As stated in the title, I've recently picked up MCH, but am finding it difficult to learn and do consistent damage on, in particular I am struggling with how cooldown and proc-based the class is, coming from BLM which has a very ordered, consistent rotation with few changes.
Let me start out this thread by stating that I am already following the Lock N' Load Machinist guide for 4.0 by Onishi and that I have a fairly basic understanding of what the opener and 1 minute rotations should look like.
Some things I could use advice on;
- Situational Awareness: A major struggle for me while playing MCH, I feel my eyes are constantly on my hotbar and heat gauge to watch procs, hit quick reload and gauss round as they come off CD, and not on what the boss is doing. I've tried various extra hotbars closer to the middle of my screen to keep track of reloads, procs and wildfire.
- Mid-Fight Wildfires: This comes back to cooldowns. After my opener I generally use quick reload on CD and reload once if Wildfire is over 30s. GR I also use as it comes up. Obviously I should be wanting to WF with a Slug Shot proc, after overheating and with full ammo off of Reload. I just find myself using QR and then not having it available right as WF comes off cooldown.
- AOE Situations: Nothing I do feels very effective on large dungeon pulls so far. The guide says to Flamethrower for the full duration and follow up with ammo'd Spread Shots. Other suggestions I've seen are to Spread Shot into overheating, then snapshot Flamethrower at the last second of the buff. This takes a long time with 5 heat increase and is detrimental to my TP. Also, is Ricochet affected by the overheating damage boost?
I really like the way the class feels, and I'm sure I can improve with it in time, but obviously right now it's very different than the classes I am used to playing, so any extra advice you're willing to give would be greatly appreciated.