MCH, still as bad?

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Originally Posted by Nirurin

Also ricochet I guess for MCH, but thats only once a minute so probably doesn't help a big deal except with an opening burst

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Ricochet is a flat 300 potency no matter how many targets you hit. You're not gonna do more damage using it for AoE compared to using it for a single target.

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Originally Posted by Cromi_Jobly

. You'll also find players who think that if they don't hear the pew pew of spread shot then you're not aoeing.

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Grenado is technically more damage per GCD than spreadshot, but it eats up so much TP. If you can kill the pack before you run out of TP (usually paired with cooldowns, or low hp packs), grenado is the better choice.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

100~200 DPS is not a little bit. And there is not a single fight where when played optimally MCH wins. MCH loses overall in personal AND raid DPS. It does not matter how well you play the class, it is a design issue, not a player issue.

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I can't really assume that since numbers change every attempt, but whatever. I can't argue over personal preference.

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Originally Posted by Nirurin

SO....is the result of this thread that noone wants a MCH in a party, cos they can't do anything better than a bard?

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I main MCH because I like it more than BRD. But I can comfortably say it is weaker than BRD in personal and raid DPS. It does have an advantage in mobility, but that does not mean much when you really don't need it.

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Originally Posted by Osmond

I can't really assume that since numbers change every attempt, but whatever. I can't argue over personal preference.

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There is nothing to assume, you can find this information online.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

I main MCH because I like it more than BRD. But I can comfortably say it is weaker than BRD in personal and raid DPS. It does have an advantage in mobility, but that does not mean much when you really don't need it.



There is nothing to assume, you can find this information online.

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Which is why I won't agrue over it. Then again I don't take them that seriously cause that what made me drove away at times in raid statics at times. Get too focused on numbers then it goes to job favors.

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Originally Posted by Ephier

I main MCH because I like it more than BRD. But I can comfortably say it is weaker than BRD in personal and raid DPS. It does have an advantage in mobility, but that does not mean much when you really don't need it..

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Mind if I ask what is it about MCH that you enjoy more than BRD? Might help me to know what people find fun/not fun about each job (subjective as it may be)

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Originally Posted by Nirurin

Mind if I ask what is it about MCH that you enjoy more than BRD? Might help me to know what people find fun/not fun about each job (subjective as it may be)

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For me its the lack of attention it receives. It feels sort of prestigious to play a MCH as they are so rare to see. Also the play style feels very fluid and comfortable once you get used to it, you are always smashing something as you have so many low cooldown OGCDs. Along with the huehue mobility you get from procs and insta cast TP/MP regen. Its hard to explain, its just one of those situations where you are playing a class and it just clicks with you.

I don't even consider the fact that it's under represented, hell I rarely see other good brd or mch in parties. To me, it's just more coherent than bard's gameplay

Power level aside, Machinist is put together much better than Bard. Gauss Barrel works much better with MCH's ammo system than Minuet works with Bard. It makes MCH more mobile and with quick reload on such a low CD, it's rather easy to plan your movement. Both turrets and Promotion are instant cast. You don't have the imperfect interaction of cast times and Bloodletter procs. Basically, the current version of Bard has some clunkiness to it that MCH does not possess...probably because they built MCH with Gauss Barrel in mind, where the tacked it onto Bard for easy balancing sake or they ran out of time to think of something new.

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Originally Posted by Sidra

Power level aside, Machinist is put together much better than Bard. Gauss Barrel works much better with MCH's ammo system than Minuet works with Bard. It makes MCH more mobile and with quick reload on such a low CD, it's rather easy to plan your movement. Both turrets and Promotion are instant cast. You don't have the imperfect interaction of cast times and Bloodletter procs. Basically, the current version of Bard has some clunkiness to it that MCH does not possess...probably because they built MCH with Gauss Barrel in mind, where the tacked it onto Bard for easy balancing sake or they ran out of time to think of something new.

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interesting.... if I can find a decent gun glamour i like, that may sell it for me haha

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Originally Posted by Nirurin

interesting.... if I can find a decent gun glamour i like, that may sell it for me haha

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There's not much guns you can find that look decent with gauss barrel and the lunchbox

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

There's not much guns you can find that look decent with gauss barrel and the lunchbox

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Oh. well that sucks.

I played both in the same encounter with the same setup (PLD-DRK-WHM-SCH-DRG-NIN-BLM), and while ad a BRD i can put out higher personal DPS, with MCH the overall dps increased thanks to hypercharge. (And BLM know very well his job, usually being top dps with foe)
While Foe and battle voice buff 1 DPS and 1/2 healer (depending on the situation) and some DRK skill, hypercharge buff 2 melee dps (hopefully DRG and NIN), yourself and both tanks (thinking of a double/triple buffed fell claeve ) .
Also the duration and the cd of hypercharge are the same as foe while not consuming mp.

certainly MCH can't compete with BRD on personal dps, but i think that with the right setup MCH is preferable to increase the party overall dps.

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Originally Posted by Bissani

I played both in the same encounter with the same setup (PLD-DRK-WHM-SCH-DRG-NIN-BLM), and while ad a BRD i can put out higher personal DPS, with MCH the overall dps increased thanks to hypercharge. (And BLM know very well his job, usually being top dps with foe)
While Foe and battle voice buff 1 DPS and 1/2 healer (depending on the situation) and some DRK skill, hypercharge buff 2 melee dps (hopefully DRG and NIN), yourself and both tanks (thinking of a double/triple buffed fell claeve ) .
Also the duration and the cd of hypercharge are the same as foe while not consuming mp.

certainly MCH can't compete with BRD on personal dps, but i think that with the right setup MCH is preferable to increase the party overall dps.

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The problem exasperates when you start factoring healer dps combined with the uptime of foe, it simply beats out hypercharge, and barely evens out in a typical 2melee/2range setup. They're most likely re implementing the LB penalty in 3.2 where you get a hefty decrease to LB charge if you overstack beyond 2 of a role (tank/melee/range/healer), so you're going to be losing a lot more with taking 3 melees aside from spacing on the boss and quick-dps on adds in some cases.

There's also the part where hypercharge is more of your personal dps cooldown because of the buffed turret potency. MCH has a lot more to lose out (speakign from purely an personal dps perspective) of hypercharging a regen than a BRD will ever will BV anything that isn't foe requiem.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

There's also the part where hypercharge is more of your personal dps cooldown because of the buffed turret potency. MCH has a lot more to lose out (speakign from purely an personal dps perspective) of hypercharging a regen than a BRD will ever will BV anything that isn't foe requiem.

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But there are perks to regen as MCH as well. BFB, HE, and RS do not affect your turret autos, for example. Outside of Hypercharge you are able to regen while doing full DPS (minus turret autos) at the same time. It's a much greater loss for a BRD to use their offensive CDs w/ regen up. Unplanned regen uptime hurts MCH a lot less. A BRD will need to decide between delaying the regen, delaying the offensive CDs, or using both at the same time and taking the additional damage hit.

What buffs we need or don't need will mostly depend on how SE decides to approach content in 3.2. They have already gone out and said they are making ways for tanks to tank more, and healers to heal more. How far they plan on going with that we will have to see.

The biggest issue I believe MCH has is having steady DPS. They shouldn't be higher or lower than BRD, but there is a lot of RNG still involved in MCH rotation and SE could definitely do some reworking to take more of the RNG out. Maybe there is a better way, but I think making Split > Slug > Clean a proper 1 > 2 > 3 combo without needing to proc would work. Of course changing the potency of each to not overpower us. Ammo can still be used as a tool to raise potency on abilities. There is still plenty for MCH to do on rotation with this. I would be interested to hear what others think about this rather if a good idea or bad idea, or have a better idea of their own.

BRD and MCH should definitely play differently, but there definitely needs to be more symmetry in their support functions. This is where they need to be more similar on. Currently, Foe's Requiem takes the winning spot in terms of these skills. I was thinking of maybe having Hypercharge and Foe's Requiem work the same. Have both require no MP, set for a certain amount of time, and it is an overall DPS boost for everyone at a certain advantage that wouldn't be overkill. So both melee and mages can start off strong. Of course balance the content to work around it so it isn't too OP. This also makes things easier for BRD similar to MCH on wasting MP when needing TP/MP. So say that both abilities have say a 2 minute cooldown timer and for 25 seconds you get a 5-10% boost in physical/magical for the whole party.

Again, it could be a good or bad idea, but that would even the playing field in benefit of both BRD and MCH.

Personally, I think the best buff they could give MCH is a new trait. Governor Off: 10% chance to reset Hypercharge timer. So every 3 second tick there's a chance to get your hypercharge back and throw out more DPS or regen.

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Originally Posted by RinchanNau

But there are perks to regen as MCH as well. BFB, HE, and RS do not affect your turret autos, for example. Outside of Hypercharge you are able to regen while doing full DPS (minus turret autos) at the same time. It's a much greater loss for a BRD to use their offensive CDs w/ regen up. Unplanned regen uptime hurts MCH a lot less. A BRD will need to decide between delaying the regen, delaying the offensive CDs, or using both at the same time and taking the additional damage hit.

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I think you more or less answered it yourself as well, but that's also cooldowns that aren't affecting part of your dps. And in a scripted (which is almost all) fight, regen can't really be unplanned unless people are (excessively) dying. Otherwise, the toggling of my regen is almost clockwork in regards to the fight.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

What buffs we need or don't need will mostly depend on how SE decides to approach content in 3.2. They have already gone out and said they are making ways for tanks to tank more, and healers to heal more. How far they plan on going with that we will have to see.

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Each weapon skill could have a different secondary affect when it's used with ammo (hence quick reload for those on spot requirements, versus a normal reload for your next 5 shots), or make the ability itself have a stacking usage that resets refreshes on it's own; each cast uses 1 charge, and 1 charge refreshes every 15 seconds. Sort of like dork arts but you're drawing from cooldowns instead of mp.

Another synergy that might improve the overall desirability of party composition is giving MCH blunt or hybrid (blunt and piercing damage, since the ability animations implies blunt impact and piercing at times), and a means to inflict blunting debuff, that serves as a synergy to MNK's dps if they can use bootshine every 1st hit instead of dragon kick (as well as being applied faster).

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

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Sounds pretty cool. I think something like that they would have to rework in a level increase/expansion release and not simply an update. I do wish we would get a piercing debuff, but I don't know if that would affect party balance or not.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

I think you more or less answered it yourself as well, but that's also cooldowns that aren't affecting part of your dps. And in a scripted (which is almost all) fight, regen can't really be unplanned unless people are (excessively) dying. Otherwise, the toggling of my regen is almost clockwork in regards to the fight.

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Even in a scripted fight with everything planned CD management is, imo, a little easier on MCH. With the exception of 22-24s every 2+ min you can regen while making full use of your buffs. 90 second windows for regen with minimal loss. With BRD you often much smaller windows. About 15s at times. Or a maximum of 40s between some buff windows. On top of that you have the 3s cast times for BRD songs.

My response was toward the claim about how difficult MCH has it because of the potential DPS loss of Hypercharging regen. BRD has a lot more to lose using buffs with regen ticking, and more planning is involved to maximize damage output while keeping up with the needs of the raid. That's all this comes down to, imo. This doesn't mean that BRD has it that much harder in regards to buff and MP/regen management. Simply that MCH has some advantage there, not a disadvantage.

A piercing debug wouldn't really do much, esp if they have to balance their dos around having it. Mostly because drg has to do their chaos thrust combo for the dot, which naturally includes disembowel

Would love to see this class get a buff, frankly I wish they would strip Promotion from MCH and just give the class more USEFUL Debuffs (Paralyze, stacking Weakness shot, etc.) with more DPS options. The fact is MCH is a watered down Carbon Copy of BRD, and anyone that plays MCH knows that but plays it because they love the aesthetic and play style of the class. Which is why I still play it and consider it my main. Frankly I would rather this class be the "Monk of Range" for how much of a higher skill cap it takes to operate, rather then feeling like "That Other non-essentiall Buffer."

SE stop being scared by the classes you put out, I get you have to regulate them and balance them, but when you buff older classes to be a ridiculous standard because they are "FF Staples" and introduce classes purposefully designed to be weaker as to not outshine the classics. Then why even bother?

MCH is still a great range zerg and frankly I would say it is better then BRD against trash and mobs that you want to kill quick. But with BRD's kit, it clearly takes the cake on bosses where their more DoT play style can take over MCH's more Spurt Zerg play style.

I think it might be helpful if Wildfire could be manually triggered. Once it is applied (the pitch) it gathers the damage as usual for the length of the timer, but can be triggered (ignited) for damage at any point, even before the timer ends, by re-using Wildfire. I don't have my MCH to 60 yet, but I find Wildfire to be an awkward skill...it works when it works, but if certain situations make it difficult to maximize, then you take a pretty big DPS hit.

I wouldn't say mch' son demand burst for non bosses is better than brd. It's not instant because it's behind wildfire, and outside of that they really do not have high instant potencies, and part of their dps is tied to the turret which is basically an auto attack. Gauss round and heartbreaker is a weaker potency and longer cooldown, lead shot does its job over thirty seconds, and ricochet loses its overall effectiveness in singling out a target.

^^ Ya that is true, Empyreal Arrow does give them more of an edge tbh, but more what I"m getting at is if a BRD does his Straight/Heavy/Blood vs a MCH Split/Slug/Clean you'll have a bit more in potency but also your turret adjusts to what you're shooting at which gives you a DoT you don't have to apply unlike BRD with its VB/Windbite. But yes you're definitely right on the rest of those points which I suppose might give it more of an edge.

I think a good buff for Mch would be to :

• Increase split shot proc rate from 50% to abour 60-70%
• Lower the cooldown on Reassemble to like 40 Seconds instead of 60 (A 60 second cooldown for a 1 Auto Crit skill is pretty underwhelming)
• Increase Hypercharge Duration or reduce its Cooldown, right now I'm pretty sure Foe Reqium puts it to shame. Especially with battle voice. So does Trick Attack
• Have clean shot have a 50% chance of Proc'ing Gauss Round (though this might be too over powered) Maybe better at like 20-30% to detract people from just spamming Clean Shot fishing for procs. I would rather not do Reload > Clean Shot 5 times.

I think this would be far more than enough to make Mch far more viable. Though Brd's scaling in later patches will still probably win out.

If you're gonna put resemble to 40 seconds, it won't align with reload anymore. The best use of it is cleaner shot with ammo, very unlikely to happen without five ammo, and you won't save quick reload for it because it's otherwise a waste of tp regen and free potency.

Having clean shot proc a buff for gauss round would have been a better option for mch dps, because as it is right now gauss round ( as well as ammo and turrets) add almost no depth to the job and is just sorta there for button padding

I'd like to see disassemble / mind rend get some love. Maybe add 5% +MDT/PDT, along side the -MDT/PDT. Though this doesn't address MCH DPS really.

Ammo playing a role for hotshot? Increased DPS by 10% instead of 5%. Increased Lead Shot duration?

Self healing or spread dots. There's so many things they can do for ammo effects aside from straight potency buffs

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Self healing or spread dots. There's so many things they can do for ammo effects aside from straight potency buffs

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Personally I miss FF11's "Ammo System" for Ranger/Corsair. It was horrendous that you had to craft the bullets you used, but having bullets that gave effects, like poison, a % chance of stunning the mob, HP Vamp for damage, or even Blind and Paralyze. Its just disappointing that so much of stasis effects in this game seem meaningless when most mobs build a resistance to stasis effects in like 2-3 hits. It almost doesn't even feel worth it (oh and Blind is an absolute joke outside of PVP). I would love to see MCH have "Bullet types" as an off hand to change things up, or as Rice is mentioning something other then Proc'n attacks like how MNK, SMN, WAR have versatility with their stacks. I appreciate the aesthetic of this class but in terms of animations and even just deeper thought of making the class as interesting as it is in the FF series as a whole, this class is desperately lacking.

they need to do something about our aoe dmg as well. machinist suffers a huge tp penalty for aoe dmg/rotation compared to bard who gets free Rod every other attack -.-'

with ammo make spreadshot > procs grenado (free tp?).

another thing, they better NOT touch wildfire if they go for the obvious buff: increase potency of 123 combo. ; ;

leave Wildfire as it is :( (just make it look cool and goes BOOM!)

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Originally Posted by Empty-handed

they need to do something about our aoe dmg as well. machinist suffers a huge tp penalty for aoe dmg/rotation compared to bard who gets free Rod every other attack -.-'

with ammo make spreadshot > procs grenado (free tp?).

another thing, they better NOT touch wildfire if they go for the obvious buff: increase potency of 123 combo. ; ;

leave Wildfire as it is :( (just make it look cool and goes BOOM!)

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Wildfire has a huge flaw that needs to be addressed. It is literally the only burst that requires understanding of fights to have 14 seconds of uninterrupted burst damage dealing to be useful compared to the heavy to use barrage+emp arrow set up. Yeah I understand do not give carbon copy of powers to the machinist but itleast give machinist a bit of control to fire off the wildfire burst early if you know you wont make it the 14 seconds then let wildfire timer be shortened by the % of firing off the burst early.

Bard with a 9-12k burst they can use in two global cooldowns or 14 seconds of ramp up time for a 8-9k burst hit. Hmm hard decision which is easier to utilize.

While Wildfire does take some time to trigger it doesn't really become an issue on any savage encounter. Just plan accordingly. That also doesn't include all the other damage leading into the Wildfire tick. MCH has superior burst potential though it may not always be 100% fully realized.

Burst planning can be said for any other job that wants to maximize the uptime of their cooldowns. Mch just has it worse because it'll amount to zero damage or holding off the burst for good time in some circumstances, and there's more factors that can decrease its effectiveness (such as losing out 100 or more potency from ricochet, such as hand of pain or adds.)