Condi mech double standards vs power mech

[Atmaweapon.7345]

Anyone kind of peeved that they're making Serrated Steel and Incendiary powder work with separate ICDs with the Mech? If these traits are weak, then buff them, don't just make mech double dip them like it did with aim-assisted rocket. Condi-mech already outclasses other condi-builds for Engineer, there's no need to specifically single them out for dps buffs.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Atmaweapon.7345

[Kodama.6453]

Nvm

Edited February 4, 2023 by Kodama.6453

[Jerus.4350]

45 minutes ago, Kodama.6453 said:

 

The burning proc from incendiary powder does not happen with a seperated ICD. They just make it that all the burning the mech produces will benefit from the 33% duration buff from that trait.

 

Are you sure?

 

* Incendiary Powder: This trait now functions with the mech while it is active. Trait cooldowns for the mech are separate from the engineer.

The fact that they reference the cooldown being separate seems to imply it's a second application. 

 

This is huge though because the stat inheritance changes are going to be nerfing the condi damage from the mech by ~1100 DPS.  This Incendiary Powder buff will be giving it ~750 DPS back.  Add on the Pistol buffs and the mech auto attach bug being fixed and it might be an overall net buff, but one that certainly feels weird (overall nerf but with a bug fix that will offset most likely).

[Uete.3805]

I think it's too soon to tell the magnitude of this change. The mech's condi duration was bugged, so we'll soon see how that bug fix affects condi mechanist overall. If it goes too crazy they can always try to modify how this trait affects the mech and call it a day (it's also proccing every 10 sec, not every 3 like the aim-assisted rocket). I think having separate ICDs is aimed at avoiding the mech proccing the trait rather than you (given that now mech's condi duration is going down) while, as Jerus said, offsetting some of the lost condi power for the mech. Essentially, it's not double-dipping, but assuring rng doesn't screw the condi power of mechanist even further than the bug fixing will.

On that note, does anyone know if Superconductive signet uses the engi or the mech's condi duration and power?

[Xerxez.7361]

5 hours ago, Uete.3805 said:

I think it's too soon to tell the magnitude of this change. The mech's condi duration was bugged, so we'll soon see how that bug fix affects condi mechanist overall. If it goes too crazy they can always try to modify how this trait affects the mech and call it a day (it's also proccing every 10 sec, not every 3 like the aim-assisted rocket). I think having separate ICDs is aimed at avoiding the mech proccing the trait rather than you (given that now mech's condi duration is going down) while, as Jerus said, offsetting some of the lost condi power for the mech. Essentially, it's not double-dipping, but assuring rng doesn't screw the condi power of mechanist even further than the bug fixing will.

On that note, does anyone know if Superconductive signet uses the engi or the mech's condi duration and power?

4s without Perplexity Runes and 6s with Perplexity Runes so I assume Superconductive uses the player's Condi duration since duration is changed by runes, but I could easily be wrong.

[Kuma.1503]

Tbf, Mech should outclass condi Holo/Scrapper. Holo and Scrapper fill our power niche very nicely. Scrapper leans more on the utility/power end of the spectrum, and Holo is more selfish/raw power DPS. 

Mechanist should be our supportive/condi elite spec. Singling it out for condi buffs makes sense. 

On the opposite end of the scale, it makes sense for power Holo/Scrapper to outclass power mech. Both elite specs are built to specialize in power damage moreso than Mechanist is. 

The pistol buffs benefit all condi builds though. Especially that poison dart volley change. Here's hoping it ends up feeling a lot more like weeping shots on harbinger. 

 

Edited February 4, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Alcatraznc.3869]

These trait arent super strong but they arent so weak that it needs a buff.

That being said, Mechanist is the only competitive condi build Engineer currently have and it has a relatively complex rotation. Scrapper is definitely not a condi spec and Holosmith only has a few burns and bleed here and there but at its core it is a power focus spec. I kind of feel cheated that PMech right now is just underwhelming and unfun to play but condi mech is definitely a keeper.

[coro.3176]

Incendiary Powder is an extremely weak trait in WvW/PvP.

It's a GM Major that procs on crit and does less damage, applies less burning than Mechanist's Rocket Punch, a minor trait with effectively the same ICD.

Even doubling it by letting it proc on mech doesn't bring it up to Rocket Punch's level, and may actually be a nerf. How could double procs be a nerf? Well, each time you apply burning, it moves the burning condi to the top of the condi "stack". This means that it will be the first condition cleansed by the opponent. By reapplying burn, you might accidentally cause all your burns to be erased.

All that said, it's still dumb to have traits that just plain work better with mech than without. Mech already has enough going for it.

Edited February 5, 2023 by coro.3176

[Sensations.9507]

I am just sad that the only pure dps elite spec of engineer (Holosmith) does less damage than quickness support specs and mech...  Specifically condi holo.

[Stalima.5490]

but how will the mech get crits to activate it in a condi build?

[Kodama.6453]

6 hours ago, Stalima.5490 said:

but how will the mech get crits to activate it in a condi build?

5% is baseline and besides that.... fury, I guess? So we are basically looking at a crit chance of 30%.

I guess that should be enough to trigger incendiary powder somewhat frequently.

[draxynnic.3719]

Philosophically at least, I'm in agreement with the OP. If the traits need buffing, buff them for all engineers. Only buffing them for condimech because mech is engi's best condi option becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[Kodama.6453]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Philosophically at least, I'm in agreement with the OP. If the traits need buffing, buff them for all engineers. Only buffing them for condimech because mech is engi's best condi option becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's not that the traits are too weak, but that condi mechanist is going to be too weak.

Condi mechanist is currently engineers best condition spec, but as it turned out this was because of a bug that caused many of the conditions which should originate from your mech to work with your own stats instead. This means that the conditions your mech was supposed to cause were affected by traits which boosted your condition damage (serrated steel, incendiary powder, thermal vision, etc.) and other effects, like runes and such.

Condi mechanist is currently pretty balanced, but now they are going to fix that bug and all the stuff which originates from the mech will also keep working with the effects and stats of the mech instead of your own. Which will drag the damage down quite some.

Anet don't intend to nerf condition mechanist, so they are reworking some of these traits which the mech currently does benefit from (because of the bug) to now officially benefit the mech. They don't want to buff these condition traits, they want to buff mechanist (and only mechanist) to counterbalance the significant nerf that is incoming with the bug fix.

And also.... mechanist definitely should be the best condi spec for engineer. Because it is the only spec which actually has many dedicated traits and skills to support a condition damage playstyle.

Scrapper is entirely focused on power damage. Not a single bonus effect gained from the traits for a condi damage build and the only condition damage dealing skill it added is chemical field (which is weak, btw).
Holosmith has some more conditions, thanks to some burnings here and there. But weapon, utility skills and photon forge are favouring power damage by alot.

[Jerus.4350]

1 hour ago, Kodama.6453 said:

 

Condi mechanist is currently engineers best condition spec, but as it turned out this was because of a bug that caused many of the conditions which should originate from your mech to work with your own stats instead.

Not a bug, they did that on purpose so our Runes/Sigils/Traits would affect the Mech.  With Mechanical Genius being their answer to the easy uptime during mechanics they want it to affect the Support and Condi builds as well, so now it will.  This also will make it work more in line with other pets in the game which I'm sure is thought of as a good thing in general, but I don't think anything would have been done if it weren't for Mechanical Genius.

 

Anyways, just don't like the idea of this being called a Bug like it was some unknown weird thing going on when it was very much known and was a good decision until Mechanical Genius was changed. Other than that, I agree as usual :).  Basically we're losing ~1100 DPS from -10% condi Duration -10% condi damage modifier and -119 raw condi damage, gaining 500-750 DPS from Incendiary Powder, and then getting a bug fix for the Melee Mech attack speed which will put us up to probably ~+500-1k DPS overall total net change from the patch.  Of course we'll see how it actually turns out. 

[coro.3176]

16 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

Scrapper is entirely focused on power damage. Not a single bonus effect gained from the traits for a condi damage build and the only condition damage dealing skill it added is chemical field (which is weak, btw).
Holosmith has some more conditions, thanks to some burnings here and there. But weapon, utility skills and photon forge are favouring power damage by alot.

Outside of firearms and mech, there's precious little condi in Engineer traitlines at all.

• Explosives - Shrapnel
• Inventions - none
• Alchemy - none
• Tools - none (maaaaaybe you could count fire shield from Streamlined Kits)
• Scrapper - none
• Holosmith - Solar Focusing Lens , Thermal Release Valve

[Coolster.2536]

11 hours ago, coro.3176 said:

Outside of firearms and mech, there's precious little condi in Engineer traitlines at all.

• Explosives - Shrapnel
• Inventions - none
• Alchemy - none
• Tools - none (maaaaaybe you could count fire shield from Streamlined Kits)
• Scrapper - none
• Holosmith - Solar Focusing Lens , Thermal Release Valve

You forgot Gadgeteer making Personal Battering Ram apply Burning 😛

[Kodama.6453]

4 hours ago, Coolster.2536 said:

You forgot Gadgeteer making Personal Battering Ram apply Burning 😛

I still don't understand how they came up with the idea to give PBR one stack of burning as the gadgeteer bonus....
Both, PBR and it's toolbelt, are entirely power damage focused, so what was the point here?

Would have preferred if they gave it an extra power damage proc for interrupting foes instead, like pulmonary impact for daredevil does.

[Zoser.7245]

I'm more worried about the real scenery and real situations than the numbers.... always numbers. Against what? An immobile golem or a stupid boss sitting there like a punching bag?

• Jade Mech CJ-1: Fixed an issue that caused melee autoattacks to be slower than intended.  "Reduced the range of the first two melee strikes from 240 to 130."

Actually they cover 240 and tomorrow only 130.  There is a chain of three autos, Hard Strike -> Heavy Smash ->  Twin Strike. (Power and Condi melee, both).  With luck,  at least Twin Strike with the longer cast time and slower animation will still cover 240.

However your mele mech cleave capability and range with two of them will be lower covering a smaller area, so it will often hit less foes/enemies making it less useful, less dangerous for your foes  when you are outnumbered and also missing hits a lot more often while your foes are in movement or try to kite your mech by simply walking outside of its new short 130 range, and probably not even needing to dodge for avoid those skills,  you will avoid them by simply keep yourself moving, maybe with a small speed booster trait/signet/boon. The chain of three autos and cast times will give enemies/players time for be out of the 240 radius for the third one  always unless something stops them moving or slow his movement speed.  Only needing to put attention when  a Fx skills are casted.  Also,  of course, the more time you need to kill your foes, the more damage you will also take from them and more often die.  But well, even thinking in the numbers.... it should be affected too, the less number of enemies you and your mech hit, the lower your dps will be in a lot of phases if that is what matters to you.

It's fun to watch how important for some is how much dps cmech will do against a static punching bag or jealous about it 😆 But they probably made it more or less do the same dps against the "single" golem... Although, from a practical point of view,  a nerf  in its aoe/mele cleave capability.

Maybe is time for devs to change its arms to a tiny ones that will make more sense for the new short 130 range and also reduce its size. Why keep the huge mech size disturbing everything visually and those large arms if it can't even reach a fly flying near its head with its autos unless it jumps in the third one? If its range is that short, it should not be larger than you or even smaller. 🙄

"Add to the user interface an option for select the size of your mech between few available ones. It will  be even better if you can also add a dye/customization for them in some way, even if it's with gems."

Edited February 13, 2023 by Zoser.7245

[Coolster.2536]

On 2/13/2023 at 4:41 AM, Kodama.6453 said:

I still don't understand how they came up with the idea to give PBR one stack of burning as the gadgeteer bonus....
Both, PBR and it's toolbelt, are entirely power damage focused, so what was the point here?

Would have preferred if they gave it an extra power damage proc for interrupting foes instead, like pulmonary impact for daredevil does.

Probably more thematics than anything else (e.g. Flame Ram)

[Kodama.6453]

Now with the patch being there... I hate the changes.

With condis now originating from the mech instead of the mechanist, thermal vision doesn't proc on any of the mech commands anymore. This also includes the attack from the elite signet.

We are outsourcing so much of our effects and damage to the mech and then anet makes extra sure that the mech does not work properly with our trait system... amazing.

At least it still procs from superconductor signet.... but I guess this is a bug because we technically CAN make the effect come from ourselves (if the mech is not there) and it will most likely also get removed as a "bug fix".

Edited February 14, 2023 by Kodama.6453

[Zoser.7245]

Edited:

After do more test and compare the auto-attack of the hammer with the mech well positioned...  It seems that yes is 130 but bad news...  the patch notes mention "130 the first two strikes...". Well, the first two strikes are not related to "Hard Strike and Heavy Smash"  of the chain:  Hard Strike -> Heavy Smash ->  Twin Strike, with the last one still with 240.  

What that means is:  the autos from the FIRST TWO TRAITS  that strike in melee range  😆😅   So yes,  all them, all the melee attacks "Hard Strike -> Heavy Smash ->  Twin Strike."  of both traits 1 and 2  from mechanist adept traits are 130 range now.  

Mech Arms: High-Impact Drivers

Mech Arms: Single-Edge Cutters

Basically  six autos, all the melee ones reduced from 240 to 130.  

Edited February 14, 2023 by Zoser.7245

[Jerus.4350]

6 hours ago, Kodama.6453 said:

At least it still procs from superconductor signet.... but I guess this is a bug because we technically CAN make the effect come from ourselves (if the mech is not there) and it will most likely also get removed as a "bug fix".

It's our cast time, it's our skill. Or, at least that's how I've looked at things and they seem to line up.  Signets are our cast times, so they are our skills except for the Elite which isn't our cast time and isn't our skill.   Please correct me if I'm missing something.

[Kodama.6453]

28 minutes ago, Jerus.4350 said:

It's our cast time, it's our skill. Or, at least that's how I've looked at things and they seem to line up.  Signets are our cast times, so they are our skills except for the Elite which isn't our cast time and isn't our skill.   Please correct me if I'm missing something.

I really hope that you are right, but I have a feeling that this might also be a coding oversight from anet.

Noticable is that the elite signet is the only mech attack which can just and only originate from the mech. All the other signets (superconducting, force, barrier) either already happen around us (force) or have a clause that they can originate from us, if our mech is not currently on the field (superconducting and barrier).

The laser beam doesn't do that. If the mech is not on the field, it summons it. We can't get the laser without it originating from the mech.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 2/12/2023 at 11:36 AM, Kodama.6453 said:

It's not that the traits are too weak, but that condi mechanist is going to be too weak.

Condi mechanist is currently engineers best condition spec, but as it turned out this was because of a bug that caused many of the conditions which should originate from your mech to work with your own stats instead. This means that the conditions your mech was supposed to cause were affected by traits which boosted your condition damage (serrated steel, incendiary powder, thermal vision, etc.) and other effects, like runes and such.

Condi mechanist is currently pretty balanced, but now they are going to fix that bug and all the stuff which originates from the mech will also keep working with the effects and stats of the mech instead of your own. Which will drag the damage down quite some.

Anet don't intend to nerf condition mechanist, so they are reworking some of these traits which the mech currently does benefit from (because of the bug) to now officially benefit the mech. They don't want to buff these condition traits, they want to buff mechanist (and only mechanist) to counterbalance the significant nerf that is incoming with the bug fix.

And also.... mechanist definitely should be the best condi spec for engineer. Because it is the only spec which actually has many dedicated traits and skills to support a condition damage playstyle.

Scrapper is entirely focused on power damage. Not a single bonus effect gained from the traits for a condi damage build and the only condition damage dealing skill it added is chemical field (which is weak, btw).
Holosmith has some more conditions, thanks to some burnings here and there. But weapon, utility skills and photon forge are favouring power damage by alot.

Then buff the condi mech stuff directly instead, or buff the traits directly. Having some core traits be twice as effective for mechanist feels like it's going to hold up any other condi spec that ever shows up, since the traits will have to be balanced for that double-dipping.

Sure, scrapper and holosmith are intuitively more power-oriented, but core engineer still brings a lot of condition damage options to the table. And there's the possibility of more specs in the future. Maybe even that chemical engineer you've been advocating for.

[Kodama.6453]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Then buff the condi mech stuff directly instead, or buff the traits directly. Having some core traits be twice as effective for mechanist feels like it's going to hold up any other condi spec that ever shows up, since the traits will have to be balanced for that double-dipping.

Sure, scrapper and holosmith are intuitively more power-oriented, but core engineer still brings a lot of condition damage options to the table. And there's the possibility of more specs in the future. Maybe even that chemical engineer you've been advocating for.

I agree, having interactions like double dipping into traits with the mech is not healthy design. We already saw this with AAR, where they had to remove the double dipping mechanic in the end.

I was just explaining Anet's reasoning for why they are making these changes. The traits are fine and don't need buffs, that wasn't the point of the changes. They just wanted to buff condi mechanist specifically, because it was going to lose damage with the coming bug fix. But I also think that the solution has not been optimal.

I would have preferred if they had increased the condition damage from the mech command skills directly instead.... even just reverting some of the condi nerfs for the commands they applied in the past:

• rolling smash: got it's bleeding application nerfed from 8 stacks to just 4 stacks
• discharge array: confusion duration got nerfed from 10 seconds all the way down to 3 seconds

Maybe also increase the bleeding from auto attacks of the mech.