Mechanist - Alacrity Support Healer

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Healing and Support

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required: End of Dragons builds

Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on March 20, 2024 and is up to date for the February 27, 2024 patch.

Overview

Mechanist is a versatile and potent healer, capable of providing permanent Alacrity Alacrity, Fury Fury and 25 Might Might in addition to a variety of defensive boons and barrier.

The mech itself provides the majority of offensive boons, which leaves the mechanist able to handle ranged mechanics and makes it very reliable provided the mech's position is controlled. Unlike the DPS alacrity builds, it also does not require to maintain Alacrity Alacrity, leaving it free to be used to counter mechanics with Aegis Aegis and/or Stability Stability.

The greatest weakness of heal mechanist is that its self-healing is even lower than usual for a heal build, which means that it is more difficult than the common alternatives if used as a tank.


Skill Bar

Short Bow
Utility


Weapon Variants

  • Mace/Shield is the best option for players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure, and it is worth having on the second weapon set as it has a few benefits despite the lower healing:
    • Skills 3-5 provide more CC than Short Bow can offer, as well as having a knockback.
    • is a projectile reflect.
    • is very useful if tanking, or filling specific roles such as Hand Kiting at Deimos.


Skill Variants

Any of the utility skills could be swapped out if needed, just be aware of what you're sacrificing in each case:

  • offers consistent condi cleanse and healing over time. This should be your lowest priority for swapping out.
  • is an extra source of barrier, and can cover any gaps in Alacrity Alacrity or provide projectile defence. You can also benefit from the passive damage reduction if you're tanking.
  • gives you a stun-break and allows you to precisely position the mech if needed. More importantly however, it guarantees that your mech will have Alacrity Alacrity, which is what affects the cooldown of your command skills.


Some ideas for extra utilities:

  • for reliable CC.
  • can be used for even more CC if isn't enough, or for the boon rip.


Thanks to the recommended relic, , any blast finisher can be used as an additional heal, notably:

  • becomes a great all-round skill, offering CC, boon rip and healing.
  • gives you access to , which has a very low cooldown.


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Specializations


Trait Variants

  • if using Shield.
  • gives you access to additional boons if you bring the relevant turret.
  • might be useful on some encounters. Typically you shouldn't struggle for Regeneration Regeneration uptime, but on encounters where boons might get stripped/missed and there are frequent condis to cleanse, it can be potent.
  • can be very nice on encounters with lots of condis, particularly if those condis convert to boons you otherwise have limited generation of.
  • can be very useful if you're struggling with tanking.


Equipment

Head
Harrier
Shoulders
Harrier
Chest
Harrier
Hands
Harrier
Legs
Harrier
Feet
Harrier
Backpiece
Harrier
Accessory
Magi
Accessory
Magi
Amulet
Harrier
Ring
Harrier
Ring
Harrier
Short Bow
Harrier
Sigil
Sigil
Mace
Harrier
Shield
Harrier
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic


Relics

For players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure, is the best option.


Consumables

Food

  • or alternatives
    • as a cheap option - it would be optimal to swap one accessory to Harrier stats Harrier stats to make up for the lost concentration.

Utility


Usage

For much of your time, you want to be auto-attacking on mace, whilst using and off cooldown to maintain Regeneration Regeneration and Alacrity Alacrity, respectively.

Due to the cooldown penalty from , try not to be too far from your mech when activating .

This should keep your group healthy for the most part but for optimal play you want to make use of the following:


Key Skills

Significant healing over time can be added from the following skills:

  • and (Short Bow) provide barrier and healing respectively.
  • (Med Kit) - Provides a large amount of Regeneration Regeneration as well as some other useful boons.
  • (Elixir Gun) - Pulses rapid healing over six seconds on a relatively short cooldown.
  • (Mortar Kit) - A water field and more healing over time.


and are the most important skills here. is nice, but it is also a water field so on some encounters it may be worth holding on to for burst healing.


has the same cooldown as , and has about half the cooldown. This means you can use the cooldown of to track the cooldown of the other skills whilst not in their respective kits - Use both skills whenever you use , and hop into an extra time when is on a ~15s cooldown.


Protection

You can just about maintain permanent protection by using and either both shield skills or (Short Bow) off cooldown. However these skills also offer significant utility, so feel free to delay them if they will be needed.


Burst Healing

You only really have one burst skill available, the appropriately named , but you can get some more by comboing available blast finishers with the water field from or . These are:

  • - the flip skill of


As you may be using the first two skills in your rotation, might be the only on-demand blast finisher you have so it can be beneficial to plan accordingly if you know there is some big damage incoming. Be aware that launches you backwards, which can be very dangerous, but it can be cancelled by weapon swapping as soon as you see yourself move.


If using , all your blast finishers are heals in their own right.


While not a burst heal per-se can provide a good amount of barrier to protect against and incoming hit. This skill can also be used to fill in any gaps in Alacrity Alacrity, or to block incoming projectiles for five seconds. Also bear in mind that the passive reduces all incoming damage by 10%, which may be more valuable than the active effect if you're tanking.


Finally, if a large amount of sustained healing is required you can remain in and spam and . Be aware that neither of these skills heal you, and you're no use to your team if you get downed!


Condition Cleanse

already provides some measure of condition cleanse. You also have:

  • (Short Bow)
  • (Med Kit)
  • (Elixir Gun)


If you need even more, then the light fields from or (Mortar Kit) can be comboed with a blast finisher.


Crowd Control

You don't have a huge amount of CC available, limited to:

  • - flip skill of
  • - flip skill of
  • Given your abundance of boon duration, you can also briefly recall your mech and use .


As ideally you want to use shield skills to provide Protection Protection, on encounters that require a lot of CC you may wish to bring a utility skill such as or instead.


Hand Kiting

Heal Mechanist is very well suited to hand kiting and many options will work, but there are some recommendations.


Skills

only has one skill that heals you, and it's not for a huge amount so is strongly recommended it be swapped out

  • offers consistent healing while passive, and Mechanist's largest heal when activated.
  • provides a big heal, and also a good amount of protection and regeneration.
  • has a very short cooldown and if left active pulses a huge amount of Regeneration Regeneration.


is an essential skill due to , but is optional and should be replaced

  • brings a channeled block on .
  • in combination with pulses Protection Protection.


It is extremely helpful to have permanent Protection Protection uptime, so is a good choice - make sure not to drop hands on it so that it stays alive as long as possible. Similarly, makes Regeneration Regeneration permanent when combined with . As the initial overcharge also provides Regeneration Regeneration you are free to immediately pick it up for the cooldown reduction or detonate it for the water field combo.


Traits

The standard traits can be run, but there are options:

  • should be used if you're taking , otherwise there's no point in bringing the turret.
  • You may find the damage reduction from more valuable than the duration increase on .
  • Alchemy or Inventions can be replaced with Explosives for and . Be aware that will require you to regularly hit enemies with your to trigger.


Playstyle

For a general explanation of the playstyle and some suggestions for runes and food, see the guide.


The key to this build's value is in keeping the mech on the group to provide boons, so make sure to direct it to the group whenever they are on the platform. You can save to block Annihilate, but as you are unlikely to be in range of you won't have it available for each one.

As you lack blocks, you may not be able to consistently stack five hands together, so keep an eye on your health. Use to save yourself from Mind Crush. You won't have time to use this again in between.


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 2 votes.
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5 stars
OfficerAndyGentleman gave this build 5 stars • November 2022
Heal mech is a very simple build to get started on as it can generate permanent alacrity around the mech without any input from the player (if Barrier Burst is set on auto). This enables the mechanist themself to handle mechanics and/or pay full attention to healing, and the boon duration is enough that Crisis Zone can be saved for handling mechanics with aegis and stability. Getting full use out of the build is a little harder than on druid, but the minimum effectiveness is higher too.
5 stars
Mordiko gave this build 5 stars • June 2022
Meta and for a very good reason. Easy boom uptime, incredibly good heals. Only downside is that you have to maneuver your Mech sometimes, which is easily done by a button press.

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