Mechanist is dividing the Community

[SamuelW.2685]

Unlocked mechanist today, been doing some HP's so I can unlock holo and scrapper, I only leveled mech for the gloves but thought I might as well use it to get the HP's

Holy crap it's like cheating, the pet itself regularly hit's for 10k with the middle arms if you spam abilites, and has 50k HP with 2000 toughness, meaning it will always tank for you if you are solo. 

And that's just from me doing a few HP's and events, been reading it's builds online and this thing can heal and give alac too! Like, kitten anet! Vindicator can ONLY DPS, it's not even the best DPS, it's better now with the patch but Vinci sure as kitten can't fulfil 3 roles on one spec.

It's the fact that mech can do everything with seemingly no downsides, like you don't need to worry about specific toolbelt skills like other specs, you can camp rifle for consistent high to middling damage at 1200 range, and if you want, you can heal or give alac too! It invalidates other spec's by existing.

[Infusion.7149]

1 hour ago, SamuelW.2685 said:

Unlocked mechanist today, been doing some HP's so I can unlock holo and scrapper, I only leveled mech for the gloves but thought I might as well use it to get the HP's

Holy crap it's like cheating, the pet itself regularly hit's for 10k with the middle arms if you spam abilites, and has 50k HP with 2000 toughness, meaning it will always tank for you if you are solo. 

And that's just from me doing a few HP's and events, been reading it's builds online and this thing can heal and give alac too! Like, kitten anet! Vindicator can ONLY DPS, it's not even the best DPS, it's better now with the patch but Vinci sure as kitten can't fulfil 3 roles on one spec.

It's the fact that mech can do everything with seemingly no downsides, like you don't need to worry about specific toolbelt skills like other specs, you can camp rifle for consistent high to middling damage at 1200 range, and if you want, you can heal or give alac too! It invalidates other spec's by existing.

The Mech robot having 2K toughness and just under 50K HP is actually unremarkable since you get only one mech (unless you use overclock signet) and the entire traitline becomes useless more or less if it dies. Case in point: run Mechanist underwater. What is remarkable about the mech robot is consistent ranged DPS only and how much is tied into it, which is why condi mech and alac/heal mech are far less an issue. This is especially true since condi mech needs to exist given the extremely poor uptake of condi holo / condi core engi.

Rough testing puts ranged mech robot still easily over 5K DPS under standard benchmark conditions without skill use (easily 7- 8K with full autocasts not counting Big Boomer due to no player attacking  ; snowcrows logs put it at ~9.5K for the mech itself as of October) whereas in melee it does over 6K DPS in melee (and easily 8-9K with full autocasts not counting Big Boomer due to no player attacking). For the condi version it's a similar story to a melee power mech using High Impact Drivers instead of Jade Cannons except the condi mech does actually less autoattack DPS. This suggests the margin between the melee version and ranged version has become minimal in Arenanet's balancing method but in real scenarios the ranged version will always be superior unless there are projectile reflects. The melee version needs pathing as well as hitting the full chain while the ranged version can just fire at will. The baseline for a player doing absolutely nothing should be around 23-25K at best in melee since that is historically the performance of staff daredevil auto , reaper auto, and holosmith photon forge in melee.) 


For reference, siege turtle from EoD is 53K HP with 2.3k toughness and has a slow ranged attack; bristleback is 27K HP and 3k toughness; rock gazelle is 40K HP with 3k toughness and is melee; smokescale are 40K+ HP with 2.3K toughness, and jacaranda are 42k HP with 2.3k toughness on a full glass soulbeast. An untamed or any non-soulbeast ranger gets two pets at a time. Minions usually do around 1-2K DPS on necros. Before the October patch and banner reworks untamed DPS pets were doing something akin to 3K DPS without boons, now they can manage something akin to 7K DPS in melee. The siege turtle that is ranged on ranger is able to pull off maybe 1K DPS if you're lucky while not having any boons on it and the same goes for the bristleback.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[draxynnic.3719]

On 10/21/2022 at 1:39 AM, Malus.2184 said:

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.

And rifle mechanist being a build that, unless you pulled off perfect rotations, outperformed basically every other DPS builds in practical circumstances that you were basically handicapping your team by not playing rifle mechanist in power fights is NOT locking players into a playstyle they might dislike?

The competition I referred to had at least three builds per profession any that was just the finalists. There were plenty of options.

As for the claim that APM has no impact on being able to play something:

That's just a load of taurus excretus. While APM isn't a perfect measure, it IS an indication of how difficult something is to play. It places a limiter on how complex the rotation can be, which also places a limiter on how much you're asking the player to remember to play the build. To put things in perspective, an APM of 20 or less is essentially asking the player to make an average of less than an input every three seconds (apart from autoattacking and moving). That's at a point that's pretty easy to learn, and should be within the ZPD of anyone who made it to endgame content in the first place. It also tends to mean that the build has plenty of space for putting in skills that help to reduce the impact of mechanics.

On 10/21/2022 at 1:39 AM, Malus.2184 said:

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.'

...the more this discussion goes on, the more I get the impression you've just come across a buzzword you think you can use to beat people you disagree with without actually understanding the wider context of learning theory.

Here's the thing: Learning isn't just about the ZPD. The learner needs motivation. Something being clearly outside the ZPD is demotivating. But so is having the feeling there's no point to learning in the first place.

Now, let's take rifle mechanist at the point where it was doing 38k DPS with a rotation that was using a fairly limited set of skills on cooldown and otherwise autoattacking. Anything that outperformed it was well outside the ZPD of someone who just has the relatively basic skills required to run rifle mechanist to full capacity (and even then you'd usually end up with something that requires specific circumstances to actually pull off a DPS of only two or three thousand higher). Meanwhile, there are builds that are within the ZPD... but going to those builds means that there's going to be a significant portion of the learning period where the player is going to be substantially underperforming compared to what they were able to do with pmech, which is likely to discourage them and just make them go back to what works, especially if they know that even when they've mastered the new build it won't be substantially outperforming what they were already going to do. People learn things like calculus because once you've mastered it, you can do things you can't do without it (at least not without going into longer and even MORE complicated mathematics) - if there was a technique that could do everything calculus did while being easier to learn and apply, it'd just be a toy for maths nerds who want to show off, theoretical mathematicians trying to find a practical application for it, and maybe occasionally used to double-check an answer found by another method.

Saying that pre-nerf rifle mechanist "destroyed the ZPD" was a rhetorical point, not a literal one. Technically, sure, the ZPD is still there - there are definitely builds that are within the ZPD of a player who has just reached the level required to operate rifle mechanist. However, anyone trying those builds is likely to be discouraged from putting in the effort to master them because when they start learning they'll substantially underperform compared to what they're used to, and it only takes a glance at the benchmarks to understand that even if they do master the new build, it's not going to be much better than the easy DPS they're already getting. So what's the point of learning? The ZPD of progressing from rifle mechanist into more complex builds is, therefore, still there, but it's effectively destroyed because there's no incentive for players to push themselves out of the ZPD, apart from learning new roles. (And even then, most of the other roles can be filled by further variants of mechanist.)

Tl;DR: While some people do enjoy learning for its own sake, for a lot of people, something being in the ZPD only matters if they perceive a benefit from learning it.

PS Or, to use your example of grades: What incentive would people have to improve from Cs if scoring Bs somehow offered less prestige and opportunity than scoring Cs, so unless you could get that A you were actually better off staying at a safe C?

Edited October 23, 2022 by draxynnic.3719
Fixed a typo.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 10/21/2022 at 5:55 AM, Vordrax.5243 said:

Well, I've seen multiple threads about Mechanist, which has been OP for a few months (and was nerfed earlier this month.) I don't see many threads dedicated to how oppressive Firebrand is to the meta, despite it being dominant for several years.

Like people have said, there have absolutely been a lot, primarily in the profession forums. Including people making suggestions that are pretty darn punitive in nature. However, I think there are a number of reasons why firebrand is less of an issue than rifle mechanist was (I'm wary of judging where it is NOW so soon) - it took longer to get into a dominant position, it had less competition for the role it primarily occupied so you'd naturally expect to see them filling that role, and outside of fractals (which could be explained by the high barrier to experimentation in fractals - people knew firebrand worked, that's what they committed to getting 150AR for) you generally still saw more variation in DPS slots. I've certainly never heard of squads being 70% firebrands unless someone was making a point. DPS firebrand works, but outside of the AR incentive to have a single gearset that could quickly switch from support to DPS in fractals, it just didn't dominate DPS like prenerf rifle mech did.

On 10/21/2022 at 5:55 AM, Vordrax.5243 said:

Actually, I don't even see as many whine threads about HAM, maybe a few complaints here or there, but it's more like "we wish Specter was as good as HAM" rather than "Anyone who plays HAM isn't a real engineer." So, I continue to rest my case on the matter.

Ok, well as someone who not only played Engineer in the Guild Wars 2 beta, and who not only made an Engineer on day one (even though someone stole my name from the beta during the early login issues), but who also has a work title that contains the word Engineer even though I might disagree with whether or not software engineering is actually engineering, I hereby ban all childish gatekeeping about who is and who isn't a "real engineer", and declare that anyone who jumped over to play Mechanist even if they had never played Engineer before is, in fact, a "real engineer." 

Anyways, no one is saying not to bring rifle Mech in line with the rest of the game (which, as far as I can tell, has mostly been accomplished.) There is a contingent of pouty forum bunnies who want rifle Mechanist to be as much of a meme as Bear Bow Ranger, or Minionmancer. Chad Mech enjoyers are simply asking that the class not be butchered to irrelevance to appease the insecure minority.

I think it is fair to say that mechanist feels very different in playstyle to prior engineers, especially since it seems to be encouraged to rely on its own utilities more than most other specialisations. It's almost more of a mini-profession running engineer as a secondary profession than an engineer specialisation. Now, I don't think this is inherently a bad thing, but it does mean there might not be a large crossover between classic GW2 engineer enjoyers and mech enjoyers.

[Kuma.1503]

3 hours ago, SamuelW.2685 said:

Unlocked mechanist today, been doing some HP's so I can unlock holo and scrapper, I only leveled mech for the gloves but thought I might as well use it to get the HP's

Holy crap it's like cheating, the pet itself regularly hit's for 10k with the middle arms if you spam abilites, and has 50k HP with 2000 toughness, meaning it will always tank for you if you are solo. 

And that's just from me doing a few HP's and events, been reading it's builds online and this thing can heal and give alac too! Like, kitten anet! Vindicator can ONLY DPS, it's not even the best DPS, it's better now with the patch but Vinci sure as kitten can't fulfil 3 roles on one spec.

It's the fact that mech can do everything with seemingly no downsides, like you don't need to worry about specific toolbelt skills like other specs, you can camp rifle for consistent high to middling damage at 1200 range, and if you want, you can heal or give alac too! It invalidates other spec's by existing.

Yup, Mechanist is an S tier open world spec. It doesn't quite reach SSS Tier where Staff Mirage sits, but It has everything a newer player or inexperienced engineer needs to dip their toes into the game. 

There are also other engineer builds that you should try if you are interested. Prot Holo in Diviner gear with Iron blooded is my go-to for dungeon and bounty solos. You have so much cleanse, raw durability, and sustain that nothing can realistically kill you. You can run glassy gear and still tank through heavy hits thanks to the protection and damage reduction from Iron Blooded and  Light Density Amplifier. 

Tools Holo with Heat Exhaust and stamina sigil also gets an honorable mention. It's very fun. You dodge constantly and maintain perma forge. You can run Crystal Configuration - Storm with Big boomer for perma sustain. I reccomend it if you decide to do some labarynth farming... Just be sure to adjust your gear or remove some pieces so you don't nuke everything in sight. Gotta share those tags with everyone else. 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Alcatraznc.3869]

3 hours ago, SamuelW.2685 said:

And that's just from me doing a few HP's and events, been reading it's builds online and this thing can heal and give alac too! Like, kitten anet! Vindicator can ONLY DPS, it's not even the best DPS, it's better now with the patch but Vinci sure as kitten can't fulfil 3 roles on one spec.

Telling you a little secret, Mechanist, and especially PMech, is far from being the top DPS. It is barely above some support DPS and below full DPS build. 

3 hours ago, SamuelW.2685 said:

It's the fact that mech can do everything with seemingly no downsides, like you don't need to worry about specific toolbelt skills like other specs, you can camp rifle for consistent high to middling damage at 1200 range, and if you want, you can heal or give alac too! It invalidates other spec's by existing.

 

Oh really ? I would love to see you camp rifle at 1200 range while healing. I'm sure it will work perfectly. 

[Nephalem.8921]

3 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Yup, Mechanist is an S tier open world spec. It doesn't quite reach SSS Tier where Staff Mirage sits, but It has everything a newer player or inexperienced engineer needs to dip their toes into the game. 

There are also other engineer builds that you should try if you are interested. Prot Holo in Diviner gear with Iron blooded is my go-to for dungeon and bounty solos. You have so much cleanse, raw durability, and sustain that nothing can realistically kill you. You can run glassy gear and still tank through heavy hits thanks to the protection and damage reduction from Iron Blooded and  Light Density Amplifier. 

Tools Holo with Heat Exhaust and stamina sigil also gets an honorable mention. It's very fun. You dodge constantly and maintain perma forge. You can run Crystal Configuration - Storm with Big boomer for perma sustain. I reccomend it if you decide to do some labarynth farming... Just be sure to adjust your gear or remove some pieces so you don't nuke everything in sight. Gotta share those tags with everyone else. 

 

Staxe mirage is good vs bosses. Pure staff mirage is already inferior to rifle mech. SSS tier for bounty trains. c tier for open world.

Rifle mech on the other hand destroys everything. Your prot holo sounds like negative dps or a pvp build. Tools is simply inferior to explosives and firearms. heat exhaust is inferior to both other traits. whats the point in staying in forge forever when your forge hits like a wet noodle?

[Phazon.3975]

20 hours ago, SamuelW.2685 said:

Unlocked mechanist today, been doing some HP's so I can unlock holo and scrapper, I only leveled mech for the gloves but thought I might as well use it to get the HP's

Holy crap it's like cheating, the pet itself regularly hit's for 10k with the middle arms if you spam abilites, and has 50k HP with 2000 toughness, meaning it will always tank for you if you are solo. 

And that's just from me doing a few HP's and events, been reading it's builds online and this thing can heal and give alac too! Like, kitten anet! Vindicator can ONLY DPS, it's not even the best DPS, it's better now with the patch but Vinci sure as kitten can't fulfil 3 roles on one spec.

It's the fact that mech can do everything with seemingly no downsides, like you don't need to worry about specific toolbelt skills like other specs, you can camp rifle for consistent high to middling damage at 1200 range, and if you want, you can heal or give alac too! It invalidates other spec's by existing.

 

Most specs look better than Vindicator by comparison. And any healer spec is going to be bringing alac or quickness with them. Mechanist currently only has 3 roles in the meta following Snowcrows site as PowerAlac, HealAlac, and cDPS, with Rifle Mech now removed from the list. Firebrand for years could fulfill the role of Healer, BoonDPs, and DPS. Mechanist is good and flexible but far from overpowered. Sure it's easy to play but with it's lower skill ceiling it also has a lower benchmark ceiling compared to other specs. Even it's PowerAlac build has the lowest benchmark compared to other meta at a not so great 25kdps while a good amount of the support DPS specs bench in the 30s.

 

As for the experience in Open World, before the last balance patch, yeah Mechanist was kinda nuts lol. But Rifle Mech for Open World just felt more broken than it did raids, not to say that it did or did not need nerfing for the latter. It was just really easy to give yourself max might via traits, sigils, runes etc plus fury and quickness uptime and you would easily do around 24k dps. Not sure how it does now but you have to consider the fact that Engineer can not weapon swap, it loses it's toolbelt, and unless you are running Overclock Signet, you better be micromanaging or have a tanky golem because as soon as that golem needs to recall for repairs, you can kiss your DPS goodbye for a minute.

 

There's plenty of specs that dominate open world however and I really don't think Mechanist blows them at all out of the water. Specs like Reaper, Tempest, Soulbeast, Renegade, Scourge etc have been top tier for years and are much much better brawlers compared to Mechanist against the likes of solo content or fighting champions thanks to some having insane sustain.

 

Now what I really do want is them to split PvE-Instanced content balance from Open World. Rifle Mech was a clear example of things being too strong in Open World but there are specs that are really good in Raids that are not as good in Open World. Probably already Off-topic but there are a lot of traits that aren't at all viable for group content that are clearly meant to use for solo play but even in solo play they're still lacking. Just split Open World and Raid/Fractal balance please. That way things like "golem benchmark" nerfs won't affect players AND raiders who enjoy solo Open World, like myself.

 

(PS- Anet please buff ranger pets already. I love Mechanist as it's straight to the point and functions like how a summoner/pet class should but holy kitten do pets hit like a wet tissue compared to a Jade Golem. Sincerely, a core ranger enjoyer.)

Edited October 23, 2022 by Phazon.3975

[Malus.2184]

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

And rifle mechanist being a build that, unless you pulled off perfect rotations, outperformed basically every other DPS builds in practical circumstances that you were basically handicapping your team by not playing rifle mechanist in power fights is NOT locking players into a playstyle they might dislike?

This is objectively incorrect, a Bladesworn can outdamage a Mech on fights without constant movement and proper use of their Dragon Trigger.

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

...the more this discussion goes on, the more I get the impression you've just come across a buzzword you think you can use to beat people you disagree with without actually understanding the wider context of learning theory.

Here's the thing: Learning isn't just about the ZPD. The learner needs motivation. Something being clearly outside the ZPD is demotivating. But so is having the feeling there's no point to learning in the first place.

I'm the one using buzz-words yet you define something that's technically correct that lacks any and all context. The primary motication within the ZPD is that people think that they're capable of learning something. When a build goes straight from pushing buttons at random to 70+ APM then people get demotivated in their effort to improve since the scaffolding is nonexistent. If there were graduals and f. ex. 35 APM resulted in an average performance and 70 in the best and there were stops on the way to each scaffold then people would be motivated to improve. And 35 APM, unless you hit an LI build, is still going to have bad performance due to how GW2 combat works, with a few exceptions. This fuirther demotivates people because it's all or nothing.

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Saying that pre-nerf rifle mechanist "destroyed the ZPD" was a rhetorical point, not a literal one.

And that was still an extremely bad analogy that demonstrated that you have no understandiong of how the ZPD works and you just think you do. The ZPD is personal for each person, what's easy for one is too complex for another due to the first havong extensive knowledge. The Wifle Mech never destroyed the ZPD even in a figurative sense, that's a ludicrous thing to claim. If you graph it out via the ZPD it's more of a horizontal line than a slope, and a lot of people prefer this to the almost vertical line of most other specs. It's the mental path of least resistance because on a horizontal line they can at least walk along while on a vertical line where there's only 'base' and 'good' most will take one look and go "forget it."

9 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

...for a lot of people, something being in the ZPD only matters if they perceive a benefit from learning it.

Nothing is "in the ZPD." The ZPD literally describes how we learn and improve on our abilities. This statement is just pure Dunning Kruger. And the principles of how that learning process works still needs to be taken into account in order to nudge people into improving.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Malus.2184

[Kuma.1503]

10 hours ago, Nephalem.8921 said:

Staxe mirage is good vs bosses. Pure staff mirage is already inferior to rifle mech. SSS tier for bounty trains. c tier for open world.

Rifle mech on the other hand destroys everything. Your prot holo sounds like negative dps or a pvp build. Tools is simply inferior to explosives and firearms. heat exhaust is inferior to both other traits. whats the point in staying in forge forever when your forge hits like a wet noodle?

Each build has its own purpose.

Rifle Mech is a generalist with S tier dps, ranged damage, plenty of breakbar dps, and a pet to tank for you. All things that make a build great in open world. I rank it below staff mirage because it can handle virtually anything open world throws at it while rifle mech mows through squishy mobs and things like hero points, but can start to struggle vs the harder stuff that will blow up your mech (Like Dungeons or avatar of balthazar)

Prot Holo is for soloing difficult content. Looks like low DPS on paper, but ends up doing fine thanks to might, fury, vuln, and quickness. 

Fun fact btw: there's a lot of overlap between what makes a good pvp build and a good open world build. Things like self boons, cleanse, self sustain, stunbreaks, mobility, evades/blocks, the ability to fight in melee or at range. A lot of those aren't important for group content, but are very helpful when solo. 

You can run a tanky mech build as well. Iron Blooded + Barrier Signet + Heal Signet + Energizing Slam = Very tanky build.  but sometimes you want to mix things up or you want a bit more mobility. Holo also handles condis better, which isn't always relevant, but there are some bosses that will spam annoying condis on you, and having this build in your back pocket can help you deal with them. 

The infinite forge build does wet noodle dps by design. The point is to fly around the map with holo leap and rocket boots so you never fall behind the meta train and gets your tags by auto attacking in forge. If you do too much DPS, you deny the other members of the train their loot... Hence why I suggest removing some gear pieces (or running minstrel), you don't want to be that guy that blows up everything in sight and doesn't let the slower builds in the back get credit. 

Or maybe you do want to be that guy... In which case please don't lol. 

 

Appologies for text wall btw. I see new engi, I must share build. This class is very fun and I'd like others to know what it has to offer. 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[MaLong.2079]

Difficulty should not be a factor to determine if a class is balanced or not. If a class is made more powerful because it is hard to play then it will only be a matter of time before that class becomes a problem. People will learn how to play it, they will learn how to play it well, they will learn (or cheat) to play it consistently, and they will even learn how to get more from it than the designers even thought possible.

Thinking that difficulty can balance a class is a mistake.

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

4 hours ago, MaLong.2079 said:

Difficulty should not be a factor to determine if a class is balanced or not. If a class is made more powerful because it is hard to play then it will only be a matter of time before that class becomes a problem. People will learn how to play it, they will learn how to play it well, they will learn (or cheat) to play it consistently, and they will even learn how to get more from it than the designers even thought possible.

Thinking that difficulty can balance a class is a mistake.

People who is invested in game can do this. But there are people who just casually play it. Jump in couple of hours of week. what these elite people saying is, we are not allowed to dps or complete any content except play around Queensdale. Want a shinny in a year or two?, then practice whole month of play time in golem and by the time you are ready, Anet changes build. Then rinse and repeat.

Mech is truely jack of all trade. It's not the best on anything . I can beat mech dps with alot of different profession but I still prefer to play mech because IT IS FUN and RELAX for me.

[draxynnic.3719]

17 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

This is objectively incorrect, a Bladesworn can outdamage a Mech on fights without constant movement and proper use of their Dragon Trigger.

CAN, yes. But it's substantially more difficult, and can only be pulled off against certain bosses that are relatively immobile so they don't move out of the Dragon Trigger and which also don't have mechanics that can break the Dragon Trigger, and even then it only outperformed pre-nerf rifle mechanist by about 3k. Which can make it a very valid question to ask - is it WORTH going to that effort, and underperforming while you're building that up, when rifle mechanist will give you near-top DPS in any power fight with a very simple rotation. 

17 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

I'm the one using buzz-words yet you define something that's technically correct that lacks any and all context. The primary motication within the ZPD is that people think that they're capable of learning something. When a build goes straight from pushing buttons at random to 70+ APM then people get demotivated in their effort to improve since the scaffolding is nonexistent. If there were graduals and f. ex. 35 APM resulted in an average performance and 70 in the best and there were stops on the way to each scaffold then people would be motivated to improve. And 35 APM, unless you hit an LI build, is still going to have bad performance due to how GW2 combat works, with a few exceptions. This fuirther demotivates people because it's all or nothing.

The context you're ignoring (willfully, I think, at this point) is that the ZPD isn't the only consideration when it comes to motivation. Someone still has to perceive a benefit to extending from what they already know into the ZPD.

Again, you made the analogy of grades. Even in our own world, there are people who get Cs who could get Bs, but they don't do it because it just isn't a priority for them. Now, imagine that they get told by one of their friends that recently started getting Bs just meant that instead of their teachers and parents congratulating them for improving, they're just being pressured more to go straight to As, and in the meantime they're starting to be bullied for being a nerd. Meanwhile, an older cousin is telling them that performing at a B-grade level meant that most employers had started regarding them as overqualified, while the rest won't look at you unless you have As. (Something similar to this can actually happen with tertiary education in certain fields.) Now, getting to a B might well be in that person's ZPD, but unless they're confident that they'll be able to shoot straight through to As, do they really have an inventive to do so?

And this is pretty much exactly what prenerf rifle mechanist did.

Prenerf rifle mechanist was a build that could achieve very high results at what, for GW2, is essentially the equivalent of C-level player skills. The problem is, getting better than what rifle mechanist achieved required that very steep climb of jumping straight to A. Any other build in the same role being played at B-level skills would underperform compared to rifle mechanist being played at C-level, and even at A-level skills it took suitable conditions to actually beat rifle mechanist (most guilds trying for world first on HTCM stacked rifle mechanists, for instance, due to how much movement is needed). So while the C->B->A progression is technically there, there's little benefit to the player for making that progress apart from the curiosity of trying out a new build. 

Which is what I meant by "destroying the ZPD". It didn't actually destroy it, of course, but it rendered it irrelevant to many players because there was no benefit to stretching themselves when rifle mechanist at C-grade skills often outperformed anything else played with B-grade or sometimes even A-grade skills.

Again, viewing a new set of skills as being learnable from the skills the learner already has is only one factor in motivation to learn. The learner also needs to either have an inherent interest in the material, or see some other benefit to learning it. (Now, in a school context, that benefit can be as basic as "I won't get in trouble for doing poorly on a test", but that is still a benefit in the learner's eyes.)

17 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

And that was still an extremely bad analogy that demonstrated that you have no understandiong of how the ZPD works and you just think you do. The ZPD is personal for each person, what's easy for one is too complex for another due to the first havong extensive knowledge. The Wifle Mech never destroyed the ZPD even in a figurative sense, that's a ludicrous thing to claim. If you graph it out via the ZPD it's more of a horizontal line than a slope, and a lot of people prefer this to the almost vertical line of most other specs. It's the mental path of least resistance because on a horizontal line they can at least walk along while on a vertical line where there's only 'base' and 'good' most will take one look and go "forget it."

That's a serious misrepresentation of other builds. They're absolutely not the delta function you claim. There is absolutely a progression, from autoattacking or facerolling to using skills in some form of intuitive order (such as using damage skills on recharge), to making use of basic principles to achieve a more advanced if still somewhat freeform rotation, to incorporating key pieces of the set rotation, to memorising and learning it all (and being able to implement it under fire). Each of these steps is achievable from the step before and will usually bring with it an improvement in performance over the step before, with the final step being will within the "80% of the work for 20% of the benefit" side of the 80/20 rule. Sometimes you'll make build adjustments along the way (which is why I said there was a communication problem - most sites only have the build in its final maximum benchmark form, without having the variants you might go through along the way which have lower theoretical maximums but which are easier to run.

Rifle mechanist, on the other hand, maxes out pretty quickly. You can start out at the 'autoattack only' point and get in the low to mid twenties against the golem with the prenerf build. Use a short list of other skills, and you can get into mid thirties pretty easily, and then you're pretty close to what other builds can achieve without having to go through any of the steps I outlined beyond the second. At which point, there's no benefit to further developing your skills* because rifle mechanist offers no significant growth beyond that, and while for other builds progressing from "using skills in an intuitive order" to "using basic principles to leverage synergies" is relatively minor, switching to that point on any such build would involve a dip in performance compared to getting over 35k DPS on rifle mech just by using damaging skills on recharge.

*In terms of driving your build, that is. Obviously there may be benefit in learning more about handling the boss mechanics, and rifle mech is a good build for doing that.

17 hours ago, Malus.2184 said:

Nothing is "in the ZPD." The ZPD literally describes how we learn and improve on our abilities. This statement is just pure Dunning Kruger. And the principles of how that learning process works still needs to be taken into account in order to nudge people into improving.

The word "zone" is right there in the acronym. Obviously, it's a metaphorical zone rather than a literal one, but you can still consider things as being inside or outside the zone.

Yes, different people will have that zone covering different things. The basic principle is that you start out with an inner region which represents what the person is already proficient in. This is then surrounded by the ZPD that represents skills that are outside of their current capability, but which are close enough that they can build on their existing skills to develop that capability, therefore moving those skills from the ZPD to the zone of competence. And then you have the region "outside" the zone. (More precisely, the edge is probably a little fuzzy rather than having a clear outside or inside, but we're discussing balance goals for a computer game, not writing a peer-reviewed research paper here.) As people learn more, the zone of competence expands to cover capabilities that had previously been in the ZPD, and the ZPD expands in turn. 

Now, let's imagine the player who starts the game, and is directed towards playing rifle mech because that will get them to a level that can play endgame content fast. It will do so, because it achieved very high performance at a very low skill level. Their zone of proficiency now encompasses the skills required to drive rifle mechanist, but not much more. Now, they hit a barrier. Pretty much everything that can outperform rifle mechanist requires playing at a level well outside their ZPD. Meanwhile, there are builds that can be played within their ZPD - but at our hypothetical player's skill level, switching to those builds will probably lead to such a big drop in performance that there's a good chance that they'll give up before they can master the build (and if the benchmark is only around the same place that the rifle mech benchmark sits at, that'll make them even more likely to quit and go back to what works).

The ideal balance point, I think, is where it's still a good entry-level build, but it still allows players to progress into something a little more complex without a major drop in performance. Maybe they could jump to power holosmith, and maybe have a small drop in performance initially but be able to see how they'll be able to outperform what they achieved on power mech soon. Or they could switch to power quickness scrapper and have a bit of a loss of damage, but also be able to provide quickness without being too much more complex to run. Or even just go to condimech or some variety of alacmech. They may even try other professions, although that would also require learning the new profession's quirks. They'd still be able to return to riflemech when the specific encounter circumstances favour it, or when they're learning new mechanics and just want to keep to a simple rotation while they do so, but our hypothetical new-to-endgame player is at least expanding their pool of builds and developing new skills rather than sticking to rifle mech because even if they could get to power bladesworn DPS, and the boss mechanics allowed it, is it really worth it for a measly 3k additional DPS?

Now, there's a very real possibility that the nerfs already made have already brought it close to this point. But as it was, the drop in performance that comes from playing anything else at a rifle mechanist level of skill was just so high that it took a deep love for something about the competition for someone to put themselves through that additional skill development just to get back to the performance they'd already achieved with rifle mechanist.

 

13 hours ago, MaLong.2079 said:

Difficulty should not be a factor to determine if a class is balanced or not. If a class is made more powerful because it is hard to play then it will only be a matter of time before that class becomes a problem. People will learn how to play it, they will learn how to play it well, they will learn (or cheat) to play it consistently, and they will even learn how to get more from it than the designers even thought possible.

Thinking that difficulty can balance a class is a mistake.

There's a flipside to this: Balancing a profession based on its theoretical maximum tends to depress its actual performance in the hands of most players who'll never reach the theoretical maximum. If a build requires being an expert pianist and a high level of situational awareness to play effectively, then balancing it according to what that expert pianist can do means it's going to substantially underperform in the hands of everyone else, and the majority of the player base is going to gravitate to the build that can achieve adequate DPS while pressing 1.

At the end of the line, squeezing out a few extra points of DPS only really matters to the speedclearers, and does it really matter to everyone else if the speedclearers are all running sweaty elementalist builds? Most people are more interested in getting through the content with as few pulls as possible than setting records. What matters is the ability to deal with mechanics while doing sufficient damage to kill the boss. Doing more damage offers margin for error, but so does other things like being able to take pressure off the healers by throwing your own healing and/or defensive boons around, having a ranged build that isn't prone to disruption, and so on.

What happened in practice as that the top guilds going for world first on HTCM were stacking mechanists. Why? Because, in the end, ranged DPS that didn't rely on a rotation and therefore didn't suffer much from being disrupted, in addition to having mobility to deal with mechanics from Shift Signet, mattered more than being able to theoretically get an extra 2 or 3k DPS with a build that's more subject to disruption and less mobile. And if the top players are stacking an easy-to-play build, what chance do the more complex builds have in the hands of everyone else?

A better approach to balancing, albeit more difficult than just playing whack-a-mole on whatever is topping the Snowcrows benchmark (I've heard rumours that SC has started hiding their actual best builds because they've figured this out...) is observing how the builds are played in content where there's a low barrier to switching build (so, not fractals). If something is overrepresented (taking into account factors other than being OP that might lead to overrepresentation), that should be a bigger sign that there's a problem than a build that theoretically pulls 45k against a golem but which almost nobody actually plays in practice. 

[Malus.2184]

27 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

CAN, yes. But...

Now you add conditions when called out on how incredibly made-up your statement was. Also, adding a "but" to any argument just makes it disengenius.

 

28 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The context you're ignoring (willfully, I think, at this point) is that the ZPD isn't the only consideration when it comes to motivation. Someone still has to perceive a benefit to extending from what they already know into the ZPD.

You even qouted me saying

 

29 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The primary motication within the ZPD

'Primary' means that there are others and I ackonwledge this, you're the one pretending that I never did. This makes your entire response to this quote dishonest.

Espeically since you add a lot of anecdotal cirumstance which is only applicable to the person instead of an average and the entire theory. So yeah, I do ignore anecdotal experiences since the topic is on a level where the individual experience has little to no influence.

I've also said explicitly, though that might had been in another post,. that the complexity of most other specs goes in an almost vertical line from 'base performancec' to 'good performance' and that the distnace is quite far, while Mechanist has a higher baseline and almost horizontal line from 'base' to 'good.' So, I fail to see the implied inconsistency anywhere.

37 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The word "zone" is right there in the acronym. Obviously, it's a metaphorical zone rather than a literal one, but you can still consider things as being inside or outside the zone.

While that is correct it again lacks context as the other two areas in the ZPD is "so easy people become disinterested" and "too frustrating for people to even attempt.

 

39 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

...but we're discussing balance goals for a computer game....

I'm talking about performance in execution of the activity instead of numerical performance. The ZPD is adequate for describing the former and totally inadequate for explaining the latter. When the ZPD is invoked it's all about how people feel doing something rather than their performance. And that's the issue, it has nothing to do with performance. Does Ridle Mechanist have a high performance for the effort? Yes. Does this have anything to do with the ZPD? No. What does have anything to do with the ZPD is the reason people prefer this and it needs to be compared to other specs if which a person requires an incredibly high effort that goers from 0 to 100.

45 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

...we're discussing balance goals...

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.

[AliamRationem.5172]

16 hours ago, MaLong.2079 said:

Difficulty should not be a factor to determine if a class is balanced or not. If a class is made more powerful because it is hard to play then it will only be a matter of time before that class becomes a problem. People will learn how to play it, they will learn how to play it well, they will learn (or cheat) to play it consistently, and they will even learn how to get more from it than the designers even thought possible.

Thinking that difficulty can balance a class is a mistake.

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.

[Obtena.7952]

On 10/17/2022 at 10:41 AM, 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.

The "Funny" part is when those people pretend specs with more complex rotations that do reward them suddenly disappeared because of specs like mech. 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[zeyeti.8347]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

The "Funny" part is when those people pretend specs with more complex rotations that do reward them suddenly disappeared because of specs like mech. 

They didnt dissapeared , they just looses 95% of playerbase , nuance . As for the reward , i tried my power weaver with sword and dagger on a raid ... i quickly switched to mecha , cause i had to make the laundry at the same time , and well you know power weaver need 2 hands and your 10 fingers to be played (you can aslo try with your nose that make you 11 fingers ) , mech just need your thumb finger. Whole ele class is not played at endgame (the whole 3 e-specs) and ele is not alone DH , Holo , ... Why do you think ? because it's hard ? because it's not rewarding (dps wise , support wise) no ! because both of those previous statement , and yes some people can do amazing things with so hard playable classes , but they represent 0,000.......0000001% of the community as the graph of wingman says (i am exagering , i know , but it is numberless close to the truth)i know it is impossible to have the perfect curve : 2,7777% of each core and e-specs played , but when you have one at 27% and some at 0,25% , there is a problem . https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity And just a reminder , this graph is data , it's fact ! it's not a theory or a guess... "i guess the earth is flat ... " "no ! fact proves it is round , simpleton !"

Obtena , still waiting on a showdown of your amazing plays on a weaver healer with trailbrazer stuff , play how you want you know... and let the other carry your lazy carcass , while you are underperforming in your role , i call those people parasite , or leech ! Play how you want in OW , endgame -> forget about it, or .. yes play how you want and as i said up , let the others do your job.

Edited October 24, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Kuma.1503]

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

They didnt dissapeared , they just looses 95% of playerbase , nuance . As for the reward , i tried my power weaver with sword and dagger on a raid ... i quickly switched to mecha , cause i had to make the laundry at the same time , and well you know power weaver need 2 hands and your 10 fingers to be played (you can aslo try with your nose that make you 11 fingers ) , mech just need your thumb finger. Whole ele class is not played at endgame (the whole 3 e-specs) and ele is not alone DH , Holo , ... Why do you think ? because it's hard ? because it's not rewarding (dps wise , support wise) no ! because both of those previous statement , and yes some people can do amazing things with so hard playable classes , but they represent 0,000.......0000001% of the community as the graph of wingman says (i am exagering , i know , but it is numberless close to the truth)i know it is impossible to have the perfect curve : 2,7777% of each core and e-specs played , but when you have one at 27% and some at 0,25% , there is a problem . https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/popularity And just a reminder , this graph is data , it's fact ! it's not a theory or a guess... "i guess the earth is flat ... " "no ! fact proves it is round , simpleton !"

Obtena , still waiting on a showdown of your amazing plays on a weaver healer with trailbrazer stuff , play how you want you know... and let the other carry your lazy carcass , while you are underperforming in your role , i call those people parasite , or leech ! Play how you want in OW , endgame -> forget about it, or .. yes play how you want and as i said up , let the others do your job.

 

It pains me to say it, but Power Weaver just isn't good right now. It needs a tune up. You 're better off playing power catalyst. The rotation really isn't that hard once you get used to it. 

Just swap into each attunement, drop your jade sphere, press 3, and then go 5 -> 4 -> 2. 

Rince repeat. 

Just skip air 4 and earth 4, and don't press earth sphere. 

Once that is comfortably muscle memory, go ahead and add in the flaming greatsword at the end. 

Then you can add in fire and water augment for a bit more dps, and you are golden. 

[zeyeti.8347]

16 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

 

It pains me to say it, but Power Weaver just isn't good right now. It needs a tune up. You 're better off playing power catalyst. The rotation really isn't that hard once you get used to it. 

Just swap into each attunement, drop your jade sphere, press 3, and then go 5 -> 4 -> 2. 

Rince repeat. 

Just skip air 4 and earth 4, and don't press earth sphere. 

Once that is comfortably muscle memory, go ahead and add in the flaming greatsword at the end. 

Then you can add in fire and water augment for a bit more dps, and you are golden. 

Ty , but sincere apologies , it was a pun 😊, and i trained on the rotation you are talking about , it's no use i can't get over 31k . Why doesnt grouch provide  metrics or graphic of what he is talking about , no proof , no fact for me , and for my personal experience playing raids and strikes very frequently i can easily say that at this moment 25% of the squad is composed of mechs , ofc having mech support alac make this number a bit overtuned , but thats also a problem being a top healer and a top dps at same time ... not good design for me ... just like firebrands , good condi damage , amazing healer , one of the best quick/dps provider with amazing utility. When you are the jack off all trades the swiss knife impersonate and you have all other format off classes being not good at each of their respective roles... just look at catalyst quickness ... my god taking a trait that implicitely says "you deal -10% damage , but you...." idc i stoped reading after the -10% damage dealt , no other spec has that kind of trade off (thief with -5% damage on pistols i know ...).

Edited October 24, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Vordrax.5243]

6 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Ty , but sincere apologies , it was a pun 😊, and i trained on the rotation you are talking about , it's no use i can't get over 31k .

Honest question: what content can't be cleared with 31k DPS?

[zeyeti.8347]

i am talking on raid golem , playing as catalyst on all content effectively mean you are almost 100% of the time melee ... with new content added you will notice it is not the same , and try playing catalyst with a staff... no comment about that , but indeed if you do 31k on all the content , i recruit you immediately ! And even still i am very focused on my rotation playing as catalyst , while playing mech i can just chill and achieve almost the same dps , in fact more cause i am 1200 range and can still achieve 26k just AA like a dimwit.

Edited October 24, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Kuma.1503]

From my own experience playing it 

The two biggest things that give me an aneyrusm on cata are Twin largos and Gorseval. The former because trying to CC means you go for a swim, and the later because spinny orbs + retaliation phase = death. 

Still a better build than power weaver though!  (pls buff anet)

On the bright side, you get to feel like a god on Sabetha and Construct. One of them is LITERALLY a golem, so that makes your golem rotation super effective against it. 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Malus.2184]

The only thing I have against the Mechanist with Rifle is that it's so utterly passive. There's little engagement if any. Passive damage from the mech, passive damage from the Explosion from the Rifle 1 triggering so may traits, and you can put the Mech Commands on auto-cast. While one can say that it's counter balance by what happens if the mech is gone the sentiment is ludiocrous. I never feel that it's a fair counter balance, I feel annoyance in, for example , 100 CM if I'm providing Alac and then someone strafes a Fear and kills my mech since I'm about as useful as a paper-weight post that. 

Edited October 24, 2022 by Malus.2184

[zeyeti.8347]

 

Just now, Kuma.1503 said:

From my own experience playing it 

The two biggest things that give me an aneyrusm on cata are Twin largos and Gorseval. The former because trying to CC means you go for a swim, and the later because spinny orbs + retaliation phase = death. 

Still a better build than power weaver though!  (pls buff anet)

Ha , i know the feeling , that weird design of skill 4 air hammer , when you get stucked , while in combat , in a wall is an amazing feeling ...

[Vordrax.5243]

9 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

while playing i can just chill and achiev almost the same dps , in fact more cause i am 1200 range and can still achieve 26k just AA like a dimwit.

What build are you running? I just tried it and got 21k at 1200 on my Mechanist (which is still pretty nuts for autoattacks from 1200 range, don't get me wrong.) Granted, there is no way I'd have all of these buffs on me if I wasn't in the blob of people standing on top of the boss, but still.