Mechanist - Condi DPS

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on November 18, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Condition mechanist is a strong and versatile DPS build that is both a strong and simple version of condi engineer. The addition of the mech ensures reliable damage with minimal input, and the strength of signets allows you to replace kits and vastly simplify the rotation as you desire.

The plethora of viable builds means that this is a strong option regardless of experience level, and it allows you to gently increase the difficulty (and damage) as you gain confidence.

Skill Bar

Spear

Utility

Pistol Variants

Players who don't own Janthir Wilds cannot use spear, so Pistol/Pistol is the next best option. Pistols also have better ranged capabilities, which might be preferable on some encounters.

Mech Core: Jade Dynamo is the strongest option for the Pistol build, but using Mech Core: J-Drive, you can dramatically simplify the rotation without losing too much damage.

If using Mech Core: Jade Dynamo, replace Superconducting Signet with Bomb Kit.

Skill Variants

• The heal skill can be whatever you want, though some options stand out:
  • Rectifier Signet is very potent with Mech Core: J-Drive as it has higher passive healing, which isn't lost upon activating the signet.
  • A.E.D. allows you to survive some one-shot attacks.
  • Healing Turret does an AoE condi cleanse when it is placed, which can be situationally useful.
• If you want to totally avoid kits, use Force Signet. Be aware that removing Grenade Kit removes your main way of triggering both Aim-Assisted Rocket and Shrapnel, which means Explosive Temper and Big Boomer should perform better, though the difference will be minor.

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Specializations

• Mech Core: Jade Dynamo is the stronger (though more complicated) option if using Pistol/Pistol.

Equipment

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Sinister

Chest
Viper

Hands
Sinister

Legs
Viper

Feet
Viper

Backpiece
Sinister

Accessory
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Amulet
Viper

Ring
Viper

Ring
Viper

Spear
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Pistol
Viper

Pistol
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

• The Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bursting could be swapped for a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Geomancy. The sigil is cheaper and the damage is slightly better, but it requires you to be in melee to benefit.
• The recommended setup is practically the same damage as full Viper stats gear.
  • In this case, would be the stronger utility.

Non-SotO Relics

Unfortunately there aren't any good core damage relics for condi Mechanist, the best option being Relic of the Aristocracy, which does not affect your mech.

• If running this, you would want to swap some pieces to Sinister stats such that you reach ~67% base condition duration, with bleeding and burning duration capped.
• It may be recommended to pick an option that offers some utility instead.

Consumables

Food

• or ascended versions

Utility

• • for a cheaper alternative

Usage

Simpler Rotations

Mechanist's signets are very strong, which allows them to replace Bomb Kit/Grenade Kit and Elite Mortar Kit if you use the Mech Core: J-Drive trait. This also allows you to use Shift Signet without losing DPS.

See the Condi Boon Support page for this rotation, and use Superconducting Signet off cooldown - this should prevent you needing to use Freeze Grenade outside of the opener.

Video guide by Masel

Rotation example (J-Drive)

Spear rotation

The basic structure of Spear's rotation will be very familiar to players of engineer: You finish your auto chains and use DPS skills off cooldown until you use Conduit Surge (skill 2), then jump into Grenade Kit and use Shrapnel Grenade along with Freeze Grenade and Poison Grenade if they are off cooldown.

The unique aspect of Spear is the Focused mechanic, which is applied by Conduit Surge and refreshed by the last hit of the auto chain. You can only have a single Focused target, and hitting the target with Spear skills will trigger enhanced effects:

• The autoattack chain will apply Vulnerability
• Conduit Surge applies more Burning
• Lightning Rod ⇒ Electric Artillery deals more damage, and applies more Vulnerability and Burning.
• Roiling Skies deals (slightly) more CC.
• Devastator will hit the Focused target with Focused Devastation, applying more damage and Burning.

Rotation fundamentals

Your three biggest damage contributions come from Lightning Rod ⇒ Electric Artillery, Conduit Surge and Shrapnel Grenade. When you activate Lightning Rod a whirling AoE spins around you for four seconds, gaining a charge for each target hit. After this Electric Artillery will activate and do damage according to its charge. The cooldown for the skill begins once you activate Lightning Rod so using this skill is high priority, while you can afford to delay Electric Artillery if needed (it lasts until Lightning Rod is ready again).

Practically speaking, if you cast Lightning Rod and Conduit Surge together, the charging time on Electric Artillery means that it becomes available around the time that Conduit Surge comes off cooldown. And as you always want to be following up Conduit Surge with Shrapnel Grenade, your rotation should end up always casting these three skills together (alternating between Lightning Rod and Electric Artillery).

For the rest of the rotation, try to finish your auto chains, while using the following skills off cooldown:

• Freeze Grenade
• Poison Grenade
• Devastator
• Superconducting Signet
• Your mech skills
• Overclock Signet - skip if there's any danger of your mech dying, so you can use it to resummon them instead.

Due to your three main skills always being cast together, this gives the rotation a "loop" of approximately five seconds (with Quickness and Alacrity). However your other grenade skills and Devastator have a ~16s cooldown (with Alacrity), which means that played optimally, these skills will end up shifting their position. You can look at the cooldown of Freeze Grenade and Poison Grenade whenever you go into Grenade Kit for Shrapnel Grenade. If the cooldown is under two seconds, you exit, do an auto chain, then go back into Grenade Kit for them.

Video example

However, if you find handling kits tricky (or just prefer a neater loop), you can use the following rotation, which is a relatively small DPS loss over the optimal one:

Burst Loop

1. Lightning Rod
2. Conduit Surge
3. Grenade Kit
   1. Shrapnel Grenade
   2. Poison Grenade
   3. Freeze Grenade
   4. Weapon Swap
4. Superconducting Signet
5. Devastator

Filler Loops

Repeat this loop three times, then return to the Burst Loop

1. Electric Artillery or Lightning Rod (whichever is available)
2. Conduit Surge
3. Grenade Kit
   1. Shrapnel Grenade
   2. Weapon Swap
4. Puncturing Jab ⇒ Rending Strike ⇒ Amplifying Slice x2

This rotation slightly delays using Devastator to make the rotation loop properly. It also does not list mech skills or Overclock Signet, which should be used off cooldown but have no cast time. You could set the mech skills to autocast, though this may be less effective than triggering them yourself.

Crowd Control

• Roiling Skies: 200 defiance break - 232 to your Focused target
• Sky Circus: 232 defiance break - used for damage in your rotation, but the damage is low so you could hold onto it for CC
• Superconducting Signet: Not a CC in itself, but it drops a lightning field that you could combo with Conduit Surge for 100 defiance break.

Pistol Jade Dynamo rotation

Click to view

The Jade Dynamo rotation (using three kits) is very complicated and essentially boils down to keeping track of priority cooldown skills and switching into kits as necessary to maximise their uses. Downtime between kit swaps are filled with Pistol autos.

To make this manageable, each "kit" you swap to (for these purposes we consider Pistols to also be a kit) has a key skill that we ideally want to swap to and use every time it comes off cooldown, as well as some lower-priority skills that you use if they happen to be off cooldown when you swap. The skills you use in each kit are:

Pistol/Pistol
Key skills: Blowtorch & Poison Dart Volley
Other skills: Static Shot

Grenade Kit
Key skill: Shrapnel Grenade
Other skills: Freeze Grenade & Poison Grenade

Bomb Kit
Key skill: Fire Bomb
Other skill: Concussion Bomb

You may notice that the cooldowns of the key skills (before Alacrity) are 5, 8 and 12 seconds, which do not fit together very neatly. The full rotation then is not going to look very neat, but it can be broken down into a general loop with three sections:

Section 1

Cycle through each kit in turn, using all the skills named above in each. In general, the best order for kits will be

Static Shot & Blowtorch ⇒ Grenade Kit ⇒ Poison Dart Volley ⇒ Bomb Kit

Poison Dart Volley and Fire Bomb have the same cooldown, so if we make sure to cast Poison Dart Volley last on Pistol and Fire Bomb first in Bomb Kit then we can know that we only need to go into Bomb Kit immediately after using Poison Dart Volley.

After Bomb Kit, autoattack on Pistol until just before Poison Dart Volley then do:

Shrapnel Grenade ⇒ Poison Dart Volley ⇒ Fire Bomb

Section 2

Your key Pistol/Pistol should be coming off cooldown now so you can immediately go

Static Shot & Blowtorch ⇒ Grenade Kit ⇒ Pistol/Pistol

Shrapnel Grenade may not be available when you swap to Grenade Kit, so auto with Grenade until it's ready.

After Shrapnel Grenade autoattack on Pistol until just before Poison Dart Volley, then:

Shrapnel Grenade ⇒ Poison Dart Volley ⇒ Bomb Kit ⇒ Pistol/Pistol

Section 3

The final section is much like Section 2, but the cooldowns align slightly differently.

Static Shot & Blowtorch ⇒ Grenade Kit ⇒ Pistol/Pistol

This time, when Poison Dart Volley is available do

Poison Dart Volley ⇒ Bomb Kit ⇒ Pistol/Pistol

Autoattack on Pistol until Static Shot and Blowtorch are on a ~6 second cooldown then quickly swap into Grenade Kit and use Shrapnel Grenade. Return to Pistol/Pistol after using Shrapnel Grenade and start again from Section 1 when Blowtorch and Static Shot are off cooldown.

Rotation example (Jade Dynamo)

Winging It
If you find the structure above difficult to follow, you can use your Pistol cooldowns to prompt you to swap kits:

• Every time you use Poison Dart Volley, go into Bomb Kit
• Shrapnel Grenade has roughly half the cooldown of Static Shot and Blowtorch, so use it once immediately before or after using these Pistol skills, then again when they are on a ~6 second cooldown.
• Focus on the key skills so as not to delay your rotation.
  • When swapping to kits to use key skills, have a look at the remaining cooldowns on the other skills. If they are ready, then swap back to the kit and use them when you would otherwise just be autoattacking on Pistol.
• Pistol skills should take priority.

General Tips

• Make sure you're within 360 units of your mech before using F1-3 skills, or they will have a 50% longer cooldown thanks to Mechanical Genius.
• Any of your other Pistol skills will interrupt Poison Dart Volley, so it's best to use it last.
  • You can swap to Bomb Kit during the cast without interrupting the skill.
• During the wind-up of Blowtorch, it can be interrupted with Static Shot. Either make sure not to press Static Shot too soon, or use Static Shot first.
• Press all your mech skills off cooldown - you can save Jade Mortar for CC if necessary.
• If using Overclock Signet, use it off cooldown. It is a very small DPS gain though, so hold on to it if there is any danger that the mech might die.