Trait Y to even work. If people had a passive option then they would be able to use different Utility Skills without suffering a total, mechanical breakdown.

It would also create a slope in performance as people would have a baseline that was higher than where it is now, and then they could add more abilities into the rotation in order to improve. This is explained in the principles of the ZPD by how people will add more complexity to an activity in order to feel stimulated by it since if it's too easy they're unable to engage with it and if it's too difficult they just give up out of frustration.

And if you just press abilities off CD you'll do les DPS than someone who presses their abilities in sequence. If you use short CDs before long CDs then it'll be even longer before the long CDs can be used again and this will lead to a lowered DPS.

On 10/8/2022 at 12:37 AM, Mell.4873 said:

If the rotation was more complex to achieve the same numbers then there would be an insensitive to pick another class due to its benifit. 

If other Specs had a higher baseline and a less complex baseline rtotation people would also feel incentivised to pick another.

On 10/8/2022 at 1:16 AM, Infusion.7149 said:

I also can't take the comments about "ZPD" or whatever seriously since if you need to resort to psychology or nonnumerical means to evaluate the build then it means you are not thinking about it in a proper manner.

You would be unable to use the ZPD on a specific level, and while that is correct, engaging in the combat system of GW2 is an activity and the ZPD describes in detail how we engage in activity and the emotions we feel from engaging in an activity based on the difficulty of said activity. If it's too easy we become uninvolved with it. If it's too hard we get frustrated and quit.

Ultimately what makes people keep engaging in an activity is their emotions about it. For some numbers is surely a correlationary to the their emotional circumstances. And that's the reason you never look at numbers first since numbers are only an important thing for some as a justification to keep engaging in the activity sincethey're an objective performance indicator.

Looking at the benchmarks the current highest potential benchmark is a Condition Untamed. By your reasoning everyone should be playing Condition Untamed since it has the highest number. And while this is anecdotal evidence Untamed in general is the spec I see least played in PvE. It was as rare as to see one a Bladesworn before the changes to the latter, now it's only Untamed.

Edited October 10, 2022 by Malus.2184

[AliamRationem.5172]

4 hours ago, EvilZombie.6801 said:

I play trapper condi ranger i out dps my mech thus i dont know why you people cry so much 

Sure you do, champ.  But the mech only deals part of the damage for the mechanist! 😉

[Kuma.1503]

After doing raids with my static, our rifle mech players were consistently beat by the virtuoso players. And fights with conditions like sloth or Matthias our condi scourge was top dps. 

(Mind you, this was after multiple weeks of him screaming out our healbrand to STOP cleansing him so he can get his condi transfers off)

I still think Mech is a strong build due to its ease of use, reliability, and versatility, but now it has a proper damage trade-off for those strengths with one of the lowest benchmarks for a power dps (reaper not withstanding). A Mech reaching 100% of their benchmark does less only 2k more damage than a virtuoso doing the LI version of their rotation. (roughly 32k damage).

Bump up the underperformers like Holo and Reaper, and give Catalyst some love and we should be good. 

Edited October 8, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Infusion.7149]

10 hours ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

And this is why I said COMPETENT PLAYER. Everyone missed it but that's fine, I'm used to people only reading what they want to read.

Then Mechanist is not really different because if you want to use the High Caliber trait, you have to play at 450 or less range.

I've seen few Untamed during my daily T4 fractal do insane damage which makes me wonder 2 things:

1- Does that player really knows how to play the game, or more specifically its class and the mechanic ? (I'm actually sure that's the case)

2-  Does the majority of the player actually suck ?  (I'm sure that's also a reason)

 

 

Thanks you that's already a lot more accurate 

 

Lol if you have to resort to using words such as "competent player" instead of percentiles or standard deviations based on real data, good luck with that logic.

High Caliber isn't fully necessary because you have 90% crit chance without the range limitation. Anyone who plays power holo knows spotter wasn't necessary before the banner changes. 21 precision =1% crit chance.
Full zerk = ~50%
Fury  = 25%
Hematic Focus  = 15%
TOTAL  90% crit

This is a huge contrast to outright losing 10% DPS. A noncrit is not zero damage.

I'm almost certain that untamed player you had in your party/squad was experienced with the build, otherwise they wouldn't bother playing it. It is a similar scenario to condi weaver.

---

4 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

You're thinking in absolutes. This is a rigid approach doomed to failure. Things can be changed to accomodate for people having automated triggers. Ironically having no passive triggers kills the versatility of the Utility Skill system since you're required to have a Skill that counts as X in order for Trait Y to even work. If people had a passive option then they would be able to use different Utility Skills without suffering a total, mechanical breakdown.

It would also create a slope in performance as people would have a baseline that was higher than where it is now, and then they could add more abilities into the rotation in order to improve. This is explained in the principles of the ZPD by how people will add more complexity to an activity in order to feel stimulated by it since if it's too easy they're unable to engage with it and if it's too difficult they just give up out of frustration.

And if you just press abilities off CD you'll do les DPS than someone who presses their abilities in sequence. If you use short CDs before long CDs then it'll be even longer vefore the long CDs can be used again and this will lead to a lowered DPS.

If other Specs had a higher baseline and a less complex baseline rtotation people would also feel incentivised to pic another.

You would be unable to use the ZPD on a specific level, and while that is correct, engaging in the combat system of GW2 is an activity and the ZPD describes in detail how we engage in activity and the emotions we feel from engaging in an activity based on the difficulty of said activity. If it's too easy we become uninvolved with it. If it's too hard we get frustrated and quit.

Ultimately what makes people keep engaging in an activity is their emotions about it. For some numbers is surely a correlationary to the their emotional circumstances. And that's the reason you never look at numbers first since numbers are only an important thing for some as a justification to keep engaging in the activity sincethey're an objective performance indicator.

Looking at the benchmarks the current highest potential benchmark is a Condition Untamed. By your reasoning everyone should be playing Condition Untamed since it has the highest number. And while this is anecdotal evidence Untamed in general is the spec I see least played in PvE. It was as rare as to see one a Bladesworn before the changes to the latter, now it's only Untamed.

You don't sound like an engineer, you sound like a philosopher. I've literally never heard the term "slope in performance" , there is the term performance delta though , i.e. the difference between two values. The term "delta" also used in finance for derivatives. If you just look at benchmarks without looking at averages, medians, and standard deviations you fall into the trap Arenanet did where they kept nerfing elementalists due to massive hitbox numbers. The changes for mechanist are nothing of that sort, they are rooted in the situation "on the ground" so to speak, with massive playrates and high average/median performance even for the most basic "autoattack" rotations.

You want to talk about ZPD, but that is a concept. We are talking about reality, actual statistics of actual players.

How many condition untamed can hit benchmarks? How many people are going to realistically bother with all its limitations?

How many condi weavers did you see outside of tryhard benchmarkers?

Edited October 8, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Tails.9372]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Bump up the underperformers like Holo and Reaper, and give Catalyst some love and we should be good. 

You're most likely not going to see any of that anytime soon, according to A-Net next on the list is another nerf for mech and some unspecified support buffs / them wanting to add new support options to various things.

[Malus.2184]

14 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You don't sound like an engineer, you sound like a philosopher. I've literally never heard the term "slope in performance" , there is the term performance delta though , i.e. the difference between two values. The term "delta" also used in finance for derivatives. If you just look at benchmarks without looking at averages, medians, and standard deviations you fall into the trap Arenanet did where they kept nerfing elementalists due to massive hitbox numbers. The changes for mechanist are nothing of that sort, they are rooted in the situation "on the ground" so to speak, with massive playrates and high average/median performance even for the most basic "autoattack" rotations.

That's because you deal with people when designing activities. And phychological phenomenology, which makes the ZPD easier to understand is derived from philosophical phenomenology.

And finance is just as psychologically driven as anything else humans are involved in, else the market would never react to the fears and hopes of the investors, even though they think otherwise.

And with 'slope' it's referring to how it would look if you graphed it out. The optimal would, example. 10k -> 15k -> 20k -> 25kk -> etc. By connecting them with a line it visually creates an ascending slope. Right now, if you mark it on a graph it would be more akin to 5k -> 30k, which if plotted out would be a straight line going up. The 'slope' is literally how the ZPD works. If people's performance starts at 5k then the next step would be 10k and the one after 15k, etc People have to master one step before they can ascend to the next and if the next step is placed beyond what they can "step to," they just go away. So, you create an opportunity for people to have a "scaffold," a solid foundation they can stand on before they take that next step. GW2 is incredibly bad in creating that "scaffolfing" as performance is pretty much all or nothing and heaviliy decided on what utility skills you have and when you use them.

Instead, of Rifle Mechanist being the outlier the Rifle Mechanist is, after the principles of the ZPD closer to the average and all the other builds are the outliers. That's the reason current LI builds are so popular. They fall within what people can do now and the next step they can take. Every Spec should have an LI at the base and then a top performer where all the bells and whistles are pulled.

[Ashen.2907]

23 hours ago, jcgreece.6870 said:

There can't be a debate when half the community thinks that because mech was doing good in open world it should be nerfed in every content, without even considering that in open world there are multiple enemies and piercing. How can you even have a dialogue?

It was not performance in open world content that had people concerned (for the most part).

[Infusion.7149]

5 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

That's because you deal with people when designing activities. And phychological phenomenology, which makes the ZPD easier to understand is derived from philosophical phenomenology.

And finance is just as psychologically driven as anything else humans are involved in, else the market would never react to the fears and hopes of the investors, even though they think otherwise.

And with 'slope' it's referring to how it would look if you graphed it out. The optimal would, example. 10k -> 15k -> 20k -> 25kk -> etc. By connecting them with a line it visually creates an ascending slope. Right now, if you mark it on a graph it would be more akin to 5k -> 30k, which if plotted out would be a straight line going up. The 'slope' is literally how the ZPD works. If people's performance starts at 5k then the next step would be 10k and the one after 15k, etc People have to master one step before they can ascend to the next and if the next step is placed beyond what they can "step to," they just go away. So, you create an opportunity for people to have a "scaffold," a solid foundation they can stand on before they take that next step. GW2 is incredibly bad in creating that "scaffolfing" as performance is pretty much all or nothing and heaviliy decided on what utility skills you have and when you use them.

Instead, of Rifle Mechanist being the outlier the Rifle Mechanist is, after the principles of the ZPD closer to the average and all the other builds are the outliers. That's the reason current LI builds are so popular. They fall within what people can do now and the next step they can take. Every Spec should have an LI at the base and then a top performer where all the bells and whistles are pulled.

So once again it seems you want to rant about ZPD rather than actual metrics. I challenge you to not use obscure terminology that isn't relevant in a statistic.
It's a fact that most meta builds with the standard boon and buff conditions will do 15K autoattack. Therefore your 5K to 10K to 15K "slope" (it's called a ramp or ramp up) would be nonexistent. You'd have a piecewise function starting from autoattack for any scenario where you don't drop boons and DPS uptime. Which also reminds me you keep mentioning these concepts without any thought to DPS uptime.

There's plenty of LI builds for every class I listed above and if you spend any amount of effort to research and ask people that are actually in depth into these things you would have found them as well. There's a difference between every class having a relatively easy build and every spec having an easy build. There's a relatively easy build for every class right now.

An example of a rotation breakdown:

 

The reason why rifle mechanist was egregious is 70% DPS is autoattack / autocast (~85% if you just use #2 skill) and is at range along with the tangible benefits of having cleave and power damage (i.e. eliminating all adds and phasing quicker). The other "LI" builds such as scourge, condi shortbow soulbeast, condi virtuoso, etc do nowhere near that.

On top of this, for most content (even raids or strikes) you don't need to do benchmark DPS so many of the people complaining about rifle mechanist being nerfed don't even have anything to worry about.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Malus.2184]

56 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

So once again it seems you want to rant about ZPD rather than actual metrics. I challenge you to not use obscure terminology that isn't relevant in a statistic.
It's a fact that most meta builds with the standard boon and buff conditions will do 15K autoattack. Therefore your 5K to 10K to 15K "slope" (it's called a ramp or ramp up) would be nonexistent. You'd have a piecewise function starting from autoattack for any scenario where you don't drop boons and DPS uptime. Which also reminds me you keep mentioning these concepts without any thought to DPS uptime.

Yes, the ZPD is the basis for everything that anyone has done ever if they've sought to improve themselves.

In this contrext metrics and a pure representation of the numerical performance and has no say on what people actually fel when engaging in  those things.

Again, I refer to Condi Untamed. It's numerically the best build. By your reasoning then more people would play it than how often it's actually played in PvE, and that's where the emotional understanding of HOW the activity is designed.

And yes, it would lead to more DPS uptime, that's by design. I'll use the Warrior Physical as an example. If they had something that could trigger Physical when they did something as part of an attack then there's less need to take Physical Utility Skills. People can take them if they want a higher uptime. And your argument is flawed as the base assumption of it is that it's going to have a 100% Uptime despite that. A full AA chain with an axe takes about 1.5, change the Trait so that instead of giving the damage incresae for 6-seconds it now gives it for 2-seconds. This way Warriors would be able to complete a full AA chain and then use another Attack Skill. They would be able to use Physical Utilioty Skills in order to prolong this damage increase. Else they'll be stuck doing endless chains until they have enough duration built up that they could use other Attack Skills.

[Cyninja.2954]

8 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

After doing raids with my static, our rifle mech players were consistently beat by the virtuoso players. And fights with conditions like sloth or Matthias our condi scourge was top dps. 

(Mind you, this was after multiple weeks of him screaming out our healbrand to STOP cleansing him so he can get his condi transfers off)

Which begs thee question, is Virtuoso to strong (a bit, yes) or are other builds to weak?

Virtuoso has some of the same issues as mech (pierce, range, ease of use) but is a tad more challenging and can fall of significantly if played poorly or if not on target (which the golem is basically always, that thing is almost always on target).

It will be interesting to see where the developer go from here. It's either bring everyone up or bring the outliers down. The former would be appreciated and accepted more easily by most players (people love buffs far more than they accept nerfs), the later would help slightly get hold of the insane power creep due to boon inflation (if this is even a concern at this point for the devs, not sure they mind).

8 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I still think Mech is a strong build due to its ease of use, reliability, and versatility, but now it has a proper damage trade-off for those strengths with one of the lowest benchmarks for a power dps (reaper not withstanding). A Mech reaching 100% of their benchmark does less only 2k more damage than a virtuoso doing the LI version of their rotation. (roughly 32k damage).

Plus the feel of pmech hasn't changed one bit. Most players wouldn't be able to tell the difference now compared to before, it still melts everything in open world and most mid difficulty instanced content.

I personally might shave off 1k more, just to have it more in line with builds not virtuoso, but that might not be necessary. After all there should be a reward for playing pmech properly and the auto only build is a tad behind that which is fine.

8 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Bump up the underperformers like Holo and Reaper, and give Catalyst some love and we should be good. 

It be nice to see Elementalist further up, Holo shouldn't need to much touch-ups and used to be a very popular build, Reaper we'll have to wait and see. It's one of the most fun builds but every time it became competitive players gravitated to it heavily.

Edited October 8, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Infusion.7149]

3 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Well said.  On a related note, I thought I'd remind my fellow forum-goers of the ignore feature.  I find it useful when I encounter those special few that only seem interested in derailing conversation with pseudo-intellectual noise while taking no discernible position of their own.

Yep "pseudo-intellectual noise" is exactly it. It's almost as if snowcrows/LN "average benchmarks" (non-grinded) and wingman median/25/75% metrics don't exist to that user.

I'd like to see power holo end up back around power soulbeast level now that power mech has been brought to a more reasonable level. (see Xyonon's thread)

Edited October 9, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Smurfiness.3714]

I'm 65. Not a noobie in MMO at all since I started with UO Online. I'm definitely not nimble fingers anymore and can't play the piano specs that you elites demand everyone else must do. I have frozen knuckles, eyes that blurred after half hour looking at the screen. My main is a Ranger Trapper LB Soulbeast that can't kill EOD Elite. I use ascended weapons and trinkets. My other play is Minion Master Necro which is more fun than my gimpy Ranger. But I'm tired and only log in for dailies.

Now I play Rifle Mechanist and actually enjoying GW2 again and not just logging in to do the dailies and Teq. I'm actually going for achievements that need hours. Why? Because I don't die so often and the stories are actually more doable in shorter time.

What's the problem of people enjoying casual PVE that when they are having fun and not hurting others they must be nerf? 

I cannot understand this logic. Nerf Rifle Mechanist in WvW and PvP then. I don't care because I am 100% solo casual PVE. I don't do strikes nor fractals at all.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Smurfiness.3714

[Infusion.7149]

21 minutes ago, Smurfiness.3714 said:

I'm 65. Not a noobie in MMO at all since I started with UO Online. I'm definitely not nimble fingers anymore and can't play the piano specs that you elites demand everyone else must do. I have frozen knuckles, eyes that blurred after half hour looking at the screen. My main is a Ranger Trapper LB Soulbeast that can't kill EOD Elite. I use ascended weapons and trinkets. My other play is Minion Master Necro which is more fun than my gimpy Ranger. But I'm tired and only log in for dailies.

Now I play Rifle Mechanist and actually enjoying GW2 again and not just logging in to do the dailies and Teq. I'm actually going for achievements that need hours. Why? Because I don't die so often and the stories are actually more doable in shorter time.

What's the problem of people enjoying casual PVE that when they are having fun and not hurting others they must be nerf? 

I cannot understand this logic. Nerf Rifle Mechanist in WvW and PvP then. I don't care because I am 100% solo casual PVE. I don't do strikes nor fractals at all.

Mechanist with a ranged mech was nerfed in PVP basically right after EoD launched since unlike ranger pets it could more or less not be kited (so the main counter was reflect). Mechanist has never been relevant in WVW outside of roaming.

PVE Rifle mech is still more than usable, it just isn't the top realistic power DPS option with more or less 100% DPS uptime anymore. That's far healthier for the game overall and actually doesn't affect casual PvE players much if at all.

If you're not doing instanced content you should be looking into fast farming's builds that are meant mainly for openworld. Those tend to highlight builds with cleave for more tagging. By far the "easiest" low intensity ranger is condi soulbeast with a shortbow which also happens to be what has been recommended in the past for people with any issues executing a rotation.

There's plenty of low intensity builds on Mukluk's site (https://mukluklabs.com/gw2-builds) , hardstuck's LI highlight (see https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/115356-hs-low-intensity-build-competition-no-more-excuses-for-low-dps-please/), and on MrMystic's youtube channel (although MrMystic tries to go for memes).

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 hours ago, Smurfiness.3714 said:

I'm 65. Not a noobie in MMO at all since I started with UO Online. I'm definitely not nimble fingers anymore and can't play the piano specs that you elites demand everyone else must do. I have frozen knuckles, eyes that blurred after half hour looking at the screen. My main is a Ranger Trapper LB Soulbeast that can't kill EOD Elite. I use ascended weapons and trinkets. My other play is Minion Master Necro which is more fun than my gimpy Ranger. But I'm tired and only log in for dailies.

Now I play Rifle Mechanist and actually enjoying GW2 again and not just logging in to do the dailies and Teq. I'm actually going for achievements that need hours. Why? Because I don't die so often and the stories are actually more doable in shorter time.

What's the problem of people enjoying casual PVE that when they are having fun and not hurting others they must be nerf? 

I cannot understand this logic. Nerf Rifle Mechanist in WvW and PvP then. I don't care because I am 100% solo casual PVE. I don't do strikes nor fractals at all.

If the issue were players like yourself using mechanist, the "elites" would be demanding that they change the way it is played and the nerfs would have revolved around making the mechanist require more effort.  That is not what happened.  They made changes to the damage output and left the functionality alone.

Why?  Simple.  Because mechanist is intended to provide accessibility to players like you.  It's not intended to be a competitive top DPS spec for the elites, let alone a dominant force in the meta.  It was overperforming, so they trimmed the numbers.  Has that impacted your enjoyment so far?

[Ashen.2907]

7 hours ago, Smurfiness.3714 said:

I don't care because I am 100% solo casual PVE. I don't do strikes nor fractals at all.

And it still functions exceptionally well in your preferred content while being viable in instanced content such as you mention as well.

[Eponet.4829]

9 hours ago, Smurfiness.3714 said:

I don't care because I am 100% solo casual PVE. I don't do strikes nor fractals at all.

 

Then I really don't see why it would bother you.

I play a custom high sustain LI Deadeye build in casual solo PvE that literally just kneels, marks the target and then repeats:

- 3x Rifle 3
- Stealth skill/Rifle Dodge
- Stealth attack.

When I can get the right setup, even with only 14-15k solo DPS it still feels like it absolutely shreds through solo enemies at a disgusting rate.

If mechanist can self buff with might and fury, then even after the nerfs its solo damage is probably at least comparable to that without the limitations of needing to think about positioning or limited use of dodges/shadowstep to reposition while kneeling.

Pretty much all solo content feels like it's tuned more around the 6-10k mark which it should still easily more than hit.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Eponet.4829

[draxynnic.3719]

On 10/7/2022 at 7:43 PM, Malus.2184 said:

This argument is both incorrect and makes little sense. Objective reality disproves it.

Engineer Rifle became a lot better due to the Auto Attack doing an explosion which triggers several traits. Is there still synergy between skills and traits? Yes, and the game play is overall a lot easier since it's no longer fatal for your DPS if you mistime something. Which is the case for pretty much everyone else.

Okay, pedant. It'd require deleting every skill and trait synergy that isn't simply "this thing happens automatically".

For instance, for what you suggested, every skill or trait which creates a window in which you do more damage would need to be deleted, because such effects create an optimal rotation where high damage skills are used within that window as much as possible. And that's just the first example that comes to mind.

 

Regarding the ZPD stuff:

I really don't think ZPD theory is good justification for rifle mechanist being as strong as it was, since there really isn't much development to come out of the build. There's not much challenge in getting better with mechanist, so about the only time it counts as being in the zone of proximal development is when you're learning the encounter mechanics and you're using mechanist so you can focus on said mechanics and don't need to worry about a rotation. The current nerfed DPS of ~34k is enough for that. Otherwise, though, it's pretty close to immediately in the zone of already developed (you'll have to excuse me for not remembering the proper term, it's been a while).

Better examples of ZPD theory are builds which have relatively simple rotations that will provide good enough results to get you through most content, but which present the opportunity to do better with practice. That way, you have the opportunity to continue expanding the ZPD until you reach mastery, but that mastery is still more than "press your damage skills on recharge". Firebrand and virtuoso (which were cited by someone further up) are both good examples of this, since they can both do fairly well just from the starting point, but there is room to improve.

I think a large part of the issue is that most people rely on Snowcrows for their information, which is probably a bad source for new players - their focus is on the very top end, and their build guides pretty much go straight to the often complicated rotations for getting the absolute most out of your DPS when often you can do pretty well just by understanding and employing a few simple principles, and going for the full rotation is really only something you need to progress to once that is truly within your ZPD. The community would probably be better served through guides which lead a player through a build from beginner to master in several steps, possibly including changing a few traits and skills along the way.

Ultimately, I don't think ZPD theory justifies having something as simple as rifle mechanist with the strength it had. It would, however, explain why some builds that perform well in the hands of top-end players are ignored by most players who look at the rotation and think "blow that for a game of no-lifers". 

For the time being at least, though, I'm content with it sitting at ~34k. It's probably reasonable for it to remain higher than offensive supports, and some time is needed to analyse where it sits in the balance now rather than assuming it's still OP just because people are used to it being OP. At this stage, I'd be more inclined to look at the balance of alacmech against other alacrity options (which may be better addressed by buffing the competition).

[Malus.2184]

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

It'd require deleting every skill and trait synergy that isn't simply "this thing happens automatically".

And that's the attitude that makes it so that most people are underperforming.

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

For instance, for what you suggested, every skill or trait which creates a window in which you do more damage would need to be deleted, because such effects create an optimal rotation where high damage skills are used within that window as much as possible. And that's just the first example that comes to mind.

There are almost no steps between a 'bad rotation' and a 'perfect rotation.' That's the issue and one of the reason Mechanist is so popular, it provides a plaetau that most people can reach, and that's what makes it so attractive.

The whole attitude of "do well" should really be "do best." it's do well as there are almost no steps that allows an average performance. It's either a good one or a bad one. Even the LI builds are like that. And that distance is too wide to cross for most people sincethere's no middle-ground or interrim steps. The 'good performance' should be the 'optimal performance,' reality makes it so that people see it differently.

3 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I really don't think ZPD theory is good justification for rifle mechanist being as strong as it was...

The ZPD can never be used as a justification for nummerical performance and neither have I used it as such. I've only ever used it for design performance and in that every spec comes off badly. Including Mechanist since the 'bad performance' and the 'good performance' are so close together that it's barely a skip between them. It's beter than the rest and still have holes in it.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Kuma.1503]

19 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Which begs thee question, is Virtuoso to strong (a bit, yes) or are other builds to weak?

Virtuoso has some of the same issues as mech (pierce, range, ease of use) but is a tad more challenging and can fall of significantly if played poorly or if not on target (which the golem is basically always, that thing is almost always on target).

It will be interesting to see where the developer go from here. It's either bring everyone up or bring the outliers down. The former would be appreciated and accepted more easily by most players (people love buffs far more than they accept nerfs), the later would help slightly get hold of the insane power creep due to boon inflation (if this is even a concern at this point for the devs, not sure they mind).

Virtuoso isn't at the level Mech was pre-nerf, but It is absolutely a top tier dps build. 

It lacks one important thing over mechanist. A high resilience to player error. 

A player playing Virtuoso poorly will be punished with a drop in DPS. However, what it does not lack is reliability or utility. It is not punished by mechanics, it is punished by player error. This ends up not being a huge issue in practice because the rotation is naturally low intensity, allowing the player to focus most of their attention on the mechanics and not on playing the piano. 

In sum, the player will be punished more than a Mechanist if they do mess up, but it's still very easy not to mess up. 

For that reason, I don't think it would be reasonable to reduce Mech further down without also reducing Virtuoso's performance as well. 

Similar arguments can also be made for scourge. 

 

My solution would be to increase Mech's skill floor rather than nerf it's ceiling. Good players should be rewarded, but it should be harder to execute, and punished harder when it messes up. Not by too much, but enough that it's difficulty is on par with the other reliable ranged builds. 

19 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Plus the feel of pmech hasn't changed one bit. Most players wouldn't be able to tell the difference now compared to before, it still melts everything in open world and most mid difficulty instanced content.

True, but this doesn't amount to much. A spec can be undertuned and/or extremely unpopular and still perform well in mid level content and open world. Cele condi herald, for example, is godlike in mid level content like T4 fractals (Non CM) and Open world content, but sees very little play overall. 

19 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

It be nice to see Elementalist further up, Holo shouldn't need to much touch-ups and used to be a very popular build, Reaper we'll have to wait and see. It's one of the most fun builds but every time it became competitive players gravitated to it heavily.

Personally, I would like to see one of two things happen. 

1. Elementalist has their baseline durability increased

2. Elemenatlist has their output increased (DPS and utility)

I don't think Arena net are properly balancing around how fragile a class is. Elemenatalist has the potential to be a durable class, much of that is locked behind trait selections that don't see use in group play. In practice it ends up being extremely frail, getting one shot by mechanics that would only chunk other classes for 80% of their hp. 

Unfortnately, the player isn't rewarded at all for overcoming this weakness. There are easier, more durable, more mechanic resistant classes that still outperform ele in both raw DPS and utility. Either Ele's output should be increased, or it's durability should be brought up to par with other classes in its tier. 

 

As for Holo, I'd bump it up to around 38-38.5k and I'd give reaper back the ferocity and shroud tankiness they lost. I don't think it would be unreasonable to see Holo on par with Soulbeast. I also think reducing reapers shroud durability was ill advised. It was part of the changes that were supposed to bring down durability across the board, but not only did these changes not address the biggest outliers in terms of raw solo durability (Mirage, Revenant, and Mech are still right there), but Reaper wasn't even the most durable buid out there even pre-nerf.

That nerf also hurt their dps since it makes it harder for them to maintain their shroud. 

[Infusion.7149]

@Kuma you're still absolutely ignoring what the devs said themselves. Here let me quote it for you:
 

 

Quote

 

1:21:22

what else could the one PVE viewer in the chat right now we do have a few

1:21:27

updates to the mechanist all right mechanist yes which obviously has been a little bit of a

1:21:32

problem uh in PVE and so while we're not taking a huge hard look at it for this

1:21:38

patch we're definitely thinking about you know planning on looking at a little bit more in in depth there good good

1:21:43

good in November we are trying to get at least a couple changes in just for this patch we didn't want to be completely

1:21:50

untouched even though again this is going to be a very competitive Focus patch we felt it was important to just at least get a couple things in there

1:21:55

for mechanists yeah so as Roy mentioned we are looking into more more changes

1:22:01

for mechanist in the next balance update but for now we kind of removed a couple of the

1:22:07

potentially I don't want to say problematic but you know some of the more impactful uh passive damage

1:22:13

generation that mechanists had access to yeah so aim assisted rocket notably is no longer going to trigger for the mech

1:22:19

at all regardless of what traits you have equipped yeah and that should definitely uh decrease quite a bit of the damage coming out of the mechanist

1:22:25

uh there and then second up we've got the bonus ferocity from Mech frame is no

1:22:31

longer going to be inherited it's just going to increase your Precision there on that trade right so again just a touch to the max

1:22:38

damage output itself to kind of remove some of that that passive damage output while we look at to a future update yeah

1:22:44

and you know again like I said we're not expecting this to just completely do the class not that we want to do that anyways um but you know just a couple

1:22:51

touches to it we'll have to see how it shakes out and again we're going to continue looking at it a little bit more deeply for November when you know we

1:22:57

plan on getting you know some more changes in for it but you know since it was obviously competitive focused patch you know we didn't take too many looks

 

Neither scourge nor condi virtuoso are doing 70% power DPS at range automatically.

Unless someone is inexperienced about encounters they aren't running either of those builds on say Keep Construct or Conjured Amalgamate and the newer strikes that Arenanet has been hashing out favor power due to phasing.

Edited October 9, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Kuma.1503]

7 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

@Kuma you're still absolutely ignoring what the devs said themselves. Here let me quote it for you:
 

Fair enough. This what I've been asking for. A reduction in how much value Mech gets passively. But rather than simply removing these things (a straight nerf) I would rather have arena net reallocate that power into areas which require more active input. I've made suggestions on how this can be done in other posts, but I'm certain there are better ways to go about it. 

I think it would benefit the community to discuss ways in which Mech can be made less passive rather than simply nerfing it's output below the level of DPS supports. This does not address the low skill floor at all, it simply lowers the ceiling, which I believe is the wrong choice. 

The developer's words here are ambiguous. It's uncertain whether more nerfs are headed it's way in November, which would presumably lower it well below the DPS supports.

It's uncertain whether they intend to rework it in a way that makes it more active without lowering it's maximum output. 

Or if they intend to convert it into a proper high intensity build, which would presumably come with a benchmark similar to Holosmith or Soulbeast. 

This is why I continue to give feedback on this topic. 

7 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Neither scourge nor condi virtuoso are doing 70% power DPS at range automatically.

Unless someone is inexperienced about encounters they aren't running either of those builds on say Keep Construct or Conjured Amalgamate and the newer strikes that Arenanet has been hashing out favor power due to phasing.

Yeah that's a fair distinction to make. There are other reliable ranged builds, but Mech is the only one of its class that does power damage. There are pros and cons to this, but with recent content you can argue it's a net positive. 

I would like to point out a few things however. First, 70% of 34k dps is 23.8k dps. That's looking roughtly where other LI builds sit.  I would still like to see their afk damage reduced further by removing the autocast from the mech. Mech skills are effectively toolbelts, and they should behave as such. 

Second, I don't know what the final number will be. I've heard 33-34k. for for now I will assume an even 34k. That gives it the lowest power damage benchmark out of every selfish DPS listed on snowcrows thus far. 

This is already a reasonable number for how reliable it is. It should be made less passive, but its output does not need to be lowered any further. 

Edited October 10, 2022 by Kuma.1503