Mechanist is dividing the Community

[Jerus.4350]

7 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Still waiting on pet auto cast for unleashed pets btw. 

Just thought I'd throw that out there. 

 

Still? Lol, the only pet that should have them doesn’t, it’s my favorite sick joke in GW2.

[Axl.8924]

can i ask you guys a question related to is it true that condi mechanist? i heard it has some pretty sweet numbers anyone able to show what kinda pve numbers you can get with mechanist?

[zeyeti.8347]

Still waiting autocast on elem attunements , let's make it unplayable !

[Jerus.4350]

3 hours ago, Axl.8924 said:

can i ask you guys a question related to is it true that condi mechanist? i heard it has some pretty sweet numbers anyone able to show what kinda pve numbers you can get with mechanist?

It's pretty good.  But, all I have for logs this patch is a botched Largo's that I'm not proud of.  There are a few variations.  

High confusion fights (Largos/SH) you can go Bombkit J-Drive with Mace/Pistol. 

Ignoring Confusion then the 2 Kit Jade Dynamo Pistol/Pistol build is probably best.

You could go Grenade J-Drive with Mace/Pistol as a heavy confusion alternative as well, it's a little bit of a cleaner rotation. 

And, then there's also the "easy" option which is Grenade Jdrive Pistol/Pistol, where it's more or less huck nades and hit a few other skills every 10/20s.  

All solid, all have different damage profiles and that "easy" option, will likely be a good pick for a lot of people in more chaotic content (set ground targetting to Instant Snap to Target, then holding the button will just keep throwing them at the target).

 

 

If you've never checked it out before, you can see some Condi Mech logs on Wingman: https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/bossBench

 

 

[MaLong.2079]

On 10/24/2022 at 8:39 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Mechanist proves how wrong this line of thinking is.  Mechanist was a problem because its ease of play and numerous advantages in DPS uptime resulted in performance that was well beyond what any other spec could expect in actual gameplay relative to their maximum potential.

If you don't factor in variables that relate to DPS uptime (e.g. melee, ramp up time, rotational constraints, cooldowns, etc.) then builds like mechanist which have to worry about none of these things will always overperform.  The only way they don't is if you tone them down to have a lower maximum potential than classes that have more limitations.  That is what they did.  It was the right call.  And that is balancing by difficulty.

Making mech or any other class harder to play will not solve balance issues. Whoever conquers the difficulty wall will be overpowered. Classes have to be balanced assuming that they will always be played at their maximum potential.

[AliamRationem.5172]

37 minutes ago, MaLong.2079 said:

Making mech or any other class harder to play will not solve balance issues. Whoever conquers the difficulty wall will be overpowered. Classes have to be balanced assuming that they will always be played at their maximum potential.

Difficulty is not the only issue with mech.  DPS uptime is the larger issue.  It has a really high damage non-chain ranged auto attack paired with several passive damage traits and a mech that ignores mechanics and deals a significant portion of its DPS.  No spec can compete with that outside of pure stack-in-a-pile encounters.  Even at the high end this is true, but it's even more of an issue the lower you go on the skill spectrum because lower skill groups have to deal with more mechanics, can't skip phases, have poor boon uptime, etc.  All things that impact other specs more than mech, compounding the advantage.

You're saying they don't need to balance for that?  I think that's all wrong.  They should be looking at how specs actually perform rather than balancing purely around maximum potential.

[Frayze.4620]

6 hours ago, MaLong.2079 said:

Making mech or any other class harder to play will not solve balance issues. Whoever conquers the difficulty wall will be overpowered. Classes have to be balanced assuming that they will always be played at their maximum potential.

I completely  disagree and luckily so do the devs who have explicitly stated they are going to stop balancing around what a class could theoretically do in the hands of a top 1% player.

 

 Edit for typo 

Edited October 27, 2022 by Frayze.4620

[draxynnic.3719]

On 10/24/2022 at 7:56 PM, Malus.2184 said:

I've never discussed balance goals nor have I even mentioned it, I've never ben particularly interested in this either as I see it as an activity. Numbers can always be adjusted if they're off the intended. Feel of how it is to perform the activity is nearly impossible to correct. And a lot of the conceptual things needs to be included in every other spec even though the current execution is flawed.

Ah, I see. You're more interested in condescendingly nitpicking over rhetorical points and fine details of academic theories than actually discussing the matter at hand. More fool me for falling for it, I guess.

 

To give a final overview: The problem with rifle mechanist in its past state was that it was so good - within 2-3k of top DPS, nearly entirely ranged, highly mobile, highly resistant to being disrupted by mechanics - and so easy to play that once you were proficient with it, the amount of additional learning you'd need to commit to just to get another DPS build to a comparable level of performance is so daunting that a lot of people either just aren't going to try, or if they do, they'll get discouraged by not being able to achieve the performance they did with rifle mechanist and go back to rifle mechanist. Meanwhile, even the elite players were finding it better than the alternative, more often than not. 

 

ZPD theory just stops being particularly relevant to player behaviour when the only choices available become jumping straight into the "too frustrating to even attempt" zone or accepting a drop in performance for a long time while learning a more complex build that barely outperforms pre-nerf rifle mechanist even when everything goes right. The other builds do have routes by which you can learn them in a step-by-step fashion where each step is achievable, it's just that these steps are not generally communicated to most players (although some of the build sites are starting to have beginner-oriented sections) and they're just not the quick route to power that rifle mechanist is.

[draxynnic.3719]

13 hours ago, MaLong.2079 said:

Making mech or any other class harder to play will not solve balance issues. Whoever conquers the difficulty wall will be overpowered. Classes have to be balanced assuming that they will always be played at their maximum potential.

No, they should be balanced according to what most people are capable of doing.

People don't care if the top 0.000001% of players can speedclear 10% faster by using builds that are so complex they can be compared to trying to play tennis and an accordion at the same time. They care about being able to bring their chosen profession to a group at an average level of skill* without being a meme, even if that happens to be elementalist.

This may require adjustment every so often if the average player starts doing better than expected and a particular build starts being overrepresented as a result, but balancing based on "this build is becoming a little too popular to be balanced" is better than balancing based on the speedclearers achieving something extreme on builds that most players* won't even attempt.

*For players of endgame content, that is. Let's not have a "but ArenaNet said most players do 10% of the damage of the top players" strawman here - those players are mostly not doing endgame content in the first place and are about as relevant to the endgame balance scene as my next keyfarming character. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Obtena.7952]

Anet just acknowledged in balance philosophy livestream that accessibility to builds for all players ... is a thing. Take that for what you will but to me it says, power mech isn't a mistake. Right up front in the Goals:

Fundamentally, our goal is to ensure that the moment-to-moment gameplay in Guild Wars 2 is enjoyable for as many players as possible. To that end, we want to capitalize on the depth of the combat system to build a fluid and fast-paced combat experience that allows players to express their mastery of mechanics. We also want to create a substantial number of viable build options and allow for a broad set of combat strategies in order to enable a wide range of playstyles

Edited October 28, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Tails.9372]

On 10/28/2022 at 10:17 PM, Obtena.7952 said:

Anet just acknowledged that accessibility to builds for all players ... is a thing. Take that for what you will but to me it says, power mech isn't a mistake. 

They also said during the stream that "fun" is a major part of their consideration in which case mechanist does a good job serving its purpose given that many of the more casual players across several platforms commonly mentioned the simplicity of the gameplay as one of the main reasons as for why they like it which would be in line with what they said about LI builds.

But then aggain they e.g also havily nerfed Invigorating Precision despite the fact that the "power budget" already favored No Quarter so "what they say" and "what they do" are sometimes the exact opposite.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Treacy.4067]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Anet just acknowledged in balance philosophy livestream that accessibility to builds for all players ... is a thing. Take that for what you will but to me it says, power mech isn't a mistake. Right up front in the Goals:

Fundamentally, our goal is to ensure that the moment-to-moment gameplay in Guild Wars 2 is enjoyable for as many players as possible. To that end, we want to capitalize on the depth of the combat system to build a fluid and fast-paced combat experience that allows players to express their mastery of mechanics. We also want to create a substantial number of viable build options and allow for a broad set of combat strategies in order to enable a wide range of playstyles

To me that says the opposite.  It's talking about rewarding those that can master their builds.  So yes it was a mistake because it's rewarding too much for too little.  The end goal is to make sure each profession has options for viable easier builds, not doing top dps with no intensity builds. The term "depth of the combat system" is the key, as well as "while still having room for them to improve their mastery over the combat system and increase their effectiveness."  So they look ready to dial those LI builds back a bit.

[Malus.2184]

On 10/27/2022 at 3:39 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

Ah, I see. You're more interested in condescendingly nitpicking over rhetorical points and fine details of academic theories than actually discussing the matter at hand. More fool me for falling for it, I guess.

The matter at hand is a fool's errand because any Profession pushes numbers and how people percieve those numbers is always individual. If it was objective then people would have no problem with the Untamed APM since it has the highest DPS.

The moment you start attaching terms like, "feels off ," "too good," etc to objective numbers then it's no longer objective even though you think otherwise it's subjective and in the terms of the subjective numbers only matter in relation to what a person "feels is right." And what the person feels is right is subject to their personal bias.

If wrong is objective then I will  paraphrase Death of Disworld, "grind the universe into dust and filter it through the finest sieve, then show me one molecule of 'wrong.'"

On 10/27/2022 at 3:39 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

ZPD theory just stops being particularly relevant to player behaviour when the only choices available become jumping straight into the "too frustrating to even attempt" zone...

This, means nothing, I've tried reading it multiple times, I know the individual words and when comined they just make a word salad that in regards to the ZPD has no meaning since that's the objective case of builds who use externatilies, meaning, "absent from the Profession/Elite Spec mechanics," in order to trigger a rotational effect. To use one of the most eggregious examples, Support Specter. If it was well-designed then it would give Alac out upon using the barrier thing rather than when using Wells since that prevents the reactive effects of Wells being used reactively. In this case, it's no longer a Utility.

Condi Virt and Sourge have proper staged performance levels since they have their performance enhancers mainly situated within their Profession and Elite Spec mechanics and as such they can use their Utility for utility without suffering that great of an impact.

On 10/27/2022 at 3:46 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

No, they should be balanced according to what most people are capable of doing.

This is objectively incorrect. They should be balanced after the top and they should have a upward slope in performance so that people could reach gradual levels of efficay in the task instead of a vertical line as most have now. It should go something like 25% performance -> 50% performance -> 75% performance -> 100% performance. Most specs use Utility skills only to increase their performance and as such their performance goes something like 15% performance -> 100% performance.

As I said before, only Elite Specs that has their functionality increases baked into their Profession Mechanics and or weapon mechanics have an upward slope in performance. Any spec that needs an externality will have a sharp increase from base to good and those are the only two points.

 

[Sigmoid.7082]

11 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Anet just acknowledged in balance philosophy livestream that accessibility to builds for all players ... is a thing. Take that for what you will but to me it says, power mech isn't a mistake. Right up front in the Goals:

Fundamentally, our goal is to ensure that the moment-to-moment gameplay in Guild Wars 2 is enjoyable for as many players as possible. To that end, we want to capitalize on the depth of the combat system to build a fluid and fast-paced combat experience that allows players to express their mastery of mechanics. We also want to create a substantial number of viable build options and allow for a broad set of combat strategies in order to enable a wide range of playstyles

They also mention how complexity and expression of player skill should be rewarded. Combine that with what you quoted with the comments about LI builds having a place and it's pretty much what people have been saying in this thread. That there is a place and a space in the game for LI builds but they likely should not be the best performing in realistic scenarios. Not saying LI builds should be bad just not so overly rewarding. 

Quote

We want to design builds that allow players with a high level of mastery to demonstrate their prowess and be appropriately rewarded in terms of effectiveness. At the same time, we want to ensure that there are builds for every profession that require less mastery to be effective. These builds should allow players to succeed in parties and clear content, while still having room for them to improve their mastery over the combat system and increase their effectiveness.

 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Sigmoid.7082

[keykey.9182]

15 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

They also said during the stream that "fun" is a major part of their consideration in which case mechanist does a good job serving its purpose

 

Yeah I agree sure is fun when you play the most OP busted 11111 FOTM class that can solo dungeons and fracs using one hand. With more Self-healing running Berserker full gear than a dedicated healer with Minstrel gear.

 

Come on dude Phase Shift Signet alone puts all my Ele Utilities and some actual weapon skills to shame.

 

Why don't we see more DeadEyes for example? Its the same playstyle as Pmech same weapon too...........aaaaaaaaaaaaaah riiiiiiiiiiiight because its not as busted and OP and IT HAS A ROTATION!!

 

I wonder how many casuls players like you would be still having F-U-N if Mech did 1/4 of the damage it does and they removed the 101 tools of selfsubstain it has.

 

Which with all honesty its where it should be 8k-10k at most. Is this not the "standart dps to clear everything in the game according to anet"?

 

A Class that you can literally be AFK have no knowledge whatsoever about the game/class or boss encounter and pull off better numbers than people actually playing the game searching tips for their Main Class and how to improve.

 

The kittening ultimate joke to gaming culture in the past 20 years.

 

Should rename the class to "The Mechcasual"

 

 

 

 

 

[Obtena.7952]

7 hours ago, Sigmoid.7082 said:

They also mention how complexity and expression of player skill should be rewarded. Combine that with what you quoted with the comments about LI builds having a place and it's pretty much what people have been saying in this thread. That there is a place and a space in the game for LI builds but they likely should not be the best performing in realistic scenarios. Not saying LI builds should be bad just not so overly rewarding. 

 

... and even with the presence of LI builds, the builds that have complexity and expression of player skill do still exist to do that. There is no argument that says the presence of accessible builds eliminates the complex ones that reward skill. They are BOTH rewarding in different ways to different players. 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[zeyeti.8347]

2 hours ago, keykey.9182 said:

Why don't we see more DeadEyes for example? Its the same playstyle as Pmech same weapon too...........aaaaaaaaaaaaaah riiiiiiiiiiiight because its not as busted and OP and IT HAS A ROTATION!!

Mech pew pew has also a rotation , 1111111111 is still a rotation 😁

[zeyeti.8347]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

... and even with the presence of LI builds, the builds that have complexity and expression of player skill do still exist to do that. There is no argument that says the presence of accessible builds eliminates the complex ones that reward skill. They are BOTH rewarding in different ways to different players. 

No . sorry Obtena , go tell that to an ele or an untamed wrecking his keyboard  and looking at the pew pew master who can play with a sega master system control , reward is too little , even for those who master the class , catalyst is currently at 38k with a hard rotation and mech at 34-35 with the apm of an oyster , so this gap need to be improved , and i am not talking about the untamed , my god , feel like doing power training just doing the rotation on the golem. Numbers are there 25% of players choose mecha , cause it's so easy to play , you can actualy do the same numbers that on the raid training golem.

Edited October 29, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Obtena.7952]

8 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

No . sorry Obtena , go tell that to an ele or an untamed wrecking his keyboard  and looking at the pew pew master who can play with a sega master system control , reward is too little , even for those who master the class , catalyst is currently at 38k with a hard rotation and mech at 34-35 with the apm of an oyster , so this gap need to be improved , and i am not talking about the untamed , my god , feel like doing power training just doing the rotation on the golem. Numbers are there 25% of players choose mecha , cause it's so easy to play , you can actualy do the same numbers that on the raid training golem.

I am telling that to them. I've been telling that to everyone for 10 years. I mean, are you actually going to argue that these complex builds rewarding people with DPS when they execute them are somehow not rewarding to them anymore, because of other builds? If that's the case, those people have been lying to themselves about why they play those builds in the first place because the reward for complexity resulting in DPS output hasn't changed on those builds.

The question here isn't if there are builds people can play that are complex to reward them for complex play ... because there always have been and will be those builds. They didn't disappear because of easy to play builds.

The question is why despite having builds that reward them for complex play, they are against builds that reward people for other aspects of playing the game. 

You know, the funny thing here is ... I'm just going to point you to the Goal Anet stated for the philosophy behind balancing; I no longer have to make claims to what that philosophy might be to justify the way I think the game works. Now, it's right there from the source . No one can argue it's 'wrong'. It can't be ignored to push agendas. Player's suggestions can't conflict with it. It's the way it is.

Edited October 30, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[draxynnic.3719]

On 10/29/2022 at 6:17 AM, Obtena.7952 said:

Anet just acknowledged in balance philosophy livestream that accessibility to builds for all players ... is a thing. Take that for what you will but to me it says, power mech isn't a mistake. Right up front in the Goals:

Fundamentally, our goal is to ensure that the moment-to-moment gameplay in Guild Wars 2 is enjoyable for as many players as possible. To that end, we want to capitalize on the depth of the combat system to build a fluid and fast-paced combat experience that allows players to express their mastery of mechanics. We also want to create a substantial number of viable build options and allow for a broad set of combat strategies in order to enable a wide range of playstyles

I don't think its existence is a mistake, but being such an outlier IS (or at least was, my personal jury is still out on post-nerf mechanist). It outperformed entire professions in the DPS role, and no other profession had a build that combined the ease of use, effectiveness, and ability to keep functioning at close to top effectiveness despite mechanics (including sometimes being the one to do them) that mechanist achieved.

[zeyeti.8347]

15 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I am telling that to them. I've been telling that to everyone for 10 years. I mean, are you actually going to argue that these complex builds rewarding people with DPS when they execute them are somehow not rewarding to them anymore, because of other builds? If that's the case, those people have been lying to themselves about why they play those builds in the first place because the reward for complexity resulting in DPS output hasn't changed on those builds.

The question here isn't if there are builds people can play that are complex to reward them for complex play ... because there always have been and will be those builds. They didn't disappear because of easy to play builds.

The question is why despite having builds that reward them for complex play, they are against builds that reward people for other aspects of playing the game. 

You know, the funny thing here is ... I'm just going to point you to the Goal Anet stated for the philosophy behind balancing; I no longer have to make claims to what that philosophy might be to justify the way I think the game works. Now, it's right there from the source . No one can argue it's 'wrong'. It can't be ignored to push agendas. Player's suggestions can't conflict with it. It's the way it is.

Yes , manipulating a complex build reward you with the satisfaction of being top dps or having crazy numbers or having the ability to save your teammates as support efficientaly , when you have builds so easy to play that do +- the same job as your build , i am pointing out mech again , as support you know you can pretty much maintain a good chunk of barrier , maintain alacrity , 25 might , fury and a bit of prot , aegis and stab . almost afk , try do that as healtemp. 

I am not saying that healtemp. need an easy build afk , but should be rewarded with more boon uptime , more heals availabilty.

And for the philosophy , anet stated they want easy and complex build for each class , rewarding the more complex one , so you just want to hear what you want to hear , close your ears when you want.

If they do what they said , well maybe ppl will be back playing elementalist , just so you know i know ppl with more than 40k achiev who left the game cause ele was their main . Are you gonna say thats normal ? why arent complex build played in endgame , why isnt untamed played endgame ? cause their complexity isn t rewarding enough.

thats the feeling of many ppl , just to point out ele is at 4% played endgame (the whole 3 e-specs) why ? cause it isnt rewarding enough today , ele core traits are old with a lot of dust on it , and need a rework better implimentation , my go just look at pyromancer puissance trait : gain might whenever you use a fire skill , when overload are attune out of fire you loose 10 stacks of might  , give them to allies and do "kitten" like damage .... What's the purpose of that trait ? Really i am asking it seriously , what's this trait purpose . Damage ? no , loosing 10 stacks of might ....Support ? no , giving ten stacks of might to allies , while you loose it , or you play healer with fire traits ....

I am still wondering what you want ? the game stays like that ? You can't consider that literally nobody is playing ele ? and a lot choose mech ? Not considering the biggest flaw from the game is balance ?

Edited October 30, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Frayze.4620]

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Yes , manipulating a complex build reward you with the satisfaction of being top dps or having crazy numbers or having the ability to save your teammates as support efficientaly , when you have builds so easy to play that do +- the same job as your build , i am pointing out mech again , as support you know you can pretty much maintain a good chunk of barrier , maintain alacrity , 25 might , fury and a bit of prot , aegis and stab . almost afk , try do that as healtemp. 

I am not saying that healtemp. need an easy build afk , but should be rewarded with more boon uptime , more heals availabilty.

And for the philosophy , anet stated they want easy and complex build for each class , rewarding the more complex one , so you just want to hear what you want to hear , close your ears when you want.

If they do what they said , well maybe ppl will be back playing elementalist , just so you know i know ppl with more than 40k achiev who left the game cause ele was their main . Are you gonna say thats normal ? why arent complex build played in endgame , why isnt untamed played endgame ? cause their complexity isn t rewarding enough.

thats the feeling of many ppl , just to point out ele is at 4% played endgame (the whole 3 e-specs) why ? cause it isnt rewarding enough today , ele core traits are old with a lot of dust on it , and need a rework better implimentation , my go just look at pyromancer puissance trait : gain might whenever you use a fire skill , when overload are attune out of fire you loose 10 stacks of might  , give them to allies and do "kitten" like damage .... What's the purpose of that trait ? Really i am asking it seriously , what's this trait purpose . Damage ? no , loosing 10 stacks of might ....Support ? no , giving ten stacks of might to allies , while you loose it , or you play healer with fire traits ....

I am still wondering what you want ? the game stays like that ? You can't consider that literally nobody is playing ele ? and a lot choose mech ? Not considering the biggest flaw from the game is balance ?

I don’t think anyone anywhere on this thread has said that “ele is in a good spot” or anything like like. I fail to see what you ranting about ele issues has to do with this threads topic?

i get it, you want people who can mash more buttons more quickly to have more. More dps, more heals, more boons, whatever. As long as it’s more. And not just a little more. A LOT more. 
Well thankfully, not everybody agrees with you, and thankfully those people seem to include Anet. There’s already been a substantial drop off in any serious content of mechanist users, showing that the recent nerfs has the desired effect. It doesn’t need to be nerfed  into irrelevance, ruining higher level gameplay for a substantial portion of the player base, to pander to the minority who seem to equate a bigger damage number on a computer game to their own self worth.

 Seriously, try to stop caring so much about what others are doing and just look at your own performance. It could be rather liberating for you. We all know that she is in a rough spot, so if you can hit near the bench on an actual boss, well kitten done you! You rightly deserve to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in your performance. If someone else, on a completely different class, pressing completely different buttons, has a completely different number on a damage meter, how does that affect that? If you want the same damage numbers, you can play that class as well? Or are you saying you will only be content when all numbers are balanced to what? The nearest 5dps? The nearest 100dps? The nearest 1000? What is the acceptable cut off to you? Because unless you want every class to have exactly the same damage, with exactly the same abilities with the only difference being flavour text, there are always going to be classes that have their time in the sun. 
You are getting yourself into a frothy rage over a class you ABSOLUTELY HAVE THE CHOICE TO PLAY. Now consider ele in its heyday. It had a famously difficult “piano rotation” to output its substantial dps. So would any player with a physical difficulty or limitation be able to do that rotation? Very doubtful indeed. So is it right or fair? No. 
Even worse, power mech is by far the strongest class now. Go look at the holy realm of snowcrows. Look at their benchmark section. Scroll down…. Keep scrolling down…..a bit more…. There. There’s power mech. See how far down it is? So all of those specs above it do exactly what you want. They put out more damage for pressing more things. You can play any of those and know that you should be able to put that noob-casual-mech-fotm-ltp kitten in their place with your uber-pro complex 500 step rotation. If you can’t, then that ain’t on the mech player or the balance situation.

 

 It’s on you.

[draxynnic.3719]

48 minutes ago, Frayze.4620 said:

I don’t think anyone anywhere on this thread has said that “ele is in a good spot” or anything like like. I fail to see what you ranting about ele issues has to do with this threads topic?

i get it, you want people who can mash more buttons more quickly to have more. More dps, more heals, more boons, whatever. As long as it’s more. And not just a little more. A LOT more. 
Well thankfully, not everybody agrees with you, and thankfully those people seem to include Anet. There’s already been a substantial drop off in any serious content of mechanist users, showing that the recent nerfs has the desired effect. It doesn’t need to be nerfed  into irrelevance, ruining higher level gameplay for a substantial portion of the player base, to pander to the minority who seem to equate a bigger damage number on a computer game to their own self worth.

 Seriously, try to stop caring so much about what others are doing and just look at your own performance. It could be rather liberating for you. We all know that she is in a rough spot, so if you can hit near the bench on an actual boss, well kitten done you! You rightly deserve to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in your performance. If someone else, on a completely different class, pressing completely different buttons, has a completely different number on a damage meter, how does that affect that? If you want the same damage numbers, you can play that class as well? Or are you saying you will only be content when all numbers are balanced to what? The nearest 5dps? The nearest 100dps? The nearest 1000? What is the acceptable cut off to you? Because unless you want every class to have exactly the same damage, with exactly the same abilities with the only difference being flavour text, there are always going to be classes that have their time in the sun. 
You are getting yourself into a frothy rage over a class you ABSOLUTELY HAVE THE CHOICE TO PLAY. Now consider ele in its heyday. It had a famously difficult “piano rotation” to output its substantial dps. So would any player with a physical difficulty or limitation be able to do that rotation? Very doubtful indeed. So is it right or fair? No. 
Even worse, power mech is by far the strongest class now. Go look at the holy realm of snowcrows. Look at their benchmark section. Scroll down…. Keep scrolling down…..a bit more…. There. There’s power mech. See how far down it is? So all of those specs above it do exactly what you want. They put out more damage for pressing more things. You can play any of those and know that you should be able to put that noob-casual-mech-fotm-ltp kitten in their place with your uber-pro complex 500 step rotation. If you can’t, then that ain’t on the mech player or the balance situation.

 

 It’s on you.

I'm pretty sure that's not what they were saying.

The problem is, though... well let's go with a hypothetical.

You have two builds, of different professions, each of which is the top DPS build of their profession. One is full ranged, has a 'press a small number of buttons on recharge' rotation making it virtually immune to being disrupted by mechanics or having to do mechanics, and has a teleport that allows it to more quickly respond to movement based mechanics, had moderate base health and armour, and has CC available pretty much whenever it needs it. The other is melee, has three separate rotations to learn with a total of over a hundred steps making it complex to learn as well as being easily disrupted by mechanics, has relatively little mobility and in fact some of its damage is lost if the target moves, has low base health and armour, and its ability to CC depends on where it happens to be in the rotation.

Both have the same DPS in ideal circumstances, and neither brings much in the way of utility beyond what's described above.

Now, you're setting up a squad. Which would you rather see someone bring? Build 1 is almost idiotproof - if someone rocks up with that, then all they really need is a basic understanding of the fight mechanics to give reliable DPS. While, if you get someone rocking up with Build 2... sure, if they're an elite player, and the fight doesn't involve a lot of movement, and you can stay in melee for the entire fight, and they never get their rotation disrupted, then they might get about the same performance as a mediocre player using Build 2. But that's a lot of ifs. Maybe they haven't quite got the rotation down, so their DPS is going to be lower. Maybe they'll eat a hit and get downed when Build 1 with a higher base health and damage would have stayed standing. Maybe at least one of the fights you're forming the squad to fight will require moving to follow the boss or even to get out of melee for a bit. And even the best player might be caught out by having to dodge at an inconvenient time, thereby disrupting their rotation and reducing their DPS.

You might not be willing to appear toxic and kick the player playing Build 2, but you'd rather see someone playing Build 1, wouldn't you? This creates pressure, whether spoken or unspoken, for players to move away from Build 2 and towards Build 1 in order to more reliably clear content. Which is a bit of a pain for people who really like the profession for whom Build 2 is their best DPS option. Sure, technically they can still play the profession they enjoy, but both they and the people they play with know that they'd probably be having more success if they just moved to Build 1 instead. This is a problem that can be solved by nerfing Build 1 or buffing Build 2, but in the meantime, the mere existence of Build 1 has a suppressive effect on any build that is more difficult to play and/or more susceptible to mechanics unless that build brings something to the table that Build 1 doesn't.

Do you see the problem now? Do you see why balancing everything based on a theoretical maximum potential that maybe only a few dozen players out of the entire player base can actually reach was a bad approach?

And, as you might have already realised...

This was never actually a hypothetical.

Build 1 was pre-nerf rifle mechanist, and Build 2 is condi weaver which benches at the same ballpark of 38k.

Edited October 30, 2022 by draxynnic.3719

[Obtena.7952]

8 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I don't think its existence is a mistake, but being such an outlier IS (or at least was, my personal jury is still out on post-nerf mechanist). It outperformed entire professions in the DPS role, and no other profession had a build that combined the ease of use, effectiveness, and ability to keep functioning at close to top effectiveness despite mechanics (including sometimes being the one to do them) that mechanist achieved.

True, mechanist has a problem but I think it's about time people recognize that problem isn't it's low APM. We see Anet's goal now and builds that provide good DPS performance with a low APM fit into that goal QUITE nicely. Unfortunately, THAT is the part of the mechanist that gets the most calls for the nerf, not the real issue with massive role compression. I mean, admittedly, the DPS is high but just a thought experiment, even at something more reasonable like 25K ... these complaints would still exist because the DPS isn't REALLY what is wrong with mechanist. 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

11 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Yes , manipulating a complex build reward you with the satisfaction of being top dps or having crazy numbers or having the ability to save your teammates as support efficientaly , when you have builds so easy to play that do +- the same job as your build , i am pointing out mech again , as support you know you can pretty much maintain a good chunk of barrier , maintain alacrity , 25 might , fury and a bit of prot , aegis and stab . almost afk , try do that as healtemp. 

You can't do that on a heal temp AFAIK ... but that's irrelevant to the discussion anyways. The point I'm making is that if people want to be rewarded with complex rotations, those builds exist. They never went away. They aren't going away. The existence of not-complex builds doesn't change how people are rewarded for their good execution of complex builds. 

What other people play doesn't impact someone's ability to choose to play these still-existing complex builds if playing complex builds is what they want to be rewarded from.

Seems to me your complaint has little to do with mech at all. Just seems like a convenient place to hang your flag to complain about healtempest, even though heal tempest is extremely good at what it does ... provided you can play it properly. 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Obtena.7952