So why not just take the range tax off? Raise every range up and then make the changes mentioned to the MCH making everyone able to play, more so now that the bosses are the size of the arena and the melee barely has to move.
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So why not just take the range tax off? Raise every range up and then make the changes mentioned to the MCH making everyone able to play, more so now that the bosses are the size of the arena and the melee barely has to move.
Because won't someone think of the poor melees? If they're not being coddled at every turn with huge hitboxes and less positionals they might get upset they're not dominating everyone else in dps, and we don't want that.
I mean healers and ranged dps have been complaining for years, but their opinions don't matter, we can't upset melee dps players and have to fix any balance issues ASAP while ignoring everyone else.
Being a selfish DPS is fine, if Machinist wasn't on the very bottom of the DPS totem pole. The whole idea of Physical Ranged doing less damage because they have no cast time or resource cost is kinda outdated, especially since they gave Black Mage a second charge on Triple Cast, bringing their total number of instants up to 7, which is an entire Astral Fire rotation or their opening rotation.
The way I see it, instead of turning them into a rubberstamp utility Physical Ranged like Dancer and Bard, lean into the Crit+Direct Hit by giving them new traits that boost their crit and direct hit damage which would synergize with Reassemble and give them some real burst.
I also want to point out that the change to queen was not a nerf or a buff, it was to make it so the entire rotation fit neatly inside the burst window. It still does the same amount of damage that it did before, just in 12 seconds instead of 20.
Wildfire could be used to play into Crit/Direct Hit by making it a Direct Crit if you land 5 or more weaponskills during its uptime.
Flamethrower needs a major rework. functionally it is completely useless when using the Auto Crossbow can achieve the same damage, but without being a forced channel.
My idea is that it should be an Off Global that does 1 large hit (essentially an AOE version of drill, or Air Anchor) that adds 2 stacks of damage if used on a target with Wildfire (meaning it adds 440 potency, or counts as 2 weaponskill hits during that window). This would not only make it an effective AOE hit for large groups, but it'd also give you a reason to weave it into your Wildfire burst window.
The cast times were something that were imposed on both MCH and BRD in HW.
While MCH was designed with it from the start since it was an HW job and it had the ammo mechanic to play around with it BRD wasn't as fortunate and the casts just felt kinda tacked on, so a lot of BRD players complained for them to change it which they did in SB, but if you remove BRD's casts you also have to remove MCH's to make it fair, but since MCH was already designed around its cast times it got a bit of an identity crisis as a result.
And that's the story of how Machinist was reworked 3 times in 3 consecutive expansions.
Having cast times on its attacks never bothered me with Machinist. It was a new job and, as you mentioned, it was designed with that mechanic in mind. Though I do think it should have been introduced at an earlier level instead of 52 just because they didn't want to add cast times to Bard before that level. Then they got rid of cast times from both. It honestly kind of annoys me that both BRD and MCH have cast times on their basic weaponskill in PVP. I'm not sure why SE has an obsession with those two jobs sharing a mechanic like that. Either they both have cast times or neither of them do. Just let each job be distinct.
Just commenting to say that I hope you guys get some good buffs. Much love and good luck.
Realistically MCH should be right there under BLM.
Bring back Hypercharge:) and let brd/mch combo be a thing again:)
In an idea world every job would do the same damage set by the BiS gear for each tier.
Then reduce their damage by 1% for every utility they provide.
Have a raid defensive? -1% DPS.
Have a party buff? -1% DPS
Have a party heal? -1% DPS
This way bards and dancer would be ~95% DPS
Reaper would be 99% DPS
Samurai and black mage would be 100% DPS
MCH would be 99% DPS
Red Mage would be 98% DPS.
I'm sure you get the idea.
This way you are taxed by what you provide, not by the role you choose to play and your total DPS would be based on your SKILL with the job you choose to play.
Differentiation of same job damage is player skill.
Their suggestion doesn't account for any of the specifics at all. The numbers have to be balanced manually.
Besides that we have other classes that are already balanced around having what utility they bring. The issue here is clearly that SE is playing favorites with classes and they refuse to balance certain classes to allow them to remain viable within endgame raiding.
I'm coming back to this late but the funny thing is the bishop or rook? the old aoe turret we used to have it's in pvp and it does 6,000 damage to w/e it hits and gives the party members who stand in it a 6,000 potency shield so it can 100% be used in that way as it is used in that way in pvp right now. there are so many things that machinist has in pvp that would be so useful outside of pvp (but we have queen now as our turret which has melee uptime) machinist is in such a weird place from where it used to be in HW.
I understand that queen didnt get nerfed i just think the summon time before it attacks and it using 6 seconds of ur battery gauge is kinda stupid? its not even attacking why is it using resources. if u summon it and the boss walks away and it has to roller dash ur basically losing 9 out of 12 seconds of uptime it's super weird to get max 6 seconds of uptime and then it does its finisher and disappears. it also delays damage by 6 seconds to u have to awkwardly plan 6 seconds ahead of buff windows to put it down. i never really noticed it with the 20 second timer but its super noticable with it being 12s and you having to optimize those 12s. im sure this isnt an issue for everyone and maybe im just thinking about it too much.
Throw a 10% damage buff on queen when its active and all the complaints will disappear.