Fixing Mechanist. Step by Step guide.

[Kuma.1503]

Step 1. Remove Autocast. 

This contributes to its over the top afk DPS. This is one of the biggest points of contention with Mechanist. It achieves too much for too little effort. Autocast is the biggest contributor to this issue. It would be better to target the core of the issue than to nerf it's DPS into the ground to compensate for this design flaw. 

 

Step 2. Bug fix the Return to me Command. 

This  is a simple functionality improvement. Return to me should always work regardless of the bot's proximity to the player. 

 

Step 3. Add new function: Ground Target Mech's Location. 

To save on additional keybinds, this can be rolled into the Return to me command. If the button is held, you can ground target where the Mech will stand. If tapped, the mech will return to the player. This gives players more control over the precise positioning of their mech. This is a change that accomplishes the goal stated in the previous patch, rewarding players for good positioning of both themselves and the bot. This is a change that gives players the tools to manage their bot with precision, thus raising the skill ceiling of the spec. 

 

Step 4. Transfer damage from Rifle burst to Blunderbuss. 

Aside from the auto attack, Rifle is primarily an up-close weapon. This change would address Mechanist's hyper-consistency by toning down it's damage at 1200 range. Players will have a greater incentive to stand close to the boss to achieve good DPS in non-golem encounters. 

 

Step 5. Revert Rifle Burst | or | Change Rifle burst into shotgun

There are two paths to take here.

Path 1. Revert rifle burst, but reduce the damage and transfer it onto blunderbuss. The old animation, while flawed, is preferable to the new one. 

Path 2. Change Rifle Burst into a shotgun auto attack. This will fully rework engi rifle into a shotgun weapon. This will still deal damage at 1200 range, but will carry a steep drop-off in DPS the further you are from your target. This change lives and dies by the animation. A good shotgun animation will really sell this change. 

 

Step 6. Make Mechanist work under water. 

This should have been a much higher priority. After all the work that was put into nerfing mechanist over the past 10 months, some priority should have been given to fixing this very fundamental issue. 

 

Step 7. New Graphic Setting. Pet Quantity. 

This setting will allow the player to adjust the number of player pets that appear at once. This will give players a way to opt out of the visual clutter the mech can cause in large scale situations. A problem that has been exacerbated by the blue circles added by Mechanical Genius. Speaking of which

 

Step 8. Revert Mechanical Genius 

WIth the changes above, the Mechanical Genius nerf is no longer necessary. Skill checks will be added via the previous steps. 

 

Step 9. Buff Mechanist. 

The damage is currently very low for a pure DPS. This is listed last because It's performance should only should be brought up after the previous steps are taken. 

 

 

The end goal with these changes is to:

• Raise the skill floor
• Raise the skill cap
• Make the spec more rewarding to play
• Reduce visual clutter and player frustration caused by the bot. 

 

If any dev takes the time to read this, thank you. I hope you consider some of what I wrote. I believe the proper course forward is not to smiter's boon our problems away, but to get to the core of the issue and resolve it. 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Infusion.7149]

No underwater fixes (other than underwater mech)? Disappointing post.

If the only thing relevant to the spec when the mech isn't out is J-Drive it means it is a garbage spec design. Imagine if you played ranger and if your pet dies your entire beastmastery traitline just is useless. The same goes for Death Magic on necro, there are minion traits but you don't need to take them, there still is something useful if you don't use minions.

For example:
* Barrier Engine: while your mech is away your mace applies double the barrier blast.
* Conductive Alloys : your confusion does 10%-20% more DPS to targets with exposed (when confusion is basically less than bleeding)

My priority list would have been different:
1. remove autocast for all mech commands
2. remove the jank mechanical genius implementation
3. Jade cannon no longer does as much DPS , ranged mech does way more than a fully buffed ranger pet
4. all launches on mech commands & Crash Down are reduced <130 distance
--- Core Reactor Shot is 240 launch
--- Sky Circus is 100 knockback
--- Crash Down is 200 launch
5. Exigency protocols' regen bonus moved onto Channeling Conduits, meaning trait does something when mech is away

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by Infusion.7149
Specificity

[Kuma.1503]

These are also very good points you bring up. 

You mention the lack of underwater fixes. I'm curious what changes you have in mind.

If I were to go in depth on this point it would require a separate post on its own. The ideal is pretty labor intensive. I'd like them to turn the underwater jade bot into a jade sub  with a different  set of underwater skills. 

Sky Circus, for example, would shoot a volley of torpedoes instead of missiles. 

 

Reducing it's CC output is fair because Mech has a lot of it compared to other classes (on top of its other luxuries). These also have a habit of causing headaches when players set them to auto-cast and CC things they shouldn't.

Like Launching mobs away after you pull them together neatly. This issue in particular will be fixed by removing auto cast. 

 

I have a potential solution to the Jade Canon problem.

If I recal, the Jade bot also had a Jade Siphon attack in beta. They could bring this back. Have the mech automatically cast it after every 3rd volley, but only if it's within 450 range of its target. Load the bulk of the auto attack DPS into this. (Optionally this could also restore a fixed percentage of the mech's HP, which is more relevant for PvP/WvW)

The player's job is to keep track of the mech's auto attack timer and be sure not to cancel the siphon, and also micro manage the bot to stay within 450 range of the boss for maximum DPS. 

This adds an additional skill check. Gives more incentive to keep the bot close to the boss, putting the ranged bot more on par with its melee options, and allows the Devs to keep Jade Canons as the optimal DPS choice over Explosive Knuckle. This prevents awkward scenarios where the support line is the ideal choice for selfish DPS builds. 

This would also give PvP players more counterplay to the bot. It'll have to get closer and put itself in more danger to deal damage, and they can count the shots and dodge/block/aegis/ect. the siphon. 

 

Finally, the point about the traits doing nothing while the mech is away. It's clear the devs intended this as a weakness,  but it causes strain on the overall design. It puts more dependence on the bot, which de-emphasizes the player. 

I'm on the fence on whether this is a problem or if this should be kept as a natural trade-off for having such a powerful pet. 

Edited December 20, 2022 by Kuma.1503

[Infusion.7149]

29 minutes ago, Kuma.1503 said:

These are also very good points you bring up. 

You mention the lack of underwater fixes. I'm curious what changes you have in mind.

If I were to go in depth on this point it would require a separate post on its own. The ideal is pretty labor intensive. I'd like them to turn the underwater jade bot into a jade sub  with a different  set of underwater skills. 

Sky Circus, for example, would shoot a volley of torpedoes instead of missiles. 

 

Reducing it's CC output is fair because Mech has a lot of it compared to other classes (on top of its other luxuries). These also have a habit of causing headaches when players set them to auto-cast and CC things they shouldn't.

Like Launching mobs away after you pull them together neatly. This issue in particular will be fixed by removing auto cast. 

 

I have a potential solution to the Jade Canon problem.

If I recal, the Jade bot also had a Jade Siphon attack in beta. They could bring this back. Have the mech automatically cast it after every 3rd volley, but only if it's within 450 range of its target. Load the bulk of the auto attack DPS into this. 

The player's job is to keep track of the mech's auto attack timer and be sure not to cancel the siphon, and also micro manage the bot to stay within 450 range of the boss for maximum DPS. 

This adds an additional skill check. Gives more incentive to keep the bot close to the boss, putting the ranged bot more on par with its melee options, and allows the Devs to keep Jade Canons as the optimal DPS choice over Explosive Knuckle. This prevents awkward scenarios where the support line is the ideal choice for selfish DPS builds. 

 

Finally, the point about the traits doing nothing while the mech is away. It's clear the devs intended this as a weakness,  but it causes strain on the overall design. It puts more dependence on the bot, which de-emphasizes the player. 

I'm on the fence on whether this is a problem or if this should be kept as a natural trade-off for having such a powerful pet. 

I think you spent too much time focusing on rifle (2 of 9 points are about rifle), when I have clear evidence to the contrary that it is not the issue at least as far as PVE. Power rifle mech basically "afk" currently puts out more DPS (~26K , ~ 16K from rifle itself) with less APM than a condi mech with a melee ranged condi mech running single edge cutters. Condi mech also takes more skill to play properly even at a baseline level. I even stated as much when Arenanet nerfed rifle: rifle only slightly overperformed in terms of auto whereas the power version or ranged mech puts out vastly more than any ranged pet on ranger to the point of ridiculousness. If condi mech were the ranged one it would be completely different as condi has a ramp time and also in competitive modes it is kept in check by cleansing especially if the conditions are long duration and low stacks.

Rifle mech is no longer putting out as strong numbers as before but for lazy players (let's not beat around the bush, people are lazy) that refuse to reinvest into gear or characters they will still play it. If it were just rifle that is aesthetically pleasing to those players, core engi and rifle holo would have been usable with more or less the same gear. I'm pretty sure very few players play rifle for the sound as the firing noise is absolutely annoying especially at night.

The focus of fixing mech beyond the underwater aspect should be jade cannon but also mechanist traits. The traits need to do something when the mech is dead or put away. If Arenanet expects the mech to always be out it should do less DPS and be more tanky in PVE since you only have overclock signet on a 90s cooldown to return it to the field if it dies. Condition builds tend to be built tanky since they have less burst involved and I've always held the belief that condi mechanist and alacrity mechanist variants need to be prioritized over yet another power engineer spec.

The primary reason to run mech in PVE beyond ease of use is alacrity builds. The focus on underwater mech beyond just having the mech work should be "how can we maintain alacrity using a harpoon gun or kit?" and "does the harpoon gun with kits apply enough condition damage to even warrant using?"

Overclock signet doesn't work underwater and neither does shift signet.

edit:  In fact since J-Drive has a passive effect of making signets permanent, the part about aerial bombardment could be moved to Jade Mortar.

Variable Mass Distributor could give AoE fury on #3 skill while mech is away probably as that is not an overly strong effect.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Coolster.2536]

I think the biggest issue with Mechanist is that there's nothing to manage. Back when Power Mech was a meme build, you at least had to make sure the mech was 450 units away from the target to proc AAR, but at the height of it's OPness there was nothing to really manage. Just set your mech to attack and press buttons off cooldown.

To fix that, the mech needs a mechanic to manage. Anet tried with the Mechanical Genius change, but that's just a worse implementation of the AAR range threshold. A better implementation would be allowing us to "overcharge" the Mech Commands, either through traits or through Signets.

Some examples would be like:

• Force Signet: Your next Mech Command does 25% extra damage
• Mech Frame: Conductive Alloys: Condition Applications increase number Discharge Array of hits, up to a maximum.
• Overclock Signet: Your next Mech Command has 75% reduced recharge
• Mech Core: Barrier Engine:  Combo Finishers increase duration of Boons applied by Barrier Burst

This was just me spitballing, but with this type of mechanic, you'd want to use your signets or your Mech Commands to be more effective and you'd lose effectiveness by being afk and letting the Mech autocast. It's also a lot more interesting than "babysit the Mech".

2 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Step 3. Add new function: Ground Target Mech's Location. 

To save on additional keybinds, this can be rolled into the Return to me command. If the button is held, you can ground target where the Mech will stand. If tapped, the mech will return to the player. This gives players more control over the precise positioning of their mech. This is a change that accomplishes the goal stated in the previous patch, rewarding players for good positioning of both themselves and the bot. This is a change that gives players the tools to manage their bot with precision, thus raising the skill ceiling of the spec.

I think it'd be a lot easier just to change Crash Down/Recall Mech into a "Go Here" type attack. It already kinda does that since you can tell it where to spawn the Mech, and also there is never a good reason to recall the Mech. This way you don't need new keybinds since it'll just be your F4.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

It is quite depressing to see mention of rifle in this thread especially when all the nerf regarding rifle has been made because of Mechanist. Anet should just revert the rifle nerf because the weapon was fine on every other spec that wasnt Mechanist. And even when mechanist was doing 33k, the spec was honestly fine.

 

Other than the rifle proposal, I agree with the rest

 

Edit: an easy fix of the return to me would simply be to force the bot to teleport on you and put like a 1 sec CD

Edited December 21, 2022 by Alcatraznc.3869

[Zergs.9715]

10. Heal yourself with Med Kit while in Mechanist 🤣

 

I'm sorry but what an atrocious spec. If I could I'd delete it from the game along with that weeb swordsman.

[Luthan.5236]

There seems to be some good stuff. I do not care about the auto attacks (never really used them until I saw someone mentioning that this even is possible  - did not expect that). The ground target for the mech location ... would be fun for the signet active effects - if you want to place them on a location in PvP for example. The condition signet can pulse some nice strong condition - if trying to play with conditions.

Then you could try something similar like those guardians in PvP with the speed bursting/spiking traps on a point where they can enforce the decap since contesting the point will have you stay in the trap where the hp gets down to zero in 1-2 seconds. 😄

Rifle skill 1: That one should not be made weaker. If you mean making it weaker with "transfer" ... something to another skill: I disagree. The rifle is versatile especially since you can use it at different ranges. And I like switching between the ranges. Though most of the time I still stay mid to close range - especially in PvP. Then again: Especially in PvP ... guys try to run away a lot. 😄 I'd actually prefer if it had some setup like the mesmer ... I think the greatsword had range based on distance? (Actually giving it more damage when you are more ranged.) Would make it more annoying for an enemy to run away (if this was similar here) ... but also require you to change distance if you used a close ranged skill and wanted to get more damage from skill 1 again. (If that one had more damage with bigger distance.)

Also convenient for cluttered screen with big bosses and a ton of players (in open world) - where I just like to stay back and range ... or using the mace when melee (which at least also gives some supportive/defensive stuff).

My main favorite is still the rifle 4 - since I play engineer with rifle since core days. (Never liked the pistol.) For the elites I tried their new weapons but I played core rifle a lot. Just a nice CC for small scaled open world PvE - can draing a lot of the CC bar. (In core maps it kills CC bar of champs in 1 hit I think.) Short CD for the stuff it does. And I love that they improved it by removing the self-knockback ... while keeping the condi remove for movement impairing stuff.

Edited December 24, 2022 by Luthan.5236

[Gendalfs.7521]

Guys, do you really think they'll revert something or fix mechanist?

Its already month since changes and I haven't seen any response from them.

Which platform they use to communicate with players?

[Infusion.7149]

5 hours ago, Gendalfs.7521 said:

Guys, do you really think they'll revert something or fix mechanist?

Its already month since changes and I haven't seen any response from them.

Which platform they use to communicate with players?

They're on holiday break.
If you're confused about this go read Dec 14 post by devs:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/studio-update-happy-wintersday-from-the-guild-wars-2-team/

Quote

Before we head out for our annual holiday break and bid farewell to 2022
...

We’ll be back early next year to talk about our Q1 plans, which include wrapping up the DirectX11 transition, continuing work on World vs. World, upgrading our in-game browser technology from Coherent to Chromium Embedded Framework, and of course new Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons content. We’re also looking forward to sharing our long-term vision and plans for the game.

 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Dadnir.5038]

20 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

They're on holiday break.
If you're confused about this go read Dec 14 post by devs:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/studio-update-happy-wintersday-from-the-guild-wars-2-team/

I must say that I'm genuinely concerned that some people manage to give you "confused" e-mote when you provide official data.

Edit: Seeing as I got a "confused" I guess there are people  that are very easily confused.

Edited December 25, 2022 by Dadnir.5038

[Cyninja.2954]

Has there been any consideration put towards changing signets? As in change the skill type completely? Signets are another one of the reasons that mechanist has so low of an action per minute issue.

 

If the skills got changed to a different skill type which required some type of interaction besides "have it on the bar for optimal dps" paired with insane active effects to compensate for the mechanists loss of tool-belt skills it might further interaction.

 

There are multiple ways to go about this (increasing interaction in order to increase potential output):

 

1. nerf the mech and transfer some of its damage to the engineer while maintaining minimal mechanist interaction. Hard to do because eventually engi gets buffed and it cuases issues with other builds

 

2. remove some of the present automation to reduce the passive aspects of mechanist. Removing the auto cast falls in this category

 

3. change signets, which are an inherently passive skill type into something else.

 

Here is a spontaneous idea:

What about a mirage mirror (those are the mirage orbs left behind which provide mirage cloak besides the dodge) type mechanic, just not as punishing. Could be combined with reworking mechanical genius. When activated the mech drops a mech screw (the equivalent to a mirage mirror) which has to be picked up by the engineer.

Instead of increasing only 1 attack though (as is with mirage) it provides an extension to the mechanical genius buff (which could also be reworked). You could even do stacks, say the mech can have up to 3 stacks ready which deteriorate and require picking up more screws or lose performance. Bringing more mech utility skills provides players with more spare screws and an easier time to keep the stacks up. Bringing less allows for more utility skills or damage skills at the expense of less screws to pick up for keeping the stacks going.

 

Would that be something "fun" to work around?

Edited December 25, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Phyrak.7260]

Letting us pilot said mech would be great too - perhaps as an f5 if j-drive trait is chosen.

Them buff/tweak scalability of attacks now that the engineer and mech are now a single unit.

Using an elixir would now effect both mech and pilot as they are now a single unit - playing into that power fantasy. 

Reactor online. Sensors online. Weapons online. All systems nominal.

 

[Matoro.9708]

Mech has been so disconnected from the rest of Engi from day 1. It should've been such that the signets give you mech skills for the toolbelt, with the F5 being deploy, etc. and just accepting that we need an F6 or beyond for additional movement commands. 

Obviously it should work underwater. I would at least appreciate a statement from Anet like "yeah, we didn't get it done in time and the higher ups won't let us go back to work on it." Cringe. 

The traits mostly feel like nothingburgers that give scaling that it should've otherwise had. Turrets are crying themselves to sleep. The appearance should've been way more customizable and done through a pet interface. The abilities like I said should've been through the toolbelt system. Given that, the existing traits would basically be mostly empty and would have so much room for cooler stuff. On top of that, the signets were kind of a lazy last minute way to add skills with no flavor. 

On top of that, all classes should have their core skill trees filled out to give an elite where they didn't before, like no elite gadget. Mech is almost as cringe as turret drop being just 3 turrets we already had. If god exists, give me control of the balance team, please.

[Zzik.5873]

On 12/24/2022 at 2:43 PM, Infusion.7149 said:

They're on holiday break.
If you're confused about this go read Dec 14 post by devs:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/studio-update-happy-wintersday-from-the-guild-wars-2-team/

 

Typicall anet, just before holiday break, do a balance patch that completly kitten a lot of player. Than silence for month. Rifle suck now, its feel bad, I hate it now.