Machinist: The "Selfish" Physical Ranged that is not allowed to be Selfish

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Originally Posted by Sacae

Four casters, you forgot SAM.

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SAM is not a caster and neither is RPR, nor SMN.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

Job not only needs a rework but all Physical range should have some sort of structure of Risk and Reward..

How you can balance range job with 0 casting?

I am not saying that Phy range should have a cast but the current state are just bad

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I don't think MCH needs a rework aside from maybe baking in anti-drift into the game (without relying on multiple charges) and fixing the aoe rotation. But I don't think they need a risk/reward structure so much as the devs need to go back to the ARR and Stormblood encounter design era, and make tests that affect each role differently and uniquely. Neo Exdeath presents interesting examples for melee and casters in that delta attack is a problem for casters but not for melee, while vacuum wave and boss jumps were a test for melee but not casters. Rphys just didn't care, so it got taxed. Meanwhile, fights like UWU, UCOB, Turn 7, TEA, and a host of others have entire mechanics that capitalize on the thing that makes rphys unique -- unlimited mobility and range -- to test these roles in other ways. Classic example being brute justice's jump into apoc ray or what is probably barely known these days, the cyclops that had to be snared and kited around in turn 7. The risk is the cyclops will 1-shot you. The reward is solving the mechanic correctly with a second party member, allowing you to advance the fight. And you got to use a niche tool. Once. In all of end-game raiding.

Homogenizing mechanics down to dances that basically are giant middle fingers to casters but otherwise generic body checks or "Everyone just moves to the safe spot together," is just incredibly boring and frustrating design. And I'd really like to see a return to rphys having to bait liquid hells or boss jumps or, hell, having to draw aggro on a mob and kite it around for an extended period of time to correctly solve a mechanic later. Then the 'tax' is that you're multitasking, which has been the rphys gimmick since at least Stormblood anyways, and hopefully makes rphys players feel like they're needed because of something unique they do, instead of just there for the 1% buff and party mits that the devs have been giving to every role anyways.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

Job not only needs a rework but all Physical range should have some sort of structure of Risk and Reward..

How you can balance range job with 0 casting?

I am not saying that Phy range should have a cast but the current state are just bad

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It's honestly this, whether Ranged mains want to hear it or not. Casters (true casters at least) have to worry about the bar, melee have to--in theory--worry about positionals and engagement range, even if both are kinda "eh" nowadays.

Ranged can kinda do whatever the frick it wants.

MCH more so needs its AOE to actually mesh with rest of the kit and for devs to decide what to do with phys range
not so much a rework

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Originally Posted by Taranok

I don't think MCH needs a rework aside from maybe baking in anti-drift into the game (without relying on multiple charges) and fixing the aoe rotation. But I don't think they need a risk/reward structure so much as the devs need to go back to the ARR and Stormblood encounter design era, and make tests that affect each role differently and uniquely. Neo Exdeath presents interesting examples for melee and casters in that delta attack is a problem for casters but not for melee, while vacuum wave and boss jumps were a test for melee but not casters. Rphys just didn't care, so it got taxed. Meanwhile, fights like UWU, UCOB, Turn 7, TEA, and a host of others have entire mechanics that capitalize on the thing that makes rphys unique -- unlimited mobility and range -- to test these roles in other ways. Classic example being brute justice's jump into apoc ray or what is probably barely known these days, the cyclops that had to be snared and kited around in turn 7. The risk is the cyclops will 1-shot you. The reward is solving the mechanic correctly with a second party member, allowing you to advance the fight. And you got to use a niche tool. Once. In all of end-game raiding.

Homogenizing mechanics down to dances that basically are giant middle fingers to casters but otherwise generic body checks or "Everyone just moves to the safe spot together," is just incredibly boring and frustrating design. And I'd really like to see a return to rphys having to bait liquid hells or boss jumps or, hell, having to draw aggro on a mob and kite it around for an extended period of time to correctly solve a mechanic later. Then the 'tax' is that you're multitasking, which has been the rphys gimmick since at least Stormblood anyways, and hopefully makes rphys players feel like they're needed because of something unique they do, instead of just there for the 1% buff and party mits that the devs have been giving to every role anyways.

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I want more things to do as rphys and things to bait in general (pantokrator was one of the funniest/best raid I ever did as rphys), but it's hardly enough to justify this tax unless encounters are literally littered with it.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

MCH more so needs its AOE to actually mesh with rest of the kit and for devs to design what to do with phys range
not so much a rework

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Yeah the fact that Auto Crossbow isn't much better, or at all (according to some people I talk to) better than Blast Zone in AoE is kinda dumb.

Also Flamethrower.

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Originally Posted by Tunda

Job not only needs a rework but all Physical range should have some sort of structure of Risk and Reward..

How you can balance range job with 0 casting?

I am not saying that Phy range should have a cast but the current state are just bad

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BUT THEY HAVE RANGE!

*looks at the boss hitbox touching his feet from the edge of the arena*

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Originally Posted by KapraGoatmog

sounds like you should just play picto and leave the non-fotm jobs to more experienced players

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I mean I am playing picto and its fun. Machinist could take inspiration from picto because I think the preparing attacks design is something that could work well in mch. Doesn't need to be exactly like picto but then again I'm not defending the job that has flamethrower in its current state for 5 years.

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Originally Posted by Valence

It was way better in SB.

When I said uncapping from 6 GCD I didn't mean to change it back to SB and HW however. I just said, remove the cap to 6 GCDs so we can do double hypercharges and get a 7GCD wildfire. It favors skill expression within the current model well.

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Ik I was just wondering about how hw Wildfire would work in raid buff meta.

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Originally Posted by Basteala

It's honestly this, whether Ranged mains want to hear it or not. Casters (true casters at least) have to worry about the bar, melee have to--in theory--worry about positionals and engagement range, even if both are kinda "eh" nowadays.

Ranged can kinda do whatever the frick it wants.

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Viper exist, a job that can maintain perfect uptime thanks to Uncoiled Fury.
Black Mage isn't the turret fantasy it used to be.
Pictomancer has a lot of instant cast and a dash on a 20s that even grants a sprint just if you're not sure.
A lot of dashes have seen their damage removed, on charges, making melee uptime easier. Ranged GCDs don't break the combo anymore.
Positionals, if you somehow to manage missing them all, will cost you only 3% of your DPS.

Physical ranged can... Run in circles.
The challenge to keep the uptime isn't the same as back in Heavensward.

As for the final nail:
Back in E8S, we've had the first content ever that forced melees to disconnect many times. However the physical ranged remained at the bottom but instead it was the caster who went through the roof, SMN and BLM would wipe the floor with every other jobs, even RDM was able to compete with Samurai.
Turns, out, it wasn't the mobility that was strong, but the ability to attack from afar.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

Ik I was just wondering about how hw Wildfire would work in raid buff meta.

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Don't get me wrong, I'd kill to get HW/SB WF back, especially now that we have a stack system on hypercharge/overheat (even when people had asked for it for over 4 years until they finally added it...).

Looks like MCH isn't doing any better so far in this tier and it will only get worse with people getting gear and BRD/DNC helping that. Again another expansion where MCH is very weak the first tier, we'll probably have to wait until 7.2-.3 until we get some reasonable buff just to put us back in line. It's been the same thing since Stormblood at this point. I've mained this job since HW and it's the same patterns over and over again. Please, someone at Square Enix look into physical range, especially MCH, it needs help. Why must this job be the butt of the joke. Damage is overall too low, AoE rotation is a mess, you don't even auto crossbow until 5 targets now, Flamethrower is a minimal gain for a capstone skill. I actually adore the additions it got in Dawntrail, it almost feels perfect but so many things still make no sense. I've made multiple posts about this in the past. Wildfire still CANNOT crit or direct hit nor does it scale with it and isn't AoE. Drill's cooldown stops working with skill speed at level 94. High ping still hurts this job which makes some players rely on 3rd party tools or pricey VPNs to mitigate the issue. I've asked Yoship about this personally in a Fanfest question years ago and it was dismissed on the grounds of being a ISP issue, which it isn't.

If Machinist cannot at least do decent damage, can we please get our old hypercharge back where it applied a vulnerability on the enemy so we can feel like we're on par with the other physical range. If you want to keep MCH a pure DPS, why not give it some cast time on their tools for instance. A 1.5 second cast on each of them similar to how Samurai has casts. You could in exchange buff it's damage. I'm not sure why the devs judge that Summoner should do more damage than MCH whilst providing mitigation, buffs and a resurrection while having barely any casts themselves and a much easier rotation. https://imgur.com/Lwur8Ie

I said this before in other post but I think they can resolve this by taking certain elements from the PvP design and implamenting this into PvE MCH to establish the whole Self-DPS concept.

The Sniper Rifle skill is one with the most potential for this.

As I posted in another thread....

The Sniper Rifle is ripe for a Very High Damage Sniper Rifle mechanic that is normally in most Gun Jobs for RPGs and MMOs. It is a matter of how to implement it though I think they can make use of the old Ammo system for the Sniper Rifle skills. Setting it as a skill about performing High Damage attacks but must account for the risk where the MCH cannot move when firing the Sniper Rifle with their Sniper Rifle skills similar to how it is in PvP as a PvP Limit break.

They can use the Ammo system to determine what kind of attacks the Sniper Rifle performs based on which Ammo the Sniper rifle will fire while using a skill to switch up the ammo (but limited in use so players will need to manage if they want to us it or not to switch up the Ammo type) or use the ammo they have loaded into the Sniper Rifle.

A simple skill that require players who insight when to use and how to use based on if they want to take the risk of not moving to fire the Sniper Rifle or not for high damage.

Sure SE still hasn't solved the ranged tax problem in 6+ years, but all hope is not lost for MCH being competitive this expansion.

There will be a new deep dungeon! Please look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by Malpercios

Looks like MCH isn't doing any better so far in this tier and it will only get worse with people getting gear and BRD/DNC helping that. Again another expansion where MCH is very weak the first tier, we'll probably have to wait until 7.2-.3 until we get some reasonable buff just to put us back in line. It's been the same thing since Stormblood at this point. I've mained this job since HW and it's the same patterns over and over again. Please, someone at Square Enix look into physical range, especially MCH, it needs help. Why must this job be the butt of the joke. Damage is overall too low, AoE rotation is a mess, you don't even auto crossbow until 5 targets now, Flamethrower is a minimal gain for a capstone skill. I actually adore the additions it got in Dawntrail, it almost feels perfect but so many things still make no sense. I've made multiple posts about this in the past. Wildfire still CANNOT crit or direct hit nor does it scale with it and isn't AoE. Drill's cooldown stops working with skill speed at level 94. High ping still hurts this job which makes some players rely on 3rd party tools or pricey VPNs to mitigate the issue. I've asked Yoship about this personally in a Fanfest question years ago and it was dismissed on the grounds of being a ISP issue, which it isn't.

If Machinist cannot at least do decent damage, can we please get our old hypercharge back where it applied a vulnerability on the enemy so we can feel like we're on par with the other physical range. If you want to keep MCH a pure DPS, why not give it some cast time on their tools for instance. A 1.5 second cast on each of them similar to how Samurai has casts. You could in exchange buff it's damage. I'm not sure why the devs judge that Summoner should do more damage than MCH whilst providing mitigation, buffs and a resurrection while having barely any casts themselves and a much easier rotation. https://imgur.com/Lwur8Ie

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Agreed on everything but cast times on tools. Not that I would hate it (though it's gonna be problematic for weaving during bursts and openers...), but it's not gonna magically turn the class into a caster with actual casting constraints to justify a damage up. But maybe i'm delusional, if SE actually think it does even though it wouldn't, then i'd take it.

I was merely throwing out ideas, really. I'm just so jaded by the state of this job by now. Early HW MCH was very weak until it got buffed around the second tier and became amazing due to piercing debuff provided by dragoon. Early SB it was a mess and needed buffs which we got with overheat and even then it was rather clunky and the least played job. ShB brought the rework and it was below average and all physical range needed buffs after the first tier. EW's first tier both DNC and MCH were very weak, similar to what it is now, to the point it was a big meme until 6.3 with TOP and the addition of dismantle. And now this. Why is it melees gets mini reworks, a ton of changes per patches and we get a whooping 1 liner of buff for a 2min CD which was about more or less a 1% gain, when the job needed more. I get not doing the same damage as melees/blm/picto, but why are we always dead last even compared to other physical range and resurrection casters which SE just acknowledge they balance us around those. Why does it feel like it's literally only 1 intern working on this role or someone who just doesn't care. There are plenty of ideas thrown on these forums over the years and on the JP forums yet they're all ignored.

I really am tired of having to wait for another two years or a few months to hopefully see some changes only to end up in the same spot we always land in. There are tons of games out there with amazing gunner/machinist archetype with different playstyles they could get inspiration from, even from other final fantasy games. If the pure DPS isn't working for them because they are scared of balance issue, then please just make it more of a support like the other range. Give it a 10% debuff damage increase on bosses like old hypercharge, make us focus on debuffing the enemy. While sure MCH can clear week 1 as we've seen, it's just depressing to see it in this state constantly.

Party support has always been at the core of rphys identity and is still actually part of the role's description on the job guide website. I'd argue that procs also were but it's not mentioned on that website.

The fact that they removed both from MCH is antithetic to the role. DNC and BRD are still in the gutter with SMN and RDM, but those jobs at least provide something either in the form of strong raid buffs that can allow them to keep up with other jobs as patches go up, or have raises. There is a reason MCH keeps falling behind constantly and they constantly have to rebuff it to keep it relevant. Funny thing is people complained hard when BRD's party buffs notably from songs disappeared in ShB, which they quickly reverted and they even added a new buff (Finale) in EW to suit the support fantasy people had been asking for. Meanwhile you can ask all you want about MCH and support, and it will fall in deaf ears, like everything when it comes to that job. They don't like what we like, they don't want what we want, my only conclusion is that they're actually happy with the state the job is currently in.

First time ever posting on these forums because I'm fed up at this point, after having hope that maybe finally something would change for just once and that the ranged tax would be somewhat justifiable with the new direction of fights.

I've seen a lot of the same sentiment that ranged should be taxed, and I agree that should be a factor; But when it yet AGAIN is at the point that we are talking about ditching the ENTIRE role beyond week 1 of progression in savage because the 1% bonus is worse than having a different role, there is a problem.

This discussion has been around for a while in EW too. It already felt VERY bad to essentially be a 1% statstick and just be there to help that bonus, and now it's at the point where even that is in question. MCH is objectively at the worst end of the stick and has been for MOST of the patches over the last 3 expansions. It is obvious something needs to change and these miniscule buffs that keep happening show that SE is deathly afraid of MCH ever being even slightly too strong.

I think the best course of action is to give MCH a raid buff for this expansion as a band-aid fix, and then go for a full rework of the ENTIRE role in 8.0. Sweeping changes won't happen this expansion but things need to change. It's honestly pathetic to see that nothing has changed over the course of 3 expansions and this exact problem keeps rearing its ugly head over and over. The role needs either unique utility, and no 10% mit isnt unique, or the damage to hold itself afloat without the 1%.

Just came here to say it's really frustrating to do well on MCH (80+ parse) and still getting out dps by a melee or PCT who randomly push buttons (30ish parse)...

SE do something!

Thinking more on it, the entire Ranged Role is gonna need some kind of rework in the future when inevitably we get a fourth ranged dps.
To the devs MCH is just stuck in this position where it needs to be better then BRD and DNC in personal dps, but it can’t be so much higher then the two when party buffs are added in alongside the ranged tax, another debate by itself.

Personally, alongside general damage buffs accord the roles board, for MCH I’d do a couple of thing. Standard stuff like AoE on Hot shot/Air anchor, our Bishop and Queen, just more of that. But I’d like to see them bring back the Ammo but reworked to have it change our 1-2-3 into having a 1.5 second cast time. At least with that you could justify a less punishing ranged tax.

Give BRD, and MCH walking casts like they do in PVP please! The phys ranged role is not in a good spot right right now.

While we're still on week 1, the ranking pretty much aligns with my predictions and repeat E8S.
Melees are forced to disconnect and it's not the ranged who shines, but the casters again, despite them not being mobile.
Melees are even shielded by tanks/healers so they can get even more GCDs in certains heavy raidwides.
Melees can greed more with correct timing/uses of dashes/melee uptime strategies.

Pictomancer dominates, Black Mage has a good place among melees.
Viper and Ninja are unaffected, the later even catch up with other melees despite usually being behind.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

While we're still on week 1, the ranking pretty much aligns with my predictions and repeat E8S.
Melees are forced to disconnect and it's not the ranged who shines, but the casters again, despite them not being mobile.
Melees are even shielded by tanks/healers so they can get even more GCDs in certains heavy raidwides.
Melees can greed more with correct timing/uses of dashes/melee uptime strategies.

Pictomancer dominates, Black Mage has a good place among melees.
Viper and Ninja are unaffected, the later even catch up with other melees despite usually being behind.

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Overall melees and PCT are well balanced between them. Some of them pulls ahaed a little bit but the results is more influenced by player skill than the job itself.
Right now, the best MCH in the world can't do the same dps than a 50-60parse of any melee... And that's taking into account the constraints of the melees... next time we'll have a wall boss like P12S the difference will be even worse.

My expectations that SE will correct this: 1% (someone missclick and apply the future PCT buff to MCH).

Yeah, like I have some 80–99 parses as an MCH, granted I have yet to clear m4s and my damage is like on par of a melee or caster at 50-60 pares.
I'm busting my ass to do the equivalent of a mediocre melee or caster, what is going on square.
I though ffxiv was supposed to at least have decent balancing, but this is horrendous.

Also why is MCH still the only one out of phys range that does not have an oh crap this is not my corner ability DNC has 3 charges of their zoom around skill and bard has a backwards jump.
I would love some kind of blast jump or something to quickly adjust during prog other than sprint.

Rocket boots when :)

Ideal DPS balance would be based on utility and not arbitrary role biases.

Melees and casters arent even that hard anymore

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

I'll repeat myself like a broken record but MCH changes in DT are fantastic. What is lackluster is what has not changed.
Blazing shot feels great to land, Checkmate and double check are cool, Excavator and Full Metal Field are very pleasant.

But we're still with Wildfire not doing aoe damages, Automaton Queen I'm not going to list all its issue again, Flamethrower is as fun as an emote, we still flip for no reason...
And of course as you mentioned, MCH suffers an identity crisis when it's a pure DPS in a role classified as support DPS.

I think DT MCH is the best iteration but held back by its old and outdated tools.

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it baffles me that wildfire does aoe damage in PvP, but not in regular gameplay. that is just rubbing salt in the wound

I'm bringing this thread up again since it's been a while since Savage was released. Currently, MCH is STILL bottom of the barrel. Considering that we're at the point(week 5 of Savage btw) where people are already settling into their BiS to parse, we should start talking about what MCH and the RPhys role needs to actually be an option aside from "The 1% Buff".

I've been playing machinist in this tier quite a bit and I'm not sure how to fix the rDPS problem. Would a damage buff akin to life of the dragon on hypercharge help with this? Something like 15-20 seconds of 10% damage increase, idk how selfish roles work into rDPS that well so this might not help.

What I notice is, MCH burst seem fine but outside of that it weak. Just make the dmg of non burst consistent like how viper or blm does dmg. That would fix MCH.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

I've been playing machinist in this tier quite a bit and I'm not sure how to fix the rDPS problem. Would a damage buff akin to life of the dragon on hypercharge help with this? Something like 15-20 seconds of 10% damage increase, idk how selfish roles work into rDPS that well so this might not help.

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I don't think that'd be a great idea necessarily since our bigger damage is in Reassemble anyway during burst. Not to mention, original MCH focused on dumping into Wildfire because that was THE go-to from Heavensward MCH. Honestly they could easily revert back to old Wildfire and leave it at that instead of limiting it to 5 GCDs(already done via Hypercharge Stacks). This way, MCH can actually do the damage it needs to and be selfish during burst.

Outside of burst, probably just buff potencies to a point it's up there just below Melee and competitive with the likes of DNC/BRD.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

I've been playing machinist in this tier quite a bit and I'm not sure how to fix the rDPS problem. Would a damage buff akin to life of the dragon on hypercharge help with this? Something like 15-20 seconds of 10% damage increase, idk how selfish roles work into rDPS that well so this might not help.

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Overheat used to be the 20% damage buff equivalent to Raging Strikes when MCH lost access to it as a cross class. It was a more involved way to activate it than just pressing a buff button, and happened ideally every minute to coincide with the wildfire burst. Hypercharge has now been shifted into a more spammy resource spender than a burst oriented tool, even though it's till preferable to use it under buffs than anything else (but reassembled tools and FMF).

One of the big problems of the job by losing this identity is that it also stopped being the biggest burst in the game (which it still ironically fulfills in pvp...). With Wildfire use cut by half by being put on a 2min timer instead of 1 and turning into a still potent but otherwise unremarkable nuke in a sea of nukes, and the loss of a 20% damage buff, the job damage profile is a lot more streamlined and less burst focused. Bringing back such a focus on the job during bursts would mean that the job would capitalize a lot better on aDPS from raid buffs that would add up to the cDPS metrics of the job overall: not that it does it poorly right now, but considering it has to deal with the ranged tax on top, it scales less well than heavy raid buff givers like BRD and DNC that will just see their buffs scale well with the true top DPS jobs in the chart (unless your team literally fields SMN and RDM at the same time).

Ultimately though this is just talking about a patch up job more than anything, because the true offender is the ranged tax. Let's not pretend for even a moment that BRD and DNC are faring much better.

Note on WF, to show how bonkers the effective potency of that skill used to be, in HW where Fire IV used to be one of the biggest nukes in the game, dealing between 6 and 8k damage in Creator, you'd see people sometimes pulling wildfire detonations going over 20 or 30k.

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Originally Posted by Valence

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I remember the old wildfire CD but I didn't play MCH outside of very early in HW. It sounds like the problem child for damage in MCH could be temporarily fixed in DT by potency buffs and knocking down the CD for WF to 60 seconds, though I could imagine this adding a bunch of drifting with the tools CDs (probably be a lot of holding of Excavator to use after the wildfire hypercharge, I think.)

I like how current machinist plays but I would like to see 8.0 either retune it into a really strong DPS only option or some sort of compromise to be like buffing melee level of damage with a raidbuff (maybe make WF like old trick attack or something.) I think it's damage placement should be around RPR and DRG at the very least.

Old Hypercharge was doing exactly that, inflicting a target debuff Trick Attack of lower power but over 28s. Or AoE from the bishop turret depending on which you used.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Old Hypercharge was doing exactly that, inflicting a target debuff Trick Attack of lower power but over 28s. Or AoE from the bishop turret depending on which you used.

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Essentially it was a Ranged Pet Job like SMN, just with Physical Damage instead of Magical. It was really good back then, but honestly if they can just revert back to old Wildfire and allow it to contend with Melee on aDPS, I'd be down. We already know how ridiculous that sounds, but it's really what MCH needs now to at least stay out of obscurity.

Pet jobs as a whole are unlikely to come back.

That's just a constant about MMORPGs, as they age they remove/neuter/trivialize their pet classes. It's always a cool idea, and as a player the concept is lovely, but as the community pushes for tighter and tighter balance with an aging game and hence more time to balance things, the reliance on server timing, pet AI and most importantly the limitations on fight design it imposes always eventually win out and pet classes are either removed or trivialized.

Examples:

* Most MMOs, famously WoW that originally had a magical caster tank spec on Warlocks, remove the need to manually guide your pet around boss AoEs and abilities. Removing the true feeling of controlling the movement of two entities in return for having to do less actual damage output as a huge portion of yours is automated.
* In a similar vein, pets eventually lose the need to dodge raid abilities entirely as with an aging game abilities get trickier and trickier to handle. Some of this is understandable: Does a full-feature pet count as a 9th possible target for abilities? Or is it maybe the target, but the summoner can never be one? And how is the summoner supposed to handle complex movement abilities if they end up targeting the pet?
* With this, usually pet healing / revival is trivialized or removed.
* Then, most MMOs go a step further (* We are here) and remove all elements of the pet being a unique entity, making it a DoT (or HoT) with external graphics. But factually they are no different than a buff on the controlling player that provides the same effect, say Scholars just had a trait that healed the lowest-health person every few seconds.
* Even more workable pet job designs like DAoC's Necromancer (who became the pet, in a way) get removed, as the reliance on server movement/action code once again hinders tighter and tighter fight design and class balance too much in an aging game where more and more complex designs and tighter balance is simply expected by the playerbase.

Which is a shame. I love pet jobs. But if you want good pet jobs, you got to look towards single player RPGs or tactical turn-based games or so. These, due to the highly limited nature of their duration, can really go wild with this stuff.

You know looking back aion did a good job with its gun class

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Originally Posted by HyperiusUltima

Essentially it was a Ranged Pet Job like SMN, just with Physical Damage instead of Magical. It was really good back then, but honestly if they can just revert back to old Wildfire and allow it to contend with Melee on aDPS, I'd be down. We already know how ridiculous that sounds, but it's really what MCH needs now to at least stay out of obscurity.

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Asking to contend with melee on the damage front is essentially asking SE to remove the ranged tax and I don't think this is ever going to happen unfortunately, as much as I wish it could, because it would also fix BRD and DNC.

And then make all the melees mad because they're doing "more effort" or some silly nonsense.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Pets

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I honestly think pets were literally the least defining factor for MCH and that we have one or not, I'm really not concerned about it, as much as seeing the tank step over it during a buster and while the turret was hypercharging was a funny unfortunate incident that happened.

BUT, that being said, current Rook/Queen is utterly boring, is on autopilot, has wonky battery plans that are borderline excel spreadsheet optimization per fight kind of deal (and if full uptime, learning at which specific amount of battery to resummon it every minute...), and still doesn't even have AoE. The only actual pet that I appreciate for the agency behind is Bishop in pvp.

I would honestly want Rook/Queen to be transformed into a nuke or something over this robot. Its feels so bad to use, just do anything to make it more satisfying and fun please cbu3 at least give it better sound effects.