Another 40 potency to flamethrower
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Nah it's mostly me joking about how randomly they'd buff the flamethrower skill throughout several patches despite it generally being pretty useless
Granted I'm not a machinist main but I do like the job, at least aesthetically
It's kind of a mess and has been for awhile, it desperately needs to be reworked
For instance, your autocrossbow doesn't refresh the timer on your other AoE skill like the single target one does which makes it clunky imo
All the machinist mains screaming as Yoshi-P himself drags them behind the shed to "politely" try to convert them to Bard/Dancer with the recent buffs/nerfs.
Physical ranged jobs are essentially the "support" jobs due to all the buffs they have access to. That combined with their much higher freedom of movement means the devs keep ranged DPS weaker then the Melee/Casters DPS jobs via the good ol "ranged tax" so they don't overshadow them in terms of raw damage. In Machinist's case though, it's support IS it's DPS output. But because the devs seem to still have this mindset of "Ranged DPS are support jobs so they need to stay weaker then the main Melee/Caster jobs DPS wise" they don't give Machinist the bigger DPS numbers it should have, and because Machinist is suppose to be the "You support your team by dealing much more damage then Bard/Dancer" job, they don't give it that many support buffs compared to them, leading to job that's kind of just...exists.
Machinist really is in a shitty spot balance wise when compared to Bard/Dancer, and at this point I wouldn't be surprised if it's because of some old school mindset Yoshi-P and the devs REALLY want to keep upheld at all costs for some reason, even though the balance between all the jobs was torn to shreds long ago.
Flamethrower has never made any sense. Requires players to stand still for 10 seconds and it's only usable in dungeons against trash mobs, which are extremely boring and their only mechanic is a counter to the ability (throwing all types of AoEs at random players).
And now years after the rework, for reasons unknown, SE wants MCH to spend its gauge on single-target GCDs against up to 5 mobs instead of 2 or 3.
I just don't understand what they want for MCH anymore. They have all these fun tools, but don't get the power the job's supposed to have with how it plays. It underperforms consistently and hasn't had a tier where it isn't outclassed by BRD/DNC bringing in huge Raid Buffs that count for 2-3% more of a Boss's HP per 2m.
We're talking more potency on the damage applied on the raid than it is when MCH is throwing out everything it has. That's how bad it is. Even if you look at Top MCH, they're being beat out by BRD/DNC handily - and in 2+ Target situations they're even more prominent now even with the new AoE reductions that are applied to a lot of jobs after first target. MCH surely didn't deserve it, though.
Not to mention? They never are touching Auto Crossbow. That ability can stay left in the garbage since we already have two abilities that can be reset for 2 GCDs' worth. If anything, they need to take a good, long look at MCH and determine what they want to do with it because otherwise it's going to be a job that'll never see the light of day again. Even in Ultimates it's considered the worst job for prog and even just trying to clear with.
The issue is that it's a greedy DPS without the power to back it up
Why bring a machinist as your physical ranged when you could instead bring Bard or Dancer that has more utility to provide the group
It's meant to be comparable to something like Samurai, or Viper, or Black Mage but hits like a wet noodle and provides no bonuses to the party that the others can't in spades
The job is in a dire state and seriously needs a rework, and as you say it's like they don't know what they want it to be
As I said I'm not a machinist main but I do really like the job and I think aesthetically it looks really cool. It's really disappointing to see it in such a state and I hope something gets done soon
One thing I think that would be neat for them to add is the walking style casts from PvP. I've seen another user mention the same and it's a neat idea and would add a slight bit more risk to their playstyle since if they commit to an attack at an inopportune moment, they have the slower movement speed and could get clipped by an AoE. Plus, it would give their attacks more oomph and makes sense they would need to aim it.
I could be wrong, but I think blue mages actually have a better flame thrower which is hilarious to me
I think it might be neat if bioblaster tied into flamethrower in some way
Maybe bioblaster still does its DoT, but if you use flamethrower then it ignites and removes that DoT
So you would want to maybe wait it out until it's about to expire then send out a burst of flames for big damage
This was the funniest thing to me when I looked into Machinist a few months ago.
It's no secret that the standard raid rotation isn't exactly complicated, but then you look at their AoE and it's the most ridiculous thing you've ever seen. With some AoE skills being a gain on 3, some on 5, some on 6, some are only a gain on X targets if you don't have a tool available that gives you battery, if you can't use Hypercharge or only if you can catch raid buffs with it.
Got a pretty good chuckle out of me how doing AoE damage on the job is somehow way more complicated than single-target.
When I think in retrospect that SB MCH had the most interesting AoE of almost every job but BLM back then... How far we have fallen.
Pretty much. If you want to play a caster, go play a caster. I understand those are becoming an endangered species but it's not by making rphys into more of those that it's going to fix the caster nor the rphys identity problem.
I remember this. MCH was really good back then(even if it needed a couple buffs here and there to compare to BRD's utility at the time) and was particularly strong due to Wildfire. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: They should uncap Wildfire Potency and let it be a % of how much damage you can shove into it. That way, MCH can actually get the big payoff it's been missing for it to be up there with the likes of Melee at minimum.
Flamethrower needs to be a Combo with Bioblaster that can apply not one, but two DoTs together instantaneously. Sure, it'll be like BRD a bit, but you're not going to sit there twiddling your thumbs for 10s while stuck in a channel at least since the thing no longer generates heat(which is asinine given it's literally fire).
Auto Crossbow? It's only good on 3+, they just have to give it the same treatment as the ST Hypercharge rotation so you aren't feeling like you're missing something in the "feel" since Hypecharge is meant to be your fast phase. Other than that, getting down to brass tacks potency for Scattergun and Auto Crossbow vs. the ST rotations is now 3+ compared to its previous 4+.
What we need damage on though are our big hits(Full Metal Field, Chainsaw, Drill, Excavator) because that's where a good chunk of our damage is if they want to keep the job selfish.
Alternatively they could also make Wildfire take a percentage of the entire party's damage over it's duration.
Since they clearly don't want phys ranged to deal high personal dps it would at least give Machinist something akin to a raid buff, with the added bonus of being slightly more interesting than another "everyone does X% more damage for 20 seconds".
That would eliminate the entire point of the mitigation efforts to allow MCH to be played with higher ping. It was uncapped during Stormblood, and if you didn't live directly on top of the servers, it was nigh-impossible to get a max damage Wildfire as you pressed all of your buttons slam-jamming everything into it. WF having a specific GCD amount w/ potency increases per GCD and lining up with Hypercharge+1 GCD was in direct response to higher-ping players not being able to play the class optimally due to no fault of their own.
I played RDM in Endwalker, and people were telling me to go Summoner all expansion long. When I finally did, both jobs ended up sucking in Dawntrail.
Yes, but that's where you aren't losing anything by Uncapping Wildfire. You're still going to be blasting with your most powerful attacks first during a Wildfire Window anyway using old Wildfire, since FMF, Air Anchor, Chainsaw, Excavator, and Drill with Reassemble on top of it would provide more potency than you can get with Hypercharge alone if we're going off of a 2m Burst Window with 5 GCDs. You'd just make sure to work on stocking your Double Check and Checkmate beforehand without overcapping so you can handily add on more damage than what you're resetting for if we go off a 10s timer(can become 15s to stack damage properly and blow up in raid buffs). And for good measure add in Queen as well.
Would you rather huge potency buffs? Because I wouldn't mind that route being taken either if we're going to have MCH actually be truly selfish. It's either that or Queen/Rook applies a Vuln Up like it used to on top of what it's already doing for the rDPS.
They have only fixed this mid EW when they finally added overheat stacks that we've been asking since SB to address the issue. ShB MCH was a bit less egregious in how tight the window was, but on the other hand it didn't have the luxury of having a high ping alternative rotation due to the amount of required weaves.
The thing is, even if OGCDs cannot be capped the same way GCDs can, as long as GCDs act as the gatekeeper, the problem should be self contained because no matter the ping, you know that the last GCD is the one that will detonate WF.
So, this simply isn't true. When comparing cDPS in 7.05, which is when the playerbase is most competitive, MCH only just barely surpasses DNC at 50%. Even all the way down at 10% Bard still thoroughly trounces it. Come 7.1 and it doesn't even keep that negligible 50 cDPS lead on DNC nor does it beat SMN. It's dead last.
Now the difference between it and DNC at these lower levels wass never high enough to warrant locking it out. At least not unless you also locked out DNC. Unfortunately, the recent buffs have pushed DNC closer to BRD's territory, thus giving a more legitimate reason.
Give me Heavensward MCH back.