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:

TBD

This build was last updated on February 04, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Condition mechanist is a strong and versatile DPS build that is both the strongest and simplest version of condition engineer to date. 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. The default build presented here is the highest damage on most bosses, but also the most complicated, so be sure to read the guide to figure out which build is best for you.

Skill Bar

Pistol/Pistol

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Mace can replace Pistol, which offers lower base damage but a lot more Confusion, which can be stronger on encounters where bosses attack frequently.

J-Drive Variants

If you use Mech Core: J-Drive, you can dramatically simplify the rotation without losing too much damage:

• Superconducting Signet can replace Bomb Kit.
  • On bosses with high attack rates, you could replace Grenade Kit with Superconducting Signet instead.
• Rectifier Signet also becomes stronger, but A.E.D. may still be preferred.

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Specializations

• Mech Core: J-Drive will make signets significantly stronger, allowing you to replace kits with them.
  • Aim-Assisted Rocket in combination with Mech Core: J-Drive offers an alternate rotation that relies on spamming grenades at range (see video example in the Usage section).

Specialization Variants

Replaces Explosives.

This variant results in higher single-target DPS and better survivability, but can have slightly lower DPS against large groups.

Equipment

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Viper

Chest
Viper

Hands
Viper

Legs
Viper

Feet
Viper

Backpiece
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Amulet
Viper

Ring
Viper

Ring
Viper

Pistol
Viper

Pistol
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

• Rune of Superior Rune of Thorns could replace Rune of Superior Rune of the Elementalist. If taken, a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Malice could also replace the Sigil of Superior Sigil of Earth.
• On bosses with very high attack rates, you could use Rune of Superior Rune of Perplexity and (assumes you are running Bomb Kit).

Consumables

Food

• or ascended versions

Utility

Usage

Jade Dynamo rotation

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.

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 skill: Blowtorch
Other skills: Static Shot & Poison Dart Volley

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

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

Mortar Kit
Key skill: Poison Gas Shell

You may notice that the cooldowns of the key skills (before Alacrity) are 5, 8, 10, 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 - all these skills will be available with the exception of Concussion Bomb, which will only be available every other loop. In general, the best order for kits will be

Bomb Kit → Pistol/Pistol → Elite Mortar Kit → Grenade Kit

In the opener Grenade Kit can come second to build up stacks of Explosive Temper faster.

Section 2

As Fire Bomb and Shrapnel Grenade have shorter cooldowns, you use

Bomb Kit → Grenade Kit

Shrapnel Grenade won't be available when you swap to Grenade Kit, so auto with Grenade until it's ready, then throw two more Grenades before moving to Section 3 to make cooldowns line up better.

As Grenade Kit was used earlier in the opener, on the very first loop you can use Grenade Kit before and after Bomb Kit instead (So Grenade Kit → Bomb Kit → Grenade Kit).

Section 3

The final section is much like Section 1, but now the kit order is

Pistol/Pistol → Bomb Kit → Elite Mortar Kit → Grenade Kit

Shrapnel Grenade should be available as soon as you swap to Grenade Kit, but rather than swap away immediately, continue autoing with Grenade until Shrapnel Grenade is available again, then use it and return to the start of Section 1.

Refer to the video link below to see this in action.

Rotation example (Jade Dynamo)

Other Rotations

Mechanist's signets are very strong, which allows them to replace Bomb 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.

Rotation example (J-Drive)

Rotation example (J-Drive & Aim-Assisted Rocket)

Rotation example (J-Drive with Bomb Kit)

General Tips

• 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.