Issues with MCH since Stormblood Rework & Ideas on how to fix them

My wishlist for MCH:

*Shots generate 10 heat again. Weaving cooldowns and actually having to think. So braindead now.
*Flamethrower adds a DoT. Reduce it's base attack potency from 60-30 and add a 50 potency DoT on everything it hits that lasts like 21 seconds that refreshes on each hit of the 10s attack. Or whatever number crunching makes sense. This would be a good AoE at worst.
* Rook turret follows you. Bishop can stay manual.
*Strong finishers we can only use while overheated and get rid of wildfire. Wildfire is bad design imo and the same goal could be acheived differently.

Ex:
Overheat Shot: Potency 300. Ammunition affect: increase potency by 50. 50% to turn into Overheat shot II. 100% with ammunition.
Overheat Shot II: Potency 380. Ammunition affect: increase potency by 50.
Overheat Grenade: Potency 180.
Ammunition affect: increase potency by 50. Damages the enemy and all enemies around it.

Just spitballing here.

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Originally Posted by Rivxkobe

I mained MCH in HW. I loved it. But when they revealed changes for SB I was immediately put off. I liked managing my 5 bullets, I liked Gauss Barrel being what it was and that sometimes you would have to remove it if standing still was out of the question for a bit. I dislike the Overheat mechanic, a lot, and I really don\\\\'t like that they removed or changed some of my favourite abilities. WF was fun, and stressful, but not to the point that you felt cheated every time you used it because of a small amount of....

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I was a MCH main as well but switched out of it in SB. I think we might be in minority, but I also didn\\\\'t mind stance dancing.

What if they tie the clunky overheat mechanic to movement? Stand still and hit hard, but when you know a ton of move mechanic is coming, you can force the overheat & dps while moving?

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Originally Posted by SpecialKK

I was a MCH main as well but switched out of it in SB. I think we might be in minority, but I also didn\\\\'t mind stance dancing.

What if they tie the clunky overheat mechanic to movement? Stand still and hit hard, but when you know a ton of move mechanic is coming, you can force the overheat & dps while moving?

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I wouldn't mind some cast time weaponskills that you use here and there. Something like

High Calibre
2.0 Cast Time
Potency: 100
Heat: 10
Follow Through: High Calibre's Potency is changed to the previous Weaponskill's Potency + 40 for one shot. High Calibre does not qualify for this effect.

Changes I'd like to see to MCH:

1) The "Heat" mechanic is trait locked until 62. At 52, when the barrel is gained, damage increase is 5%. At 62, damage increase is 10% and Heat is in effect. This prevents Heat from being a clunky mechanic for 10 levels since there's no way to control it outside of unequipping the barrel.

2) After Overheat, the barrel no longer needs to be applied. Just disable the damage boost like it is but keep it equipped. It's pretty simple.

3) After Overdrive, turret doesn't dismiss itself (but you cannot summon a new one). I understand why the "prevent summoning of a new one" exists. IT's to prevent the clearing of any debuffs on it (since this new Overdrive effect would just place a disabling debuff on the current turret). But, it's really annoying on losing out on so much damage simply because you didn't watch your buff bar close enough (something that they were actively trying to move away from in SB).

4) Flamethrower is replaced with a new skill I'm calling "Overclock Reload". This kind of ties in with the changes to the Gauss Barrel in 1. When you get it at 52, Gauss Barrel has a limiter on that allows it to operate in safe parameters. At 62, the WoL is taking that limiter off, but has to deal with the potential overheating. The Overclock Reload gives you 5 rounds to work with (like back in HW days), but after all 5 rounds are spent, you instantly enter Overheat. This solves both problems of Flamethrower being too Ping and server tick dependent to Overheat reliably as well as easily prepping your Wildfire window. This will be on a 60s cooldown timer to line up with Wildfire windows.

5) Heartbreak is removed. We're at the point where there's too many oGCDs in Wildfire, Heartbreak doesn't line up with it cleanly, and it doesn't really do anything else for MCH.

6) Grenado shot is reintroduced as an Ammo proc for Spread Shot. MCH AoE rotation is just really underwhelming (and it isn't affected by heat).

7) Overheat timer increased to 11s. Just to make things fit nicer in WF.

Edit1: Further thoughts

2 alteration) Overdrive replaces Hyperdrive. Instead of launching a super powerful attack and then dismissing the turret, Overdrive acts like an "Overheat" mode for the turrets. Their auto attack potency goes up to 240, but the turret is disabled for a time after Overdrive wears off. The current Hyperdrive effect of vulnerability on hit enemies remain.

5 alteration) Heartbreak isn't removed, but it's not longer a "mercy cooldown". Instead, it's just on a 30s timer (it's power will come down a lot to compensate)

7 alteration) Overheat duration is increased to 15s or the next 5 weaponskills. If it goes the full 15s, the Gauss Barrel isn't locked. (this is to help in case you overheat during a boss transition)

8) Wildfire no longer accounts for oGCDs. This is to fix the problem of making sure all oGCDs line up in your Wildfire window or else your damage is just shot for the rest of the encounter. It will only account for weaponskills and auto attacks, and only the next 5 weaponskills from the player. In addition, Wildfire is applied to the self instead of the target, and after the 5th weaponskill, the complied damage will land on the current target. The Wildfire will also splash and hit surrounding targets. This helps alleviate the problem of losing the target before Wildfire explodes since the Wildfire is on you instead. You'll still want to try and align oGCDs in Overheat since they'll still get the damage boost from Overheat. (lasts 15s if it doesn't get the full 5 weaponskills)

9) Heat gain is put back at 10. Barrel Stabilizer not only sets Heat at 50, but it also reduces heat gain by 5 for the next 3 weaponskills (using it with Ammo prevents heat gain at all)

I don't do any high-end content, I never played HW MCH, and don't really use MCH at all since getting it to 70, but here's a list of some of my likes/dislikes concerning the job at this point:

• I like the uniqueness of the weaponskill rotation with ammo. Rather than the normal branching 1-2-3 most jobs have, MCH plays around with stuff like 1-2-1-3-2-3 and I think that's neat.
• I don't like Flamethrower. I like how it looks and how it turrets the player, but I hate the optimal usage of puffing it just to get into Overheat. I'd love some changes to encourage using it for the full duration (maybe reduce max duration to 5 ticks instead of 10) like a stacking DoT (a la PvP) or a stacking debuff.
• I don't really like the Gauss Barrel toggle. I do like the idea of making it traited AND moving the heat mechanic to level 62 so the 52-62 area for MCH is less awful.
• I like the Autoturrets. It doesn't feel like a terribly huge hassle to deal with placing/moving them.
• Wildfire could be re-tuned a bit to make it useful in MCH's AoE rotation, I think. Perhaps single-target WS used on a Wildfire target deal (heavily reduced) splash damage as well as the final explosion being AoE damage with Flare-like falloff.
• Not a fan of Overheat for various reasons. The lack of control over it until level 62, the odd reward/punishment windows, and how it just ends up being something else to stack into Wildfire.

Also, an idea for maybe fixing the ping-reliance of Wildfire. What if the duration was increased back to 15 seconds, but have an additional trigger that causes Wildfire to detonate after 5 or 6 weaponskills are used in the window. It would loosen up the window for high-ping and/or mistake-prone players, making it less punishing overall.

Just going to Bump.

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Originally Posted by Matthew_Fox

Just going to Bump.

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Thanks actually. Just discovered this and I could not agree more with your document. It is definitely not the same job I fell in love with in HW. I don't say that in that they should change it back, but what they made here is worse in it's own right and I hope they make major adjustments at least by 5.0 to make what we have now a lot more engaging, accessible, and at the end of the day....fun (in my opinion). I hope SE sees this and responds back in some way.

I love the ideas you lay out that would be amazing if they implemented some in a rework

I wanted to list my own things I would like to see from the job. I speak mostly idealistically here but ohh well.

1. Like most have said, make Grenade Shot the upgraded version of Spread Shot.

2. Get rid of Gauss Barrel entirely. It seems so pointless to manage something like this and on top of that it is such an ugly aesthetic. Would be one thing if each gun had it's own looking barrel similar to how Samurai's have different sheaths, but we don't. It is an ugly aesthetic and ruins the look to most guns. I know there is a way to disable the look on the client side, but mechanically it seems pointless also. Let your gauge start itself back up after an overheat.

3. I agree that Hot Shot seems like a pointless ability. Every 60 seconds you just hit one button to upkeep a +8% buff? I say take it back to 5% and make it a DoT and 30 seconds if you want to make it something meaningful to manage beyond a simple buff.

4. Also agree with the piercing buff. Why in the world are we dependent on one job(Dragoon) to get our potential? Same goes for Bard. Both of these jobs in a composition is very dependent on a DRG? Get rid of it and just adjust our potency accordingly. Same for for the slashing buff.

5. MCH just needs a straight DPS boost. I like the idea that BRD has more support but less DPS and MCH having more DPS but less support. I don't know if this was intentional from SE, but that is how I see it. Currently BRD's have a "Having their cake, and eating is also." scenario where they can easily outmatch a MCH and have great support on top of that. You have to be a really good MCH to out DPS a good BRD. An even skill field though? A BRD will outperform a MCH. Either make us heavier in support, or boost our DPS.

suppose I'll take a crack at a suggestion...

rather than fix flamethrower.. use it as part of a proper aoe rotation. (Grenado shot is sorely missed by all.)... and in place of flamethrower. We get something lets call it... Explosive Round that forces an instant overheat but can only be used once a minute. Only accessible under wildfire.. you get 5 gcds inside of overheat (6 in wildfire with the Explosive Round) rather than a countdown.. fixing the latency issue and in turn not getting rid of brand new assets developed by creating wildfire. Have Explosive Round be a hard hitting ogcd. Other than that the other suggestions in Fox's documents I can agree with... the double fire thing seems like wishful thinking but i havent heard a single better idea when it comes to retooling Rapid Fire.