Mechanist - What is the point of the leash?

[The Boz.2038]

I don't want to get into the details of how the leash punishes non-compliance; cooldowns, stat loss, whatever.

Why is it there in the first place?

If the devs are bothered by "you shouldn't get to affect your team/the enemy without being close to them simply because your pet is", why is that a problem with mechanist, but not ranger? Why is that a problem at all? 

If your pet is permanently supposed to be rooted to your feet, never to move from where you are, why is the AI so braindead about it? Why does "return to me" result in the mech, six times out of ten, walking up to you and then IMMEDIATELY PAST YOU AND OUT OF RANGE AGAIN? 
Additionally, if you and the mech are supposed to be in the same place all the time... why is the mech even there? What class fantasy or mechanic is fulfilled by the mech existing, if the mech is always where you are, always takes damage when you do (because 90% of the damage in the game is some form of AoE/cleave), and always affects people in a point blank AoE around you/it?

Just why to the everything of it?!

[Tails.9372]

The official explanation is to "reward good positioning" (to my knowledge they never bothered to elaborate any further). However I've never seen anyone actually ask for something like this and the whole thing is just riddled with issues. "good positioning" is inherently context dependent and nothing about it feels "rewarding" either, quite the opposite as it's just a strait up QoL downgrade.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

Why is it there ?

Because GW2 community cried that Mechanist is the root of all the issue that exist in this game. Because some people complained that you could press 1 key and then do all the content (I am still waiting for a video of someone doing exactly that, pressing 1 key and then clearing a fractal / raid / strike mission but for some reason all the player claiming that still didnt bother to make one). 

The whole concept of Mechanist was supposed to be a pet that helps you in your fight, a ""friend"" you bring along. But Anet being Anet they had to turn the spec into a babysitting simulation where everything Mechanist does, other class can do the same but with less micromanagement. The only thing Mechanist do better than other right now is in the alac generation, but even that, GW2 players fails to realise that it isnt Mechanist that is being OP or too strong, it is other spec are either broken, too weak or poorly designed. And instead of asking Anet to fix their spec, they ask for Mechanist to be gutted at their level. In the end no one is happy: engineer will be mad at Anet for gutting the spec and the rest non engineer players will be mad at Anet for not attempting to fix the whole spam skill on CD issue.

The worst part is that Mechanist has received so many nerf that the leash now is not even needed and serve only as a punishment for not having your baby close to you. Mechanist in PvE ? You can play Holosmith and do Mechanist job but better.. Mechanist in WvW ? Have fun being useless the moment your mech steps into an AOE. Mechanist in PvP ? You're just giving your team a harder time to win while giving the other team an opponent that will do nothing. This spec only serve for 2 things : Alacrity and the fantasy of having a high tech robot following you around. That's it. 

 

 

 

[WipZedKay.5316]

48 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

The official explanation is to "reward good positioning" (to my knowledge they never bothered to elaborate any further). However I've never seen anyone actually ask for something like this and the whole thing is just riddled with issues. "good positioning" is inherently context dependent and nothing about it feels "rewarding" either, quite the opposite as it's just a strait up QoL downgrade.

It certainly doesn't help that even if you do learn to wrangle the mech to be in a good position manually, you are still punished. Since we can't force the mech to stand in any specific spot, you have to move out of the mechanical genius range to properly position it which is especially important if you're playing any alacrity variant. So we're being punished for trying to do ''good positioning'' because the tools given to us are bad and unreliable.

[The Boz.2038]

4 minutes ago, Rayamon.4358 said:

It certainly doesn't help that even if you do learn to wrangle the mech to be in a good position manually, you are still punished. Since we can't force the mech to stand in any specific spot, you have to move out of the mechanical genius range to properly position it which is especially important if you're playing any alacrity variant. So we're being punished for trying to do ''good positioning'' because the tools given to us are bad and unreliable.

The "good positioning" talking point is such infuriating utter tripe, my god...

Example of problem: You are in range of boss, and mech is ~250 away from you, but not perfectly aligned to cover your group. Telling it to get over to you will not work at this point, because the mech will often ignore the command if he is already close. Best that will do is have it STOP attacking the boss and turn to face you. So you move ~100 units away, and tell it to move over to you. Bot complies, and moves over. Then continues moving to the other side of you, getting to a random 250-450 distance away from you on the other side. Was good positioning achieved? Oh, but no! You are supposed to INTERRUPT the bot moving when he is exactly on top of you, and then tell it to attack your target! That's the way to do it! So you do that, and the bot turns around, starts walking to the boss that is already in range, walks past it to the boss' backside because reasons, and then begins to attack. Bot is now again ~200-400 units away from you (no way to tell, good luck if you wanna pop your alac/aegis now), still out of ideal alignment with the rest of the team, and alacrity probably dropped half an hour ago.

If you want the picture perfect example of a boss that magnifies all of the mech's problems, look no further than Boneskinner. 

[Remus Darkblight.1673]

You should be able to command it like Ventari Tablet on Rev.

[Zzik.5873]

3 hours ago, Remus Darkblight.1673 said:

You should be able to command it like Ventari Tablet on Rev.

Yes 1 tap to tell him to go there and stay, another tap 2 but in "free mode/pet IA" or just get ride of the mechanical geniaus crap, that could also help. Does anyone at anet even try play mechanist once in any end game content? Mechanist is useless in wvw, its useless in pvp since the mech just got cc to hell and in pve its now a hardmode for healer/support player. Anet should not listen to people that dont play the spec to balance the spec...

[Kal Durak.2830]

5 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

I don't want to get into the details of how the leash punishes non-compliance; cooldowns, stat loss, whatever.

Why is it there in the first place?

If the devs are bothered by "you shouldn't get to affect your team/the enemy without being close to them simply because your pet is", why is that a problem with mechanist, but not ranger? Why is that a problem at all? 

If your pet is permanently supposed to be rooted to your feet, never to move from where you are, why is the AI so braindead about it? Why does "return to me" result in the mech, six times out of ten, walking up to you and then IMMEDIATELY PAST YOU AND OUT OF RANGE AGAIN? 
Additionally, if you and the mech are supposed to be in the same place all the time... why is the mech even there? What class fantasy or mechanic is fulfilled by the mech existing, if the mech is always where you are, always takes damage when you do (because 90% of the damage in the game is some form of AoE/cleave), and always affects people in a point blank AoE around you/it?

Just why to the everything of it?!

Anet, Really fix it this time please.

[Kiro Kobra.6478]

Instead of CD penalties (especially at a "hard cutoff" of 600 distance,) it'd make more sense to reduce the mech's damage, healing, and boon duration based on a distance range of 600-1,000 via a new debuff called "Signal Degradation" (or something, idk, name isn't important) that has a delay of 4 seconds.

Once your mech is 600+ distance from you, the debuff activates with a 4-second delay. The purpose of the delay is to not harshly punish quick "in and out" situations, or if the target repositions quickly. The further the mech is from you (starting at 600 distance), the more those stats will get nerfed. Start at a 10% nerf at 600 distance, and by 1,000 distance it'll be 80%. Then, update the Mech's AI so that if it's outside of 1000 distance, it'll automatically reposition itself to be within 1000 distance, because "signal range is too weak"

Additionally, the mech's AI will automatically reposition itself to be within 600 distance from you upon activating the commands Barrier Burst and Crisis Zone.

Overall it's more complicated for the devs, but honestly the current implementation is just lazy and bad.

[The Boz.2038]

1 minute ago, Kiro Kobra.6478 said:

Instead of CD penalties (especially at a "hard cutoff" of 600 distance,) it'd make more sense to reduce the mech's damage, healing, and boon duration based on a distance range of 600-1,000 via a new debuff called "Signal Degradation" (or something, idk, name isn't important) that has a delay of 4 seconds.

Infinitely better and more thought out approach.

...but the question remains, why?

[loregnum.3619]

2 minutes ago, Kiro Kobra.6478 said:

Instead of CD penalties (especially at a "hard cutoff" of 600 distance,) it'd make more sense to reduce the mech's damage, healing, and boon duration based on a distance range of 600-1,000 via a new debuff called "Signal Degradation" (or something, idk, name isn't important) that has a delay of 4 seconds.

Once your mech is 600+ distance from you, the debuff activates with a 4-second delay. The purpose of the delay is to not harshly punish quick "in and out" situations, or if the target repositions quickly. The further the mech is from you (starting at 600 distance), the more those stats will get nerfed. Start at a 10% nerf at 600 distance, and by 1,000 distance it'll be 80%. Then, update the Mech's AI so that if it's outside of 1000 distance, it'll automatically reposition itself to be within 1000 distance, because "signal range is too weak"

Additionally, the mech's AI will automatically reposition itself to be within 600 distance from you upon activating the commands Barrier Burst and Crisis Zone.

Overall it's more complicated for the devs, but honestly the current implementation is just lazy and bad.

This would indeed be much better.

Still, I am with the group that says there shouldn't be any range thing at all because there is no reason for it. Like alcatraznc stated, the narrative that you can just go get a piece of pizza while the jade mech does its thing was/is not supported by reality and reality should always trump narratives. It's been nerfed enough that even if that were true, it is not now so there is no need for this leash system that does nothing but annoy players. 

[Kiro Kobra.6478]

14 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Infinitely better and more thought out approach.

...but the question remains, why?

Probably because there is more trait synergy, effect procs, and overall better damage/boons compared to Ranger pets. 

If this is ANet's actual reason and they're using "reward good positioning" as a cop-out, then perhaps the simple solution is to nerf the mech's stats in general, just not so harshly. Additionally, to address the increased trait procs,  whatever it does when further than 1,000 range will not proc traits - for example, Big Boomer.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Kiro Kobra.6478
spelling, better sentence structure.

[BatelGeuce.3591]

I love how you people use ranger as an example while completely ignoring the fact that ranger pets are basically useless on their own no matter how far from the ranger they are and that they only bring any kind of value if you meld with them.

Like none of the pets have any ferocity or healing power, the only one that goes over 2k in power is shark, the rest are 1800 or less. But sure, let's have mech have it's own fixed stats that you cannot affect in any way and then we can talk about it keeping it no matter how far from you it is.

[BatelGeuce.3591]

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

I obviously did not bring it up in the "pet has DPS" context, though.

You did though. I didn't mention DPS in the initial post, you just assumed that's what it was about. I was purely comparing pets and mech as a whole. All I did was mention attributes that pets have and as we all know here, attributes affect the overall performance of said entity, not just DPS.

1 minute ago, The Boz.2038 said:

I'm just left here, slow-blinking at this. Wow.

What else am I here for but delivering solutions.

[Passerbye.6291]

Imagine comparing the mech to ranger pets lol. I'm pretty sure any ranger would be 100% on board with a leash on the pet if it meant that their pet wouldn't be an absolute dead weight. Meanwhile mech micromanagement is the only thing that remotely requires paying any kind of attention to the game for mechanist and people are losing their kitten over it.

The leash mechanic, the discussion of why it is implemented exactly the way it is aside, is there for you to not have 100% efficiency while providing alac and kiting something an entire screen away at the same time, or leave your mech on a target while everyone else has to go away and do mechanics for significant damage (now works to a lesser degree), and adds some much needed "complexity" to mechanist gameplay so that you guys don't fall asleep during raids/fractals/strikes anymore.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Passerbye.6291

[Dibit.6259]

As an alacdps mech main I like to say mech management is not that hard. 9 out of 10 you're all at the boss anyway so management is not an issue and theres enough time to realize your mech is not at the right target to recall/change its target/unsummon and resummon (adds some juicy cc while you're at it :D). I will say the issue with the mech being miles away in noncombat situations can be annoying while trying to prebuff your team. Managing your mech makes the playstyle more interesting too, its a minimal requirement for what is consider an easy class to play in most cases.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Dibit.6259
typos

[Lorebrand.5189]

Unfortunately, this affects us in PVP and WvW as well, where just by chasing the enemy you lose Mechanical Genius and incur lengthy cooldowns. 

It seems to me this stemmed from the engineer being OP at debut, when both the Mech and the Mechanist could fire off Aim Assisted Rockets, which at the time were critting for 15K (each). They nerfed AAR (needed), nerfed rifle (not needed), and then kept going... not really based on technical merit, but trying to appease non-engineers who were justifiably upset about routinely getting one-shot by the mech and not understanding why (it was AAR). MG was just unneeded after the other nerfs. If they're going to punish us for not standing still in competitive fights, give us back the old AAR so we get an ACTUAL reward for "good positioning". 

But my vote is just nix MG and leave the rest as it is. Mech is not OP in its current state in small-scale fights, and useless in large-scale fights, and getting rid of MG doesn't change any of that. 

[Tails.9372]

6 hours ago, Alcatraznc.3869 said:

Why is it there ?

Because GW2 community cried that Mechanist is the root of all the issue that exist in this game.

TBH while this might have been one of the reasons behind it I wouldn't even put this one on them as "the leash" came after the Devs removed all the other synergies and most people stopped caring / even some of the more vocal critics took more of a "sill not a fan but it's ok now I guess" position. I've always been a proponent of giving credit where credit is due and this one definitely goes to the Devs as the only actual prevalent complaint about the mech at the time of implementation was "green visual pollution" which btw. is still left unaddressed (and no, making the spec less popular is not an acceptable way to address that issue).

[Hylden.7468]

2 hours ago, Kiro Kobra.6478 said:

Instead of CD penalties (especially at a "hard cutoff" of 600 distance,) (...)

Now it's accually radius of 360 which is just kick in the crotch, followed by another one in there being no delay in Mechanical Genius dropping. The moment mech decides to rush after Ensolyss you're screwed. If there really needs to be a leash in the first place, you're idea would be a good enough approach, but we still need a way to tell mech to go places, while not being dependant on "here boy" command that is just broken, given the AI. Sometimes I wonder if balance team even tests their changes before putting them live.

[Endaris.1452]

12 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

why is that a problem with mechanist, but not ranger?

Because mech is busted while pets are useless, there you go.

Edited June 29, 2023 by Endaris.1452
typo

[Piogre.2164]

It's not like "good positioning" wasn't already rewarded before -- GW2's combat is such that positioning and movement matter in most interactions.  This goes double for mech positioning when filling an alac role, since your most important job requires the mech to be on the party.

Before the mech genius range thing was ever announced, the most frequent thing I muttered into my screen was "get over here you stupid F****** robot" -- when playing alac and I needed the thing to get over TO MY GROUP so I could give them alacrity, and the thing's wandered off to narnia again, a nd the "return to me" button isn't working for one reason or another (sometimes it's standing in place doing the moonwalk, sometimes it's slingshotting from one side of the map to the other, sometimes it shows no indication of having heard me).  The ability to control the mech's positioning was bad from the start given how important the mech's positioning already was.

Then they announced that they'd be adding something to have us focus on positioning more.  I naively hoped they would be making it easier to control the mech's position so I could do my job better.  Something like ventari's tablet positioning.

I was wrong.

Instead they punish us *more than they already did* for the tools provided to us being bad for their intended purpose.  And this iteration is worse.  Give me a 360 unit leash or a "stand the f*** there and stay there" ground target or something to better control the big dumb robot and I'll gladly eat all the additional punish-poor-positioning mechanics they throw at me.  I recognize anet wants me to interact with the spec's core mechanic more.  Please give me the tools to do so.

[Kuma.1503]

I dislike this change because it does the opposite of what Anet claims it does. 

"Good Positioning" is obviously a cop-out for a change that was done to satiate the mob, but assuming that's actually their goal... they've failed miserably. 

Good Positioning on Mechanist will often mean being in two places at once. That means going to do mechanics while you keep your Mech on the group to give boons. Performing two roles at the same time and using your pet spec to the fullest. 

This change punishes good positioning. It actively encourages you to stack on your mech inside of damaging AoEs. It discourages you from splitting from your mech to do mechanics while upkeeping boons. For a change that was meant to increase Mech's skill cap. It does a good job of encouraging the exact opposite. 

Doing two roles at once is a mark of a good player who knows his spec and knows the fight. It captures the fantasy of playing a pet spec. As it stands, the Mech is just a clunky second health bar that rubberbands around you and requires constant babysitting. 

 

I'd also like to point out the stealth nerf to Alac mech this patch. Which I assume was meant to make it harder to play. No more barrier on mace auto 3. Instead it's on the 2 skill. A reasonable change, but unecessary given that Mechanist isn't the top overperformer and doesn't need yet another nerf right now. 

They should be looking at ele and it's overperformance in PvP/WvW, and the fact that it's very solid in PvE as well. Why is Mech the thing on their radar right now?

Edited June 30, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Gendalfs.7521]

1 hour ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Because mech is busted

Its like broken gramaphone for some time now.

[Alcatraznc.3869]

14 hours ago, Endaris.1452 said:

Because mech is busted while pets are useless, there you go.

 

For a spec that forces you to give up an entire branch just to your buff your mech, remove about 20-30 skills and punishes you for not sticking to him like glue, the mech is way way far from being busted.

 

 

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

I'd also like to point out the stealth nerf to Alac mech this patch. Which I assume was meant to make it harder to play. No more barrier on mace auto 3. Instead it's on the 2 skill. A reasonable change, but unecessary given that Mechanist isn't the top overperformer and doesn't need yet another nerf right now. 

I tried mech barrier build for the first time in forever and I literally have 100% uptime on alacrity doing absolutely nothing... with p/p on a condi build and 20% boon duration. In WvW. 

I dont even want to know how it was before alacrity was nerfed then.

Edited June 30, 2023 by Dawdler.8521