Mechanist is dividing the Community

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Herald for example. It suffers from my most hated design mistake that Anet continues to repeat. Forcing classes to spam situational utilities to maintain ONE boon. For quickness builds, this makes them inherently inferior to quickbrand because quickbrand has two buttons it needs to press to maintain quickness. Their elite, and an instant cast mantra with multiple charges. This lets them actually use their utility for their intended purpose. 

Herald and Scrapper meanwhile... they need to burn important skills that they'd really rather save for reactive use. This both makes the class spammier, less skillful, and less satisfying to play. This is a design choice that needs to be go.

So much this.

[doc.9162]

34 minutes ago, Gwynnion.7364 said:

So put another way, they seem to be saying some classes are just going to be better than others and we shouldn't expect them to fix it. 

 

34 minutes ago, Gwynnion.7364 said:

Which seems to defeat the entire purpose of "balancing" other than nudging numbers around based on which part of the player base can yell the loudest.  

haha i like that, very true.

effort (does it flow....) outcome.

apparently everyone is outraged that mech can get good dps, without the convoluted mess other classes have to go through.

kinda funny really, anet is a victim of its own success.

now the pressure is on them to rearrange a jenga puzzle that was 10 years in the making.

i can see them pushing in the right direction though, adding alac or quick to all the classes.

good luck to them 🙂

 

 

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, doc.9162 said:

 

haha i like that, very true.

effort (does it flow....) outcome.

apparently everyone is outraged that mech can get good dps, without the convoluted mess other classes have to go through.

kinda funny really, anet is a victim of its own success.

now the pressure is on them to rearrange a jenga puzzle that was 10 years in the making.

i can see them pushing in the right direction though, adding alac or quick to all the classes.

good luck to them 🙂

 

 

It's not that complicated.  If you place the easy spec with every advantage at the low end, it'll perform somewhere in the middle.  Meanwhile, the piano spec with top potential DPS will also fall somewhere in the middle because in practice you can't pull the rotation off except against the couple of bosses that just stand still like a golem with barely any mechanics.

[Okhu.7948]

On 10/7/2022 at 8:15 AM, Lynx.9058 said:

Last night running champion/bounty/event trains, I was seeing 2-3 mechanists out of 20-30 players in each group.  I think your numbers are BS at this point, honestly.

Anyways, following the patch the damage output has definitely dropped, but it seems right in line with my harbinger/firebrand now.

People have been artificially inflating the numbers on purpose because they wanted Mechanist nerfed into the ground. I've asked people before and that was the reason they gave. They are essentially hate-playing it in the hopes if they inflate the number of people playing it Anet will see the "discrepancy" and "tune it down" so they can go back to whatever they were playing before.

 

Also Mechanist is top dps in everything I do because I intentionally only bring engineers to everything I do and kick anyone that isn't an engineer out of my groups. The description said "Engineer only" Karen, pay attention.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Okhu.7948

[Ashen.2907]

12 minutes ago, Okhu.7948 said:

People have been artificially inflating the numbers on purpose because they wanted Mechanist nerfed into the ground. I've asked people before and that was the reason they gave. They are essentially hate-playing it in the hopes if they inflate the number of people playing it Anet will see the "discrepancy" and "tune it down" so they can go back to whatever they were playing before.

 

Also Mechanist is top dps in everything I do because I intentionally only bring engineers to everything I do and kick anyone that isn't an engineer out of my groups. The description said "Engineer only" Karen, pay attention.

People have been artificially deflating, actively lying about, mech numbers in order to avoid a balance pass.

As to the, "hate playing," yeah, right. Sure they have.

[Doggie.3184]

MCH is fine, other classes just suck at being similar quality as far as being mix of good melee/ranged dmg, good aoe access, good mobility options and respectful of hand-health. Like look at wimpy little Thief Shortbow that hits like an overmoistened noodle and slow af rifle that can only hit one target and deals no damage unless you root yourself and pistol/pistol basically being the same thing as standing rifle for better and for worse. Like why bother with the dumb dumb classes that can't use a ranged weapon properly? Ranger axes are pretty sweet though.

[Kozumi.5816]

The game didn't need more "low intensity" builds, it had enough.

This is an action RPG, not an idle auto-battler.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[AliamRationem.5172]

15 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

The game didn't need more "low intensity" builds, it had enough.

This is an action RPG, not an idle auto-battler.

I think there's plenty of room for builds of all kinds with 36 specializations available across 9 classes.  They just need to ensure that specs are balanced around the advantages they have.

[Vordrax.5243]

I think it's kind of funny when people say "specs with more complex rotations should be rewarded," as if these "rotations" were designed by ANet. These "rotations" were thrown together by players dividing damage by cooldowns to try to maximize the number of damage skills on cooldown while trying to also maximize the number of those cooldowns used during short-term buffs (if applicable.) No sane person built the specs with that specific gameplay in mind. Complicated rotations aren't baked into the game as an assumption, they're mathed out by a very small percentage of the community and widely adopted as if those people were the game designers themselves, which then force the designers to balance around it.

 

I don't know, after way too long playing high end raiding in WoW, I would prefer that the difficulty comes from the encounter design, not the difficulty in playing your class. I prefer this for two big reasons: first, that it means that the encounter designs become more interesting and creative in order to challenge players, and second, I'm honestly kind of tired of people acting smug for spending more time practicing how to play their character on the DPS dummy than other people. I've seen that too often in the raiding scenes that I've been part of. I don't know if these people have nothing else going on in their lives to be proud of, but how superior they act towards others is kind of disgusting, and serves only to intimidate newer or more casual players. It probably stems from tribalism, but it's really tiresome. I don't agree that auto-attacking should be the best damage you can do, I think that the game should have intentionally designed short, closed skill chains that reward the player for good positioning, good execution, or good timing, but it should force people to improvise and adapt, not just pat themselves on the back for memorizing an optimal list of buttons to hit that someone else wrote for them.

[Mell.4873]

On 10/16/2022 at 10:48 AM, Kozumi.5816 said:

The game didn't need more "low intensity" builds, it had enough.

This is an action RPG, not an idle auto-battler.

I think its fine, a Low Intensity build can make farming much more bearable when you have something fun to spam.

Right now I love Untamed Axe for my farming, I use Celestials/Assassins and just spam the Ambush along with Axe 1-3 + Warhorn.
I have 30% bleed duration and 100% critical chance, with 50% boon duration so that means Quickness + Alacrity permanently.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Mell.4873

[AliamRationem.5172]

13 hours ago, Vordrax.5243 said:

I think it's kind of funny when people say "specs with more complex rotations should be rewarded," as if these "rotations" were designed by ANet. These "rotations" were thrown together by players dividing damage by cooldowns to try to maximize the number of damage skills on cooldown while trying to also maximize the number of those cooldowns used during short-term buffs (if applicable.) No sane person built the specs with that specific gameplay in mind. Complicated rotations aren't baked into the game as an assumption, they're mathed out by a very small percentage of the community and widely adopted as if those people were the game designers themselves, which then force the designers to balance around it.

 

I don't know, after way too long playing high end raiding in WoW, I would prefer that the difficulty comes from the encounter design, not the difficulty in playing your class. I prefer this for two big reasons: first, that it means that the encounter designs become more interesting and creative in order to challenge players, and second, I'm honestly kind of tired of people acting smug for spending more time practicing how to play their character on the DPS dummy than other people. I've seen that too often in the raiding scenes that I've been part of. I don't know if these people have nothing else going on in their lives to be proud of, but how superior they act towards others is kind of disgusting, and serves only to intimidate newer or more casual players. It probably stems from tribalism, but it's really tiresome. I don't agree that auto-attacking should be the best damage you can do, I think that the game should have intentionally designed short, closed skill chains that reward the player for good positioning, good execution, or good timing, but it should force people to improvise and adapt, not just pat themselves on the back for memorizing an optimal list of buttons to hit that someone else wrote for them.

God forbid a game feature actual gameplay.  That might produce disparate outcomes and someone might feel inadequate.  Besides, encounter designs will be so much more interesting when you no longer have to worry about playing your character so much.  Positioning, timing, improvisation...putting your mech on auto and pushing 1 from the safety of range.  It's a wonder not everyone wants to play the game this way.  I mean, what are they?  A bunch of smug nerds who want to practice a stupid video game and improve at it?  Get a life!

[Frayze.4620]

Anet themselves have already stated that they want to move away from balancing around what the 0.1% can theoretically accomplish on a Gollum and focus more on what the majority of the platters can realistically do. What people tend to forget is that these forums are also something  of an echo-chamber for, maybe not the 0.1% but I would imagine 5-10%. 
Most players simply want to log on, play their preferred character and have fun/feel good about the experience. A lot of the time, that fun is tied in to “feeling powerful” in that they can defeat enemies quickly with nice big numbers flashing up on screen. They have no idea that ArcDPS exists and wouldn’t care to install it if they did. The idea of sitting at a Gollum “practising” at a video game would be a completely ridiculous concept for them. Like it or not, THESE are the majority of players, the “hidden masses” so to speak.

 Some of them may, in time, seek out things like forums or guides or whatnot, but most never will. And the thing that we have to accept is that that is totally fine. It’s ok to not want to be more invested than that.

 Calling for never ending nerfs to pmech because it is an effective class for the above majority is just insane. After the recent nerfs, it does reasonable to good damage for a low amount of input. If anything, the problem with pmech is that for the more invested player the difference between the skill floor and skill ceiling is not very big at all.

 People with low investment enjoying mech aren’t anyone’s enemy and don’t deserve to have their enjoyment spoilt my the minority staring intently at their arc meters. Raise up underperforming and underrepresented specs to match where pmech currently sits as a BASELINE. By allowing the “silent masses” to feel powerful on anything they chose, the more invested players also get access to them and to more higher skill ceiling builds  as well.

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, Frayze.4620 said:

Anet themselves have already stated that they want to move away from balancing around what the 0.1% can theoretically accomplish on a Gollum and focus more on what the majority of the platters can realistically do. What people tend to forget is that these forums are also something  of an echo-chamber for, maybe not the 0.1% but I would imagine 5-10%. 
Most players simply want to log on, play their preferred character and have fun/feel good about the experience. A lot of the time, that fun is tied in to “feeling powerful” in that they can defeat enemies quickly with nice big numbers flashing up on screen. They have no idea that ArcDPS exists and wouldn’t care to install it if they did. The idea of sitting at a Gollum “practising” at a video game would be a completely ridiculous concept for them. Like it or not, THESE are the majority of players, the “hidden masses” so to speak.

 Some of them may, in time, seek out things like forums or guides or whatnot, but most never will. And the thing that we have to accept is that that is totally fine. It’s ok to not want to be more invested than that.

 Calling for never ending nerfs to pmech because it is an effective class for the above majority is just insane. After the recent nerfs, it does reasonable to good damage for a low amount of input. If anything, the problem with pmech is that for the more invested player the difference between the skill floor and skill ceiling is not very big at all.

 People with low investment enjoying mech aren’t anyone’s enemy and don’t deserve to have their enjoyment spoilt my the minority staring intently at their arc meters. Raise up underperforming and underrepresented specs to match where pmech currently sits as a BASELINE. By allowing the “silent masses” to feel powerful on anything they chose, the more invested players also get access to them and to more higher skill ceiling builds  as well.

As you say, they will never use arcdps and they don't care as long as they can feel powerful.  Asking for nerfs at the high end has exactly zero impact on such players.  They will never notice a difference between a 38k benchmark and a 32k benchmark.  You know who will, though?  Those nerds who practice and can actually hit a 38k benchmark.

Instead of all of them stacking mechanists because the spec overperforms, they'll choose the more complex spec that can now perform better because they've balanced it so more complexity is rewarded with better potential performance.  That will likely also involve bringing other specs which are underperforming up.  Such is balance.

[Vordrax.5243]

8 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

God forbid a game feature actual gameplay.  That might produce disparate outcomes and someone might feel inadequate.  Besides, encounter designs will be so much more interesting when you no longer have to worry about playing your character so much.  Positioning, timing, improvisation...putting your mech on auto and pushing 1 from the safety of range.  It's a wonder not everyone wants to play the game this way.  I mean, what are they?  A bunch of smug nerds who want to practice a stupid video game and improve at it?  Get a life!

This kind of banal hyperbole is the conversational equivalent of the Mechanist autoattack. If my comment touched a nerve, maybe you should reflect on that a bit, considering I even specifically stated that autoattack shouldn't produce the best results. This may be a hot take for you, but it doesn't take any more brain power to hit all of your buttons than it does to hit none of them, just rote memorization. Both of those create stale gameplay, the only difference being that some people seem to one of those is an actual skill.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Vordrax.5243
Preferred a different word

[AliamRationem.5172]

54 minutes ago, Vordrax.5243 said:

This kind of banal hyperbole is the conversational equivalent of the Mechanist autoattack. If my comment touched a nerve, maybe you should reflect on that a bit, considering I even specifically stated that autoattack shouldn't produce the best results. This may be a hot take for you, but it doesn't take any more brain power to hit all of your buttons than it does to hit none of them, just rote memorization. Both of those create stale gameplay, the only difference being that some people seem to one of those is an actual skill.

You're the one stuck on complex rotations and golem practice as if anyone expects that to be an accurate reflection of actual gameplay.  The reason we focus on golem benchmarks is because it's the only way to have a halfway meaningful comparison that isn't lost in every single tiny thing that could be different from one encounter or group to the next.

The reason you received the response that you did is that you're saying that they should simplify everything and focus on encounter mechanics.  First, the two aren't mutually exclusive.  You can have both complex encounters and complex class mechanics.  I agree they should have easier specs for players who prefer it, but with that perfectly reasonable position naturally I disagree with the position that the specs I like should be changed to be more like the specs you like.

Also, if you're looking for serious replies maybe throwing insults at the players who like the things you don't like and then complaining about the negative response you receive isn't the best way to go about it?

[Vordrax.5243]

1 hour ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

The reason you received the response that you did is that you're saying that they should simplify everything and focus on encounter mechanics.

No, the reason I received that response is because the forum endgame seems to be "argue like someone who exclusively watches Fox News until other people just get tired of debating you and leave." As to the rest, complex != complicated. You haven't really addressed anything beyond using hyperbole and saying "nuh uh," so I'll leave you to it. (Also, if you understand "those things aren't mutually exclusive" well enough, you wouldn't have tried to use such a reductive tactic in your first response.)

Edited October 18, 2022 by Vordrax.5243

[AliamRationem.5172]

7 minutes ago, Vordrax.5243 said:

No, the reason I received that response is because the forum endgame seems to be "argue like someone who exclusively watches Fox News until other people just get tired of debating you and leave." As to the rest, complex != complicated. You haven't really addressed anything beyond using hyperbole and saying "nuh uh," so I'll leave you to it. (Also, if you understand "those things aren't mutually exclusive" well enough, you wouldn't have tried to use such a reductive tactic in your first response.)

Whatever you say, champ.  That's a lot of effort to avoid addressing any of the points I've made.  Bottom line:  You want everything to be one way (i.e. not "complex" or "complicated" or whichever term you prefer) while I want different types of builds to exist for different players.  I'll leave you to figure who is being unreasonable here.

[Vordrax.5243]

27 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

That's a lot of effort to avoid addressing any of the points I've made. 

Hmmmmmmm....

10 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

God forbid a game feature actual gameplay.  That might produce disparate outcomes and someone might feel inadequate.  Besides, encounter designs will be so much more interesting when you no longer have to worry about playing your character so much.  Positioning, timing, improvisation...putting your mech on auto and pushing 1 from the safety of range.  It's a wonder not everyone wants to play the game this way.  I mean, what are they?  A bunch of smug nerds who want to practice a stupid video game and improve at it?  Get a life!

Actually, for that matter:

28 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Bottom line:  You want everything to be one way... I'll leave you to figure out who is being unreasonable here.

In response to:

On 10/17/2022 at 10:41 AM, Vordrax.5243 said:

I don't agree that auto-attacking should be the best damage you can do, I think that the game should have intentionally designed short, closed skill chains that reward the player for good positioning, good execution, or good timing

Edited October 18, 2022 by Vordrax.5243
Reiteration

[Kuma.1503]

Looks like 33.9k is roughly the number we're looking at for power mech now. I'll just round up to 34k. 

Lets assume the mech player has a perfect rotation against the golem. In which case, we're already looking at an above average player. 

A reasonable expectation is for the Mech player to reach 80% of that benchmark in real encounters. In which case...

27k DPS is the number to beat. 

 

There's nothing to be divided about. That's a very reasonable number to beat. For comparison:

 

A soulbeast need only reach 69% (nice) of their benchmark to reach 27k. 

A soulbeast needs to reach 87% of their benchmark to match a perfect rifle mech hitting 100% of their benchmark. 

 

A bladesworn need only reach 65% of their benchmark to surpass 27k

To match a perfect rifle mech, they need to reach 82% of their benchmark. 

 

A virtuoso needs to reach 71% of their benchmark to match 27k.

A virtuoso needs to reach 89% of their benchmark to beat a perfect rifle mech. 

 

 

This build is no longer a balance concern. It is easy to play, but the player is rewarded for playing something harder. Good players can and often do reach roughly 27-34k DPS in real fights on other classes. If you cannot do this yet, keep practicing.

That being said, I would not put it past Anet to reduce it further just to satiate the people still REEEEing about its existance. 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[AliamRationem.5172]

41 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Looks like 33.9k is roughly the number we're looking at for power mech now. I'll just round up to 34k. 

Lets assume the mech player has a perfect rotation against the golem. In which case, we're already looking at an above average player. 

A reasonable expectation is for the Mech player to reach 80% of that benchmark in real encounters. In which case...

27k DPS is the number to beat. 

 

There's nothing to be divided about. That's a very reasonable number to beat. For comparison:

 

A soulbeast need only reach 69% (nice) of their benchmark to reach 27k. 

A soulbeast needs to reach 87% of their benchmark to match a perfect rifle mech hitting 100% of their benchmark. 

 

A bladesworn need only reach 65% of their benchmark to surpass 27k

To match a perfect rifle mech, they need to reach 82% of their benchmark. 

 

A virtuoso needs to reach 71% of their benchmark to match 27k.

A virtuoso needs to reach 89% of their benchmark to beat a perfect rifle mech. 

 

 

This build is no longer a balance concern. It is easy to play, but the player is rewarded for playing something harder. Good players can and often do reach roughly 27-34k DPS in real fights on other classes. If you cannot do this yet, keep practicing.

That being said, I would not put it past Anet to reduce it further just to satiate the people still REEEEing about its existance. 

Not even a mention of DPS uptime as a factor?  Why am I not surprised somebody kneejerk defending mechanist would make such a disingenuous argument and then finish up with childish insults?  Fortunately, what will determine whether or not mechanist receives more nerfs is neither people "REEEEing" about mechanist nor your BS defense of it.  Performance in actual gameplay will tell the tale.

[Kuma.1503]

3 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Not even a mention of DPS uptime as a factor?  Why am I not surprised somebody kneejerk defending mechanist would make such a disingenuous argument and then finish up with childish insults?  Fortunately, what will determine whether or not mechanist receives more nerfs is neither people "REEEEing" about mechanist nor your BS defense of it.  Performance in actual gameplay will tell the tale.

That last comment was directed at those who believe, unironically, that Mech should be nerfed into unplayability. These people do not complain about its performance. They complain simply that it exists and wish for Arena Net to nerf it to a point that it is safely tucked out of sight, out of mind. They are, admittedly, a vocal minority in PvE, but appear to be a vocal majority in PvP/WvW. It's a fairly common opinion that Mech should not be allowed to be viable due to it's reliance on AI. 

"RP spec" Is a term often thrown around. 

History has shown that AnenaNet is prone to caving into these people. Prior to the rifle rework, the sidenode mech build was overnerfed into uselessness. A change that was met with overwhelming positivity from people who wished Mech to be a non-factor in the meta. 

To this day mech is still complained about in competitive despite being mediocre at best in PvP, and downright trolling in WvW zergplay. 

 

As for DPS uptime. This obviously favors mech over most other classes. I did not go into depth about this due to post legnth. (My posts tend to be rather long and I am working to consolodate more info into smaller chunks.) 

However,  I also listed the percent each class must reach against a Mech reaching 100% of their benchmark. That is, a mech with a perfect rotation and perfect uptime. I originally did not include this number, but realized that WOULD have been a disingenuous comparison. 

Edited October 19, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[MrChatters.9461]

On 10/17/2022 at 4:41 PM, Vordrax.5243 said:

Complicated rotations aren't baked into the game as an assumption, they're mathed out by a very small percentage of the community and widely adopted as if those people were the game designers themselves, which then force the designers to balance around it.

This is true, true for any MMO; saying that those rotations come from players and not devs shouldn't imply that devs shouldn't account that for the big picture that is game design. If devs didn't want Weaver to be that complicated they would have reduced the amount of weapon skills and sinergies it has. Devs job is not only to regulate those players micro-managements but to regulate contents on top of that too, that's why a balance team *should* exist and work in synergy with its playerbase (feedbacks, usage datas, etc).

 

We shouldn't lose sight of what the M.E.T.A. acronym stands for. 'High' End Pvers doesn't care much about how it feels to play a class or the other, they just want to get those sweet rewards at the end of the raid\t4\whatsoever within the *most efficient tactic available*. 

Guess 30% for that is pretty meta defining. It's *most efficient* to have 10 apm doing 90% of snowcrows benchmark than going 999apm having 50% of snowcrows benchmark. It's called meta, not Most.Damage.On.A.Static.Golem.With.No.Environmental.Challenge.

 

On 10/17/2022 at 4:41 PM, Vordrax.5243 said:

I don't know, after way too long playing high end raiding in WoW, I would prefer that the difficulty comes from the encounter design, not the difficulty in playing your class. I prefer this for two big reasons: first, that it means that the encounter designs become more interesting and creative in order to challenge players

This is your opinion and your realizations after many years of MMO. But it's not everyone else's. For the sake of game design those two factors should be mutually inclusive, and many players like it that way. We can and should have both while playing GW2, otherwise every toon feels the same by giving the same agency to everyone.

Having different agencies is healthy cause it means that different characters for different roles suit better in specific circumstances while lacking in others; a good example of this discipline is the old reliable "ranged vs melee", a thing that exists since ever, and it is quite obvious that there can be fights where a ranged character can be managed better than a melee one - and viceversa (...at least it should). GW2 has a lot of different agencies and we all love that. I.e., even if I'm benching higher with a Virtuoso, i still prefer playing axe Mirage cause I'm addicted to blinks, distortions, slighty higher apm and innate movements via skills (axe 2 and 3) - agencies that Virtuoso is lacking. But I know that there are fights where it's much, much harder going melee with a Mirage so I'm just switching. There will be no point in Mirage existing if Virtuoso had not only the same exact possibilities, *but a lot more on top of that, drastically changing the outcome.*.

GW2 is the best MMO for this kind of mechanics, and we're loving this.  No ESO nor FFXIV can compare to this.

 

On 10/17/2022 at 4:41 PM, Vordrax.5243 said:

and second, I'm honestly kind of tired of people acting smug for spending more time practicing how to play their character on the DPS dummy than other people. I've seen that too often in the raiding scenes that I've been part of. I don't know if these people have nothing else going on in their lives to be proud of, but how superior they act towards others is kind of disgusting, and serves only to intimidate newer or more casual players. It probably stems from tribalism, but it's really tiresome

I agree on this, but while devs can do something about what's balanced and what not, nothing can be done for this. ArcDPS is just a tool, we all know that people will find any excuse on earth to continue being as*ho*es to others - newcomers or not. Every game that has some sort of high end content that's accessible after a certain requirement has this elitism problem. 

I mean, I saw people flaming for wars... fashion wars (ESO).

 

About this point:  maybe it's just me, but lately i've seen a fair amount of mechs in puggable contents (mostly fractals) who seem to have no clear idea about some mechanics; it's like they've been carried by their dps throughout T1s, T2s and T3s without the need to focus too much on the fight itself. Maybe I'm a little biased against it but if this is really happening, then it's a valid counterpoint to your first statement. 

 

On 10/17/2022 at 4:41 PM, Vordrax.5243 said:

I don't agree that auto-attacking should be the best damage you can do, I think that the game should have intentionally designed short, closed skill chains that reward the player for good positioning, good execution, or good timing, but it should force people to improvise and adapt, not just pat themselves on the back for memorizing an optimal list of buttons to hit that someone else wrote for them.

If we're talking about "every class should have its LI build" that's highly agreeable; I like the reference to the environmental challenges too.

But we're specifing that the most LI class ever existed shouldn't perform better than 90% of all the other classes in most circumstances.

You said it, reward the player. Every player, not only the mechanists.

 

 

17 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

A reasonable expectation is for the Mech player to reach 80% of that benchmark in real encounters. In which case...

27k DPS is the number to beat. 

 

There's nothing to be divided about. That's a very reasonable number to beat. For comparison:

 

A soulbeast need only reach 69% (nice) of their benchmark to reach 27k. 

A soulbeast needs to reach 87% of their benchmark to match a perfect rifle mech hitting 100% of their benchmark. 

 

A bladesworn need only reach 65% of their benchmark to surpass 27k

To match a perfect rifle mech, they need to reach 82% of their benchmark. 

 

A virtuoso needs to reach 71% of their benchmark to match 27k.

A virtuoso needs to reach 89% of their benchmark to beat a perfect rifle mech. 

 

Sorry but, you can't reduce in a percentage every class mechanics for every fight. There are fights where classes with movements are preferable, or power-oriented builds over conditions, or close target combats over ranged, etc.

We all know that a Bladesworn is a high risk high reward spec that requires a lot of skill to play due to its timing and spatial management; we all know that daredevils have to manage their initiative because if they're trying to maximize their damage they constantly need to be out of dodges relying only on staff skill's innate movements for damage mitigation; we all know that weavers keks (these are just examples).

 

Mechanists can ignore all of this, in both dps and support builds, in every fight, in every environment.

 

A lot has been said and repeated about this, it's astonishing that we're still pretending that 30% is *healthy*. It's absurd. I know you're having fun with your little broken op toy, but 30% is still 30% and it's not healthy. You can make up all the things you want, it's still not healthy and leveling contents and other classes on the current Mechanist will lead to powercreep. If I just wanted to spam a single button clearing room full of enemies, I'd go play Warframe.

 

 

Edited October 20, 2022 by MrChatters.9461
typo, i suck at english

[draxynnic.3719]

On 10/10/2022 at 1:29 AM, Malus.2184 said:

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.

 

This just isn't true.

Not too long ago, Hardstuck run a competition to devise low-intensity builds, where "low intensity" was designed as having an APM of 20 or less. A lot of the builds that came out of that were similar enough to the top-end builds to provide a good starting point for learning those builds, while providing enough performance that you'd be able to clear a lot of endgame content with them as long as you did the mechanics.

A learner can then start introducing elements from the build they're working towards. They don't need to learn the Snowcrows rotation - in fact, it's often better if they don't, since people who mindlessly follow a rotation are often left a little lost if something disrupts the rotation. Instead, it's better to learn the fundamental principles behind the build - which skills are important to use at particular times. For virtuoso, this is a matter of using bladesongs when your daggers are full, "bookending" your weaponswaps with phantasm summons, and knowing which phantasm to refresh with your heal signet. Do that, and you can press the other non-signet buttons almost at random and get the proverbial 80% of the ideal result with 20% of the effort. Firebrand is usually a matter of using the cooldowns on your axe set, switching to your other set, using the cooldowns, tome, 2-4-5-1-2, using the cooldowns that have recharged, and back to the axe set. Dragonhunter, when it was still a thing, was mostly a matter of knowing which skills were the ones that will increase your damage modifiers, stacking them, and then unloading as much damage as you could. Mirage builds are usually a matter of maximising the number of ambushes you get out (and there are some trait changes that make them function a little more smoothly at the cost of having slightly lower theoretical DPS).

Learning and following that Snowcrows rotation is then a matter of squeezing out that last 20% of the 80-20 rule. You can do fairly well on most build without doing that. I generally don't go to that effort because, hey, GW2 is a game, I have better things to do with my leisure time than golem practice. Those who do, though, generally don't try to learn the entire rotation all at once.

There are a sequence of steps that can be followed where each step is within the ZPD, building off the step that came before.

The real problem here is one of communication. The people who know about these progression chains are usually the people who are already engaged. In practice, Snowcrows is still the primary resource people are directed to, despite Snowcrows being designed as a resource for people looking to eke out those last few percentage points. But getting to that level wasn't required.

The problem with power mechanist is that it outperformed everyone who was in those middle levels, while capping out at a fairly low level, meaning that once you capped out on rifle mechanist, trying anything else would result in a drop of performance until you started reaching that snowcrows ideal rotation level. It was power mechanist (in its prenerf state) that destroyed the ZPD because once you'd reached the cap of what rifle mechanist could achieve, anything else that was within the ZPD would actually result in a drop in performance - the builds that could theoretically beat rifle mechanist required complicated rotations or special circumstances to do that and were therefore outside the ZPD of the player who was learning on rifle mechanist. 

 

19 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Not even a mention of DPS uptime as a factor?  Why am I not surprised somebody kneejerk defending mechanist would make such a disingenuous argument and then finish up with childish insults?  Fortunately, what will determine whether or not mechanist receives more nerfs is neither people "REEEEing" about mechanist nor your BS defense of it.  Performance in actual gameplay will tell the tale.

Eh, I'd say that apart from the bladesworn, the choice of examples made by @Kuma.1503 are an implicit acknowledgement of DPS uptime. Virtuoso is a ranged build (some skills benefit from being closer, but rifle mechanist has a similar interaction due to firearms traits). Soulbeast depends on the specific build, but most carry at least one ranged weapon, so being forced out of melee doesn't mean a large DPS drop. They don't have the mech firing away by default, but even prenerf the mech wasn't the majority of the damage, so shutting down the mechanist was still a substantial DPS loss. Uptime, ability to continue operating despite mechanics, and so on are certainly important factors, but I think @Kuma.1503 was mostly comparing like to like in that regard.

[Malus.2184]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Not too long ago, Hardstuck run a competition to devise low-intensity builds, where "low intensity" was designed as having an APM of 20 or less. A lot of the builds that came out of that were similar enough to the top-end builds to provide a good starting point for learning those builds, while providing enough performance that you'd be able to clear a lot of endgame content with them as long as you did the mechanics.

And if you do that then you're limited to a few builds and locked into a certain playstyle that the person might dislike. So while it's technically correct it's contextually incorrect. Other people before you have brought up this point and it still relies in the same caveat, you do it perfectly or you get low performance. The APM needed to play something has no impact on it following the principles described in the theory of the Zone of Proximal Development.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The problem with power mechanist is that it outperformed everyone who was in those middle levels, while capping out at a fairly low level, meaning that once you capped out on rifle mechanist, trying anything else would result in a drop of performance until you started reaching that snowcrows ideal rotation level. It was power mechanist (in its prenerf state) that destroyed the ZPD because once you'd reached the cap of what rifle mechanist could achieve, anything else that was within the ZPD would actually result in a drop in performance - the builds that could theoretically beat rifle mechanist required complicated rotations or special circumstances to do that and were therefore outside the ZPD of the player who was learning on rifle mechanist. 

This quote right here shows that you've no understanding of what the ZPD is. The ZPD has nothing to do with gain compared to performance it. It solely delves on how a person becomes capable of learning a skill. First they have to learn the easyt stuff before they're able to learn progressivelly more difficult stuff. The issue is that pretty much every spec in GW2 aside from the Condi Virt and the Scourge goes instantly from basic to incredibly difficult.

In school all education exist son three levels C, B, and A. You need knowledge in the previous level to be able to even understand the next else it's just gibberish to them. If I tried to explain human behaviour in detail to someone without the prerequisite level of knowledge they wopuld go, "yes, yes, I know some of these words," if even that as they most likely stare slackjawed at me.

GW2 has the same issue with performance. If people start at C-level then the good performance is A-level. They need a B-level to be able to advance to A-level performance. There needs to be a B-level and that one needs to be the benchmark for 'good' with A-level being the 'best.'

[Kuma.1503]

9 hours ago, MrChatters.9461 said:

We all know that a Bladesworn is a high risk high reward spec that requires a lot of skill to play due to its timing and spatial management; we all know that daredevils have to manage their initiative because if they're trying to maximize their damage they constantly need to be out of dodges relying only on staff skill's innate movements for damage mitigation; we all know that weavers keks (these are just examples).

 

Mechanists can ignore all of this, in both dps and support builds, in every fight, in every environment.

Now this is an example of a disingenuous argument. Lets break this down for a moment. 

You list a couple few classes and mechanics that most would agree take some take skill to execute. And then you assert that every mech build can ignore these fundamental game principles. Which sounds intuitive, and will get anyone who dislikes mech to nod their heads and agree, but falls apart under any amount of scrutiny. 

To understand why, you need only ask one question. "Why is HAM (and FB) played over other supports"?

What do HAM and Firebrand have that other supports lack? It's the ability to use their utility reactively and proactively. Instead of spamming everything off CD (which takes comparatively little skill). these two builds are able to use their cooldowns in reponse to fight mechanics. This takes both awareness and timing on the player's part. They must also be cognizant of  what their allies are doing and react accordingly. 

Other supports lack the ability to do this because the game forces them to burn everything sub-optimally with zero thought. 

For DPS, there's condi Jade Dynamo. A piano build with multiple kit swaps, lingering AoEs that will lose value on movement heavy bosses, a high intensity rotation, and high reliance on alacrity (moreso than other builds due to its weak auto attack). While it does run pistol/pistol, its rotation requires it to stand in melee range to land bomb kit skills and gain maximum value out of blowtorch. 

What you're trying to do is get people to intuitively conflate (pre nerf) Rifle mech with other mech builds and nod their heads along with you as you toss around buzzwords like "Op toy" and whatnot. This type of argumentation is getting exhausting at this point. 

 

Quote

A lot has been said and repeated about this, it's astonishing that we're still pretending that 30% is *healthy*. It's absurd. I know you're having fun with your little broken op toy, but 30% is still 30% and it's not healthy.

You've got me confused on this. Are you talking about it's 30% representation on wingman? That came up earlier in discussion, but to recap. 

Grouch confirmed it at at 20% representation pre-nerf. That's obviously still a lot, but we've yet to see where it's fallen to since then.

This number is also inflated due to the fact that mech can fill multiple roles. A solution I proposed was to delete the power build and convert mech into a condition/support hybrid spec. This simultaneously removes the afk/easy build everyone complains about and addresses it's representaion. Asuming it's still high post-nerf. 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Kuma.1503