Mechanist - Alacrity Support Healer
The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great
Focused on: Healing and Support
Designed for: Raids and Fractals
Overview
Mechanist is a versatile and potent healer, capable of providing permanent Alacrity, Fury and 25 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 Alacrity, leaving it free to be used to counter mechanics with Aegis and/or Stability.
to maintainThe 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
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.
- Alacrity or provide projectile defence. You can also benefit from the passive damage reduction if you're tanking. is an extra source of barrier, and can cover any gaps in
- Alacrity, which is what affects the cooldown of your command skills. 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
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.
Template Code
Specializations
Trait Variants
- if using Shield.
- gives you access to additional boons if you bring the relevant turret.
- Regeneration uptime, but on encounters where boons might get stripped/missed and there are frequent condis to cleanse, it can be potent. might be useful on some encounters. Typically you shouldn't struggle for
- 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
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Magi
Magi
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
Harrier
x6
x18
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 to make up for the lost concentration.
Utility
Usage
Activate
off cooldown. Due to the cooldown penalty from , try not to be too far from your mech when activating . Though with boon duration as high as this build has, it's not essential.This should keep your group healthy for the most part but for optimal play you want to make use of the following:
Mace
Regeneration and Vigor on a low cooldown. You want to use it off cooldown to maintain your group, and use your kits to provide extra boons and healing.
provides barrier,
Short bow
Across the four skills, Short bow offers barrier, healing, CC, Might, Protection, and some Aegis. This means you can be pretty effective by just using skills 2-4 off cooldown. can be held on to for CC or Superspeed.
Much like with shield, you want to balance the need to maintain Protection with holding for Aegis (much like ).
A very useful aspect of Short bow is that its skills have the same cooldowns as key skills within your kits, so by using these skills together, you can ensure you're using them off cooldown:
- and (Med kit)
- and (Elixir gun)
- and (Med kit)
- and (Elite mortar kit) - you can hold on to these skills rather than use them in your rotation, as on-demand CC and a water field.
As Short bow has a fire field and two blast finishers, it can be used to quickly stack up Might with an optimised opener, such as:
- - fire field
- ⇒ ⇒ ⇒ Weapon Swap
Combined with Might in a matter of seconds even if no-one else is contributing.
, this should be sufficient to reach 25
Key Skills
Significant healing over time can be added from the following skills:
- and (Short Bow) provide barrier and healing respectively.
- Regeneration as well as some other useful boons. (Med Kit) - Provides a large amount of
- (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:- (Shield) - the flip skill of
- (Short bow)
- (Short bow)
As you may be using the first four 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, 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:
- (Mace)
- (Shield) - flip skill of
- (Shield) - flip skill of
- (Short bow) - an additional daze can be triggered by using a second Short Bow skill (other than the autoattack) within four seconds.
- 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, 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.
- Regeneration. has a very short cooldown and if left active pulses a huge amount of
is an essential skill due to , but is optional and should be replaced
- brings a channeled block on .
- Protection. in combination with pulses
It is extremely helpful to have permanent 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 permanent when combined with . As the initial overcharge also provides 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
Comments
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