Please I beg of you, bring back MCH ammo

[Valence]

Please, SE, make that job interesting again at least a little. Give us back Reload and Quick Reload. Give us something to do besides spamming a combo filler that doesn't even branch and hypercharge heat blast.

Actual proc based jobs are already a rarity, but full proc base actions are even rarer (DNC is only half, because it has a static base combo, RDM as well, only BRD has a true rng proc combo). Or give us any other system using reload, I'm not picky at this point.

Remember how Reload also had a gun barrel animation on the OG Ferdinand? Not asking to bring that back to every gun in existence too, but it was something cool beyond the gameplay factor of the skill.

[VentVanitas]

I got nothing poignant to add, I'm also just bitter at the absolute wasted potential and effort of a perfectly fine job mechanic. It definitely contributed a lot in making the job feel like you're actually using a gun rather than... whatever the hell's visually going on with MCH now.

I also want to see its return, whether it functions identically to how it did in Stormblood or if it's given a new purpose, I wouldn't mind either outcome so long as it's not as boring as heat/battery. At this point I'm just sick of Queen because of how pathetically weak and unengaging it is. PvP MCH has the right idea by not including it in its kit at all.

[Shikiseki]

Well the PvP iterations could act as a base if they ever consider breaking up the stale PvE playstyle and build upon it. It has a button to enhance their tools which they need to rotate and decide which enhanced tool will fit the current situation as they are all equally good AND they kept the place-able turret from early MCH days that can double dip as a barrier if needed. But even if they'd re-introduce ammo back, the glaring issues of the current PvE MCH design still remains and would barely fix the static nature of the battle design anymore (as any slight variation would hurt MCH itself for not being aligned in the 2min burst meta).

I honestly gave up making sense of their PvE design choices as of late - the biggest giveaway was removing Ammo from MCH because it felt too "RNG" and few days later Dancer appeared with exactly that...
The same will probably happen to the removed SMN dots to the new caster

[Raikai]

I'd welcome the ammo system again to be used as a more rotational resource. Not sure if to mitigate combo RNG like what it was before.

Ammo/Reload could be used as the resource for Gauss Round and Ricochet, and possibly other new abilities.

[Valence]

1) On Gauss Round and Ricochet:

These two abilities are almost completely redundant in their current iteration since ShB that it's pathetic. They could be compiled into a single button with AoE cleave and be given more charges and a faster recharge at this point, but that would be as equally as boring and tedious, much like Mage Ballad carpal tunnel spamm in everything that's not a dungeon (where spamming RoD is/was actually fun). Could you tell that I'm really fed up with brainless ability APM spamm? That's not engaging, SE. It doesn't make me think, it just makes my wrist hurt after hours of prog. Those two abilities are just here as a camouflage in order to sweep under the rug the utterly uninspired design of hypercharge patterns (Heat blast Heat blast Heat blast Heat blast Heat blast).

I agree that they should make those abilities something entirely different in purpose, dramatically buff their potency and spamm them a lot less. At least, keep Gauss Round within the Hypercharge mechanic if you must, but detach Ricochet from it and make it something else entirely. Not like the whole kit is bloated and reached the terminus of its design anyway (like DRG), it's pretty barebones actually, and our hotbars are desperately empty (didn't think one day I'll complain about having not enough button bloat on a job).


2) Hypercharge spamm

HC is another camouflage acting as filler over the basic combo filler so that the job isn't just about spamming 123 on repeat. The only redeeming feature of that mechanic is being able to decide freely whenever you want to dump heat in order to trigger a sequence (overheat).

If only said sequence wasn't utterly boring and uninspired. What if it went back a little to what overheat allowed back in the days? What if activating hypercharge allowed the player to use the heated versions of the basic shots? I know they won't do that because it would dial down significantly the flashiness of the job, but I do believe it would make it more interesting, and with ammo integrated into it, you'd actually have something else to do during hypercharges than just Heat blast Heat blast Heat blast Heat blast Heat blast.

On top of it, the weaving spamm of gauss round and especially ricochet looks extremely jank visually. Remove ricochet from this and it would already start being less of an eyesore.

3) Barrel Stabilizer

Boring +50 gauge that justifies its existence currently in order to ensure the player has enough heat to do their 2min wildfire burst, except it fails half way into it because the heat rotation is not neutral and you can overcap pretty easily once you have burned the couple of tricks and delays you can do with stabilizer.

If HC was a lot less spammed during the general rotation, it could be possible to envision Barrel Stabilizer acting as a Raging Strikes equivalent or some sort of buff like the old SB overheat giving +20% damage (with the no heat debuff after if you feel gutsy about reintroducing interesting things).

4) Reassemble

Could instead work like Analysis in pvp and trigger additional effects on tools. What those would be, I don't know, but I do believe it can be food for thought. But I do believe heat should be tied to tools and not the filler combo, while HC should generate battery (you dump energy into a dynamo, it generates electricity, makes more sense no?).

5) Wildfire

WF has been changed to only compile weaponskills, which was understandable (somewhat...) back then because cramming literally everything you had inside a very short window was punishing for high latency players... except now we have stacks on HC, so why not WF as well? WF used to be infinitely more satisfying to use with a variable burst inside, rather than the current static boring burst sequences we have, and we only have them every 2min now, not every 60s. WF feels like an afterthought that's barely better than Queen Automaton, where in the past it was the cornerstone of the job that made it the highest burst job in the game. WF used to feel good. Now it feels mild. Mildfire.

Imagine if we had a 2min burst wildfire and an odd minutes mildfire?

6) The design overall and skill expression

No matter what you do on MCH, there is very little difference in whatever is achieved between a player drifting and doing mistakes provided they keep pressing their buttons, and an actually good MCH, it's pathetic. Just look at the charts of the website that makes Yoshi sad (and me too) to see how truncated the ceiling is on this job.

7) The elephant in the room: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH FLAMETHROWER??? IT'S BEEN TWO FULL EXPANSIONS NOW!

8) Bonus: Queen looks as vain and cool as she is utterly boring to use

[Raikai]

The band-aid would be so simple, just let Flamethrower generate heat. In a best case scenario, FT would be able to ignite BioBlaster's dot for more AoE damage.

With auto-crossbow not even having a recast time reduction like Heat Blast, it honestly seems that they don't care at all about AoE kits, since not just MCH, but many other jobs have janky AoE rotations.

[Conchoidal]

unrelated but I'd like for them to bring back Bishop Autoturret to PVE as an AOE/sustained version of Rook Autoturret which could then upgrade to "Automaton King", which could be a huge flying orb constantly raining down artillery on enemies until it explodes for its overdrive. That'd be pretty cool.

[Valence]

The band-aid would be so simple, just let Flamethrower generate heat. In a best case scenario, FT would be able to ignite BioBlaster's dot for more AoE damage.

With auto-crossbow not even having a recast time reduction like Heat Blast, it honestly seems that they don't care at all about AoE kits, since not just MCH, but many other jobs have janky AoE rotations.

Legit over expansions I've learned to not touch the copium. I indulged a lot in that copium stash when the ShB rework was announced, and as soon as the media tour peaked let's just say that the fall actually hurt. Still, they managed to surprise me again when I actually expected Crown Collider shown on the job trailers for EW be actually a queen AoE move, making battery finally somewhat useful for AoE. It even looked like an AoE move. They added AoE on Scorch after all, so why not on Queen?

How wrong I was...

[SaberMaxwell]

Signed. Please give us ammo back. And heat management too if I'm permitted greed; staying between 50 and 100 heat was a fun mechanic.

[CidHeiral]

Not to mention the Reload animation looks very cool. Certainly cooler than bonking your gun with a wrench.