Mechanist is currently destroying the Raid/Strike. Please consider nerf it ASAP.

[Cyninja.2954]

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Playrate =/= Strength. 

They are correlated, but one does not equate to the other, and

 

Mech is popular because it's user friendly and because it can fill multiple roles.

Raid and CM content is intimidating. People don't want to join and end up dying in increasingly embarrassing ways, so they pick the spec that is safe and comfortable to play. 

As an added bonus, a lot of people still have their mechs geared out from when it was objectively dominating. 

It's playrate is also inflated because it can fill multiple roles. Power, Condi, and Alac Support. 

True, and I've tried to provide different metrics to address some of the issues.

 

What I disagree with is the claim that mech is somehow more "fun", "cool", "favored" predomintantely due to not game performance relevant factors.

 

Obviously mech is desired and a favored pick because it has a simplicity to it in some builds which few other classes share, paired with an aumotization aspect which again other classes do no share. 

 

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

A high playrate does not always mean something is overpowered. There are other factors to consider.

 

Exactly, and some of those factors are still in placy, which leads to mechs overrepresentation while it's performance is balanced (if one accounts for more than just pure output).

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Scourge PoF was ludicrously broken, but it's low playrate and low DPS led people to conclude that it was weak. They completely overlooked how great it's support toolset was. And reminder, this was before Anet hard nerfed their barriers.

It took ArenaNet overbuffing it to high heavens before people caught on to how good it was. 

 

In short: scourge did lower dps, got  overlooked but was actually very overpowered. 

 

Kiind of the opposite to mech. Mech started very overpowered, got nerfed and might still be overpowered, but players fail to realize that (though again, I think mech is in an olay spot atm, even if it's representation is a tad high, we've seen worse in the past though).

 

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Mech currently is where it should be. 

Power Mech is outclassed by other options once people get better at their class, but it's still a reliable choice for clearing content with great DPS uptime. 

 

Agreed.

 

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Condi mech either has a easy rotation with mediocre DPS, or a challenging rotation with above average DPS. 

 

Agreed.

 

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

HAM is a reliable support with good alac uptime, but it doesn't hard carry groups like a Scourge or Quickness Herald can. Currently it's other alac supports that need nudges. 

 

Agreed. 

 

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

HAT and Heal Druid need to address their usability issues.  HAT's alacrity on overload is bugged with quickness. Needs a hotfix. 

 

While tempest and druid are very strong, situational if stronger than HAM, HAMs ease of use, barrier and utility make it viable on pretty much any fight. A small nudge to the other supports might tilt the scales a bit further.

10 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Also buff Alacrigade and make Alac Willbender do... literally anything. Alacbender should be the highest dps alac support, and it needs a more reliable method of applying it's alacrity to allies. 

 

Alac willbender could use some love, then again many other classes might be in more dire needs of attention than guardian. Still buffing alac wb would nice.

[xellink.7568]

On 4/8/2023 at 4:44 AM, Sobx.1758 said:

They do not equate to each other, but it's clear mech pre-nerfs popularity blew up due to its performance/strength.

 

Let's focus less on the distant past and more on the present. Current mech representation isn't about performance. You might be able to convince me earlier maybe 1-2 nerfs ago but definitely not now. 

 

On 4/8/2023 at 12:34 AM, Cyninja.2954 said:

Wait, your argument is really mech is "cool", hence it has a lot of representation in PvE?

Right, I guess Spvp and WvW players consider other stuff cool then, given it's representation there is miniscule. Completely unrelated to the performance being terrible im those modes.

Is this the level we are at now? The class with insane high representation is simply "cooler" than other classes? 🤦‍♂️

 

You saying Charr is underperforming? Is that why people don't pick Charr? Then everyone would pick Asura because they are clearly overpowered in JP. But no. People pick Humans.

 

Performance isn't the only factor here.

[Cyninja.2954]

3 hours ago, xellink.7568 said:

 

Let's focus less on the distant past and more on the present. Current mech representation isn't about performance. You might be able to convince me earlier maybe 1-2 nerfs ago but definitely not now. 

 

 

You saying Charr is underperforming? Is that why people don't pick Charr? Then everyone would pick Asura because they are clearly overpowered in JP. But no. People pick Humans.

 

Performance isn't the only factor here.

Charr is a cosmetic choice with little game play impact.

I am not the one making the argument here that a pet class, with:

- mediocre pet ai AT BEST (which also does not somehow push the other pet classes interesting enough. Maybe because those pets don't push 10k dps on their own with 45-90k hp and near immortality in pve content)

- lack of a proper underwater skill set

- severe bugs left and right, some of which lead to the pet disappearing which makes that class useless for stretches of time. Many of which happen regularly even in open world content

- and last but not least near 0 presence in the competitive modes (on any build)

somehow makes a class go leaps and bounds beyond any other class in this game when it comes to "coolness". Keep your subjective assumptions to yourself please because as far as reality, you have 0 ground to thread on.

Which all still does not explain why when mech was op, numbers skyrocketed, now that it's not op, numbers went down again. That alone shows a correlation between output and representation. Present in ANY class in the past and present. Simply out: your belief that mech is some kind of outlier (or outlying aspects dominate it's representation) is VERY hard to argue, unless you are seriously biased of course.

Mech isn't "cooler" than other classes, it's brain dead easier than other most classes with a list of benefits a mile long which outperform the drawbacks it has enough that many players run it, and that is still the case at it's current output level. It's that simple.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Kuma.1503]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Charr is a cosmetic choice with little game play impact.

I am not the one making the argument here that a pet class, with:

- mediocre pet ai AT BEST (which also does not somehow push the other pet classes interesting enough. Maybe because those pets don't push 10k dps on their own with 45-90k hp and near immortality in pve content)

- lack of a proper underwater skill set

- severe bugs left and right, some of which lead to the pet disappearing which makes that class useless for stretches of time. Many of which happen regularly even in open world content

- and last but not least near 0 presence in the competitive modes (on any build)

somehow makes a class go leaps and bounds beyond any other class in this game when it comes to "coolness". Keep your subjective assumptions to yourself please because as far as reality, you have 0 ground to thread on.

Which all still does not explain why when mech was op, numbers skyrocketed, now that it's not op, numbers went down again. That alone shows a correlation between output and representation. Present in ANY class in the past and present. Simply out: your belief that mech is some kind of outlier (or outlying aspects dominate it's representation) is VERY hard to argue, unless you are seriously biased of course.

Mech isn't "cooler" than other classes, it's brain dead easier than other most classes with a list of benefits a mile long which outperform the drawbacks it has enough that many players run it, and that is still the case at it's current output level. It's that simple.

It took a lot of nerfs to finally kill off Mech's playrate in PvP. 

People kept picking it, even when it was objectively  outclassed by Bladesworn in nearly every way. 

People playing against mech kept complaining because, AI-centric builds in PvP are annoying So long as they hold even a shred of viablility. 

It took Anet literally nerfing Mechanist into the dirt (Seriously look at its PvP patch history.) before its playrate finally dropped. 

Literally every part of Mechs kit has been slashed in PvP. It's kind of insane how hard they went on it compared to other powerful builds of the past. 

Even if coolness factor was carrying it in PvP at one point... no one wants to play a load of garbage.  Especially a load of garbage that Anet has proven they will swiftly nerf anytime it does anything in competetive. 
 

They do still see a lot of play in WvW. This is despite Mechanist being a mediocre pick there.  It's mostly outclassed by builds that abuse Cele stats and boast better mobility like Catalyst, Harbinger, and Willbender. It's also not quite as effective a ranged build as Deadeye or Soulbeast. Especially after rifle autos got nerfed by 33%. 

In WvW even though other builds can do what it does and more, it DOES still do what it does well. It's a tanky sustain god with decent condi pressure. Just pray your opponent doesn't run from you because you cannot chase kills to save your life. Shift Signet does not help. 

You even see them in zergs. Which is wierd because it's not a good pick for zerg play. 

Clearly something is driving these players to pick Mech in WvW despite there being objectively better options to pick. 

 

I do think coolness and fun factor are two factors (among many) why mech gets picked as often as it does. And its popularity in competetive is a good indication of that.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Kuma.1503 said:

It took a lot of nerfs to finally kill off Mech's playrate in PvP. 

People kept picking it, even when it was objectively  outclassed by Bladesworn in nearly every way. 

People playing against mech kept complaining because, AI-centric builds in PvP are annoying So long as they hold even a shred of viablility. 

It took Anet literally nerfing Mechanist into the dirt (Seriously look at its PvP patch history.) before its playrate finally dropped. 

Literally every part of Mechs kit has been slashed in PvP. It's kind of insane how hard they went on it compared to other powerful builds of the past. 

Even if coolness factor was carrying it in PvP at one point... no one wants to play a load of garbage.  Especially a load of garbage that Anet has proven they will swiftly nerf anytime it does anything in competetive. 
 

They do still see a lot of play in WvW. This is despite Mechanist being a mediocre pick there.  It's mostly outclassed by builds that abuse Cele stats and boast better mobility like Catalyst, Harbinger, and Willbender. It's also not quite as effective a ranged build as Deadeye or Soulbeast. Especially after rifle autos got nerfed by 33%. 

In WvW even though other builds can do what it does and more, it DOES still do what it does well. It's a tanky sustain god with decent condi pressure. Just pray your opponent doesn't run from you because you cannot chase kills to save your life. Shift Signet does not help. 

You even see them in zergs. Which is wierd because it's not a good pick for zerg play. 

Clearly something is driving these players to pick Mech in WvW despite there being objectively better options to pick. 

 

I do think coolness and fun factor are two factors (among many) why mech gets picked as often as it does. And its popularity in competetive is a good indication of that.

 

 

I do not see or have not had the same experiences in Pvp/WvW.

Mech was a mediocre pick for pvp and wvw from the start (except when it was super busted, but even then scrapper was superior). I barely saw any WvW players use mech, and that was before the nerfs.

The only mechs in WvW are usually new players on their first class, at least that is the experience I've had, and they are often told to reroll asap. Roaming wise you are basically expecting to meet poor opposing builds (aka squad builds returning to the blob or some pve player on his pve build) or other glass-canon builds and most definitely no actual proper roaming builds, of which cele are dominating. For squad play, mech has been kitten tier at all times due to projectile and pet hate in WvW even while it was busted.

The same applied to spvp where mech was only good up to gold 3 because players below that skill level have no idea how to counter a projectile based class or not get chased down by a pet.

Mech is in fact underpowered in spvp and wvw and that's why it has near 0 representation there atm and that's WITH it's overrepresentation in PvE which should cause more spillover if this was actually about "fun" or "coolness".

Now support scrapper or roaming scrapper/holo (or even squad holo), that's a different story (and also one reason why mech representation drops because engi players swap to proper builds for these game modes).

Edited April 10, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Sobx.1758]

8 hours ago, xellink.7568 said:

Let's focus less on the distant past and more on the present. Current mech representation isn't about performance. You might be able to convince me earlier maybe 1-2 nerfs ago but definitely not now. 

What point are you trying to make here in the light of what is being discussed in this comment chain or thread in general? Convince you about what? Mech is still easy to play and still enough to play in any content, including CMs.

You've said "Mech is being nerfed for being cool and popular.", now you say it's still popular (and you've also said that before, which I responded to with: "Oh, so if they still like it then what's the problem?" and you subsequentially dropped). But mech isn't being nerfed now. You're going all over the place, perhaps you forgot what the earlier posts said? Please be more specific about the points you're trying to make.

 

btw. if for some reason it's not clear (anymore?), I'm not trying to push for more nerfs of mech here.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[xellink.7568]

6 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

What point are you trying to make here in the light of what is being discussed in this comment chain or thread in general? Convince you about what? Mech is still easy to play and still enough to play in any content, including CMs.

You've said "Mech is being nerfed for being cool and popular.", now you say it's still popular (and you've also said that before, which I responded to with: "Oh, so if they still like it then what's the problem?" and you subsequentially dropped). But mech isn't being nerfed now. You're going all over the place, perhaps you forgot what the earlier posts said? Please be more specific about the points you're trying to make.

 

btw. if for some reason it's not clear (anymore?), I'm not trying to push for more nerfs of mech here.

 

I already stated it clearly. I will do it in point form for the sake of eradicating any form of confusion.

 

1) Mech is not overpowered now and underperforms against some classes

2) The final nerf which did very little to numbers wasn't really justified for performance, but I can understand why anet wants to nerf Mecha for it's overrepresentation 

3) Mech remains popular NOT for performance reasons. People on forums are still hammering on other things other than performance that obviously doesn't bother them eg. dyeing their Mechas

4) Balance should be based on performance, not popularity and representation but Anet decided to follow the mob. 

 

Now all the points I mentioned have grounds to stand on and the DPS numbers on wingman is dead obvious isn't it, and I can respect that you have a different idea on what balance is, but performance on Mecha isn't what drives people to play it and people should stop complaining about it's overrepresentation and call for nerfs. I never said mech is unplayable, it's nerfed too hard beyond what it deserves (in terms of performance)

 

If you make the mech dyeable, representation will go up again. Do you get what I mean now? Stop talking about kittening representation and correlation with performance because you clearly missed the mark. That's why I have to state a glaringly obvious point like Charr. There is no kittening correlation here. 

 

If Anet needs better representation on other classes, nerfs aren't the answer. Who thought it would be a great idea to give warrior 3 melee especs? Why would you expect that class to be popular? Why can't they make a banner Alac DPS class? Grandmaster trait turns quickness on banners to Alac. Bam! New PvE meta.

 

I expected better. That's all.

Edited April 10, 2023 by xellink.7568
Grammar

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

I already stated it clearly. I will do it in point form for the sake of eradicating any form of confusion.

Ty!

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

1) Mech is not overpowered now

Ok, agreed. 
Disagree about "underperforming" though, but w/e.

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

2) The final nerf which did very little to numbers wasn't really justified for performance, but I can understand why anet wants to nerf Mecha for it's overrepresentation 

Performance doesn't mean just dps numbers. I think  in one of your previous posts you've mentioned an example of that change's impact that was still peformance-based even though it wasn't exactly about the dps value.

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

3) Mech remains popular NOT for performance reasons. People on forums are still hammering on other things other than performance that obviously doesn't bother them eg. dyeing their Mechas

Yes -and I responded to this -specifically to you- in one of the previous posts. If players who like mechs still play mechs then what's the issue? When I talked about mech's overperformance clearly overblowing mech's popularity, I pretty clearly said it was about the pre-nerf mech. Which very much -and very clearly- WAS due to overperfomance of the build when compared to how it plays.

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

4) Balance should be based on performance, not popularity and representation but Anet decided to follow the mob. 

And the point is that it was based on performance. The overblowing popularity/representation of mech was due to overperformance. The chance did tackle the overperformance/gameplay issues, not "just mech being popular" like you're trying to claim here.

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

it's nerfed too hard beyond what it deserves (in terms of performance)

Honestly I don't see how that's true. Its state is fine as it is now.

1 hour ago, xellink.7568 said:

If you make the mech dyeable, representation will go up again. Do you get what I mean now? Stop talking about kittening representation and correlation with performance because you clearly missed the mark. That's why I have to state a glaringly obvious point like Charr. There is no kittening correlation here. 

There IS correlation between perfomance and popularity amongst other things. The issue here is that you apparently think it's some kind of "all or nothing" deal where it either fully directly translates or it doesn't. That's simply not the case and mech is an excelent example of it where a big % of players hopped on it because it was overperforming.

As a sidenote: I doubt making dyeable mech would somehow make a huge impact on the mech's popularity btw. It seems to be a mild annoyance for some people at best and those people already play mech despite it not being dyeable. But who knows.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Gendalfs.7521]

Ofc Mecha is somehow doing it. Its got ''enough'' to not get kicked from groups.

Its very easy to play and that is why it attracts so many players (my guess). I play this game to relax not to get my wrist pain.

Anyway, the last Mecha nerf was unnecessary. 

 

[pfuetzi.5421]

Btw: There are also a lot of mechs because it has so many playable builds: Power-Mech, Heal-Mech, Power-Alac-Mech, Condi-Mech.

I don't see where the class is underpowered at all...

Just because one build (Power-Mech) isn't the ultimate faceroll anymore, it is still a very beginner friendly build that gets the job done.

[Sobx.1758]

5 hours ago, Gendalfs.7521 said:

Ofc Mecha is somehow doing it. Its got ''enough'' to not get kicked from groups.

Its very easy to play and that is why it attracts so many players (my guess). I play this game to relax not to get my wrist pain.

Anyway, the last Mecha nerf was unnecessary.

It's not "somehow doing it", it's not somehow just "enough to not get kicked from groups", you can stack mechs in dps roles and you're perfectly fine. Stop trying to undersell their performance to claim it's somehow just barely scraping it. And yes, it's perfectly ok for how easy it is to play.

 

5 hours ago, pfuetzi.5421 said:

Btw: There are also a lot of mechs because it has so many playable builds: Power-Mech, Heal-Mech, Power-Alac-Mech, Condi-Mech.

I don't see where the class is underpowered at all...

Just because one build (Power-Mech) isn't the ultimate faceroll anymore, it is still a very beginner friendly build that gets the job done.

Exactly, well said.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Sobx.1758