Machinist is prolly better then it ever has been or will ever be.

New machinist is my favorite job in the game and this rework is far and away the best gameplay element in Shadowbringers IMO. Doing overheat and bouncing between Gauss Round and Ricochet feels like I'm holding onto an HMG and spraying bullets, and Machinist now feels like Machinist and not "bard but gun".

The core gameplay loops, especially on AOE pulls, feels like I'm yanking out a different toy and spraying until it's used up constantly. Autocrossbow feels amazing. Bio Blaster feels fantastic. Being able to just whip Drill out every 20 seconds is phenomenal. The core gameplay loop feels the best it ever has, and I daresay that 80 MCH is the most fun I've ever had playing this game. Literally the only change I can think of that'd be nice is if ricochet recharged off autocrossbow, but it's not even necessary.

Rydia, do you have experience with any other jobs at lvl 80? I'm debating between a few and am having trouble deciding, but at lvl 70 MCH feels really good. Your glowing appraisal makes me want to stick with it. My only gripe is that I'm not a huge fan of the armor sets, but I haven't played since HW so I doubt I've seen all there is to see on that front.

I like new MCH but there are still some things to be worked out. I don't really like how Queen is just a glorified DoT and how unimpressive Wildfire is now these days. Perhaps combine Wildfire with Queen? Also of any class, I find myselves watching the hotbar SO MUCH because there's so many things to track.

I find myself doing that as well sometimes.
Gauss blast, ricochet, hot shot, wildfire, reassemble, heat gauge, battery gauge
And I'm lv55 on mch, there's also drill, flame thrower and bioblaster still to come, and I'm probably forgetting something.

It's fun though, fast paced and don't have to worry about positional requirements which is a personal pet peeve I have with melee classes.

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Originally Posted by White_Wolf_X

Only part about machinist i don't like atm is Flamethrower, would be alot better if it was made into a robot ( or something ) you place and then it use "Flamethrower " in a cone infront of it.

Or just remove Flamethrower and give us Bishop back.

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It's also just too lag intolerant, but it only needs one of a handful of changes to fix the lag tolerance and it wouldn't be a problem:

• Increase number of charges of Ricochet/Gauss Barrel from 3 to 4.
• Change Overheat to give you 5 "ammo" that allows you to use heat blast 5 times, keep the GCD.
• Slightly slow the GCD of Heat Blast, slightly increase the duration of Overheated.

Any one of those could fix the lag issue, but one of them would slow the class down in the process. I personally would like to see the second one. Then, no matter how much lag you have or clipping, you still are incentivized to use the oGCDs and aren't punished by clipping the GCD as much because you will always get 5 heat blasts.

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Originally Posted by Thorbot

I like new MCH but there are still some things to be worked out. I don't really like how Queen is just a glorified DoT and how unimpressive Wildfire is now these days. Perhaps combine Wildfire with Queen? Also of any class, I find myselves watching the hotbar SO MUCH because there's so many things to track.

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The lag delay is a big one, making it so you can simply move while flamethrowering would help immeasurably without changing much else, and I'd seriously just delete wildfire. It's mildly redundant with the new Hypercharge and doesn't really feel good. Not that it ever did, it's just...boring, but it went from "Boring" to "Why does this exist?" The class has enough oGCDs without this one still existing.

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Originally Posted by osutin

Rydia, do you have experience with any other jobs at lvl 80? I'm debating between a few and am having trouble deciding, but at lvl 70 MCH feels really good. Your glowing appraisal makes me want to stick with it. My only gripe is that I'm not a huge fan of the armor sets, but I haven't played since HW so I doubt I've seen all there is to see on that front.

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The difference between 70 and 80 mch are very minimal... you get a hot shot upgrade to air anchor, a rook upgrade to queen, bioblaster which is an aoe option to drill and a third charge of gauss and ricco... otherwise, the job feels relatively 'complete' at 70... in that you can probably begin practicing the level 80 opener at 70 :eek:

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Originally Posted by Zzxy

The difference between 70 and 80 mch are very minimal... you get a hot shot upgrade to air anchor

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The animation for Air Anchor is one of my favorites across all jobs. I love it.

As for Machinist in general, I much prefer this version where we actually have a variety of machine/tool attacks. The previous version was basiaclly a turret and a Wildfire toaster. I don't miss Wildfire being the entire core of our DPS. The gameplay is very busy now, but I find it satisfying to be constantly unleashing attacks.

I'm loving MCH so far & honestly, Hyper Charge feels like a lot of fun to use.
The only 2 things that could use some work with MCH imo are:

- Automaton Queen is pretty much the same as the turret but stronger, you cast it & you forget about it. Would be nice if it interacted with our rotation.

-Wildfire feels a bit... lacking. (both damage wise & rotation wise)
Hyper Charge is like a mini burst window. And once every 2 minutes you add a Wildfire to it for a bit of extra damage.
It's ok... but i just keep wishing it to be a bit more than that. 1 Additional button to add to Wildfire that increases its damage & makes it a bit more interesting.

I just want a new lvl 3 limit break where my automaton slams the field with a giant drill, because drills are the most powerful weapon.

After playing around with Flamethrower, I'm starting to get used to it. It actually does pretty decent damage, beating out Spread Shot for AoE damage. But, it *is* situational. Against small groups, its probably better to just Spread Shot for the heat generation. Against larger pulls, you need to make sure that you aren't using it when Bioblaster's cooldown is at 10 or less, because Bioblaster is just amazing, AND you need to make sure you're positioned so you'll hit them all and you probably won't be hit with AoEs for 10 seconds. In other words, easier said than done.

But, as I've been getting used to it, I've been using Flamethrower more and more, and finding it quite good. My biggest grief about it is that there is little to no feedback when using it. When you use *any* other AoE, you get the big bright orange damage numbers, sticks out like a sore thumb. With Flamethrower, you get the tiny little red numbers that blends in with all the chaos, not to mention you can't tell the difference between Flamethrower damage and Bioblaster's DoT damage. If they're going to try to make Flamethrower something we use for actual damage now, then they could at the very least make it *feel* good to use.

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Originally Posted by MagiusNecros

I feel like instead of weaving oGCDS during Heat Blast phase I'd would just use them between each part of the GCD combo leading into Drill or Hot Shot/Air Anchor.

Split > GB > R > Slug > GB > R > Clean > GB > R > Drill or HS/AA > Hypercharge > HBx5 > Repeat

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Same thing I do. Don't know if high ping players can use it, but feels really good for me.

Overall I really like new MCH so much, that I barely touch my DRG. But I think there could be made some improvements on things like spread shot and Flamethrower.

I don't know if that was pointed out by someone, but I'm a bit confused about the Automaton.
I summoned him at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 gauge. He always does the 300 potency charge at the beginning and the 800 potency punch at the end. The only thing that changes are the numbers of his 150potency punches:

50 - 3 punches
60 - 4 punches
70 - 5 punches
80 - 6 punches
90 - 7 punches
100 - 8 punches

making his total potency based on gauge:

50 - 1550 potency
60 - 1700 potency
70 - 1850 potency
80 - 2000 potency
90 - 2150 potency
100 - 2300 potency

So summoning him twice at 50 is 800 potency more than summoning him once at hundred. Is this right? Shouldn't it be the other way around, or did I something wrong?

However, I like the direction MCH is going and hope they will proceed getting more cool gadgets to play with. Things like a rocket launcher, a machine gun, grenades, or a laser cannon would be awesome.

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Originally Posted by Kreyd

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Automaton queen's final hit is double potency at 1600 and I've tested it and yeah it's does hit for double so using it at 100 should be better.

As for flamethrower the main improvement I'd like to see is when you use it you end up facing your target. There have been moments where I use it had accidentally been facing the wrong way so it goes to waste. I would also like it if it had a shorter run time at double the potency so I didn't feel like I have to wait the full 10s or get close to it or feel like I have to hold off on using it because BioBlaster will be coming off cooldown before it could do it's full dmg. Also for aoes, it feels horrible to use it and soon after get a telegraph forcing you to move cutting your flamethrower short.

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Originally Posted by AvenoMatt

Automaton queen's final hit is double potency at 1600 and I've tested it and yeah it's does hit for double so using it at 100 should be better.

As for flamethrower the main improvement I'd like to see is when you use it you end up facing your target. There have been moments where I use it had accidentally been facing the wrong way so it goes to waste. I would also like it if it had a shorter run time at double the potency so I didn't feel like I have to wait the full 10s or get close to it or feel like I have to hold off on using it because BioBlaster will be coming off cooldown before it could do it's full dmg. Also for aoes, it feels horrible to use it and soon after get a telegraph forcing you to move cutting your flamethrower short.

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I mostly feel that feedback is the biggest issue Flamethrower has, but I would definitely like your suggestion, too. Flamethrower is on a fair cooldown, there's no reason why it couldn't have a bit more bite to it.

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Originally Posted by AvenoMatt

Automaton queen's final hit is double potency at 1600 and I've tested it and yeah it's does hit for double so using it at 100 should be better.

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Yep, you're right. I did summon him again at 50 and 100 and looked at it's final hit damage.

Final hit, summoned with 50: about 2200 damage
Final hit, summoned with 100: about 4800 damage
(I was naked to minimize chance of critical/direct hitting)

So it really is the best use to summon it at 100. Thanks!

Flamethrower actually hits really hard. But, just like Wildfire, it doesn't look like it does.

Wildfire has nearly none animation and Flamethrowers only deplays these small red numbers you barely see.

I would like Spread Shot beeing upgraded into Crossbow and Flamethrower beeing the HC aoe ability and having synergy with Bioblaster.

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Originally Posted by Kreyd

I would like Spread Shot beeing upgraded into Crossbow and Flamethrower beeing the HC aoe ability and having synergy with Bioblaster.

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I'd actually like this since spread shot boring and it makes sense for flamethrower to be are HC aoe since are weapon has just overheated potentially allowing it to spit fire.

I also wouldn't mind if they removed flamethrower and replaced it with Bishop, but a new Bishop that shoots fire in all directions. Would make it a good battery gauge dump for aoe purpose. Could possibly upgrade to Automaton King who deals massive aoe damage and repositions based on your current target and would have a rather large radius, I'm thinking 7-10yalms. Just a thought XD

Using queen at as high of a battery gauge as possible is recommended since if you summoner her less, she wastes less time during the summoning animation. It's literally 5 sec off every time you summon her. So less summoning for longer duration = less time wasted during summoning animation.

But if summoning her at 100 would make her miss the raid buff window then it's better to summon her earlier i suppose.

If the rook autoturret lasts for fifteen seconds and the queen lasts fifteen after the start up animation, is it really "wasting" time during the start up animation?
They end up being the same.
Seems like a pretty deliberate design choice.

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Originally Posted by Hezzlocks

I mostly feel that feedback is the biggest issue Flamethrower has, but I would definitely like your suggestion, too. Flamethrower is on a fair cooldown, there's no reason why it couldn't have a bit more bite to it.

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They should add a ground-targeted aoe, such as Shadowflare or Asylum, to Flamethrower. What I mean by this is a highly visible cone that is shown unless you have party effects turned completely off to compliment the flamethrower. An orange cone distinctly outlining where the Flamethrower zone itself is.

And instead of treating its damage like a DoT ALA Shadowflare, treat it like you're attacking things repeatedly like Spread Shot, so you can see every tick show up. If it hits 10 times, the damage it does just just fine for aoe. But you as a player need to know if enemies are in it, tanks need to know where to take enemies, and the player needs to know it's actually doing something.