Issues with MCH since Stormblood Rework & Ideas on how to fix them

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Originally Posted by Popotato

I really wish 10 heat shots would come back though. It would take some time getting used to it again, but it would be for the better in the long run. I just want some difficulty with the job again.

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I see a lot of people say that, but all that would really change is that instead of using 0-1 Cooldowns between WFs, you would use 1-2 of them. It might make Flamethrower usage slightly more flexible in some situations but overall the heat change wouldn't really affect anything. I'd put it together as a cosmetic change similar to how some people would like to get a DoT back. Changes like that generally don't change anything gameplay wise except for replacing a heated shot here or there. By the nature of Wildfire/Overheat window MCH is stuck in its rigid rotation because the window is just too powerful not to optimize everything around it.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

the only thing i would want added to MCH at this point is either a easier way to know when your turret is ready to summon again (even if its like a light that flashes on job bar) the amount of time people forget about there turret is crazy even im guilty of it sometime

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I suggested this on other topics as well before, but I still think that SE should change the Hot Shot gauge to a turret timer gauge, so it can track both Hypercharge and Rook Overdrive. And it allows for easier optimization with hypercharge and overdrive if it's on the gauge. Maybe add a gauge sound for when the turret is back, since if we dont count AST (Makes sense to not give it a gauge sound), MCH is the only job that doesnt have a gauge sound.

I would like to have a higher usage of the bishop autoturret. Why cant I use it after rook overdrive? No matter which turret I blow up, I cant use any turrets for 30s.

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Originally Posted by LysLuc

I suggested this on other topics as well before, but I still think that SE should change the Hot Shot gauge to a turret timer gauge, so it can track both Hypercharge and Rook Overdrive. And it allows for easier optimization with hypercharge and overdrive if it's on the gauge. Maybe add a gauge sound for when the turret is back, since if we dont count AST (Makes sense to not give it a gauge sound), MCH is the only job that doesnt have a gauge sound.

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I was pretty disappointed when they added Hot Shot to the gauge instead of Turret Reset. A sound indicator for turret resummon would be really nice, not going to lie. A lot of people choose to use an ACT trigger for it because it's so easy to forget.

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

I was pretty disappointed when they added Hot Shot to the gauge instead of Turret Reset. A sound indicator for turret resummon would be really nice, not going to lie. A lot of people choose to use an ACT trigger for it because it's so easy to forget.

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I m using a macro for it. But it doesnt work that good to be honest.

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

I see a lot of people say that, but all that would really change is that instead of using 0-1 Cooldowns between WFs, you would use 1-2 of them. It might make Flamethrower usage slightly more flexible in some situations but overall the heat change wouldn't really affect anything. I'd put it together as a cosmetic change similar to how some people would like to get a DoT back. Changes like that generally don't change anything gameplay wise except for replacing a heated shot here or there. By the nature of Wildfire/Overheat window MCH is stuck in its rigid rotation because the window is just too powerful not to optimize everything around it.

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Yeah exactly, it's not from a viability or a clunkiness standpoint (it would be increase DPS, but MCH doesn't need DPS buffs). I'd prefer the 10 heat because right now, I find that I just don't need to pay attention to anything. I'd like the change so I actually manage the heat gauge. Adds a sort of placebo management to make the job more engaging, at least for me.

Sorry if I'm a bit off topic here but:
I've played nothing but a Bard so far and just started my Mch and I'm only lv. 41 so I really don't have all the abilities I need yet for a proper rotation but it's a LOT different from my Bard. I miss all the instant pew pew pew action to be honest. Bullets drive me insane. Although at the same time it's keeping me on my toes and I can't just sleep through it anymore so that's fun. Does anyone know of a really good - like definitive guide on the Machinist that's been updated for Stormblood. I'd like to start reading everything I can so I'll better understand what my role is (dps, I know that). I've been looking for one but they're all outdated. Any help would be appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Straynge

Does anyone know of a really good - like definitive guide on the Machinist that's been updated for Stormblood.

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This is a guide geared towards lvl70 MCH that I keep updated for The Balance Discord: 4.X Intermediate Machinist Guide. You can pick up some general pointers from it, but the rotations won't quit fit leveling as is. Ignoring the skills you don't have and replacing Cooldown with other gcd shots you can get a decent idea of what to do, though.

If you have any questions, you can find me on The Balance Discord Machinist channels and my other info is at the end of the guide if you need to message me directly.

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Originally Posted by Kitfox

This is a guide geared towards lvl70 MCH that I keep updated for The Balance Discord: 4.X Intermediate Machinist Guide. You can pick up some general pointers from it, but the rotations won't quit fit leveling as is. Ignoring the skills you don't have and replacing Cooldown with other gcd shots you can get a decent idea of what to do, though.

If you have any questions, you can find me on The Balance Discord Machinist channels and my other info is at the end of the guide if you need to message me directly.

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Thank you so much :D That was exactly what I was looking for. Also, very interesting site. Checking out Discord atm. /bow

My only gripe is as others have said is "Flamethrower use to get into overheat is clunky" & "reaplying Gaussbarrel after is odd/ also clunky", sure I miss Caster MCH & don't like the "new" overly-flashy Heated shots but I will not miss the cringe I got from that casting animation in 3.0 (Seriously even with a wand that would be carpotunnel inducing).

The only solution I have came up with is make 1) Gaussbarrel doen't de-equip, just it & its buff is deactivated till the 10sec cooldown timer espires & 2) make the action "Equip Gaussbarrel" becomes a skill that forces Overheat at above 75-80 heat and is still a oGCD... & maybe change Flamethrower if they did those 2 things

Thou that idea for "Flamethrower keeps u at max Overheat timer while active" also sounds nice

My wishlist for MCH:

*Shots generate 10 heat again. Weaving cooldowns and actually having to think. So braindead now.
*Flamethrower adds a DoT. Reduce it's base attack potency from 60-30 and add a 50 potency DoT on everything it hits that lasts like 21 seconds that refreshes on each hit of the 10s attack. Or whatever number crunching makes sense. This would be a good AoE at worst.
* Rook turret follows you. Bishop can stay manual.
*Strong finishers we can only use while overheated and get rid of wildfire. Wildfire is bad design imo and the same goal could be acheived differently.

Ex:
Overheat Shot: Potency 300. Ammunition affect: increase potency by 50. 50% to turn into Overheat shot II. 100% with ammunition.
Overheat Shot II: Potency 380. Ammunition affect: increase potency by 50.
Overheat Grenade: Potency 180.
Ammunition affect: increase potency by 50. Damages the enemy and all enemies around it.

Just spitballing here.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

I mained MCH in HW. I loved it. But when they revealed changes for SB I was immediately put off. I liked managing my 5 bullets, I liked Gauss Barrel being what it was and that sometimes you would have to remove it if standing still was out of the question for a bit. I dislike the Overheat mechanic, a lot, and I really don\\\\'t like that they removed or changed some of my favourite abilities. WF was fun, and stressful, but not to the point that you felt cheated every time you used it because of a small amount of....

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I was a MCH main as well but switched out of it in SB. I think we might be in minority, but I also didn\\\\'t mind stance dancing.

What if they tie the clunky overheat mechanic to movement? Stand still and hit hard, but when you know a ton of move mechanic is coming, you can force the overheat & dps while moving?

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Originally Posted by SpecialKK

I was a MCH main as well but switched out of it in SB. I think we might be in minority, but I also didn\\\\'t mind stance dancing.

What if they tie the clunky overheat mechanic to movement? Stand still and hit hard, but when you know a ton of move mechanic is coming, you can force the overheat & dps while moving?

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I wouldn't mind some cast time weaponskills that you use here and there. Something like

High Calibre
2.0 Cast Time
Potency: 100
Heat: 10
Follow Through: High Calibre's Potency is changed to the previous Weaponskill's Potency + 40 for one shot. High Calibre does not qualify for this effect.

Changes I'd like to see to MCH:

1) The "Heat" mechanic is trait locked until 62. At 52, when the barrel is gained, damage increase is 5%. At 62, damage increase is 10% and Heat is in effect. This prevents Heat from being a clunky mechanic for 10 levels since there's no way to control it outside of unequipping the barrel.

2) After Overheat, the barrel no longer needs to be applied. Just disable the damage boost like it is but keep it equipped. It's pretty simple.

3) After Overdrive, turret doesn't dismiss itself (but you cannot summon a new one). I understand why the "prevent summoning of a new one" exists. IT's to prevent the clearing of any debuffs on it (since this new Overdrive effect would just place a disabling debuff on the current turret). But, it's really annoying on losing out on so much damage simply because you didn't watch your buff bar close enough (something that they were actively trying to move away from in SB).

4) Flamethrower is replaced with a new skill I'm calling "Overclock Reload". This kind of ties in with the changes to the Gauss Barrel in 1. When you get it at 52, Gauss Barrel has a limiter on that allows it to operate in safe parameters. At 62, the WoL is taking that limiter off, but has to deal with the potential overheating. The Overclock Reload gives you 5 rounds to work with (like back in HW days), but after all 5 rounds are spent, you instantly enter Overheat. This solves both problems of Flamethrower being too Ping and server tick dependent to Overheat reliably as well as easily prepping your Wildfire window. This will be on a 60s cooldown timer to line up with Wildfire windows.

5) Heartbreak is removed. We're at the point where there's too many oGCDs in Wildfire, Heartbreak doesn't line up with it cleanly, and it doesn't really do anything else for MCH.

6) Grenado shot is reintroduced as an Ammo proc for Spread Shot. MCH AoE rotation is just really underwhelming (and it isn't affected by heat).

7) Overheat timer increased to 11s. Just to make things fit nicer in WF.

Edit1: Further thoughts

2 alteration) Overdrive replaces Hyperdrive. Instead of launching a super powerful attack and then dismissing the turret, Overdrive acts like an "Overheat" mode for the turrets. Their auto attack potency goes up to 240, but the turret is disabled for a time after Overdrive wears off. The current Hyperdrive effect of vulnerability on hit enemies remain.

5 alteration) Heartbreak isn't removed, but it's not longer a "mercy cooldown". Instead, it's just on a 30s timer (it's power will come down a lot to compensate)

7 alteration) Overheat duration is increased to 15s or the next 5 weaponskills. If it goes the full 15s, the Gauss Barrel isn't locked. (this is to help in case you overheat during a boss transition)

8) Wildfire no longer accounts for oGCDs. This is to fix the problem of making sure all oGCDs line up in your Wildfire window or else your damage is just shot for the rest of the encounter. It will only account for weaponskills and auto attacks, and only the next 5 weaponskills from the player. In addition, Wildfire is applied to the self instead of the target, and after the 5th weaponskill, the complied damage will land on the current target. The Wildfire will also splash and hit surrounding targets. This helps alleviate the problem of losing the target before Wildfire explodes since the Wildfire is on you instead. You'll still want to try and align oGCDs in Overheat since they'll still get the damage boost from Overheat. (lasts 15s if it doesn't get the full 5 weaponskills)

9) Heat gain is put back at 10. Barrel Stabilizer not only sets Heat at 50, but it also reduces heat gain by 5 for the next 3 weaponskills (using it with Ammo prevents heat gain at all)

I don't do any high-end content, I never played HW MCH, and don't really use MCH at all since getting it to 70, but here's a list of some of my likes/dislikes concerning the job at this point:

• I like the uniqueness of the weaponskill rotation with ammo. Rather than the normal branching 1-2-3 most jobs have, MCH plays around with stuff like 1-2-1-3-2-3 and I think that's neat.
• I don't like Flamethrower. I like how it looks and how it turrets the player, but I hate the optimal usage of puffing it just to get into Overheat. I'd love some changes to encourage using it for the full duration (maybe reduce max duration to 5 ticks instead of 10) like a stacking DoT (a la PvP) or a stacking debuff.
• I don't really like the Gauss Barrel toggle. I do like the idea of making it traited AND moving the heat mechanic to level 62 so the 52-62 area for MCH is less awful.
• I like the Autoturrets. It doesn't feel like a terribly huge hassle to deal with placing/moving them.
• Wildfire could be re-tuned a bit to make it useful in MCH's AoE rotation, I think. Perhaps single-target WS used on a Wildfire target deal (heavily reduced) splash damage as well as the final explosion being AoE damage with Flare-like falloff.
• Not a fan of Overheat for various reasons. The lack of control over it until level 62, the odd reward/punishment windows, and how it just ends up being something else to stack into Wildfire.

Also, an idea for maybe fixing the ping-reliance of Wildfire. What if the duration was increased back to 15 seconds, but have an additional trigger that causes Wildfire to detonate after 5 or 6 weaponskills are used in the window. It would loosen up the window for high-ping and/or mistake-prone players, making it less punishing overall.

Just going to Bump.

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Originally Posted by Matthew_Fox

Just going to Bump.

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Thanks actually. Just discovered this and I could not agree more with your document. It is definitely not the same job I fell in love with in HW. I don't say that in that they should change it back, but what they made here is worse in it's own right and I hope they make major adjustments at least by 5.0 to make what we have now a lot more engaging, accessible, and at the end of the day....fun (in my opinion). I hope SE sees this and responds back in some way.

I love the ideas you lay out that would be amazing if they implemented some in a rework

I wanted to list my own things I would like to see from the job. I speak mostly idealistically here but ohh well.

1. Like most have said, make Grenade Shot the upgraded version of Spread Shot.

2. Get rid of Gauss Barrel entirely. It seems so pointless to manage something like this and on top of that it is such an ugly aesthetic. Would be one thing if each gun had it's own looking barrel similar to how Samurai's have different sheaths, but we don't. It is an ugly aesthetic and ruins the look to most guns. I know there is a way to disable the look on the client side, but mechanically it seems pointless also. Let your gauge start itself back up after an overheat.

3. I agree that Hot Shot seems like a pointless ability. Every 60 seconds you just hit one button to upkeep a +8% buff? I say take it back to 5% and make it a DoT and 30 seconds if you want to make it something meaningful to manage beyond a simple buff.

4. Also agree with the piercing buff. Why in the world are we dependent on one job(Dragoon) to get our potential? Same goes for Bard. Both of these jobs in a composition is very dependent on a DRG? Get rid of it and just adjust our potency accordingly. Same for for the slashing buff.

5. MCH just needs a straight DPS boost. I like the idea that BRD has more support but less DPS and MCH having more DPS but less support. I don't know if this was intentional from SE, but that is how I see it. Currently BRD's have a "Having their cake, and eating is also." scenario where they can easily outmatch a MCH and have great support on top of that. You have to be a really good MCH to out DPS a good BRD. An even skill field though? A BRD will outperform a MCH. Either make us heavier in support, or boost our DPS.

suppose I'll take a crack at a suggestion...

rather than fix flamethrower.. use it as part of a proper aoe rotation. (Grenado shot is sorely missed by all.)... and in place of flamethrower. We get something lets call it... Explosive Round that forces an instant overheat but can only be used once a minute. Only accessible under wildfire.. you get 5 gcds inside of overheat (6 in wildfire with the Explosive Round) rather than a countdown.. fixing the latency issue and in turn not getting rid of brand new assets developed by creating wildfire. Have Explosive Round be a hard hitting ogcd. Other than that the other suggestions in Fox's documents I can agree with... the double fire thing seems like wishful thinking but i havent heard a single better idea when it comes to retooling Rapid Fire.

I'd suggest reducing Rapidfire's GCD reduction to 2 seconds instead of 1.5 and double the number of weaponskills it affects. That would help with the ping/weaving issue while retaining the effect it has.

I'd also suggest leaving Barrel Stabilizer in and adding a mechanic to Overheat to reset heat to 50 instead of dropping Gauss Barrel when done correctly instead of the penalty. One idea I had is simply to make the goal to reduce your heat below 50 before your wildfire finishes. Allow Hot/Clean/Split/Slug Shot to generate 10 heat at all times, then make Cooldown reduce it by 10 outside of Overheat and 30 during it. Ammo would still reduce heat generation too. Finally, allow heat to go above 100 during Overheat, then after overheating, add a debuff to discourage overheating again too quickly, similar to the Turret debuff from Overdrive.

By doing all of that, you then create a situation where Barrel Stabilizer is used to correct mistakes or deaths without majorly impacting the rotation, and a reward for correct heat management that's rather easy to do (3 Cooldowns or 2 and proper ammo usage)

I agree with what you wrote otherwise.

I really like the idea of Barrel Stabilizer ending an overheat without “losing a barrel” so to speak. However, this is a fairly significant dps buff, so either the Wildfire or Hot Shot buff would have to be reduced.

But, to make the job less ping dependent, Wildfire and Overheat need to change. WF would make sense to be a weaponskill/GCD counter. Pack all your oGCDs in and the final weaponskill or GCD also acts as a trigger for the explosion. Overheat is trickier... maybe just extend it to 12s? Just long enough to allow higher pings and skill stuttering, but not long enough to guarantee a 6th GCD. While we’re on it, someone mentioned slowing down Rapid Fire. That would also probably help out higher pings and general feel of the skill. Not necessarily 2s, but somewhere between 1.5 and 2.

I’m all for increasing heat generation of shots back to 10, though I’d like to take a queue from PVP and up Hot Shot to 25.

I don't think SE has any intent of doing anything major for class balancing at this point.

Only thing we can do is wait and hope that they get the BRD treatment come next expansion. Especially if they don't add a new ranged next expansion.

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Originally Posted by Eir_Z

I’m all for increasing heat generation of shots back to 10, though I’d like to take a queue from PVP and up Hot Shot to 25.

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That would help out a ton as is to be honest. I can see Hot Shot being used purely as a heat generation skill just to deal with skill speed issue MCH has if it did that instead of the potency buff.

Really though either removing Overheat or Wildfire altogether would probably be the better option long term. As much as I like Wildfire, I can see how removing it and focusing on Overheat would also help out MCH.

If you remove Wildfire you basically remove the identity of Machinst. I don't think it it's a good idea.

Just add 1 or 2 sec to Overheat state and remove that much from the lockout.
This way you don't get screwed due to ping and you won't have to change the 4 GCDs after WF before you re-apply Gauss Barrel.

It's not the change that I'd want. But I think it is reasonable and would go a long ways to reducing how ping reliant the class is atm.

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Originally Posted by Matthew_Fox

If you remove Wildfire you basically remove the identity of Machinst. I don't think it it's a good idea.

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I like wildfire, but maybe we need a new identity then. Wildfire made a lot more sense, during Heavensward.

I think Wildfire itself is fine. I agree if we had just 1-2 more seconds on WF, it would at least address the ping issue and something the developers could tweak. I think what a lot ask for in terms of ability shifting won't be a thing till at least 5.0, but something like a WF adjustment would work wonders for now.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

I think Wildfire itself is fine. I agree if we had just 1-2 more seconds on WF, it would at least address the ping issue and something the developers could tweak. I think what a lot ask for in terms of ability shifting won't be a thing till at least 5.0, but something like a WF adjustment would work wonders for now.

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You can give wildifre as many as 3 conditions (that I can think of) for ending and the end result could be a combo of them: Timer, Number of GCD skills used, and hitting wildfire again for early boom.

It's more about the fact that MCH relies on lining up Wildfire AND Overheat but doesn't have a good way to deal with failing to line both of those up, especially when skill speed completely breaks the flow of the class at the moment (something I'm encountering because I play BRD and SE loves Crit/SkS gear). Flamethrower's there but it interrupts your GCD to do it for more than a tick.

A quick patch for this expansion would be to reduce Cooldown's heat reduction to 5 or 10 and/or make Hotshot add 25 heat, likely the former.

Long term it one of them needs to go, and I'm leaning towards keeping Wildfire in a reworked form. Or integrating them both together into one effect.

I'd really like it if Flamethrower always put you into overheat instantly, but the timer wouldn't start ticking down until the move ends whether on its own or with movement or an action.

This would allow one to always be able to execute the burst rotation without issue even in movement-heavy situations, not just when you have enough heat to push the gauge to 100 with one tick, and would also avoid the issue of canceling it too early

Another alternative could be to freeze the overheat timer until a weaponskill other than Cooldown is used and have Cooldown not reduce heat during that period.

I think that mchs should only use the heated shot animations during overheat, not a gameplay fix as such, but it would show players that overheat is what they should be doing (plus i prefer the boring shooting animations to twirly jumpy gun magic). And actual fix i think could work is using wildfire adds 20 heat to the gauge meaning you don't need to use flamethrower to overheat, then make flamethrower deal more damage under overheat so you snapshot flamethrow at the end of your overheat to carry you through the cool down period as a dps gain.

Yeah...when played optimally you'll pretty much never see the standard Clean Shot animation again. You could proc during barrel lockout but then it's best saved for when you reapply the barrel. I also greatly miss the Rend Mind animation compared to the wrench throw, but guess that ship has sailed already :P

With all of the issues with this job. And there are numerous that need to be addressed. Who cares about the actual animations? If resources go to "fixing" these animations rather than actually fixing the fundamental issues withe the base design at the core of this job then they may as well delete the class in it's entirety.

The clipping needs to be addressed immediately, this job is borderline unplayable at higher pings and if you attempt it, it's generally sub optimal play. if the community has to use alternative rotations to combat ping, then you've honestly messed up in the design department

im leveling MCH this days and yeah i feel every complaing here, even having a good ping and being able to double weabe most skills on wildfire is still a window too tight and i still dont have the control of the heat gauge so i was thinking MCH will be awesome with a desing i made.

it will remain almost the same except for a few things:
-first of all heat mechanic and flametower will be apart of wildfire window, i will make flametower a strict dps gain use it all the duration and only will be usable at 100 gauge and remove the overheat mechanic, this will make MCH want to use flametower when they have it back and have 100 heat, the heat generation will remin the same as now but cooldown will have superior potency that the rest GCD, it will work like now but more potency so MCH will still want to move around betwen 50-100% heat by using it, after flametower being used the gauge will reset to 0 like always.

-and the second on wildfire rotation since they will dont have anymore the overheated bonus it can be extend the duration to... idk, 15 seconds? so MCH will depend less of the ping.

i know my opinion without having the job at maximun level dosent matter much, i was just thinking on MCH rotation and the nightmare when i have to add the gauge control when i reach those levels, its was just a idea to keep the MCH identity but make it "better" at least for me, anyway i support you, keep going MCH mains ^^

The Overheat gauge was completely unnecessary, I remember really loving MCH in HW, but now I just can't stand playing it anymore, its too stiff and rigid and using Flamethrower doesn't feel good at all, its literally used just to overheat. Its not even good for AoE.

It boggles my mind that they took the job that was already the least played and made it even worse, I really hope they do an overhaul for MCH in the next xpac, I really hope its good this time.

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Originally Posted by shao32

im leveling MCH this days and yeah i feel every complaing here, even having a good ping and being able to double weabe most skills on wildfire is still a window too tight and i still dont have the control of the heat gauge so i was thinking MCH will be awesome with a desing i made.

it will remain almost the same except for a few things:
-first of all heat mechanic and flametower will be apart of wildfire window, i will make flametower a strict dps gain use it all the duration and only will be usable at 100 gauge and remove the overheat mechanic, this will make MCH want to use flametower when they have it back and have 100 heat, the heat generation will remin the same as now but cooldown will have superior potency that the rest GCD, it will work like now but more potency so MCH will still want to move around betwen 50-100% heat by using it, after flametower being used the gauge will reset to 0 like always.

-and the second on wildfire rotation since they will dont have anymore the overheated bonus it can be extend the duration to... idk, 15 seconds? so MCH will depend less of the ping.

i know my opinion without having the job at maximun level dosent matter much, i was just thinking on MCH rotation and the nightmare when i have to add the gauge control when i reach those levels, its was just a idea to keep the MCH identity but make it "better" at least for me, anyway i support you, keep going MCH mains ^^

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I think it is fine to give criticism to a job in it's mid-levels, because I think a job should feel good and abilities flow with one another all the way up to 70. Especially since we have content that level caps us. Machinist feels clunky all the way up to getting Barrel Stabilizer. You don't feel like you are in much control of your heat gauge until you are pretty much lv.70.

Machinist is an absolute mess to play. It feels like I'm working twice as hard for lesser results than other jobs, action flow feels like raw sewage through a cracked pipe, and the whole job feels like it was thoughtlessly cobbled together because nobody cared about it in the first place.

Whoever thought heat and having one proc-based combo were good ideas should be forced to playtest the stuff they throw at the dartboard.