Since spear is going to be melee, buff rifle and/or shortbow

[Sindust.7059]

The currently unfilled niche is for a ranged power weapon, because the existing options are extremely weak. Since spear isn't going to fill that niche and instead will be giving us for some unfathomable reason a "lightning themed 2h melee weapon" (i.e. 2nd hammer), the extremely weak ranged power weapons should be buffed to fix this problem. Especially considering that mechanist has the traits for a build that screams at you that it wants to be ranged with those traits giving three 1200 range skills. Not having a viable ranged weapon to go along with those traits just feels like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Why rifle should be buffed and how it would work is obvious, since there is precedent. Currently the same builds running rifle perform about 10-15% below hammer or sword (i.e. about 3-5k DPS deficit), and about 2-4% below mace (~1k deficit). This is an unacceptable state.

But if ANet doesn't want to touch rifle for some reason, buffing shortbow would be a great option too. Mechanics wise it has all that is required to fill that role. It has quick auto attacks, all its skills are fast and ranged, and it already does power damage. All it needs is a buff to those power damage numbers, and it would feel great as a ranged power weapon. And that it's a "support weapon" is no reason to not also make it a viable power weapon, since ranger mace is also a support weapon, but it doesn't prevent it from being one of the best options for power dps. Also this change would make some of the holdouts consider purchasing SotO, so it would be a win-win for both the players and ANet's balance sheet.

[Mic.1897]

2 hours ago, Sindust.7059 said:

 

Why rifle should be buffed and how it would work is obvious, since there is precedent. Currently the same builds running rifle perform about 10-15% below hammer or sword (i.e. about 3-5k DPS deficit), and about 2-4% below mace (~1k deficit). This is an unacceptable state.

 

I'm confused

How is a ranged weapon doing less damage than melee weapons unacceptable lol

[Sindust.7059]

34 minutes ago, Mic.1897 said:

I'm confused

How is a ranged weapon doing less damage than melee weapons unacceptable lol

If this wasn't GW2, you might have an argument, but in a game with guardian pistol being top dps for the class despite axe being a thing, as well as ele pistol being better than hammer, mesmer dagger being better than sword and a bunch of other examples that I could bring, this isn't an argument, and I'm tired of people pretending like it is.

[Tofu.1865]

3 hours ago, Sindust.7059 said:

The currently unfilled niche is for a ranged power weapon, because the existing options are extremely weak. Since spear isn't going to fill that niche and instead will be giving us for some unfathomable reason a "lightning themed 2h melee weapon" (i.e. 2nd hammer), the extremely weak ranged power weapons should be buffed to fix this problem. Especially considering that mechanist has the traits for a build that screams at you that it wants to be ranged with those traits giving three 1200 range skills. Not having a viable ranged weapon to go along with those traits just feels like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Why rifle should be buffed and how it would work is obvious, since there is precedent. Currently the same builds running rifle perform about 10-15% below hammer or sword (i.e. about 3-5k DPS deficit), and about 2-4% below mace (~1k deficit). This is an unacceptable state.

But if ANet doesn't want to touch rifle for some reason, buffing shortbow would be a great option too. Mechanics wise it has all that is required to fill that role. It has quick auto attacks, all its skills are fast and ranged, and it already does power damage. All it needs is a buff to those power damage numbers, and it would feel great as a ranged power weapon. And that it's a "support weapon" is no reason to not also make it a viable power weapon, since ranger mace is also a support weapon, but it doesn't prevent it from being one of the best options for power dps. Also this change would make some of the holdouts consider purchasing SotO, so it would be a win-win for both the players and ANet's balance sheet.

I use a Rifle in open world most of the time and it is pointless to buff it, Shortbow is good at it is especially if u are a Pro Holo in PvP or support in PvE

[draxynnic.3719]

14 minutes ago, Sindust.7059 said:

If this wasn't GW2, you might have an argument, but in a game with guardian pistol being top dps for the class despite axe being a thing, as well as ele pistol being better than hammer, mesmer dagger being better than sword and a bunch of other examples that I could bring, this isn't an argument, and I'm tired of people pretending like it is.

Guardian pistol can only do that sort of damage if it's in melee (personally I'd prefer if it did a little less damage in melee but maintained its output at range), the mesmer thing happens because sword is balanced as a defensive weapon and mesmer doesn't really have a power melee DPS weapon (we'll see what mesmer spear brings), and ele... ele is just a mess in general and pistol was overtuned in order to get people to use a weapon that would have been outright abandoned if it didn't have good golem numbers, and is pretty much useless outside of raids, strikes, and fractals.

[Sindust.7059]

1 minute ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Guardian pistol can only do that sort of damage if it's in melee

How exactly is that different from engi rifle with rifle 2 scaling up in damage the closer you get to your target and rifle 5 putting you in melee range if you weren't and doing 2x the damage if you already were? I did not test rifle at 1200 range to get the 10-15% difference, I tested it in melee. At range it would be more than 50% difference.

[draxynnic.3719]

Just now, Sindust.7059 said:

How exactly is that different from engi rifle with rifle 2 scaling up in damage the closer you get to your target and rifle 5 putting you in melee range if you weren't and doing 2x the damage if you already were? I did not test rifle at 1200 range to get the 10-15% difference, I tested it in melee. At range it would be more than 50% difference.

Guardian pistol has to have the enemy inside the symbol - a symbol they drop at their feet. The guardian profession itself, in all variants (dragonhunter less than the others, but that's also the elite spec that you're least likely to use with pistols) also assumes being in melee or at least close range to get additional damage from traits, utilities, and profession mechanics.

But tbh, I'd prefer it if pistol was pared back and shifted being better at range, and axe was good enough in comparison to at least be one of the swaps. The problem isn't engi rifle there, it's guardian pistol.

[Sindust.7059]

1 minute ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The problem isn't engi rifle there, it's guardian pistol.

...and mesmer dagger, and ele pistol, and ele scepter (which by the way is getting buffed in 2 weeks), and ranger axe, and necro pistol...

Yeah, everything is the problem except the obviously overnerfed engi rifle. /s

If any engi build did 42k with rifle at 1200 range like virtuoso, or 45k in melee like willbender with pistol while still applying some pressure at range, or at least 43k as is the case with soulbeast with axes, then you could say that either of those was the problem and not engi rifle, but alas that's not the case. I haven't seen any engi rifle build exceed 35k in a game where any viable dps build, be it ranged or melee, starts at 40k.

[draxynnic.3719]

10 minutes ago, Sindust.7059 said:

...and mesmer dagger, and ele pistol, and ele scepter (which by the way is getting buffed in 2 weeks), and ranger axe, and necro pistol...

Yeah, everything is the problem except the obviously overnerfed engi rifle. /s

If any engi build did 42k with rifle at 1200 range like virtuoso, or 45k in melee like willbender with pistol while still applying some pressure at range, or at least 43k as is the case with soulbeast with axes, then you could say that either of those was the problem and not engi rifle, but alas that's not the case. I haven't seen any engi rifle build exceed 35k in a game where any viable dps build, be it ranged or melee, starts at 40k.

We've seen that in the past - do you remember the days when you'd rock up to a strike mission PUG and more than half of the players were mechanists? I do.

Engineer rifle has a bit of an issue in that when it's top DPS, it's top DPS with a really easy and forgiving rotation. Even virtuoso has to care about the order in which they use some skills and can be messed up if their rotation gets disrupted, riflemech just didn't care about anything. And it still doesn't - riflemech is still a good build for people starting off in raids or strikes despite its low benchmark because it still reliably does enough damage to get through most content almost regardless of player skill or what's going on around it. The other builds you're talking about are complicated enough to run that actually getting the benchmarks is almost a full-time job in itself.

That's probably the real reason why engi rifle has low benchmarks - you can't have a build that easy while also being able to get the same results as much more complicated builds being played at their best, or it ends up being the only thing that gets played.

[Sindust.7059]

2 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

We've seen that in the past - do you remember the days when you'd rock up to a strike mission PUG and more than half of the players were mechanists? I do.

Engineer rifle has a bit of an issue in that when it's top DPS, it's top DPS with a really easy and forgiving rotation. Even virtuoso has to care about the order in which they use some skills and can be messed up if their rotation gets disrupted, riflemech just didn't care about anything. And it still doesn't - riflemech is still a good build for people starting off in raids or strikes despite its low benchmark because it still reliably does enough damage to get through most content almost regardless of player skill or what's going on around it. The other builds you're talking about are complicated enough to run that actually getting the benchmarks is almost a full-time job in itself.

That's probably the real reason why engi rifle has low benchmarks - you can't have a build that easy while also being able to get the same results as much more complicated builds being played at their best, or it ends up being the only thing that gets played.

I know plenty of builds that require the same amount of effort (i.e. whack-a-mole rotation) while still providing more dps. Condi willbender is one of those. So is condi tempest with scepter+warhorn and pistol+torch scourge. And all of them can be ranged, because that's the builds that I seek out. But nowadays there are also autoattack builds that do more than rifle mech with 2 kits. Complexity is just a cope for mech haters whose knowledge of the game doesn't exceed 2 year old memes about EoD.

You're arguing about a game that no longer exists. This isn't EoD when 38k DPS was peak performance. Peak performance is 45k, and riflemech with its 31-33k would just about qualify for a decent support dps... if it could support without giving up any damage. Making rifle perform the same as hammer would put rifle mech at just about 36-38k. And since complexity is now the problem for you (shifting goalposts much), scrapper or holo doing more than that with a rifle would not be an issue, because those builds are more complex and force you very hard into melee for the other skills. Furthermore, since EoD mechanist got nerfed with the mech hugging mechanic, so there is additional complexity to playing mechanist compared to what it was before, so arguing about complexity and using EoD as reference is disingenuous.

At this point in time rifle was severely overnerfed. You say that it's good for people starting out, but it really isn't, because if you start out and use hammer or sword instead, you'll be doing 3-4k more DPS without any added complexity, except that you can't go ranged. And those 3-4k multiplied by 6-8 people will make a huge difference in your raid where everyone is stacking anyway. It would be like having a 7th full DPS in the group.

[draxynnic.3719]

15 minutes ago, Sindust.7059 said:

I know plenty of builds that require the same amount of effort (i.e. whack-a-mole rotation) while still providing more dps. Condi willbender is one of those. So is condi tempest with scepter+warhorn and pistol+torch scourge. And all of them can be ranged, because that's the builds that I seek out. But nowadays there are also autoattack builds that do more than rifle mech with 2 kits. Complexity is just a cope for mech haters whose knowledge of the game doesn't exceed 2 year old memes about EoD.

Condi willbender has a degree of whack-a-mole, but it has enough APM required in doing that to bring its own complexity, as does scourge. I'd also say that willbender and tempest are both losing a lot of damage if they're not at least close to the enemy - sure, they're not obligatory melee builds that stop doing damage at all outside of melee range, but if you're a willbender not using F1 or a tempest not dropping overloads, you're leaving a lot of damage on the table.

Nice (but incorrect) ad hominem that probably says more about you than it does about me, btw.

15 minutes ago, Sindust.7059 said:

You're arguing about a game that no longer exists. This isn't EoD when 38k DPS was peak performance. Peak performance is 45k, and riflemech with its 31-33k would just about qualify for a decent support dps... if it could support without giving up any damage. Making rifle perform the same as hammer would put rifle mech at just about 36-38k. And since complexity is now the problem for you (shifting goalposts much), scrapper or holo doing more than that with a rifle would not be an issue, because those builds are more complex and force you very hard into melee for the other skills. Furthermore, since EoD mechanist got nerfed with the mech hugging mechanic, so there is additional complexity to playing mechanist compared to what it was before, so arguing about complexity and using EoD as reference is disingenuous.

It amuses me that "shifting goalposts" seems to be brought up whenever someone thinks of another aspect of a discussion. You've done so yourself, and it's not like anybody is expected to think of every single consideration on their very first post on a topic.

31-33k of reliable damage is still enough to get through most content. We've got Mukluk testing out DPS builds at the moment, and that's about what he was getting on reaper after about an hour of practice. The maximum allowed golem numbers have snuck up from 40K to about 44K, but I'm pretty sure if riflemech got up to 36-38k we'd go right back to the early EoD situation because it's easier than getting those numbers on anything else, including the builds we now consider to be the easy ones. The mech hugging mechanic doesn't really change this - just use the full ranged mech.

Rifle scrapper or holosmith would be fine, since as you point out, they'd be more complex. They'd also probably want to be in melee at least some of the time, although I'm not sure off the top of my head that you couldn't make a full ranged power scrapper build. Problem is that buffing rifle generally would be primarily buffing riflemech, and scrapper and holo don't really synergise that well with rifle.

15 minutes ago, Sindust.7059 said:

At this point in time rifle was severely overnerfed. You say that it's good for people starting out, but it really isn't, because if you start out and use hammer or sword instead, you'll be doing 3-4k more DPS without any added complexity, except that you can't go ranged. And those 3-4k multiplied by 6-8 people will make a huge difference in your raid where everyone is stacking anyway. It would be like having a 7th full DPS in the group.

I've raided with people who were running riflemech as an experienced player in a training group earlier this year (group fell apart when the main organiser had a scheduling conflict). They did fairly well. Because they were able to do about the same damage the other trainees were, maybe a bit more, while being able to focus on mechanics rather than trying to get good damage out of your rotation.

If you're going full sweatymode with an experienced group, it's not so good - but do you happen to recall how HTCM was first beaten? They used riflemechs. Because... they could focus on mechanics while only losing a couple of thousand DPS, and in practice that meant more damage overall while you're progressing. FebeCM used virtuosos for a similar reason. Eking out that last bit of DPS is something you usually only care about when the group is already clearing like a well oiled machine. When you're progressing or pugging, reliability is usually much more important.

[Sindust.7059]

55 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

if you're a willbender not using F1 or a tempest not dropping overloads, you're leaving a lot of damage on the table

Rifle mech also loses a lot of damage. We already talked about it. Go to 900-1200 range and try to parse with a mech. You'll be lucky if you get 15k. In fact 12-15k is what I get when doing pylons on Q2 with a rifle mech (literally the only place where I use it nowadays, because I never learned doing that mechanic on any other class).

56 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

APM

It's funny, this is always brought up with rifle mech, when the LI build that has low APM would be doing even less DPS, and the build that actually hits benchmark numbers uses 1-2 kits and none of the mech skills are on auto-cast, because the auto-cast is a ~2k DPS loss on top of that. Rifle mech has plenty of APM when played properly, and if played as portrayed in the memes that you get your knowledge from, it wouldn't even qualify for the support DPS role if it could support.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

31-33k of reliable damage is still enough to get through most content.

So why isn't everyone running full celestial? That would make the 31-33k even more reliable on every class! Especially ele who wouldn't be wiping the floor half the fight! This argument is a red herring.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

I'm pretty sure if riflemech got up to 36-38k we'd go right back to the early EoD situation because it's easier than getting those numbers on anything else

It's not, see above. Currently rifle mechs are extinct. While running fractal CMs with pugs I haven't seen a single rifle mech in the past half a year of doing them almost daily. Plenty of condi mechs, plenty of scrappers, some holosmiths and on rare occasions a sword or hammer pmech, but no rifle mechs at all. The only places where I see them is open world and some normal mode strike pugs where they are at the bottom of the DPS ranking even in groups where one person pushes 33-35k showing that it's possible in that fight, and everyone else sits at 20-ish. And that's because rifle mech's 31-33k isn't as "reliable" as you make it out to be. It has a flat damage profile with no burst, so any interruption during the fight does not mean cooldowns reset and it can burst again like most other power builds. It's just a flat DPS loss proportional to the length of the interruption.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

do you happen to recall how HTCM was first beaten?

Again, irrelevant because the game has changed, and I'm not asking for rifle mech to be top DPS in the game, I'm not even asking for it to be average, I'm asking for it to be top DPS among the various variants of a power mech, because the way the game is designed it doesn't make sense to use a melee weapon with that build. And that would put it at the very bottom, just on the brink of barely viable, not 5k below it. When mech got nerfed to 33k, even while the top DPS was still 38-40k, the only people still playing it were ones who would have played it regardless of what happened, and those who haven't read the patch notes yet. 5-7k difference to the top is sufficient to prevent the EoD situation, especially combined with the mech hugging thing that is oh-so-fun in movement heavy fights. When rifle mech got popular, it was 2k away from the top.

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

FebeCM used virtuosos for a similar reason

Except with 4k more DPS than what I'm asking for. There is 0 chance that pmech would have replaced virtuosos there.

[Gendalfs.7521]

Rifle mech was popular not only because of damage but how gameplay flows. To this day I still think mechanist is one of the most well designed specs. 

About rifle nerf. It was disgusting: they could just lower aa numbers, but no they made aa clunky. And guess what that wasnt even enought, they introduced MG which contradicts rifle mech gameplay overall.

Tbh I will always be salty what Anet did to mech tho Im more subtle on reactions.

Sindust thanks man for making some voice, I am too tired to fight those: ''omg its green, it burns my eyes'' people.

Edited June 14 by Gendalfs.7521

[draxynnic.3719]

And yet, as of earlier this year, I knew people who were still playing a fairly LI version of riflemech and still doing well. I expect people who are playing content they have more experience in are transitioning to builds that have more potential. I think there is a valid concern there. A small buff wouldn't necessarily restore riflemech dominance overnight, but I suspect it's something ArenaNet want to be careful about.

Returning back to the original core argument, though: the concept that ranged weapons should normally be expected to do a little less damage than full melee weapons. You're objecting to this on the basis of "they can't all be the problem, it's obviously THIS weapon that's the problem!" But I think they can, because there's basically three broad (although not all-encompassing) reasons why some builds do have ranged weapons outDPSing melee weapons:

Reason 1: The ranged weapon was overbuffed relative to the melee weapons, something that generally, but not always, happens because the weapon is new and ArenaNet wants to make sure people use it however awkward the mechanics are because it looks bad when a weapon was just introduced and nobody's using it, but sometimes it comes when both the ranged and the melee weapon are underperforming and the ranged weapon gets the buff first. This is where both of the SotO pistols are sitting at the moment. Ele sceptre I haven't really looked into the details of, but should probably ideally be a tad below sword as well.

Reason 2: The melee weapon either doesn't exist (condi necromancer, it boggles the mind that ArenaNet seems to insist on every necromancer melee weapon being power...) or has a lot of its power budget going into defensive skills (mesmer sword, we'll see what happens with mesmer spear...), so the DPS weapons are all ranged weapons. 

Reason 3: Interactions between the weapon and elite specialisation mechanics so that the melee weapon doesn't work with all elite specs. Mesmer axe is a major example of this - you really need to be running mirage to get the most out of it (although the balance between cvirt and cmirage is out of whack at the moment, not sure if that means cmirage needs a buff or cvirt needs a shave... or both), and for cvirt this is a double whammy because cvirt is really a power/bleed hybrid and that's really not what axe does. Spectre, meanwhile, usually runs sceptre because the traitline is somewhat built around it, although daggers can work in the alacdps build since the alac trait competes with the increased torment damage trait.

And with all these reasons, there are probably still more cases where the melee weapon outDPSes the ranged weapons than the reverse.

In the context of engineer - I don't think there's really any significant potential of reason 3 applying (although there is something of an inverse to it due to sword still working better with holo than other elite specs). Reason 1 is essentially what you're proposing to do: if rifle was buffed to the same level as hammer, hammer would probably disappear overnight apart from quickscrapper. Mind you, there is an argument that this would actually be reason 2 because hammer does have a fair amount of defence, but that might well be the point of spear: introducing a clearly DPS-oriented melee weapon that everything else could be balanced around.

Don't get me wrong, the spear reveal was pretty much the last thing I wanted to see for spear engi, but I really don't see it justifying buffing rifle up to hammer DPS... yet, anyway.

[Kuma.1503]

On 6/14/2024 at 9:10 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

We've seen that in the past - do you remember the days when you'd rock up to a strike mission PUG and more than half of the players were mechanists? I do.

Engineer rifle has a bit of an issue in that when it's top DPS, it's top DPS with a really easy and forgiving rotation. Even virtuoso has to care about the order in which they use some skills and can be messed up if their rotation gets disrupted, riflemech just didn't care about anything. And it still doesn't - riflemech is still a good build for people starting off in raids or strikes despite its low benchmark because it still reliably does enough damage to get through most content almost regardless of player skill or what's going on around it. The other builds you're talking about are complicated enough to run that actually getting the benchmarks is almost a full-time job in itself.

That's probably the real reason why engi rifle has low benchmarks - you can't have a build that easy while also being able to get the same results as much more complicated builds being played at their best, or it ends up being the only thing that gets played.

Rifle PBM Holo sitting in a corner wondering when Rifle became a mech only weapon. 

This is a solid argument for why rifle mechanist should be kept on the weaker end. But the problem lies with Mechanist and not with rifle. The problem with that build stems from Mechanist's passive design. A consequence of attempting to design an easier engineer spec with no reliance on kits. Their attempt did not end well. 

Personally... I don't think poor balance should be used as a solution for poor design. Especially when healthy builds like afformentioned PBM Holo get hit in the aftermath. 

Rifle needs a tune up. Mechanist needs a rework that makes its playstyle more active. Mechanical Genius is a band-aid attempt to cover up the core issue behind it's design, but clearly that band-aid is not good enough if Mech's existance is still sufficient enough to justify undertuning rifle. 

Get to the heart of the issue and fix that. Then we can advocate for postive changes that push the class in a healthier direction. Rather than advocate for changes that hide poor design choices behind poor balance. 

 

Edited June 16 by Kuma.1503

[Gendalfs.7521]

9 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Their attempt did not end well. 

I wouldnt say so. Do you think people pick up a bad class to play? Isnt the popularity of the class a sign itself that people liked it?

Edited June 16 by Gendalfs.7521

[Kuma.1503]

5 hours ago, Gendalfs.7521 said:

I wouldnt say so. Do you think people pick up a bad class to play? Isnt the popularity of the class a sign itself that people liked it?

Were you around for the dumpster fire that came after Mech's release in all 3 game modes?

It managed to draw the ire of players from every area of the game. 

PvP players hated it because it terrorized low ranks. Players would enter pvp on mech and delete any newbie that wasn't playing it with one button. At the same time, this build would actually struggle against anyone who knew what they were doing because the build had massive exploitable weaknesses to CC, rushdown, and conditions. So it ended with extremely bottom heavy performance.

There was no way to make it balanced at low ranks without killing it at mid/high. Not without a rework.  Anet took the route of just nerfing it at all levels of play. Then later they'd slap MG onto it, which is much more punishing in competetive modes than PvE. It's been an constant underperformer ever since with an abysmal play rate. 

WvW is a similar story. People ran around deleting newbies with zero effort. But because the builds weaknesses, anyone who didn't panic and actually got up in the mech's face and either locked it down with CC, or dumped condis on it could easily kill it. Nerfs would come and now Mech is an underperformer that Anet is afraid to buff or it will terrorize newbies again. It's a mid tier roamer that gets outshined by ranger while being useless in zergs. 

PvE is fairing the best of the 3. Support Mech is still meta, and condi mech is still viable. pMech is underperforming, but it's a viable choice for anyone new to the game. It's ease of use makes it a good spec to pick up when learning, then players can springboard onto more difficult builds once they've gained a handle on things. 

But that's only after pMech completely broke the game in half and managed to anger like 90% PvE of the community. 

It's still the coolest spec we've gotten from EoD. You can tell the devs put a lot more effort into it than the other elite specs. Unfortunately, the execution was botched, and instead of fixing the issues, we've been tacking nerfs/band-aids onto it (And rifle by proxy) to prevent it from taking over the meta again. 

 

 

Edited June 16 by Kuma.1503

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, Kuma.1503 said:

Rifle PBM Holo sitting in a corner wondering when Rifle became a mech only weapon. 

This is a solid argument for why rifle mechanist should be kept on the weaker end. But the problem lies with Mechanist and not with rifle. The problem with that build stems from Mechanist's passive design. A consequence of attempting to design an easier engineer spec with no reliance on kits. Their attempt did not end well. 

Personally... I don't think poor balance should be used as a solution for poor design. Especially when healthy builds like afformentioned PBM Holo get hit in the aftermath. 

Rifle needs a tune up. Mechanist needs a rework that makes its playstyle more active. Mechanical Genius is a band-aid attempt to cover up the core issue behind it's design, but clearly that band-aid is not good enough if Mech's existance is still sufficient enough to justify undertuning rifle. 

Get to the heart of the issue and fix that. Then we can advocate for postive changes that push the class in a healthier direction. Rather than advocate for changes that hide poor design choices behind poor balance. 

 

I don't disagree... as long as the buff is targeted in a way such that it lands on the build you want to buff and not the build that's dangerous to buff. Which makes it hard to do it by just buffing rifle generally - you'd probably do it by buffing holo/scrapper directly or skills that are used by holo/scrapper and not by mechanist.

[zeyeti.8347]

Oh yeah buff rifle so we can have this abberation of pew pew mech who dealt 33k damage afk back ... what draxynnic says has way more sense , buff the underdog spec to make them fill their role better , not a weapon who is known to be an afk mess who's gonna make every engi power base play it , with the apm of a dead oyster

engi rifle update who made it a machine gun was one of the most big buff (and complete mess) the game had , no trust ? so why did the mecha playrate skyrocketed to 33% in strikes and raids after the patch ? clearly an op buff who needed to be gutted ... i have no problem with some classes overbenching 45-50k as long as it need quite the effort to do it , but a spec who can deal 33k afk ... no ! 

[EdwinLi.1284]

17 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Oh yeah buff rifle so we can have this abberation of pew pew mech who dealt 33k damage afk back ... what draxynnic says has way more sense , buff the underdog spec to make them fill their role better , not a weapon who is known to be an afk mess who's gonna make every engi power base play it , with the apm of a dead oyster

engi rifle update who made it a machine gun was one of the most big buff (and complete mess) the game had , no trust ? so why did the mecha playrate skyrocketed to 33% in strikes and raids after the patch ? clearly an op buff who needed to be gutted ... i have no problem with some classes overbenching 45-50k as long as it need quite the effort to do it , but a spec who can deal 33k afk ... no ! 

As other said already, it was not the Rifle being too powerful but the Mechanist spec itself being too far above most Engineer specs options when they designed it so Engineers have a gameplay path that does not involved depending on Kits.

Rifle being used for the other Elite Spec was less of a issue. It was the complaint that Mechanist made Rifles easier to use. By nerfing Rifle in a attempt to nerf Mechanist. They unintentionally also nerfed builds for Core, Holosmith, and Scrapper that involved using Rifles aswell. 

The focus for nerfing Mechanist should have been on the Mechanist Elite Spec only and not the Rifle weapon that affects other Spec builds. 

Edited June 18 by EdwinLi.1284

[zeyeti.8347]

6 hours ago, EdwinLi.1284 said:

As other said already, it was not the Rifle being too powerful but the Mechanist spec itself being too far above most Engineer specs options when they designed it so Engineers have a gameplay path that does not involved depending on Kits.

Rifle being used for the other Elite Spec was less of a issue. It was the complaint that Mechanist made Rifles easier to use. By nerfing Rifle in a attempt to nerf Mechanist. They unintentionally also nerfed builds for Core, Holosmith, and Scrapper that involved using Rifles aswell. 

The focus for nerfing Mechanist should have been on the Mechanist Elite Spec only and not the Rifle weapon that affects other Spec builds. 

For me it was both , the fact you could amke your mech skill autocast , the rifle AA completely broken , the rockets coming for free every 3 secs , was a brainless spec and weapon , who was doing as much (even better) than other coplicated spec , but i agree it's not only rifle that made it op , it's the whole thing. Still was an abberation. This spec is still doing 22k afk (tested) and could go up to 33 with lil effort , far enough for the input players have to deal with , it ain't weaver pistol rotation if you know what i mean.

Edited June 18 by zeyeti.8347

[Gendalfs.7521]

14 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

it ain't weaver pistol rotation if you know what i mean.

No rotation should be like that. You need to understand that Ele is broken not other classes.

[zeyeti.8347]

On 6/18/2024 at 11:20 PM, Gendalfs.7521 said:

No rotation should be like that. You need to understand that Ele is broken not other classes.

And no class should do 30 k afk with 0 player input. That was mecaniste when they buffed rifle and gave autocast to ranger pet. Didn't you play the game while itw as like that , can safely say all my raid pugs were filled by 70% of mecaniste with pew pew.

And don't worry i know ele is broken (literally ! not op).

[Gendalfs.7521]

2 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

And no class should do 30 k afk with 0 player input.

Only class I know that can do that is guardian hammer build.

[zeyeti.8347]

16 hours ago, Gendalfs.7521 said:

Only class I know that can do that is guardian hammer build.

When i wrote that i was chuckling , but then i made some testing and have to say i was wrong , the freaking thing is doing 28k (without power food , so 30k should be largely done), but with a very specific build and relic (relic of the brawler who give +10% dmg whenever you give prot. or resolution for 4 secs with a 8sec cd , safe to say it's a 50% uptime with aa giving prot.)

Also seems this AA prefer power ratio than ferocity as rune of scholar is doing better than dragonhunter for me (and draconic stats less effective than berserker too), only problem is relying on heavy boons for the +1% dmg per boon ,  the need of having aegis for +7% dmg + resolution or else your crit cap is 90% instead of 115% (+10% chance hidden for target under fire)

So ty to made me discover this AA chain who is indeed greatly underrated.