Why is mechanist constantly nerfed

[Juka Kingston.6035]

The developers said they like having a low intensity option for classes, like the mech. For people like me, it’s one of the few classes I enjoy playing. While I appreciate composing some Mozart symphonies once in a while (ele, scourge etc) sometimes I want to focus on the battle and not on playing a piano. 
 

I just don’t see how the mech overperforms right now. Maybe if the other classes are afk? After all these nerfs in last month, mech is bottom of the barrel on bossfights. Only time it really shines, is when there’s aoe (piercing rifle). If that’s the issue maybe rework the rifle? Or give other classes some aoe options too. Otherwise what’s the point of being a mech anymore, if it’s just going to be nerfed into the ground.

[Tails.9372]

Quote

Why is mechanist constantly nerfed

For the upcoming "Where's Waldo?" nerf: no real reason.

I've barely seen anyone complaining about the performance of "DPS rifle mech" after the last nerf it received and the only concrete nerf request I can recall is Teapot asking for the stability to be removed. I've also seen a thread on reddit where someone asked what peoples issue with the e-spec is and the main answer was the visual clutter which has been a point of criticism from the very beginning which they, for some reason, vehemently refuse to address.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Lahmia.2193]

At a guess, I'd say because its too easy to play. I mainly play it for Pve now (strikes/fractals), as I too don't enjoy piano rotations. But I'd be lying to myself if I didn't say it was by far the easiest class to play currently. The effort you put in is minimal for some very decent (but not top tier) damage. And that rubs other classes the wrong way (especially Eles).

[Juka Kingston.6035]

It is the easiest, no doubt. But that’s why I like it. I can focus on fighting and avoiding aoe, instead of dragging my group down. Besides, I work all day, and play the game to have fun. Hard rotations feels like more work. Might be a rewarding feeling for some, a chore for people like me. If the devs mean what they said, and it’s that fun is important, they should let everybody have fun, not just try hards.

 

As far as for the jealous eles, idk what to say. Maybe reroll? If you complain about how hard you have to work at your rotation, and how it’s unfair that other classes have it easier, then the “hard” class isn’t for u. Make an easier class and stop trying to take away other people’s fun.

[Nephalem.8921]

4 hours ago, Juka Kingston.6035 said:

The developers said they like having a low intensity option for classes, like the mech. For people like me, it’s one of the few classes I enjoy playing. While I appreciate composing some Mozart symphonies once in a while (ele, scourge etc) sometimes I want to focus on the battle and not on playing a piano. 
 

I just don’t see how the mech overperforms right now. Maybe if the other classes are afk? After all these nerfs in last month, mech is bottom of the barrel on bossfights. Only time it really shines, is when there’s aoe (piercing rifle). If that’s the issue maybe rework the rifle? Or give other classes some aoe options too. Otherwise what’s the point of being a mech anymore, if it’s just going to be nerfed into the ground.

You think scourge is piano? for real?

The mech was nerfed because ham can be wherever while the golem sits on squad and provides perfect boon uptime or 11k afk dps in rifle mechs case.

[Juka Kingston.6035]

Scourge is a piano, if played correctly. 

[Bizgurk.5639]

15 minutes ago, Juka Kingston.6035 said:

Scourge is a piano, if played correctly. 

As someone who plays Scourge as well as Piano I strongly disagree!

[Juka Kingston.6035]

1 minute ago, Bizgurk.5639 said:

As someone who plays Scourge as well as Piano I strongly disagree!

Lmao

[zeyeti.8347]

1 hour ago, Juka Kingston.6035 said:

Scourge is a piano, if played correctly. 

Yeah scourge is piano , do re mi fa so la si do , thats the level of gameplay for scourge . Do re Do re , thats for mech pew pew , and having something like that reaching absurd numbers , with literally the apm of a dead rock (yeah dead rock...) is non sense . but i really dont understand why you complain , even after this nerf it will still be playable , ah yes , you won't reach 30k bench while scratching your nose and head , and thats fair .

And what you say about ele is totally unfair , so what you find it's normal least than 4% of the playerbase plays ele in endgame , and 25% plays mech (a whole e-spec representing 1/4 of endgame is a problem !),  your healing , boon uptime and damage should be proportional of the effort you put in doing so ... if not then lets make an afk class , ouh sorry .... and if you are tired after your work , you want fun , i will say the same yous said about ele ... just dont raid then , dont fractals , dont strike ... thats content is not ment to you .

1 hour ago, Juka Kingston.6035 said:

If you complain about how hard you have to work at your rotation, and how it’s unfair that other classes have it easier, then the “hard” class isn’t for u. Make an easier class and stop trying to take away other people’s fun.

If you complain about how hard it is to focus doing mechanics and your rotation at the same time , and how it's unfair piano guy beat you 15k up , then train your piano skills , or dont endgame ! But no let's all play mech , thats the solution...

And it's funny all mech players show off the same excuse , "i have a disabilty so dont nerf my mech plz" , well i have no arms ! make me an afk class that reach 35k plz anet ....

And btw the nerf is only for your mech being to much away from you , so just press "follow me doggy" and you will still be fine , as said up the nerf is more oriented on healmech , who's mech is literally a moving boon machine beacon.

Edited November 15, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Juka Kingston.6035]

If 25% of the population is choosing to play mechanist, it doesn’t mean there’s a problem, it means the developers did something right with mech design and people liked it, and choose to play it. The correct reaction is to see what was done right, and do it for other classes, to add diversity. To automatically go to “oh no, people like this too much, let’s take away the reason to like it” is backwards thinking. 

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, Juka Kingston.6035 said:

If 25% of the population is choosing to play mechanist, it doesn’t mean there’s a problem, it means the developers did something right with mech design and people liked it, and choose to play it. The correct reaction is to see what was done right, and do it for other classes, to add diversity. To automatically go to “oh no, people like this too much, let’s take away the reason to like it” is backwards thinking. 

I guess it's a good thing they didn't agree with your logic when weaver was at 29% representation in fractals or everybody would be playing the piano today.  

Why was it at 29%?  Certainly not because it was overtuned!  No!  Of course not!  It was obviously because everyone at that time loved to play the piano.  It's only at <1% today because everybody changed their minds and decided they actually don't like playing the piano.  I guess we really dodged a bullet there, huh?  People can be so fickle. 🤷‍♂️

[Koensol.5860]

6 hours ago, Juka Kingston.6035 said:

If 25% of the population is choosing to play mechanist, it doesn’t mean there’s a problem, it means the developers did something right with mech design and people liked it, and choose to play it. The correct reaction is to see what was done right, and do it for other classes, to add diversity. To automatically go to “oh no, people like this too much, let’s take away the reason to like it” is backwards thinking. 

What an insanely cringe argument. People flock to mech because it's braindead easy, yea lets respond by making other classes just as braindead! This is the true PINACLE of logic.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Anet is trying to please the people who are only looking to completely kill Mechanist and Engineer.

 

It is a miracle Anet remembered Holosmith existed 

[zeyeti.8347]

Their endgoal is to make a low intensity and high intensity for each class , with the gap between those being ofc the level of skill from the player and the effectiveness of the class , and mechanist represent the easiness (or laziness as you wish) at his climax.

1 hour ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

Anet is trying to please the people who are only looking to completely kill Mechanist and Engineer.

 

It is a miracle Anet remembered Holosmith existed 

this is how it should be , holosmith need to be way above in term of effectiveness against mechanist , your sentence is the perfect exemple of easinees vs intensiveness , what should be rewarded the more ? someone spamming 1-2-3-4-5 , or a guy checking his heat level , switching to grenades, bomb , mortar kit (huh sorry superbeammmm attack) ,  pressing precisely a skill when heat is at 105% and calculate how many heat this or this skill will icnrease your heat level ? thats obvious !

Edited November 15, 2022 by zeyeti.8347

[Alcatraznc.3869]

54 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Their endgoal is to make a low intensity and high intensity for each class , with the gap between those being ofc the level of skill from the player and the effectiveness of the class , and mechanist represent the easiness (or laziness as you wish) at his climax.

this is how it should be , holosmith need to be way above in term of effectiveness against mechanist , your sentence is the perfect exemple of easinees vs intensiveness , what should be rewarded the more ? someone spamming 1-2-3-4-5 , or a guy checking his heat level , switching to grenades, bomb , mortar kit (huh sorry superbeammmm attack) ,  pressing precisely a skill when heat is at 105% and calculate how many heat this or this skill will icnrease your heat level ? thats obvious !

 

No how it should be is Holosmith being buffed, not the current Mechanist being nerfed.

 

The current Mechanist does not outDPS any piano rotation people are so proud to play. Further nerf is not needed and while I dont consider the upcoming nerf to be too much of an issue for PvE, I dont want to imagine the few remaining Mechanist playing SPvP or WvW. At this point they might as well just play core Engineer because Mechanist is straight up garbage

[Kodama.6453]

9 minutes ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

 

No how it should be is Holosmith being buffed, not the current Mechanist being nerfed.

 

The current Mechanist does not outDPS any piano rotation people are so proud to play. Further nerf is not needed and while I dont consider the upcoming nerf to be too much of an issue for PvE, I dont want to imagine the few remaining Mechanist playing SPvP or WvW. At this point they might as well just play core Engineer because Mechanist is straight up garbage

Agreed. Mechanist already has been terribly bad in PvP and WvW, because of the reliance on the pet.

The only way I saw it possibly working in that environment (and that just at low rank in PvP) was to stay at safe distance while you let the mech attack your targets, which often struggle to deal with it for some reason in low rank PvP.

Even this is no longer possible, since you are forced to hold the hand of your mech at least every 6 seconds with the upcoming patch. This makes the already vulnerable mechanist basically impossible to survive. I don't expect it to work in competitive modes at all, even low ranking, when this ships.

Mechanist is purely a PvE spec at this point.

[Yellow Rainbow.6142]

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

 what should be rewarded the more ? someone spamming 1-2-3-4-5 , or a guy checking his heat level , switching to grenades, bomb , mortar kit (huh sorry superbeammmm attack) ,  pressing precisely a skill when heat is at 105% and calculate how many heat this or this skill will icnrease your heat level ? thats obvious !

Not sure what should be rewarded more !!! like, twitter employee or guy who does hvac??

[coro.3176]

7 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Even this is no longer possible, since you are forced to hold the hand of your mech at least every 6 seconds with the upcoming patch. This makes the already vulnerable mechanist basically impossible to survive. I don't expect it to work in competitive modes at all, even low ranking, when this ships.

I don't agree. Mechanist is no more vulnerable than Core Engineer. It can slot all the same defensive skills, and while it might lose a toolbelt stunbreak (eg. from elixir gun), it gets an even more powerful one back as a mech skill. You just have to play *with* the pet, as you should on any pet class. Plus, you get access to Shift Signet, which is just a busted survivability & mobility skill. 

7 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Agreed. Mechanist already has been terribly bad in PvP and WvW, because of the reliance on the pet.

Mech is already a must-pick traitline for WvW roaming. Automatic perma-alac is so much better than anything another traitline could give you. For example, it's hard to consider Tools, which offers reduced cooldowns on Toolkit, Toolbelt Skills, and Gadgets, when you can just have Mech which offers reduced cooldowns on ALL SKILLS including weapon skills. Even if the pet didn't exist, it'd still be a competitive traitline for that reason alone.

Like, if another traitline had a trait that said: "you lose access to your toolbelt skills. All other cooldowns are reduced 25%", I'd consider it. Mech gets that, plus mech skills, plus a really good pet.

[Vordrax.5243]

9 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

what should be rewarded the more ? someone spamming 1-2-3-4-5 , or a guy checking his heat level , switching to grenades, bomb , mortar kit (huh sorry superbeammmm attack) ,  pressing precisely a skill when heat is at 105% and calculate how many heat this or this skill will icnrease your heat level ? thats obvious !

I think the issue here is the people who think that higher intensity builds should be 2-3x as effective as a lower intensity build. A 5-10% increase in DPS is sufficient to make good players swap to the stronger spec. I've said this before in a separate thread, but I'm pretty sure that these "rotations" were not intentionally designed. Players are just using what the specs have to offer, and creating their own rotations, and then demanding that the ones that they have the most trouble executing should be better than the ones that are more intuitive. Managing your heat as a holosmith is not difficult. And it shouldn't be. If managing your heat is difficult, it's most likely because the mechanic is badly designed, not because it's "for pros (tm) only!!!"

Edited November 15, 2022 by Vordrax.5243

[Axelteas.7192]

mech is not low intensity, is lazy intensity, to the same level of minionmancer afk farmers.

[Crit.5123]

On 11/15/2022 at 12:42 AM, Juka Kingston.6035 said:

If 25% of the population is choosing to play mechanist, it doesn’t mean there’s a problem, it means the developers did something right with mech design and people liked it, and choose to play it. The correct reaction is to see what was done right, and do it for other classes, to add diversity. To automatically go to “oh no, people like this too much, let’s take away the reason to like it” is backwards thinking. 

 

100% this. Before the last round of nerfs people were playing it because it was close to the best dps output (in an actuall encounter). It isn't anymore but its end game representation has only dropped slightly.

The try-hards moved on to Virt and everyone else gets left with a really enjoyable class that is fun to play.

But yeah, for 'balance' let's screw it even further.

Side note : The Mechanical Genuis changes will be close to a joke if they happen. The pet AI is nowhere near good enough for that to be a thing, you can press 'recall' and nothing happens half the time....wp!

 

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Crit.5123

[Cyninja.2954]

On 11/14/2022 at 8:09 PM, Tails.9372 said:

For the upcoming "Where's Waldo?" nerf: no real reason.

I've barely seen anyone complaining about the performance of "DPS rifle mech" after the last nerf it received and the only concrete nerf request I can recall is Teapot asking for the stability to be removed. I've also seen a thread on reddit where someone asked what peoples issue with the e-spec is and the main answer was the visual clutter which has been a point of criticism from the very beginning which they, for some reason, vehemently refuse to address.

You weren't seeing any reason to nerf mech even while it was absurdly overpowered so what you personally see as justified or not seems misaligned with what the developers might see.

 

To answer your question topic creator: cmc said it out the gate:"mechanist is still over-represented in play-rates". That's their criteria for balancing the class currently. You can disagree or argue about WHY this might be, but you can't disagree with changes if the goal is to reduce play-rates (though you can certainly disagree with what representation of a class should or shouldn't be the given).

As it stands now, mech still is by a large margin producing a far higher output in different areas compared to other classes while still remaining a very strong spec as support or dps even after recent nerfs.

The developers seem unwilling to up other classes to meet this ease of use and power (maybe in fear of dumbing down the game to much and in fact are trying to curb other over-performing specs like FB) and as such mech will get changed (ideally not nerfed but changed in regards to ease of use). The current idea of making mech positioning management more integral to mech performance output is their way to "try" to not nerf the class outright but shift the play-style and demand of players playing the pet class.

On 11/15/2022 at 1:42 AM, Juka Kingston.6035 said:

If 25% of the population is choosing to play mechanist, it doesn’t mean there’s a problem, it means the developers did something right with mech design and people liked it, and choose to play it. The correct reaction is to see what was done right, and do it for other classes, to add diversity. To automatically go to “oh no, people like this too much, let’s take away the reason to like it” is backwards thinking. 

You'd have a point if there was much "play" involved with mech. That's where the issue comes in though: given current interaction with the mech, the class sees almost NO actual "play". Merely being online and having your mech skills on auto-cast while auto-attacking is not considered game-play by many, and the developers seem to agree which is why they are trying to increase the interaction requirement.

If you are actually "playing" mech, aka going through it's simplistic rotation, using skills asap without relying on auto-cast solely, using kits, etc. your performance will still be significantly high (not as high as a bis class like virtuoso or bladesworn, but still high) and on nearly every boss.

If you are running the "I play by being there and having my mech do everything on its own" approach, you will still outperform most if not all other low intensity specs or at least match them while still being strong on almost every encounter. Which is exactly the reason the class continuous to see such high adoption.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Tails.9372]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

You weren't seeing any reason to nerf mech even while it was absurdly overpowered

Except I did, you're either just misremembering the position I took or are willfully ignorant of it.

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

what you personally see as justified or not seems misaligned with what the developers might see

That one is obvious as:

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

cmc said it out the gate:"mechanist is still over-represented in play-rates". That's their criteria for balancing the class currently

Is an approach to game design that completely ignores the "why" based on the assumption that performance is the only relevant factor here (which on a similar note is also the reason why they are currently getting a lot of flak from the playerbase in regards to some of the other changes they plan to do). If performance is the sole factor as for why something is popular then Mirage should be a lot more popular than it is rn and, going by that logic, should also get a hefty buff which ofc. would be a totally stupid thing to do as its performance is obviously not the reason for its severe lack of "representation".

Edited November 16, 2022 by Tails.9372

[Axl.8924]

I heard if you use rifle for stats you can still do dps if i'm correct? it might even have a couple stuff still viable at least so i heard or am i incorrect in assuming that for engi?

 

I was reading posts and i did see quite a few complaints about it but it sounded like you could still get away with making mech effective i think it was PVP/WVW someone said something about wrench magnet acid and something else and that there was some sorta mini buff there for immobilizing enemies.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Axl.8924

[Kuma.1503]

On 11/15/2022 at 11:40 AM, coro.3176 said:

Mech is already a must-pick traitline for WvW roaming. Automatic perma-alac is so much better than anything another traitline could give you. For example, it's hard to consider Tools, which offers reduced cooldowns on Toolkit, Toolbelt Skills, and Gadgets, when you can just have Mech which offers reduced cooldowns on ALL SKILLS including weapon skills. Even if the pet didn't exist, it'd still be a competitive traitline for that reason alone.

Like, if another traitline had a trait that said: "you lose access to your toolbelt skills. All other cooldowns are reduced 25%", I'd consider it. Mech gets that, plus mech skills, plus a really good pet.

There's a pretty big caveat to this. 

In order to achieve automatic perma-alac without the pet, you need to invest more than one traitline. 

You need 2 traitlines + a rune. You are hard locked into Alchemy + Mechanist (w/ Crisis Zone) + Rune of sanctuary. Without any of the three the synergy breaks and this stops working. 

While alchemy is a good traitline, forcing 2 traitlines and a rune still heavily restricts your build options. The loss of toolbelts on top of this is also significant. 

Throw wrench, Renewing Mist, Toss Elixir S, Toss elixir X, Static Shock, Supply Drop... 

All of these (and more) are very impactful skills that you lose by selecting mechanist. In a 1v1, I've had more luck running core engi than mechanist. The utility from toolbelt skills is invaluable compared to a nerfed bot that will be easier to focus down than before since we have to constantly hold its hand. 

Not to mention how unreliable Crisis Zone is as a stunbreak in general, and how much it tanks the mech's damage if you run it since it stops inheriting precision. 

(Reminder mech lost A-AR last patch so their dps is already much lower than it was).

Edited November 16, 2022 by Kuma.1503